Page 24 of Lau Ahi
“Enough of this soft shit. We need to buckle down and figure out what our next moves are gonna be. But until we get shit solidified we need to close this case out.”
He met the bottom of his bottle with mine in celebration. “You're right about that. Close this case and figure out our moves because I’m damn sure ready to make them.”
TURN OF EVENTS
ORI
This was bad.
I swore it felt like that had been my sentiment with everything in my life lately but this was something beyond the norm.
I kept my eyes on the scene taking note of everything I could, as others walked through the snow, processing evidence that could be safely touched without damaging it.
Natalie Rawlins was found. Unfortunately, she’d been found near Hains Point the place where the Potomac and the Anacostia met just downriver from half of our national monuments. This felt like a fucking sign and I didn’t know what we were being warned about but I knew it was pulling me deeper into my work when I had been battling to get out of it.
Can’t ever make a clean break from bullshit.
The press was going to have a field day with the suppositions on why the Rawlins girl, and by proxy her family, had been targeted in whatever this was.
Natalie Rawlins was dead. Her body a shade of white indicative of extreme blood loss that wasn’t evident on the ground beneath her. Which meant she hadn’t been killed here and we still had a primary location that needed to be found. That complicated the search for who this was, since this was only a dump site and was surrounded by buildings that weremixed use and historic. We were technically in Virginia but just across the river were multiple national monuments. Every angle of this mystery had to be discussed before we could even begin to narrow down who wanted her dead and how they could accomplish it.
I glanced around the area noting that the trees opened up to an almost unobstructed view of a building in the distance. I continued to focus on it and I didn’t understand why. It was the tallest on the left-hand side of the river in Arlington directly across from several monuments and near where we were located. The way Natalie had been displayed made it seem like someone from that building could’ve had a line of sight to her especially since the foliage on the trees was gone. It was early February so nothing was blooming yet so the sightline was clear. The construction was purely residential, with balconies on each level and one not visible from the ground that belonged to the penthouse suite. My eyes focused on the units that could see this specific spot of the river, which was most of them on that side of the building since the leaves hadn’t started to bud.
“What do you see?”
Alec was behind me having questioned the witness who’d found her body. A man had come out to fish illegally and was now the center of a murder investigation. For his sake, I hoped he had friends in high places. Half of the agents here had been giving him shit like they’d already decided he was guilty despite all signs pointing to his innocence.
I looked back at Alec as he adjusted the collar of his heavy coat before my eyes were drawn back to the building that loomed in the distance.
“Something about that place is throwing me off.”
“The apartment building?” The ice on the ground crunched as he came to stand next to me. I nodded not taking my eyes off the building. The way the sun rose caused the light to hit thebuilding and almost reflect directly on the spot we were in. It was early as hell like the murder scene was set here purposefully.
“We need to find out who lives on the upper floors.”
“It’s weird as fuck the way the sun is highlighting this spot. Almost like a beacon for us to find her body here.” I nodded my agreement as I turned to face him. Now Alec’s eyes were trained on the upper levels of the apartment building.
“Weird isn’t it?”
“That might be a good place to look but you know people in those buildings are gonna have a lot of shit to say about their privacy and being questioned.” His warning was clear because the income needed to live in a place on the river meant that lawyers would immediately be involved and it would be a minute before we could pin people down for questioning.
“And they can kiss my ass when it comes right down to it. I told you nothing is going to keep me from getting both of us out of here with an unblemished record. This case isn’t about to slow us up.”
“It ain’t all on you, Ori.”
I looked around at the other officers and agents that were on the scene before I gave him a knowing look. “Them dumb asses over there are more than willing to pin the blame on whoever just to make themselves look good in front of our new overseers. I might want to get this shit done but I want it right.”
Alec nodded as he pulled his hat down further on his curly black hair. Unlike me, he hadn’t grown up in DC and the weather fluctuations always irritated him. It made sense that he would head back south when we were done with this. “Heard you. Guess we won’t be making any friends on this case either.”
I smirked knowing he couldn’t care less about making friends. “Like you give a fuck.”
The look on his face matched mine: the arrogance of having outperformed everyone in our unit fueling the confidence on ourfaces. “I live to piss them off. That shit makes it all the better when we make them look bad.”
“And that we will do. I’ll have to pull the names of everyone who lives in those places and start to cross-reference to see if they have any connection to the Rawlins girl.”
“This is looking more and more political with every new piece of evidence that we find.”
“That could just be a coincidence.” I wasn’t playing devil’s advocate; I was silently hoping that both of our guts were wrong.
