by Aiden Bates
Doug bit his lip. He needed to keep his detachment, but he could completely understand this man's pain. He saw it all of the time. "I was ten." He swallowed. "When my mom was killed. I was ten. And yeah. You move forward with your life, it kind of scars, but you don't want to go poking at it. You never, ever, want to go poking at it, right?"
Butler gave a little laugh. "Naw. Because it's not going to go anywhere good. It's only going to go bad. Is it wrong of me to wish that it could be over and done with? I mean I'm angry all the time, ever since I found out that they were re-opening the investigation. I'm snapping at my kids for the dumbest things. My wife took them to her mother's until I can get myself together, and I don't blame her."
"Yikes." Doug reached out and took Butler's hand. "I'm so sorry. I wish I didn't have to re-open this for you, and for all of these other families. I do understand what it does. Does it help to know that I don't do appeals unless I have a real reason to believe that there's been a miscarriage of justice? Like here." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "The killer is still active. That's a big part of the problem."
"My God." Butler shuddered with his full body. "Why doesn't this make the news more often? Why isn't it everywhere?"
"I don't know. You'd have to ask the detectives. They have a better grasp of the criminal mind than I do." He gave Butler's hand a squeeze. "Look. Do you want to help put the man who killed our mothers away? Take an active role instead of waiting?"
Butler's gray eyes lit up. "Yeah. Of course, I do."
"Great. Part of what convicted Larry Morrison was the number of eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw him near the scene of the crimes. Now, we've seen with at least fifteen of those crimes that he could not have been there. Can you think of anyone who looks more or less like Larry that might have had some kind of negative encounter with your mother? It might have happened near the church, or near the school."
Butler leaned back and closed his eyes. "It's been a long time, you know? I mean she argued with Dick Tolbert about not showing up for some volunteer thing he was supposed to have done at St. Dominic's. And she had a little feud going with Dan Gagne over how he'd treated my little sister." His cheeks turned red. "I mean it was bad enough that she had to go to public school; she got kicked out of Catholic school in eighth grade. She was a handful. But Mom was right, you know? He was really needling her for no reason, and when he put his hands on Regina it was all over."
"I see. If I asked a very nice state trooper to get those statements from you again, would you be willing to speak to him?" It was a legitimate question. Doug didn't know if Butler had warrants or just didn't like the police.
"Hell yeah. I want this guy, whoever he is, taken down."
Doug smiled. "Awesome. And if the trooper asks, the split lip came from a disagreement with a drunk outside a bar, okay? Just go with me on this one."
He pulled out his phone and called Ray. Ray came down to the office as quickly as he could, and just like Doug predicted, he hit the roof when he saw the split lip on Doug's face. Doug didn't mind. He was able to calm his alpha down and introduce him to Butler, and Butler gave his statement a little bit more nervously than he'd given it to Doug.
After Butler left, Ray was a lot more attentive. "You should put some ice on that." He pulled Doug close and held him, letting him breathe in his scent.
"It's fine." Doug held on tight. "I just need you, honestly. I love you."
"I love you too. I don't love you getting hurt." He petted Doug's hair, which Doug adored. "How was court?"
"Court was about what I expected. I swear, Murphy's making it personal against me now." Doug pulled back and looked up into his alpha's eyes. "Maybe I'll pursue a career on the bench instead. Become a judge, just so I can take his job."
"Oooh! You can give me warrants whenever I want them!" Ray gave him a teasing grin.
"Only in exchange for sexual favors." Doug kissed his cheek. "I do have my standards."
***
Ray studied Doug's face. The receptionist at the law firm had told him what happened. He'd gone into that conference room prepared to tear someone apart. When he walked into the room, though, Doug was holding some guy's hand and speaking to him in quiet, soothing tones about losing their mothers.
What was Ray supposed to do with that?
Now he sat in Doug's apartment and watched his omega sleep. God, he couldn't wait until it was their house, wherever that wound up being. No more nights spent apart, in a bed that seemed increasingly cold every time Ray slept alone. No more dining alone, although Ray knew that there would probably be a few nights when that would still happen. Still, everything around them would be surrounded by the other's scent, and then eventually the scent of their child.
Right now, Doug's face was calm and smooth with sleep. He'd been quiet after they left his office, with Paul Butler's statement in their hands. They'd come home and settled in. Ray had asked Doug why he seemed to be so subdued, and he'd just shaken his head. "It's weird," he'd said. "I've never sat down and talked with someone about what happened, you know?"
"To your mother?" Ray grabbed Doug's hand when he nodded. "You could have talked to me."
"I know." Doug squeezed. "I just didn't want to. I didn't feel the need to. It's not… Mom dying wasn't something that weighed on me. I was sad when she died. I was bothered that she died the way that she did, but you already know that we didn't have a close relationship. I didn't talk about it. I knew Dad was sad about it, and I didn't want to make him uncomfortable or make it worse for him. So it just became one of those things that we didn't talk about, and I moved forward.
