by Blake Pierce
Avery bit back the comment that came to her tongue. She felt it was a good thought but was pretty sure Connelly’s cross-reference suggestion would be a waste of time. Fire was the key. She was almost certain of it now…she just had to find solid proof.
“For now, that’s all we’ve got,” O’Malley said. “If any of you speaks to the media, I’ll have your ass. I give it about another two or three hours before we have vans and reporters lined up outside. So keep your head down, your nose clean, and your mouth shut. Finley, Smith, and Cho…I want you three working on the cross-references Black and Connelly discussed. Black and Ramirez, I’m going to need you to visit the Osborne family.”
“When were they told about Sarah’s death?” Avery asked.
“About an hour ago. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to speak with the parents before Ron Osborne pokes his political nose into it all. I’ll have the address e-mailed to you within a few minutes.”
O’Malley did not give a vocal dismissal, but his body language said it all. He was worried, irritated, and had nothing to say. Avery gathered up the papers he had slid to her and gave Ramirez a nod. They left together in a hurry. If there were any speculative eyes on them as they made their exit, she did not notice them. She was far too focused on having to tell the parents about their daughter’s murder.
***
Terry and Julia Osborne lived in a gorgeous two-story house in the Back Bay area. The subdivision Avery and Ramirez drove down to reach their home was filled with lots reaching well into the million-dollar range. She knew that Terry Osborne had no political aspirations like his brother, but he was one of Boston’s most coveted real estate agents. She was sure he got some of the most up-to-date scoops on available land through Ron Osborne, city councilman, but that was none of Avery’s concern (nor did she really care) as she and Ramirez stepped up onto the Osbornes’ porch.
She could hear a woman’s wailing from within the house, apparently Julia Osborne in the midst of accepting news of her daughter’s death. Still, the door was answered within twenty seconds. Terry Osborne was clearly in a state of shock. When he looked at Avery and Ramirez, he blinked his eyes rapidly, as if trying to adjust to some other part of the world that was not the misery currently within his home.
“Mr. Osborne,” Avery said, “I’m Detective Black and this is my partner, Detective Ramirez. I know this is an impossible time for you, but we were hoping you could help us by answering some questions. We’d obviously like to catch the killer as quickly as we can.”
“Yes, come on in,” Osborne said. He turned away without much of an expression and walked deeper into his house like he was sleepwalking.
They followed him into the kitchen where he went to a very nice and elaborate wine rack. He selected a bottle of red and poured himself a very tall glass. Avery noted that it was a bottle of Houdini Napa Valley—a bottle Avery was pretty sure went for at least two hundred dollars. He sipped on it absently, almost like he had forgotten the two detectives were standing there.
“We’ll make this as quick as possible,” Avery said, still hearing the sniffling and wails coming from elsewhere in the house. “First of all, do you know why Sarah would have been out on that side of town?”
Terry shook his head. “She was working part time with a public outreach group…helping kids read and all that. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know where that took her. I guess it’s possible she was there for work…I don’t know.”
“Do you know the name of the outreach program?” Avery asked.
“Helping Hands,” he said. “I’ve got a card somewhere, I think…”
He started to walk out of the kitchen but Avery stopped him. “That’s okay, Mr. Osborne. We can contact them.”
She could tell that he was trying to keep busy. He was trying to occupy himself, to busy his mind with something else. But she also knew that when he ran out of things to do and questions to answer, he was going to crumble.
“Do you know if Sarah had any friends that might have been questionable? Anyone you weren’t really a fan of her hanging out with?”
“No. I don’t think so. I never really…well, I didn’t know anything about her life, you know? I was always working and—”
She sensed him about to break and did her best to keep him afloat a while longer by offering another question.
“How about a boyfriend?” Avery asked.
Terry’s face went blank, but they got an answer from a woman’s voice from behind them. Julia Osborne had come into the kitchen. Her face was streaked with running mascara and she looked like a phantom. Her bottom lip was quivering and her hair was a mess.
“No boyfriends,” she said. Her voice was raspy from having wept so much during the last hour and a half. “She ended a pretty serious relationship last year and has been single ever since. And in terms of friends…she didn’t really have many. Just the kids she helped at Helping Hands. She was a sweet girl but…always kept to herself.”
“Do you know the name of the ex?” Avery asked.
“Yeah. Denny Cox. But looking at him would be a waste of your time. He’s a pretty good kid. Used to be a cop.”
“Used to be?” Ramirez asked.
“Yes. He was fired not too long ago. After he and Sarah broke up.”
Avery and Ramirez shared a look that they had come to use as almost another sort of language. With a simple nod of her head, Ramirez took his leave from the kitchen and headed back outside to call the station and ask for a check on Denny Cox.
“Is there anything else you can think of that I might need to know?” Avery asked.
Julia looked at the floor, as if embarrassed, and then nodded. “I was in her room just now…looking through her things…wanting something to hold just to sort of be with her—”
She started weeping here, her breath coming in huge hitching sobs. She held out her hand and offered something to Avery. Avery took it and saw that it was a plastic bag. There were six pills inside of it. Two had dollar signs on them and the other four had smiley faces.
