by Danae Ayusso
“Hey Doc,” Officer Leclair greeted, eying the two curiously. “Did Staff Inspector Pierre call you in for something?”
Connell smiled. “No. I brought in a specialist from the Boston PD.”
Officer Paquette looked between the two. “That wasn’t approved,” the man argued, his eyes moving over the tall woman standing with the annoying M.E.. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, you are going to have to wait until the Inspector returns, so he can sign off on it,” he said.
“Lieutenant de Wolfe, not ma’am,” Akia said, and his eyes widened. “I’ll need copies of each file, report, witness statements, location photos and the medical examiner’s reports.”
The four looked at each other confused.
“This,” Connell said, trying to keep from laughing because his baby sister was anything but subtle and accommodating, “is the woman that singlehandedly solved the Silent Ripper case in Boston. She connected and then closed seven cold cases as well as the most recent homicides, putting an end to an unknown serial killer’s reign of terror. And just last night she was awarded the departments Medal of Valor.”
Akia fought to keep from growling under her breath; Connell could never reel it in.
“I’ll call Inspector Pierre,” Paquette said, motioning Akia towards the row of chairs along the wall across from the reception desk.
“Have fun, but we’ll be in my office,” Connell said with a smile then pushed Akia towards the back of the small station before the Officers could protest.
Once the metal door slammed shut behind them, she smacked him.
“I’m surprised you didn’t bust out with the slide show of my accomplishments…how did you know about the award?” she asked. “I only got it last night.”
He shrugged, hurrying down the stairs to his office in the basement. “Dad told us. Besides, it was on the news. This is Canada, not the Congo. I will be expecting a footnote and honorable mention in your book to movie adaptation of the Silent Ripper case since I was your second set of not sanctioned eyes on the M.E. reports.”
She shook her head. “I’m not writing a damn book on that shit. That’s all the victims families don’t need: an Oscar worthy reenactment to haunt them.”
He snorted. “You are a party pooper. Congrats on the promotion by the way. Wish we would have been invited to see you up on stage. I’m sure you were a motor mouth in your acceptance speech and they had to cut you off with the orchestra like they do at the Academy Awards.” He looked over his shoulder at her and smirked before clearing his throat. “Um, thanks,” he said, in the worst impression of her to date, and she rolled her eyes. “I have the latest bodies still in the morgue. They haven’t been identified yet, so I’m holding onto them…and I was waiting for you.”
Akia nodded and absently flipped through the file he handed her before he headed over to the wall of metal doors then pulled one open and slid out the metal tray with a sheet covered body on it.
“Doesn’t it compromise the body to leave the sheet on them?” Akia absently asked, reading the rookie report on the first body dump.
“They think that it’s more respectful than pulling out a naked woman or man,” Connell said, pulling out the next body. “It doesn’t matter to me. You’ve seen one mutilated body you’ve seen them all. The first one was a clean and efficient kill, as you can see from the photos: carotid artery severed with one swipe. It was clean, very clean, the prey bled out in seconds, a minute at most. The second, it appeared more…I’m not sure, almost as if it was done by an entirely different person-”
“But it wasn’t,” she said, looking over the report. “Swipes are nearly identical, only the depths varying, and they were more…skeptical.”
“How so?” he asked.
“The first was clean; one swipe and a body dump. That was it. With the second victim the first swipe wasn’t a kill shot. It was as if they were being tentative, almost nervous.”
“Remorse?” Connell offered.
“None,” she said, looking through the pictures in the file of each victim. “The third and fourth he started playing, torturing without the intent of doing such, which is why the next two bodies looked as if they were put through a paper shredder. The first victim popped their homicide cherry, I have no doubt about that, and the second victim they were apprehensive about because the first was so effortless. Think of the first as an uncontrollable impulsive response to something, an external stimuli… You know what I’m getting at,” she said, giving him a look and Connell nodded his understanding; she didn’t need to say it aloud. “The next was the confirmation stage; killing was exceptionally easy, and that got him a taste for it. With the taste came questions, the one that stands out in my mind: how much abuse can the toy take before it breaks? The third was the discovery phase, and that was why there were varying depths to each wound on the third victim. Each swipe went deeper and deeper until an organ or artery was reached. The second bled out, not as quickly as the first, but still much too quick for his liking. The third lasted longer, but still succumbed to their injuries faster than he’d like. The fourth,” she said, eying the body of the victim in front of her. “This was where he truly got his need met.”
Connell nodded. “Support your argument,” he said. He knew she was right on all accounts, but it was the first time he had gotten to work on a case with his baby sister other than on over the phone, and he was eager to see just how damn good she was in person.
Akia shook her head, sensing the intent behind his doubtful tone, but she would humor him; she always did. “The first might have been an accident, I’m not saying that it was, but it could have been, and he dumped the body where it would be found in order to cover it up. The second was a test, to make sure that it was really that easy and if the high he felt for the kill was real or not. Sadly it was. The third was experimental; he learned just how much he can inflict and where before the toy breaks. The fourth was where he started to play now that his taste for it had fully developed. The victim was tortured-”
“For hours, days even,” Connell confirmed. “System showed traces of synthetic adrenaline, heavy amounts of it, enough that it would have killed them eventually. There were a dozen injection sites.”