"Talking with Paul, today, was like… For a minute I felt like I was a little kid again. I honestly felt like I was back in that house, just getting the news that Mom had been found. And it hurt."
Ray held onto Doug. He hadn't said anything, because there wasn't much to say. Maybe the killer hadn't been Larry. The way that the evidence was looking, Larry was proving to be innocent a lot more often than anyone had expected. Still, Ray wasn't buying it. He couldn't say that yet. Doug believed so wholeheartedly in his father's innocence that protests to the contrary just fired him up. "I love you," he'd said instead. "And I'm here."
"I remember once," Doug continued, "I was at church with her. She asked the priest which sin was greater. Was it the sin of abortion or the sin of having an omega son?" He shuddered. "Dad grabbed me and pulled me out of there before I could hear his answer. That was probably about two months before she died."
Ray watched his omega now. That was a terrible memory to have to live with. How could he keep going? The answer of course, at least the one he would give, would be the father. The father had stood by him in everything, and helped him to grow strong and good.
How could a killer, a murderer, also turn out a man like Doug? Had Ray been wrong about Larry Morrison? He didn't think so. The number of crimes, and the fact that his wife had been at the center of it all, told him clearly that Larry was involved. At the same time, he needed to re-evaluate his position. Maybe Larry had been driven a little bit insane by the horror he'd witnessed.
He lay back down by his omega's side. He still hated that Paul Butler had hurt Doug, even if they'd come to an understanding about it. He wouldn't let it happen again.
The next morning, he made breakfast for them both, even though it was Doug's apartment. Doug chuckled at him, but let him fuss. "It's a beautiful thing," Ray told him, "that two men who didn't even meet until all that recently can fit so well into one another's lives. You understand me well enough to get that I need to take care of you like this. We're obviously made for each other."
Doug blushed and looked up at him, accepting Ray's offering of pancakes. "Well, I've never believed in soulmates or anything like that, but I know that I love you. And I've been watching you since we got together. Maybe there's something to it. Maybe we're just both awesome."
Ray laughed and kissed Doug's nose. "Listen," he said, giving himself some pancake
s. "I think I found us a place."
Doug frowned. "Really? I thought we were going to focus on the case." He took a bite of his pancakes, so Ray could tell that he wasn't too upset.
"We are. I just happened to find it. They've got an open house tomorrow." Ray swallowed. "Moving is kind of a lot, and I get that. But it's also… I mean I think we'll do better with the case when we're together. We've made so many breakthroughs when we're around each other, Doug. We're just better together. If we don't like the house, we don't have to get it. If we decide that we do like it, then we'll take it." He shrugged. "It's that simple."
Doug closed his eyes. "Nothing's ever that simple, Ray. Every home purchase is filled with drama." He blew out a stream of breath, not quite a sigh, and looked at his alpha. "But we should be living together when the baby gets here. And if you say that the house meets all of our requirements, then there's no harm in checking it out." He swallowed. "We can go and look at it."
They spent the rest of the day getting their financial information in order. The next day they drove out to the house that Ray had found for them in Needham.
It was a little bit of a weird place. It had started life as a raised ranch, but the previous owners had put on a massive addition and it no longer bore any resemblance to the original property. The master suite was spacious, and had office space for Doug so that he could overwork himself and still be near Ray. The kitchen was gorgeous, and the lot—large for a town this close to Boston—bordered conservation land and a pond. "It's kind of perfect," Doug whispered.
"Right?" Ray wrapped an arm around him.
Doug's eyes were the size of saucers. "Is this something that we can actually do?"
"Absolutely. If you want it." Ray tried not to be too obvious, but he had to settle for not bursting with joy.
Doug still had some qualms. He worried about taking energy away from his cases, especially his father's case. He worried about moving with a baby on the way. He worried the neighbors having issues with them in the neighborhood, but Ray managed to soothe some of those fears by pointing out that they lived in one of the safest parts of the country for people like them.
He did, eventually, convince Doug to admit to what was really on his mind. Doug felt guilty about moving on with his life while his father languished in prison. "He literally raised me. He took care of me, he defended me from my mother after we got the tests back. How can I sit here and enjoy life while he's locked up and can't even shower freely?"
Ray didn't have a good answer for that. "You haven't told him about us yet, have you?"
Doug stared at the floor for a moment. Then he looked up. "Have you told your family?"
Ray jumped a little. "Oh my God!"
