What Lies Beneath

Chapter 3

She had already designed a simple overview sheet she needed to fill out for each case–to give her a quick summary of conclusions made, or the lack thereof, what she needs for an arrest, statements that need clarifying, that sort of thing. So, for the rest of the week that is what she’ll be doing and by Friday Olivia got through most of the files. She would have to work through the weekend if she wanted to start re-investigating these cases on Monday. It’s not like she had anything better to do; might as well work. She was just packing up the leftover files when a knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” she called.

Chief Calloway stepped into her office. “Good afternoon, chief.”

“You have been quiet this week Pearson, you coping alright?”

Her face fell. “Was I supposed to check in, sir?”

He chuckled “No, not at all. I was just curious how you were getting along?”

“I took the week to acquaint myself with the cases, I want to start reinvestigations on Monday.”

“Sounds good, Pearson. Have a wonderful weekend.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

While lugging her box of files to her car, she considered her first week at the station and decided it went well enough. She met a few more staff members and everyone seemed pleasant and professional. For one exception, of course: Detective Cole Daniels.

The more he flirted, the more she played it off. Tuesday morning when she opened her office door, the mouth-watering aroma of strong filter coffee lured her inside and lead her to a custard Danish next to it. A posted-note on the paper bag read: “Have a great day, C. D”. It nearly went to the bin, but the sweet tooth in her won the battle. She had, however, successfully avoided Daniels for that day, but was not as lucky for the rest of the week. She was contemplating whether she should have a chat with him, just to inform him she was not interested in dating him–or anyone else working at the station. But she never got that far, and by the end of the week sorely annoyed with Daniels and his butt forever glued to her damn desk.

The office girls invited her to have a few drinks after work, but she declined. She needed some time for herself–alone and away from questioning eyes and curious minds. And besides, she had a box with files that needed her attention. Politely turning down drinks did not get her off scot-free though, apparently, it is karaoke night next Friday.

Fun times. Olivia thought dryly.

The weekend came and went, and by Sunday evening all her files were summarized and filed alphabetically. She had decided, after a heated debate with herself, that it would be the fairest system - trying to decide which case deserved her attention first was proving to be an unsolvable case by itself. All these cases deserved her attention, therefore she went alphabetically.

She opened her first file.

Jerry Bolton.

The sixty-four-year-old man knifed down in front of his house on his way to the Corner Shop for bread and milk. The motive appeared to a robbery gone wrong as they found him without a wallet or money on his person. His wife, Fiona Bolton, found her husband in a pool of blood in their driveway. No witnesses, no murder weapon, basically no evidence. Reading through the interviews, no one had anything bad to say about the retired high school principal. No enemies, no shady debt, gambling, nothing. This is the worst kind of case, a five-year-old case with no physical evidence to re-evaluate, no suspects or witnesses to re-interview. This means that if no additional evidence fell into her lap from the evidence gods, only a confession would solve this case.

What a way to start a new week. She smiled.

Olivia didn’t think detectives are by nature cynical creatures, but they have a healthy dose of distrust necessary to ask the tough questions. The most difficult is clearing grieving family members. So before she can pull a suspect for a random act of violence out of her magic hat, she needed to clear his family first. If she read the file correctly, there was never any suspicion on the family, and no crime scene analysis of their home either. He only had a wife and one married daughter, Priscilla, but clearing them can bring her one step closer in determining if this case is even solvable at all.

With the help of social media, detectives are privy to somewhat personal aspects of someone’s life, what hobbies they have, the music they like, the places they visit. These factors are not indicative of criminal acts or behavior, can, however, be the glue that puts pieces together that otherwise would have passed as random, isolated aspects of a person’s life. Combing through Fiona’s f*******: page portrayed her as a doting grandmother and loving mother. There was picture after picture of a green-eyed boy throughout the stages of his young life. Every so often, she would post memories of her and Jerry - on face value. They portrayed the everyday normal retired couple. After the flood of messages of friends and family giving their condolences after Jerry’s senseless murder, various fundraising campaigns littered her page. Priscilla had been diagnosed with cancer and the family needed to raise funds to pay for her treatments–by the looks of it, they didn’t get as much support as they needed. Cancer is a b***h of a disease.

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Olivia moved on to Priscilla’s page. It showed much of the same as her mother’s, with the occasional post from a friend or her husband. It was only when she came across the post that Pricilla had written for her father upon the anniversary of his death when a chilling thought came to mind. Olivia didn’t relish being right in these types of situations. Honestly, she constantly hoped she was just a cynical person but, she gets these feelings, like little nudges into a direction. Call it intuition or gut, it has never steered her wrong. A candid photo of Jerry smiling warmly at the camera filled the screen with the caption: “In your death, I found life.”

