Chapter 16
Of Strange Moon Rising
Previously: Tristian survives the fire. Riley survives Greg’s interrogation.
Riley trudged into the station at five after seven. The only light in the building leaked from the chief’s door. She nudged it open and startled Ross with a, “Morning.”
“The hell are you doing here so early?” His hair stuck up like he’d been running his hands through it. Had he gone straight to the station from the arson?
“I’m scheduled.”
“I should’ve let you know to come in late. How many hours of sleep you get? Two?”
“Two, maybe three, but I came prepared.” She held up her half empty twenty-eight ounce thermos of coffee. “Who’s on patrol? Me?” Riley leaned against the door-jam, hoping he’d say no.
“Kellen’s pulling a double patrol for everyone who worked the fire—you just missed him.”
Thank Morpheus. “The Logans?”
“Andy should be home sleeping, but knowing him, he’s already working with Tony on the arson. You already know Greg’s appointed himself a one-man protective detail for Kozlovsky. I’m sure he’s mother-henning him to death, but he’ll have to deal. What are the odds Tristian was targeted for a reason unrelated to the Doe’s murder?”
“Slim.” The guilty signature she’d picked up last night still spun her head. Riley wondered what Ross would make of it. He’d have to get past the ‘knew-Tristian-was-going-to-die’ thing to help her suss it out.
“I’d like to know how Tristian came to be on the killer’s radar.”
Riley pursed her lips to keep in a wry laugh. She was more concerned with the killer pinging off her own radar, and how she could use this new-found sensitivity to speed up the closing of the case. “We know Tristian can’t remember anything significant, but the threat he might could be too much of a risk. His truck is easily recognizable. He’d parked it in front of his motel room that night.”
Ross nodded and rubbed at his bloodshot eyes. “A potential lose end. Good thing Greg’s shadowing him. No one will get close enough to Tristian to try again.”
“I believe it. What would you like me to work on?” Riley tried for cheerful.
He took in her dark circles, messy braid, and rapid blinks. “You have furthers from Cincinnati you need to take care of?”
“A couple.”
He waved her back to her desk. “Do those.”
Not an hour later, Ross approached. “Forensics sent over fingerprint results and fiber analysis.”
“On a Sunday?” Riley took the freshly printed sheets and thumbed through the reports.
“The regional lab might serve multiple counties, but they get less evidence traffic than urban labs.” Ross snagged Greg’s chair. “I also might’ve put in a call for a rush-job due to the severity of the case.”
The few fingerprints they’d collected matched the samples from John Doe, who’s prints, in turn, failed to match in any database. Typical. Most of the fibrous evidence had been rubber stamped ‘corrupt sample’ due to conflicting markers of human and caninae genetic material. The rest were unremarkable synthetics found in the average motel room. “Shit.”
“Shit,” he echoed.
She let the packet drop to her desk. “Did you get the email I forwarded? Officer Ben Kipts’ statement?”
“That it was staged to look like a wolf attack? Yeah. It’s a possibility.” His voice echoed with the overlapping discordant tones of a lie.
Riley hesitated, thermos lifted halfway to her mouth. She sipped and eyed him over the stainless steel rim. “You don’t buy it? The fibrous evidence seems to corroborate.”
Ross shrugged. “I have a hard time believing someone would go through that kind of trouble just to throw us off.”
That rang true. “Maybe it’s related to motive?”
“Could be.” He tipped his head back. No answers were painted on the ceiling. Riley’d checked. “Should take a few more days to get DNA evidence back on the Doe and the swabs. I’d feel better about debating motive with an ID and the reason he was in Woodrun.”
Riley made a vague noise of agreement.
“We’ve still got some trees to shake. Andy’s been hunting down more CCTV, checking missing persons daily. Doe’s suitcase wasn’t full of business attire, hiking, or hunting gear—the two most likely reasons for a stranger in town—so we can rule those avenues out. If we get nothing back from the blood evidence, we’ll be stalled. I don’t have any good ideas left.”
Riley turned away when his last statement warbled like a half-truth, too tired to mask her expression and the twitch developing under her left eye. She shouldn’t push. “How about a half-bad idea?” Damn it.
Ross chuckled. “Yeah, one or two.”
“Anything I can help with?” Jesus, she just couldn’t help herself.
After a moment, he said, “Let’s wait on the blood evidence.” He stood and stretched. “We’re bound to get something workable from that.”
Riley’s expression plasticized as the lie rang through her head like a gong. “Sure.” If it came out strangled, Ross didn’t seem to notice.
“Get those furthers done. I don’t want your old chief breathing down my neck. I need to hound Rasmussen to get his in, as it is.” He returned to his office.
Her tired brain compiled a list of possible reasons for why Ross believed the evidence wouldn’t pan out. Riley couldn’t ask clarifying questions without raising suspicion. Worse, she couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer for her own peace of mind. The cursor on her computer screen blinked accusingly. “Yes, thank you, I’m aware I did this to myself,” she muttered to it.
Obligatory Legal Stuff:
This chapter is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidences are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, locals, and events are coincidental.
No generative AI used. No AI training or scraping allowed.
All rights reserved.
Chapter Title Image created in Canva. Background image from Canva Pro.