“WELCOME TO THE COLD CASE SQUAD.”
Glad for the welcome, Luke was distracted; something that had been happening to him all too frequently lately, he thought. But could he help it if events in his life seemed to collide and explode, showering contingencies in all directions?
He and Woody took a seat in a conference room in the federal building on Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach. A few other members of the new cold case task force were also there.
FBI Agent Todd Orson went over the squad’s mission statement. It was to review cold cases and close them, preferably with prosecution, but if prosecution was not possible, closure for families was the next-most-desirable outcome. A secondary objective was to help smaller jurisdictions with limited resources clear cold case backlogs.
Orson had said that there would be a change in the makeup of the squad. Just before he played a brief video welcome from Senator Harriet Shore, the woman behind the formation of the cold case task force, the door to the room opened and in walked Abby. Orson nodded to her as she took a seat, and then started the video. Luke was the only one besides Orson who knew why she was there.
On-screen, the petite redheaded senator began by saying, “I want to thank you all for stepping up to join this endeavor. I know firsthand how difficult it is to lose a loved one to violent crime. About the only thing worse than bearing up under that loss is knowing that the perpetrator of the crime still walks this world free.”
Luke agreed wholeheartedly and turned to see Abby nodding. He tuned out the rest of the introduction as Shore outlined the process by which money was appropriated for the squad.
When the video ended, Orson passed out some literature about information and records sources.
“Okay, people, right now we have the money and the mission. The best way to keep the money coming is to solve cases and put bad guys in jail.” He pointed to the whiteboard behind him, where he’d written, Success opens the money stream.
“You’ll find in the packet I gave you a little more information about how cases are chosen for investigation. Take a minute and look everything over.”
Luke noted Abby got the same packet and suppressed a smile as he skimmed over the paperwork. Law enforcement agencies were asked to submit digital summaries of cases to an office in DC, where a team of retired FBI agents would review them and send the ones deemed workable to Orson, who would in turn parcel them out to the appropriate investigative team.
“What’s the new dimension to this gig?” Luke asked, pretending ignorance and looking at Abby, who grinned. He felt an earthquake in his soul and chastised himself. He was dating Faye, and his relationship with Abby needed to stay where it was: professional.
“Figured you’d ask that, Bullet.” Orson smiled and jabbed a thumb in Abby’s direction. “The new dimension is this: the cold case squad is now a joint task force. This means we are forming each cold case task force with an agent, which would be me, and a sworn law enforcement officer. Detective Abby Hart will be working with the cold case task force. She’s been loaned to us from LBPD for a year. You guys know Abby,” he said to Luke and Woody. He then introduced her to rest of the team.
“Think you mugs can take orders from such an accomplished detective?”
“You bet,” Luke said, keeping his expression neutral. He knew that this job, with the reopening of the Triple Seven case, would allow Abby more freedom to peel away the layers protecting Alyssa Rollins. And Luke was the optimist, confident that they would ferret out something new and substantial.
But a question haunted him. If they did find everything they were looking for, and Alyssa was finally behind bars, would Abby walk out of his life forever?