“Do you even know who it is?”
I reach the steps to the entrance door and turn towards the newscasters. “As soon as we feel that it is safe and in the best interest of the public, we will inform you of what we know.”
I walk into the station and their pandemonium fades as the doors swing shut. Tobias sits as his desk, rubbing his temple.
“Why don’t they ever believe that we are withholding information for their own safety and sanity?” he asks.
“I blame Watergate,” I say.
“Of course you do.”
“Has anyone looked at the airport surveillance?” I ask.
“I did,” he says. “I spent all night looking at it. There is someone who steals a black suitcase while the bags are being transported into the plane.”
“Someone steals a suitcase on the runway and no one cares?” I ask.
“Well, he was dressed as the baggage handler,” he says. “In the video, it shows our robber—possibly the killer—wheeling the cart out toward the plane; he takes the suitcase off and walks away with it. Twelve seconds later, the real baggage handler runs out.”
“Since you’re telling me all this, I’m guessing you didn’t figure out who it was from the footage.”
“Nope,” he says. “His face is mostly covered with a scarf, he’s turned away from the camera the whole time, and the footage is shitty. I scoured through the footage of every other place in the airport, but I don’t see anyone that I could definitely say was him. The only new bit of information we have is that this person was around 5’10”, and that’s not a definite. It’s hard to tell when the only comparison you have is an airplane.”
“Did you question the real baggage handler? How did this guy get the cart without the baggage handler noticing?”
“Apparently, our baggage handler likes to smoke and he was forbidden to smoke near the bags, so he was smoking at a different exit,” he says. I shake my head.
“This guy thought of everything.”
“He knows how to use people to his advantage. I mean, the package at the Greyhound bus station and now an airport? Next it’s going to be at a casino,” he says. His phone rings. He picks it up. “Hello? Yes, it is. Okay…do we know who it is?…Alright. Thank you. I’ll be down there in half an hour.”
He hangs up.
“There’s a dead body under the Monument to Joe Louis,” he says. “The dispatcher said that the woman who found him thought it might be a homeless guy.”
“You want to investigate a homeless guy?” I ask.
“Sometimes a man needs some good old-fashioned murder,” he says. “I can’t keep chasing my tail with the PVP killer without needing a break sometimes.”
“Good old-fashioned murder,” I repeat. “That’s what you consider a break?”
“I take my breaks where I can get them,” he says. He grabs my coat and shoves it into my arms. “Let’s go. We both need this.”
~~~~~
The body under the Monument to Joe Louis—a fist suspended by a pyramidal formation—is draped by newspapers. Tobias reaches the body first. He lists the first newspaper off the man’s face and I see his body stiffen.
“What?” I ask. I walk up closer to the body. It is not a homeless man. It’s Captain Ray Stewart.
Tobias begins to wad up the newspaper in a frenzied rage, but I yank them out of his hands.
“Wait,” I say. “Look.”
Letters are cut into the newspaper. I spread it out to find a message: 1 life lost. 2 left.
“It’s the PVP killer,” I say. “This is retribution for failing at his game.”
A stream of profanity leaves Tobias’ mouth. He punches the steel frame of the monument so hard that I’m sure he must have broken his knuckles, but he only continues to curse.
I look over Ray’s body. There’s a single gunshot wound right where his heart is. I sit next to his body, cradle my head in my hands, and let the weight of the moment crash down on me.
Tobias
WHEN LAUREN AND I arrive at work the day after Captain Ray Stewart’s funeral, Jasmine is sitting on the stairway with a box on her lap. The box is wrapped up in Sunday morning comics. She looks like a child more than ever with her eyes wide with fear, but her mouth is pinched closed with defiance.
“Well, it looks like your serial killer knows about me now,” she says. She holds the box out to Lauren. It has Lauren’s name and the police station’s address without a return address, like the CD-ROM envelope. Lauren carefully takes it, her fingertips barely touching it in order to not contaminate it with her fingerprints. Jasmine says pointedly, “No thanks to you.”
“Jasmine, he already knew about you,” Lauren says. “But I’m sorry you’re mixed up in this. How did you get this box?”
“I got a note,” she says. “It told me to go to the—”
“Greyhound station,” I interrupt. “You were blackmailed?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Is that what happened to the other guy? Are you guys just giving this serial killer people to harass?”
“No, Jasmine,” I say. I get out my cellphone. “I should call in a forensic analyst.”
“You really think he chose to leave fingerprints this time?” Lauren asks. I shake my head.
“No, but I’m going to have the analyst check under every piece of tape and every crease on this box,” I say. The forensic analyst—Jared Lambert—answers, half-awake. I tell him to get down to the police station, and hang up before he can answer.