“s**t!” Mason Riley muttered as he headed down the alley, his Smith and Wesson loaded and ready to fire if the bastard thought to make some trouble. Kat was going to have an aneurysm. If he wasn’t secretly afraid of her, he might have smiled at the thought. He didn’t plan this; he was on his way to pick up some coffee before he headed to the station to help Kat box up the closed cases. It was just pure luck that he saw their main suspect duck into an alley. Thomas Gordon, a vile piece of trash, wanted in three different states for aggravated assault, attempted murder and for then making the grave mistake of killing someone in Mason’s jurisdiction. He was going down, and he was going down today. Mason just prayed that he wouldn’t be going down with him.

Following the suspect without calling for backup was plain stupid, but he had to react. When life hands you a murdering asshole on a silver platter, you don’t offend it by asking it to wait.

The alley was in the shape of a filthy ‘T’ and when Mason came to the end of the passage, his choice was simple. Left or right. Wrong or right. Taking just a split second to make the choice, he headed right. Ducking below the windows, looking out onto the alley, he kept his breathing even as he crept forward, looking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure no one was sneaking up behind him. Suddenly, Mason heard voices directly above him and he listened.

“I thought you said the truck was leaving today?” The voice held anger and a hint of desperation.

“Change of plans, man. You’ll just have to stick it out for another day. The truck leaves early tomorrow morning.”

“f**k!” The angry voice followed a bang. “I have people on my a*s, cops and Vincent’s family, and every day I am here could be the day one of them might find me.”

“Truck leaves early tomorrow morning, seven sharp,” the man repeated.

Mason had a choice to make: come back tomorrow with backup and take the bastard down, or do it right now, right here.

“I can’t wait until tomorrow. The Johnsons have a bounty on my head! I am going to remember this Zack.” Thomas’ voice dripped with malice.

“I cannot control this Tom, you know that.”

“I’ll remember this,” he said again. The back door swung open, and Thomas walked right into the barrel of Mason’s g*n. “Looks like today is the day Gordon. Hands up where I can see them,” Mason ordered. Thomas made a move to reach for his g*n. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll put a bullet in you before you pull that g*n,” Mason warned.

Thomas’ eyes were blazing fire. “If you put me in jail, they’ll kill me. You know the Johnsons have men inside.” He still hadn’t lifted his hands, which made Mason nervous, as did the fact that the man he had just spoken to inside was suspiciously silent. His voice remained calm, cocky even. “You should’ve thought about that before you killed Vincent Johnson.”

“I will not go to jail!” Lighting fast, he pulled the g*n from behind his back, but Mason was quicker - the shot rang out and Thomas screamed in agony. Mason had hit him in the left shoulder, probably a through and through, but it would still hurt like a b***h. Thomas went down, clutching his shoulder while writhing in pain. Might have hit bone after all, Mason mused. Putting his back to the wall, Mason had an unobstructed view of the backdoor and down the alley running both ways. With his g*n still aimed at Thomas, who seemed to have gone delirious with pain, he fished out his cell and called for backup with a smile on his face.

The office was empty–well; it looked empty. Olivia, however, could hear someone shuffling papers, but she couldn’t see the person. Fearing that she might have lost her ever-cursing mind, she called out, “Detective Ambrose?” and nearly swore as a blonde head of hair suddenly popped up from behind the desk she was facing. Is she sitting on the floor?

“What’s up?” Detective Katherine Ambrose asked, getting up onto her feet. Ambrose was peculiar looking, almost bird-like. Not that she was hideous or anything, just different. Her face was thin, and she had these big, round eyes the color of mud, while her straight blonde hair was as thin as her face and hung to her shoulders. Dressed in some jeans and a form-fitting black T-shirt. Her badge tucked into the waistband on her jeans and her firearm strapped to her side. Olivia walked inside the office and realized Katherine was busy boxing files–she just hoped they weren’t coming back to her office.

She held out her hand and Katherine took it. “I am Detective Pearson, cold cases.”

Katherine smiled, the movement making her face appear years younger. “Right, yes, welcome.”

Olivia nodded once and dove right in–Katherine seemed to be just as busy as she was so she’d spare her the long story. “I was wondering if you might have some time for me to pick your brain on a case you worked on five years ago.” She gave Katherine a rueful smile, as if to say she knew that few people’s memory is that good, but here’s to hoping, anyway.

Katherine, however, didn’t scoff or give her a “what the f**k?” look. Instead she said, “Sure if I can be of some help, go ahead.”

“The case of Mr. Bolton, he was…”

“Excuse me just a moment?” She held a finger up and pulled her vibrating cell from her pocket.

“Sure.” Olivia waited for her to answer her phone.

“Hi, Mason?” Katherine listened for a few seconds, Olivia could see the precise moment when panic gripped her, her eyes went round as saucers and her mouth popped open slightly. After the initial shock of whatever this Mason was telling her wore off, her eyes pulled into tight slits and her lips into a grim line before she screeched–birdlike, of course. “You stupid son of a b***h! Where are you?” A few seconds later she was running past Olivia without a wayward glance. “I am on my way, Mason!”

She left Olivia standing in the middle of the empty office, file in hand, unsure of what to do. “Right, then. See you later,” she muttered.