Akia nodded; that type of progression wasn’t common and was very concerning. “When the victim was rendered unconscious from the abuse, blood loss, or pain, he revived them so he could continue to play. Sexual assaults?”
“None,” a voice said from behind them. “Dr. Dreary, an outside consultant was not approved or invited into this investigation.”
Connell simply shrugged. “You couldn’t get the funding for a specialist, so I got one donated from the Boston PD,” he retorted, giving Inspector Pierre a look. “Has she been wrong about anything?”
Inspector Pierre joined them with the eager tattletale Officer Paquette behind him, and eyed Akia suspiciously. “Why would one of Boston’s brightest want to help out in a case over the border and on a small Canadian island?”
“I’m on vacation,” Akia said, never turning to regard the interlopers and continued to read through the slightly more detailed reports on the latest victims. “What better way to relax than to preoccupy myself with animalistic homicides?”
Pierre wasn’t amused, not in the least. “Tell me something, Detective-”
“Lieutenant,” she instantly corrected, turning her attention to the body.
“How is it,” he continued, “that animal attacks of this nature can have a psychological profile such as the one you so graciously provided after only being briefed for a few minutes on the case?”
“You will answer the Inspector,” Paquette sneered when she didn’t say anything.
Akia smirked then looked up from the body to the irritable men glaring at her. “If you truly believed that these are merely animal attacks that are getting progressively more savage, Inspector, then why is it that you have a man in custody under suspicion of murder?” she retorted.
The Inspector huffed more than
once, reminding her of a pissed off rooster getting ready to crow. “Get out of my office,” he snarled, pointing towards the door.
Connell chuckled. “This is my office.”
“My building!” Pierre shouted. “And you, too!”
Connell smiled. “I’m an elected official, one that no one will replace, especially in this town, so no. You needed help, you got it. The puppies that follow you around, sniffing your ass while trying to elevate their careers by agreeing with everything you say,” he said, pointedly looking at Paquette, “can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground.” He turned from the huffing Officer to the skeptical Inspector. “de Wolfe is the best in Boston, has consulted on cases for the FBI even, and has a perfect arrest record and conviction rate. Hell, the Silent Ripper wasn’t even offered a plea deal and was convicted in record time, with all of his victims being accounted for; that is unheard of for serial killers in this day and age. Tell me, would you rather have the RCMP here and pushing you out or would you rather have one of Boston’s finest that can’t stand attention or being in front of the media, leaving you to smile pretty for the cameras? One more body and you know the RCMP will be storming in and taking over the case, and the only one at this precinct that’ll still be on the case is me because I’m just that good. Now, why don’t you shut up, welcome the free help, and put your cocks away because I guarantee she can piss farther than both of you.”
Pierre wasn’t amused, not in the least, and as much as he hated to admit it, the medical examiner was right: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had already inquired as to the status of the case and warned that they would send someone to oversee the Inspector’s progress if none was made. The last time the RCMP put their noses in Pierre’s one and only high profile case, it got him a one way ticket to the Island in a small town called Haven.
The overly proud man knew he had to swallow his pride otherwise his career would be over.
“Lieutenant, your expertise in the matter would be appreciated,” he spit through clenched teeth.
“Yes, I know,” Akia agreed. “The weight of the badge forces those carrying it to help whenever a case is in front of them, even if they are on vacation,” she said, offering a concession in order to hide the truth of her visit. “The fourth victim was different,” she said when he didn’t say anything. She took it as his white flag of surrender, and returned to the case. “He is starting to show finesse, but he’s still refining his skill.”
Pierre scoffed. “You call this finesse? Look at her!”
She gave him a look. “I am looking at her, closely if you must know. He took his time with her… To have that type of patience when torturing someone, reviving them just so you can do it all over again, that takes great patience to develop, thus resulting in finesse.”
Connell nodded; he was thinking the same, and entertaining the idea was even more terrifying than the thought of a killer running loose on the Island.
“To see it pre-autopsy would have been most helpful,” Akia commented under her breath, irritated that the first report was so poorly documented, and the second wasn’t much better. Back in Boston, the M.E. knew that Akia liked to be present for the autopsies; hearing that perspective of the case from the experienced and knowledgeable lips of the M.E. always helped her with the case in front of her. Seeing the result of shoddy police work, which she would have to try to translate and put together with limited resources, would prove to be irritating and the risk of Eve making an appearance wasn’t something she was willing to risk, especially in Haven.
“Funny you should mention that,” Connell said, as if he could read her mind, and pushed the third victim back into the locker then repeated with the fourth, getting a dirty look from Pierre. “If the fourth was special, the fifth was the prom queen,” he said, pulling out another drawer, and Akia’s eyes widened; there was no report on a fifth victim. He unzipped the body bag, and Pierre covered his nose with his sleeve.
Inside was a darker skinned young woman that was covered in blood; hair was matted to her head, gashes and tears littered every inch of her body, and it looked as if she had already been gruesomely autopsied with a steak knife on the beach by a blind Wendigo with the shakes.
