Morrie uncapped the bottles, placing them on the bar with a dull thud. Jack put ice in the glasses then poured the bourbon, using the beverage gun to shoot a blast of Coke in Colt’s before sliding the glasses around. The one that was cut went to Colt, the two straight shots, one went toward Morrie, Jack picked up the last and downed it in a gulp.
This was unusual. Jack liked his bourbon and was smart enough to sip it. He was also smart enough to play his cards close to his chest and almost always did. This act exposed his mood to anyone who knew him and it made that weight in Colt’s gut shift disturbingly.
Colt nabbed the beer by its neck using two fingers and took a healthy pull.
“We good?” Morrie asked.
Colt’s eyes moved around the bottle to his friend. He dropped the beer to the bar.
“Not really but Feb’s over it and Feb doesn’t have much to do with me so I got no call to be pissed at you.”
Morrie’s lips thinned but he remained silent.
“We’ll talk about that shit later. Tell us about Pete,” Jack demanded and Colt turned to him.
Colt would have paid money, big money, not to be having this conversation. But he respected these men and they needed to know so he did what was right even though it felt shit and, when he was done, he knew he’d feel even more shit.
Still, he let go of the beer and took a sip of bourbon before he started.
“Pete was done three days ago. Why no one told his mother, I don’t know. He was the first that we know of.”
Jack took a sharp breath into his nostrils.
Colt kept talking, “We’re exchanging information with St. Louis. Murder was mostly the same, ‘cept Pete was awake when it happened and the killer did him at home and left him at home. He fought his attacker but the guy got a swipe to the back of Pete’s neck, probably when he was running away. It incapacitated him but didn’t kill him. He dragged Pete back to his bed and did the same as he did to Angie. Took off the clothes he was wearing, all of ‘em, unlike Angie, and delivered blows to the groin, up through to the abdomen, near to the heart. The bed, the floor, the walls, covered in blood.”
Jack and Morrie held his eyes, couldn’t tear theirs away. Colt had seen that before, mortified fascination, hearing words that felt like acid going in your ears but you couldn’t stop listening.
Colt went back to his beer and took a pull before he went on. “Boys spent a lot of time at Angie’s yesterday and today. Results are comin’ in. Angie wasn’t much of a housekeeper and she had a lot of visitors. We’ll be siftin’ through the shit we took from her house for awhile. Got a couple of hits, guys she had who left DNA or prints and have records but they’re unlikely. We’re lookin’ at them. Cory says he left her place around one o’clock. Said she was still pretty hammered when he left. Can’t know, it’s likely she doesn’t take the time to make her bed, but it looks like she slept there and the killer took her from there, though no forced entry, but her purse was there, her car keys, her car out front. Angie wasn’t a walker, she went somewhere, she’d take her car, even drunk. Toxicology came back. We’re guessin’ she’d dosed herself, probably needs to, way she lives her life, to get sleep. Had some over-the-counter sleep aids by the side of the bed, what amounts to four of them in her blood. Dose is usually two so she was either out our seriously groggy when he took her.”
“Thank the Lord,” Jack muttered.
Colt went on. He had a lot to say and he wanted to get it done, he wanted to get home, he wanted to sleep, he needed to be rested for whatever shit the next day would bring.
So he kept going. “Killer left Angie’s body exposed, he’d planned the show. Probably dressed her before he took her out but no bra, no underwear, no shoes. Pulled her top up to show her breasts, yanked her skirt up around her waist. No blows from the weapon except to her groin and abdomen.”
Jack and Morrie remained silent then again there was nothing to say to these grim facts.
“Displaying the bodies the way he does, naked, in Pete’s case, exposed, in Angie’s, hacking into their privates, this is an effort at humiliation,” Colt paused, the feeling of shit intensifying as he said, “a gift to Feb.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Morrie whispered.
“This has crossed state lines,” Colt told them. “The Feds are movin’ in. Already talked to them. Tomorrow morning got a meeting. Feds have called Quantico. The profilers are comin’ from Virginia first thing.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Morrie asked.
Colt had never worked with the Feds but he knew some guys who had, went to conferences, read shit about it. Sometimes they could be a pain in the ass. Most of the time, fresh eyes and that kind of experience were welcome.
Colt welcomed it.
“It’s good,” Colt said, “but I’ve already informed them of Feb and my history. I’ll be takin’ a step back.”
“You need to be working this, son,” Jack said, using the tone he always used with Colt. The tone he used with Morrie, the tone he used to use with Feb; that father’s tone that Colt never heard from his own Dad. The tone that said Jack believed in him, believed he could do what needed to be done, believed he’d do it right, believed no one could do it better.
“I don’t take a step back myself, they’ll push me back,” Colt replied. “They don’t care this is my town. They care about catchin’ this guy and makin’ him stay caught once they do. They don’t need and won’t tolerate anything that might jeopardize that.” No response and Colt gave them both a look. “Sully will be the local primary and I’ll still be workin’ it.”
“Least that’s something,” Jack remarked.
“We got more,” Colt told them. “Chris canvassed. Surprisingly that time in the morning no one saw some guy hacking away at Angie. Still, Chris got two witnesses who report they saw a silver sedan, they didn’t note the make and model. They thought it was an Audi or Mercedes, no license. They saw it pulling out of the alley around the time of the murder.”
“That ain’t much,” Morrie said.
“Better ‘n nothing,” Jack replied.
Morrie nodded and looked at Colt. “If Pete was killed three days ago, and Feb got that note the day Angie died, did we miss something? What –”
“Everyone knew what Pete did to February,” Jack noted. “He had no reason to explain.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Still, the killer left a calling card in St. Louis,” Colt told them.
Both men’s eyes turned to him.
“St. Louis PD couldn’t understand it, already knew they had someone who was seriously whacked in the head, but they didn’t get the message until I told them,” Colt said and Jack and Morrie stayed quiet so he gave them the news. “Bloody scene, carnage, but on Pete’s nightstand was a pristine bouquet of flowers, no blood on them, set there after the mess was made,” he paused, before he clipped out, “tulips.”
“Fuck!” Morrie hissed.
Tulips were Feb’s favorite flowers. Colt used to buy them for her every birthday even though they cost some cake, finding tulips in October. Florist had to special order them. He bought them for her on Valentine’s Day too. In her bedroom when she was a teenager, she had a big picture, white background, a spray of pink and white tulips in a vase displayed over her bed.
Colt kept speaking, giving them information to take their mind from the disturbing thoughts about how well this guy knew their daughter, their sister. It wouldn’t take much to know Feb liked tulips, you just had to pay attention but you also had to be close.