Captain Fisher's door flew open.
"Briefing in five!" he barked, voice cutting through the noise like a whip. "Everyone, in the room now!"
The LBPD had been thrown into pandemonium since news bearing the demise of Sergeant Milton Cass, filtered in around seven in the morning. He was found by some young nightlifers returning from one of the night clubs in the district. The worst part, it had already made the headlines! Captain Fisher would be distraught. It meant the department under his watch was not doing its job.
Rosy walked into the news anchor's voice this morning as it floated over from the recently mounted Plasma TV on the peeling grey walls : "…found dead in his vehicle on the A6 bypass late last night. Unverified sources confirm the word 'Helen' was written on the car window, suggesting a possible link to the death of Officer Grant Jones two weeks ago…"
Rosy stopped for a couple of minutes, staring at the screen, her face covered with shock. Milton Cass' photo filled the frame, frozen; a face that reminded her of freshly embalmed Egyptian Mummies.
She remembered the voice she heard as she left Captain Fisher's office last week. Don't give up yet.
The voice was right. She'd heard about the Holy Spirit speaking to people and had earnestly prayed for such experience too. She'd started hearing scriptures pop up in her heart with little assurances and instructions like this one. She needed to come to a decision. She was going to yield totally to it and quit struggling whether it was her mind playing a fast one on her.
For her, this was the nightmare scenario: a second dead cop in a space of two weeks and a killer who was suddenly the city's top headline.
Entering the debriefing room, Keane had saved a seat for her beside him. Captain Fisher stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, face like a carved stone by an amateur sculptor.
"Two officers!" he bellowed without preamble. "Two officers. Dead in less than a month. Both marked with the same name. Whoever she is, she's not just a threat. She's declaring war on this department!"
A low murmur rippled through the room. At this moment he caught Rosy's gaze and his eyes softened. Maybe if he'd allowed her to carry on with the investigation, things might not have escalated to this point. Helen or whoever she was, would have been on her heels.
He held up a hand. "We are treating this as our top priority. Lawson. Butland. You're already leading this. You find this woman before she kills another one of us."
Rosy nodded sharply, her lips curled upwards in that way that showed she was still processing all she'd just heard. "We'll need overtime clearance and a dedicated team—"
"You'll get it," Fisher said. "But understand this: the Chief Superintendent wants results. You must get me that woman if possible by the end of the week."
Rosy's spine stiffened. How possible was that? But that was Captain Fisher in his full hard driving element. "We'll have something, sir."
" I don't want something! I want Helen!"
Captain Fisher thundered, banging his fist on the table.
His gaze swept the room. It seemed as though a storm just passed from one end to the other.
" You all are dismissed."
The detectives spilled back into the main office, the noise level rising again. Phones rang, printers whirred, conversations overlapped. It was a storm of activity, everyone moving all at once in dizzying efficiency.
Rosy was back at her desk, hands folded across her chest, staring at her writings on the white board. This was like nothing she'd faced before. First of its kind: a serial killer in Luton Bay. Her victims, men that were supposed to protect the populace and hunt down criminals. Talk about the hunter becoming the hunted.
"Where do we start?" Keane asked, leaning on her desk.
"Cass' last 24 hours," she said without hesitation. "Every call, every stop, every CCTV camera he passed. We recreate his entire day."
"That'll take all week."
"Then we work through the night. We have a deadline, remember?"
" So can we say, we're dealing with a serial killer? It's been only two kills…"
"It's obvious from the pattern," Rosy said. "The precision, the name she leaves behind. It's all deliberate. She wants to be known. That's as serial as it gets."
Keane straightened and rubbed his palms together. " Let's get her then."
The office buzzed like a kicked beehive now, the kind of barely controlled chaos that came only when the entire department felt under siege.