Father will have to wait in holding a little longer, Akia silently huffed. She slipped out of her jacket and hung it on the back of Connell’s desk chair then grabbed a disposable gown from the table in the corner. “Permission to observe the autopsy, Sir,” she said, looking over at Pierre.
He was taken aback because she called him sir and was asking permission. “Of course,” he said, motioning towards the body.
Officer Paquette scoffed. “You cannot be serious. You’re just going to let someone that walked in off the streets in on an active investigation?!” he asked in disbelief. “For all we know she’s one of them, one of those cult members from Verulfr Manor and is only here to get their leader out! We have a suspect in custody, Sir, and that is where we should be focusing our efforts, not on the bodies since one of their cult,” he sneered eying Connell, and he smiled wide, “is most likely withholding evidence already.”
Pierre gave the vociferous Officer a warning look. “de Wolfe, I want the full report on my desk by the end of the week.”
“Expect it tomorrow,” Akia said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves once her hair was pulled back and her gown was secured. “Doctor, let’s begin,” she said, turning to Connell.
Seff shook his head as he read over the charges they were holding his oldest friend on. “They’ll never stand, we both know that,” he commented under his breath, much too low for the irritable Inspector watching from the bullpen to hear.
Beowulf chuckled. “I am well aware of that, my old friend. They are simply reaching, though I have to admit it was rather ingenious to leave the bodies just outside our property where they knew I would be walking. Have I become a creature of habit?” he mused.
Seff wasn’t amused in the least. “This is bullshit, and we both know it. A Stray has broken the cardinal rules and is now trying to pin these heinous crimes on the family. I will not simply sit here and permit him to do it.”
“Tell me, my old friend, what is it that you would have us do?” Beowulf countered with a warm smile. “Without evidentiary proof, as you lawyers say, they cannot pin this on me-”
“And the Covenant?” he interrupted. “What will the leaders say when the media starts stirring up trouble in Haven of all places?”
Beowulf simply shrugged as if it wasn’t a concern in the least. The man had seen witch hunts by the media and church, those with overly active imaginations create nothing but trouble with their teen-based books and movies, the advancement of social media and electronics making what was once an easy existence anything but. “The world is ever changing, and if the Covenant cannot look past what some asshole wearing a badge thinks and believes to be true, simply to persecute the stunningly handsome target of this unseen threat, then I am afraid that there is nothing that either of us can do, my old friend.”
Seff wasn’t amused with Beowulf’s jovial attitude, but bit his tongue and continued to flip through the finding-less report that was so graciously provided by Inspector Pierre. “She came,” he said under his breath.
Beowulf smiled. “I know, and she isn’t happy with me.”
“I wouldn’t be either if I hadn’t been home in a decade then come home to find my father in jail, and that it was a Stray that put him there.”
He sighed. “Yes, I suppose you have point. Varg called her, didn’t he?”
“To my knowledge,” Seff admitted. “Though, I didn’t commission him with the task. Connell drew the short straw, and of course the first place she went was here instead of home.”
“Trying to prevent the inevitable,” he said.
“Or trying to secure your freedom,” Seff countered. “She truly is dedicated to you, and I have to respect her for that, as well as being dedicated to her chosen career.”
A smile filled Beowulf’s tan face
and his chocolate brown eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “I am beyond proud of her,” he admitted. “From the scared creature she was to the fearless, analytical minded woman that she is today floods me with pride. I thought for sure that she might have been lost to me forever, but she has succeeded where so many others have failed.”
Seff nodded his agreement but didn’t say anything.
When they returned from the Far East with a skittish, tiny girl, Seff thought his oldest friend was insane. The way Beowulf doted on the girl, the patience that he showed her, and the love that was so clearly visible in his gaze when he looked upon the tiny creature, irritated Seff. As Akia got older, he didn’t particularly care for her because she didn’t stand on her own two feet, in essence. Varg was her strength and sense of protection; Connell her voice when she had none; Faelan the smile that she was too timid to share; Rafe was her sense of camaraderie; Louvel was the acceptance of her outlook even though she had never expressed it aloud; and Beowulf saw her as the embodiment of perfection.
Being the overly protective of the family and the paranoid one, Seff couldn’t grasp how so many strong creatures could undermine themselves in order to accommodate the single creature that would bring ruin to the family. Akia wasn’t much; she was small and rail thin, weak and had no sense of confidence or self-worth, and didn’t even make eye contact with people. Very rarely did she speak, and she buried her nose in books, in the past, in order to not deal with the present or future. When Akia ran away a decade ago, Seff thought it was a blessing, but it quickly became apparent that when she left, a part of those that loved her left with her and those he called brother, friend, nephew and cousin were only a mere reflection of the men they once were, and he hated Akia for it.
Over the years, her absence was still felt by those that called her sister, niece and daughter, but as reports of Akia’s accomplishments in her new life in Boston made their way back to Haven, the loss of her absence wasn’t as severe. They still felt abandoned by her, especially after everything they had done for weak creature, but they eventually found acceptance in her absence. As much as Seff wanted to dislike her, the woman she had grown and matured into was one that he could respect, and that was more than he ever thought she could be.
