Wolves of Haven: Lone (7 page)

Connell looked at her with wide
eyes before he roared with laughter.

“Once again, you are a child in a
man’s body,” she said. “The victimology?”

“They are all dead, does that count
as a common denominator?” he said, wiping away the tears of
amusement from the corners of his eyes.

She smacked him upside the head.
“Grow up.”

He playfully smacked her back.
“Where would the fun be in that?!” he beamed with a face-consuming
smile.

“Father being detained is not
amusing in the least,” she snapped at him, and his smile fell. “You
should have called me sooner.
You
should have called, not left it for Varg to do
when no one was looking.”

He shrugged. “Father didn’t want to
bother you. He figured it’d blow over, the next time a body washed
up while he was locked up would prove his innocence-”

“But one hasn’t,” Akia interrupted,
getting a nod in return. “Have there been any Strays in the area as
of late? Anyone that might perceive the family as a threat?” she
pressed.

Again, he shrugged. “Last Stray in
the area was right after Kid joined the family, and Lou took care
of it because he’s really protective of the blue-haired
brat.”

“Blue hair?”

“Yeah, Kid is really young. He
claims that he’s twenty, but I think he’s only sixteen at the
most…bone development doesn’t lie, but I’ve kept my mouth shut
about it since it doesn’t matter either way.”

Her fingers drummed on the steering
wheel as they waited at one of six traffic lights in Haven. “Could
Kid be the source?” she asked.

Connell laughed. “No. Believe it or
not, he has complete control. Is he mischievous? Yes. Has balls of
steel…he even pulled a few tricks on Varg, and yet he lives to tell
the tale. For being found on the streets in Eastern Europe, he’s
extremely smart…genius level smart when it comes to computers and
everything they entail. He’s been bugging Dad about digitizing the
library, but Dad is old fashioned and likes the feel of
parchment.”

She nodded her understanding; as
much as she detested the stale smelling library where the archives
were housed, she missed spending hours at Father’s side creating a
sense of organization to the extensive collection that the family
had acquired over the years. While working side by side with the
man that saved her, that she eventually called Father, she felt
special and loved, two things she had never known before, and the
months spent in silence simply compiling and rearranging the
library Father was so very proud of, allowed her to find her voice
for the first time.

“You got your badge on you?”
Connell asked when they parked outside the small police
station.

Akia nodded. “Always. Debating on
being armed or not,” she admitted.

He shook his head. “Don’t go and
get yourself arrested as well. We need at least one member of law
enforcement on our side for this little incident.”

She pulled her sidearm from the
glove box, chambered a round then secured the holster to the back
of her jeans before getting out of the Jeep.

Connell rolled his eyes. “I don’t
know why I bother, I honestly don’t,” he complained, joining
her.

“Because you’re a glutton for
punishment,” Akia reminded him, sliding into a distressed leather
jacket that was slightly fitted but would hide her sidearm without
hindering her from pulling it if needed. “Make the introductions,
but keep the family relation out of it.”

He nodded his understanding. “Of
course. What do I tell them?”

“You’re creative so you’ll figure
it out,” she reminded him, motioning for him to lead the
way.

When they entered the small office,
the officers hanging around the bullpen, appearing bored, looked at
them curiously. Akia quickly took inventory and assigned a value to
each person, none of which looked as if they could write a parking
ticket let alone solve a multiple homicide.

“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.”