Ecstasy, she thought. And this is how her mother finds out. My God…
“I don’t want to know what it is,” Julia said. “I want you to have it to see if it helps you find the man that did this.”
Avery took it and said nothing. She looked back to the kitchen, where Terry was quickly downing the contents of his wine glass.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Avery said. “Please don’t hesitate to call the station if you think of anything else that might be of use. Until then, please take care. Do you have anyone to come be with you?”
“My brother-in-law is on his way,” Julia said. “He’ll be damned sure we find who did this.”
Avery nodded and gave her quick goodbyes to Terry and Julia. She did not want to be there when Ron Osborne showed up with a million questions and his inflated ego. She made her way back through the kitchen and the long hallway toward the front door. When she stepped out onto the porch, Ramirez was just getting off of the phone.
“Anything?” Avery asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Denny Cox, fired from the force ten months ago. And once I got the details, I actually remember hearing about it. He got caught with a prostitute in his patrol car. And he wasn’t arresting her, if you get my drift.”
“That’s pretty lewd, but it doesn’t really make him a suspect for—”
“Oh, it gets better,” he said. “When Denny was fifteen, his father’s shed caught on fire in their backyard. No reason…the fire department never found a source. This was the same year that there was a small fire started behind the dugouts on the baseball field at Desmond High School. Want to guess who was seen scampering away from the field when the teachers arrived?”
Avery wasted no time with guessing. She headed for the driver’s side of the car and asked, “You got an address?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When the address led them back into D3 territory—about six miles away from where the remains of Sa
rah Osborne had been ditched—it seemed like Denny Cox was indeed their man. It all seemed too circumstantial to not be a hot lead. Avery, though, always felt a degree of suspicion when something came together a little too easily. And this whole procurement of information on Denny Cox had basically fallen into her lap.
It was 6:37 when she parked in front of Denny’s house. It was a basic little one-story house, a far cry from the Osborne residence they had just left. As they walked up to the porch, Avery saw a dead plant sitting next to the door on the front porch. The vinyl siding was starting to peel and grow mildew.
She rang the doorbell twice, having to push hard for it to work. Within seconds, a young man of about twenty-five or so answered the door. He was slightly overweight and had a scrubby few days’ growth of beard.
He also appeared to be drunk. It was apparent in the way he wobbled on his feet, the blinking gaze to his eyes, and the unapologetic way in which he looked Avery up and down like a slab of meat.
“Hey there, Officers,” he said. “Oops, no…Detectives, right?”
“That’s right,” Avery said. “Detectives Black and Ramirez. And you’re Denny Cox, yes?”
“That’s me,” he said. “I was wondering how long it would take before you guys started questioning me. I figured I had until tomorrow at least. If I’d known you were coming so soon, I would have stopped at two beers. Maybe.”
“And how did you know we were coming?” Avery asked.
“I saw the news about Sarah. It was on the local news at five o’clock.”
Shit, Avery thought. This could potentially get out of hand a lot faster than O’Malley thought.
“You dated her for a while, right?” Ramirez asked.
“That I did,” Cox said. His words were slurred and he seemed to be finding far too much amusement in the situation.
“And why did you break up?” Avery asked.
Cox looked at them for a moment with his drunken stare. It was clear to Avery that she and Ramirez were not going to be invited in—and it would be the second time in two days. When she thought of how things had gone with Adam Wentz, she heard a small alarm sound in her head; she was going to have to keep an eye on Ramirez if Cox got out of hand.
Sadly, though, it was also clear to her that in his current state, Denny Cox was not going to be of much help.
“She was too young,” Denny answered. “Only four years younger than me, but when I started working on the force she got all possessive. She was always griping that I didn’t spend enough time with her. Plus, a cop dating a young girl…there’s too much ribbing and jokes from the guys. It got old.”
“And did you see her much after that?” Avery asked.
“Once. She got stoned off of her ass and called me up. I brought her over here and we had sex.”
“You said she was stoned…do you know what she was on?”
“Coke, probably. She was sneaky about it, but she liked her cocaine.” He snickered here and added: “But Mommy, Daddy, and Big Ol’ Uncle Ron had no idea.”
“You know for a fact she did drugs?” Avery asked.
“Yes. And she was damned good at hiding it. She drank here and there, too. But her big draws were cocaine and ecstasy.”
“And as someone joining the force, you were okay with this?”
“It wasn’t my business, you know? She and I had fun together…and during that last little while, I think it was mostly because of the drugs. So I let her have her fun. I was her boyfriend, not her father.”
“Do you know who her dealer was?”
Cox chuckled and shook his head. “No. She kept that hush-hush—especially when I started talking about joining the force. But really, I think she was mostly concerned about her family finding out—especially her shithead political weasel of an uncle.”
“Mr. Cox,” Avery said, quickly trying to swerve the attention away from Cox’s obvious disdain for the Osborne family, “what can you tell me about the two marks on your record that involve fire?”
“What marks? You mean that bullshit from high school about the dugouts? Yeah, that was dumb. A mistake I made to piss off the boyfriend of a girl I liked. Some stupid jock. I was fifteen. You think that makes me a candidate for murdering someone?”