“It’s okay, Jasmine,” Lauren says as Jasmine nibbles on her thumbnail. “This killer hasn’t hurt any of his contacts. It’s rare for a serial killer to do that. You’re the way he contacts the police without getting caught—he wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I don’t want to be controlled by anybody,” Jasmine says. She shakes her head. I could imagine this girl being my daughter or a younger sister. I shake the thought from my head. I can’t get attached. Lauren is already pulling more money out of her wallet—nearly twice as much as last time.
“Do you not use a bank?” I ask. “How are you not robbed on a daily basis?”
“Because I own a gun and a badge,” she says.
“Have you ever shot someone?” Jasmine asks.
“No,” Lauren admits.
“Well, shoot whoever this guy is,” she says. Lauren hands her the money.
“Get a nice hotel. One with a doorman,” Lauren says. Jasmine nods.
“Thanks,” she says. “Maybe the police aren’t so bad.”
“Good cop, bad cop,” Lauren says, pointing to herself and then at me. I shove my hand in my pockets. I can’t deny that analysis. Jasmine walks away from both of us. Lauren looks down at the box.
“That’s too big to be another video,” she says.
“I know,” I say. I sit down next to the box.
“What do you think it is?” she asks.
“Something irritating,” I say. “Mixed with a bit of the killer’s sexual frustration.”
“That sounds Freudian,” she says. I groan.
“Great. Not only is this guy killing people, he’s turning me into a psychologist.”
Then, the box begins ticking.
~~~~~
Lauren
THE BOMB SQUAD was able to scan the box and find that it was not an explosive. The forensic analyst didn’t find any fingerprints, so Tobias and I are finally back at the desk with the box.
“How certain are we that this isn’t a bomb?” I ask.
“I never had much faith in the bomb squad, but why would the killer blow us up? Then he would have no one to play his games with,” he says. “And, clearly, he likes you.”
Tobias begins to slowly unwrap the box, each comic strip getting ripped in half by his fingers. He opens the cardboard box with a pair of scissors and flips it open.
“It’s…one of those Chinese lucky cats,” he says. He takes it out. The plastic cat’s upright arm ticks back and forth.
“They’re Japanese
,” I say.
“Well, I’ve seen them at Chinese food restaurants,” he says. “So, it’s Chinese to me.”
“They’re meant to bring luck to businesses,” I say. I flip it over to check the back of it and find that the back of the cat is missing. A piece of paper is tucked into it. I take it out and unfold it.
There’s a bed with pale blue sheets. A woman with light brown hair, wearing a white tank top and plaid boxers, lies on the bed. On the bottom of the drawing, a typed note states: I do more than take photos. Maybe you can put this cat in the police station for luck.
“I told you he likes you,” Tobias says. He notices the blood has drained from my face. “What? I don’t see how this is different from the video. He’s trying to freak you out with his crazy fantasies.”
“This isn’t a fantasy.” I bite my lip. “That’s my bed. And those are my pajamas. He’s seen me in my bed. This means he knows where I live and which apartment I live in. He knows where my bedroom is.”
Tobias grabs the drawing and his eyes scan it. There isn’t lust in his eyes—only determination and anger.
“You need to go into protective custody,” he says. I shake my head.
“No, you were right before. He’s just trying to freak me out,” I say. “It’s nothing. He’s pushing back since he knows that we’re getting closer to figuring out who he is.”
“He knows where you live,” Tobias says. “He knows what you look like when you sleep. This is a guy who sent over a cartoon version of the two of you involved in intercourse.”
“He doesn’t have the right profile to be someone who would attack—”
“Fuck your profile,” he snaps, standing up. “You don’t risk your life like this.”
“I would risk my life if it got him caught,” I say. “But I really don’t think I’m risking anything. He’s not that brave. He kills people to feel powerful, but in the end…he’s scared. He isn’t willing to confront people unless he has a gun or a knife in his hand.”
“You’re not going back to your apartment,” he says.
“Where am I going then?” I ask. “To a hotel, like Jasmine?”
“No,” he says. “That’s not safe either. You can…you can stay in my apartment. It has a great security system and I’ll be there. Two people will be able to protect each other better than one person by themselves.”
“I’m not going to stay at your apartment,” I say. He taps his pen against his desk.
“You stay at my apartment or I’ll tell the rest of the station about this,” he says. “And you know that they will insist on a protective detail.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “This is coming from the man who didn’t want me as his partner?”
“I didn’t want you as my partner,” he says. “But I’m not cruel enough to want you dead.”
He picks up his telephone and begins to dial.
“Who are you calling?” I ask.