Doug looked away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
Ray laughed. "Don't be sorry. I mean yeah, they'll be mad that I didn't bring you by to get approved or whatever they thought I was supposed to do before I claimed you, but I don't care. I go back like twice a year. I'm not exactly sold on the whole commune thing." He ruffled Doug's hair. "I just haven't spoken to anyone there in a while." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "We didn't have a fight or anything, but there can't be any partiality. If I call, I have to talk to all of them. Everyone still on site at the time," he added for emphasis. "No one has time for that. We can head out at some point after the case is over. If you want we can go out there before, but I'll warn you—it's an adventure."
The next day, they formally put in an offer on the house. They went to the bank and started the ball rolling on the mortgage as well, during Doug's lunch break. After that, Ray drove back out to Framingham and started to dig deeper into the backgrounds of both Dick Tolbert and Dan Gagne, the men that Butler had mentioned in his statement yesterday.
Both names had been on Doug's list, and when Ray found the men's driver's license information he could certainly see how they'd be mistaken for Larry Morrison in the dark. Neither one had shown up on the suspect list during the initial investigation; neither had come to the attention of authorities for any real reason. Of the pair, Tolbert seemed to be the more likely candidate.
Tolbert did have a record, but it wasn't anything that stood out. Doug had described him as a misogynist, and apparently his open misogyny hadn't been enough to get him removed from his position teaching Sunday school until 2006. He'd continued to teach boys-only health classes at the local Catholic middle school, which chilled Ray to the bone.
His police record wasn't sexual, nor was it one of significant violence. He had, however, been arrested no less than ten times for harassment of various women whose lifestyle didn't fit his approved vision of the world. He'd been arrested at protests, too. He protested anything that seemed to involve women and power. He protested reproductive health care facilities. He protested the state legislature every time that a new law was proposed to combat domestic violence. He protested at the education department when the department proposed new measures to guide girls toward STEM fields.
It wasn't subtle, and it wasn't trying to be. Dick Tolbert hated women, and he didn't care who knew it.
Then he looked into Dan Gagne. Gagne didn't have a criminal record. He did have a history of disputes with several of the victims, just like Tolbert. Gagne was a member of St. Dominic's—indeed, he was still a member of the choir—and he was a teacher in the Lakeville-Freetown School District.
Within that district, he had a reputation. Ray made a few calls, and he got an earful from some retired teachers who'd been forced to work with him. He got an earful from the principles, too. Dan Gagne was fine to work with—if you were male. He had a great rapport with his male students, and he didn't seem to be bothered by a student's sexuality or gene expression. He graded female students much more harshly than their male students, which had caused him problems with many parents. And he meted out discipline much more harshly toward female students as well.
"I don't even bother punishing female students that he sends to the office." The principal at his current assignment, the middle school, heaved a mighty sigh. "I mean I do if it's something egregious, like fighting or things like that, but I don't bother punishing girls that get sent down for chewing gum or 'sass.' I just give them a bottle of water and let them go down to the library until their next class. I can't fire him, thanks to union rules, but I think the union would like to be rid of him too."
The union confirmed the principal's assessment. "This guy." The union rep for his previous assignment at the high school muttered a curse word. "I mean every teacher is different, and he's showing himself to be very effective with boys. I think he'd do well at an all-boy's school. I've got his current union rep trying to find a place to recommend to him. I don't know if he'd go."
"Do you think he's capable of violence?" Ray asked, tapping his pen on the notepad.
"I don't know about that." The rep sounded uncomfortable. "I know he's never lifted a hand toward any of these kids. That's something that would show up in the records, you know? And we wouldn't be able to defend him for something like that."
"How did the kids feel about him?" Ray tried.
"Well, it wasn't great." She sighed again. "We had a lot of kids transfer out of his classes. His classes were the smallest, and they had the worst attendance. But there are other factors there too, of course."
"Of course." Ray ran his tongue against the back of his teeth.
He still thought that Tolbert was probably the more likely candidate. He was the one with the greatest propensity for confrontation. Doug's description of him combined with his police record would have been enough to make him suspicious of the guy.
How had Ray missed these men before, in his earlier investigation? How was that possible? Had he really just blindly circled around Larry until he'd found what he was looking for?
He'd always thought that he was better than that. He'd prided himself on having the strength of mind and purpose to avoid that kind of thinking. He'd been wrong. He could be excused for thinking that way, o
f course. All of the eyewitnesses had aimed him in one direction, and there hadn't been a shred of evidence to clear him.
Except there had been. Larry just hadn't chosen to offer it himself. Why was that? Ray had asked that question before, and Doug hadn't been able to give an answer. Neither of them had come up with one yet. It still made no sense. If a man's been accused of killing a score of women, he should want to prove his innocence in every way possible.
Maybe he should try to look for connections between Larry and either of his two suspects. It seemed far-fetched, but there had to be a reason. Every question had an answer, every effect had a logical cause. If Ray couldn't find that cause, maybe he was asking the wrong questions.
Who, other than Doug, would Larry possibly cover for?
Chapter Ten