It occurred to Avery that she had not seen the news reports. How much did the media know? If they weren’t reporting anything about the way the people were being killed, she certainly didn’t want to tip her hand to the likes of a man like Denny Cox. She figured if he had heard that little tidbit, he would have said something about it by now.
“No, it does not,” Avery said. “But as a former cop, you know we have to speak to everyone connected to Sarah. You said it yourself…you knew it was just a matter of time before someone came to ask you some questions.”
“There’s also the matter of your father’s shed burning down,” Ramirez said. “And then the thing with the prostitute. You don’t really have a very clean record.”
Cox leaned against the doorframe and again looked Avery up and down. “You know…I know who you are, Detective Black. Avery. Most men were all pissy when you came on board in Boston. But I didn’t see the big deal. Nice to look at…awesome record.”
His eyes leered just a little too long. To get his attention, she moved her hand to her hip to reveal the Mace and the Glock holstered there.
“That’s neither here nor there, Mr. Cox. We just wanted to ask you about—”
“Sarah, I know,” he interrupted. “Yeah, I bet O’Malley and his boys are about to shit themselves over this. Niece of a councilman. I also saw where there’s some disagreements over what district gets this high-profile case. I bet you two are working hard to get this one wrapped up, huh?”
“We are,” Ramirez said, stepping forward. “So if you could please stop undressing my partner with your eyes and answer some fucking questions, that would be helpful.”
“Settle down now,” Cox said. “What the hell are you? A knight in shining armor or something?” He then leaned in and, in a hushed whisper, added: “You tapping that, my man?”
Ramirez moved too fast for Avery to stop him. He took one huge step forward and threw a right-handed punch at Cox.
Cox moved with surprising speed as well. He not only dodged the punch but caught Ramirez’s arm and twisted it and pushed it hard against the doorframe. Ramirez instantly went for his sidearm but Avery stepped in to save a terrible situation from becoming even worse.
She shoved Ramirez back hard, causing Cox to release his arm. Cox then came at her, bringing his right hand back. Maybe it was because he was drunk, or maybe it was just because he was not taking the news of the death of an ex-girlfriend well, but he was apparently not taking the repercussions of his actions into account.
Avery attacked faster, though. She jabbed out a hard right hand, palm out and fingers curled. She struck him twice in rapid succession in the ribs. Cox dropped to his knee, gasping for breath. Ramirez stepped up again, going for his cuffs.
“No,” Avery said, wheeling on him. She pushed him back a step and spoke as quietly as she could, not wanting Cox to overhear it and report the conversation at the station—where he would clearly be within an hour.
“What the—?” Ramirez began.
“That’s twice in the past two days,” she said. “You can’t go after someone just because they speak to me in a degrading way or look at me a certain way. You’re smarter than that. And quite frankly, it’s pissing me off. While we’re on the clock, I’m your partner…not your fucking babysitter.”
Ramirez scowled at her but said nothing. In fact, he gave a quick nod of the head and went back to the car without a word. Avery took a deep calming breath and then turned back to Cox.
“That was pretty stupid,” she said.
“Yeah,” he grunted, now on his hands and knees.
“You know what comes next. You either get up and come calmly with me or I’m going to cuff you right here. I might just be mad enough to pull your shoulder back a li
ttle too hard. You know that cracking noise you sometimes hear when you bring a perp’s arms behind their back a little too fast?”
Cox spit at her feet as he slowly started to get to his own. “I’d like to see you try it, bitch.”
She smiled, clenched her fist, and showed him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Avery had seen the A1 headquarters in disarray a few times. It usually happened when a new huge case broke or just as a promising lead came in and had everyone in a fervor to work together to wrap the case up. But when Avery and Ramirez arrived back at the station with Cox in tow, the place was a circus.
There were a few news vans in the parking lot as she parked. She led the way across the rear lot with Ramirez escorting Denny Cox. She heard a reporter say something loudly. Within seconds, four people were rushing across the back lot, one of whom was a cameraman. As she lowered her head and continued for the building, Avery also saw a few unfamiliar cop cars. She checked the tags and the decals and cursed under her breath.
Cops from the B3 district, she thought. Great. Apparently they’re going to ride this thing into the ground.
Just as a reporter and a cameraman reached them, Avery was at the door, ushering Denny Cox inside.
“Excuse me,” the reporter said. “Is this man under arrest for the killings and burnings?”
She said nothing, but Denny Cox sure as hell did.
“They came to my house and went nuts,” he said, his drunken slur seeming to draw out each word. “Beat the shit out of me because they don’t have any real leads.”
Ramirez gave him a push and they were all through the doors and away from the reporters.
“What the hell is that about?” Ramirez asked Avery.
“There were B3 cars out there,” she said. “I’m betting they went to the news, hoping the attention would throw us off.”
As they ventured further into the station, the circus continued. She saw a few men in B3 uniforms, including the one who had confronted them earlier in the day at the latest site. He was arguing with Officer Finley. Connelly was in the fray, too, doing everything he could to appear calm. When Connelly saw Avery, he waved her over urgently.