“As much as I hate it…the FBI needs to get involved,” he says. “They may be sanctimonious pricks, but they have better tools to use.”
He keeps his eyes on the drawing of me as his free hand curls up into a fist.
~~~~~
Tobias
“THAT IS SO COOL,” Lauren says as an FBI agent shows her their biometric technology—the kind of tools that can categorize a whole population by their habits, such as the way they walk, or by their physiological factors, such as the veins in a person’s hand or their irises.
“A computer can’t do the same thing as a human mind,” I say. “It can’t think on its own.”
“No, it can’t,” the FBI agent says. He told me his name, but I’m doing my best to ignore him. I hate his FBI coat, his neatly combed blond hair, and the way he leans back into his chair as if we were looking up what kind of pizza to order. He types something into his laptop. “But if we type in the amount of people who regularly buy video games, those who get newspapers delivered to their house, and those who match Miss Williams’ profile of the killer, it can whittle down the suspect pool.”
I glance over Lauren’s shoulder as the computer searches through the world’s private information.
“The killer could have bought the newspaper off the street,” I say. “Which means that part of the information could throw the whole search off.”
The FBI agent shrugs. “Well, if we go through the new suspect pool and nobody in it is the killer, then we can take that off the specifications.”
“And by we you mean the FBI,” I say. He smirks.
“What can I say? You don’t trust us to do the job right and we don’t trust you to do it at all.”
I leave the police station’s break room that the FBI has set up in and go to my desk. I lean back in my chair, then remember the FBI agent’s casual behavior, and sit up straight. Lauren walks up to my desk.
“It’s almost seven,” she says. “Should we…go to my apartment to pick up my things and then go to your apartment?”
I glare over at the break room. “I shouldn’t have called them.”
“Well, they don’t like you either,” she says. “He told me that you’re a jerk.”
“Really?”
“No.”
I laugh. She holds out her hand to me and I take it. She helps me to my feet and we walk together.
“Do you really think their stuff is cool?” I ask as we step into the elevator.
“Almost as cool as the human mind,” she says. I press the button for the first floor and feel my whole body lurch as we begin to move. Even as we walk out of the station, my heart continues to pound hard in my chest and it takes me a moment to recognize what I’m feeling is excitement and hope.
~~~~~
The air is beginning to get cold, with the crisp scent of autumn leaves wafting through the air. Usually, I would be annoyed by the drop in temperature, but today it feels refreshing. It makes me think of the phrase “turning over a new leaf” or how your life can be divided into different seasons. It’s just strange to think how my life has been the desolate wasteland of winter and now it’s switching over to autumn, where everything feels so…serene and leisurely. It feels easy when I’m next to Lauren. My life seasons are messed up, but I suppose that’s fitting.
Lauren picks a red leaf off a maple tree.
“My mom used to keep pressed flowers and leaves,” she says. “I found it a bit strange because all they do is die, but now that I’m older…I can see why someone would want to preserve beauty.”
“Your mom seems like she was a good woman,” I say, kicking some leaves on the sidewalk.
“She was,” Lauren says. “She was the kind of mother other mothers aspired to be. She baked a different kind of cookie every week, put notes in my lunch pal, and she kissed me every night before I went to sleep.”
“That sounds like a nice way to end the evening,” I say. I flush. “I don’t mean kissing you. I mean…I just meant having your mother kiss you good night. I wasn’t trying to be…you know…I wasn’t flirting—”
“Tobias, it’s fine,” she says, a small smirk on her lips. “I get it. This is my apartment.”
She gestures to a brownstone. It’s beautiful, with caramel brown walls and red carnations in the window boxes.
“I’ll just wait down here,” I tell her.
“Tobias…it’s going to take me at least twenty minutes to pack,” she says. “And you shouldn’t wait outside an apartment for that long—one of my neighbors will definitely call the police and tell them that I have a stalker.”
“You do have a stalker.”
“…who kills people for fun,” she says. “So, it’s better if you come inside.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she grabs my hand and drags me up to the door. She unlocks it. We rush up to her apartment with our fingers interlocked. She lets go of my hand as we walk in. I lock the door and turn around to see a room that can only be described as cozy. The furniture is plush, it’s clean without being too neat, and the colors are a m
ixture of earthy and pastel.
Lauren goes into a different room. I take a few steps sideways to get a peek of where she went. I see a twin-sized bed with blue sheets. I remember the drawing that the killer made, and picture her sleeping there in her white tank top and plaid boxers. I can’t help but despise the PVP killer for spying on her…for seeing her in such a vulnerable state. At the same time, I feel the urge to see her in the same way. I want to know how she looks when she falls asleep and the way she looks as she wakes up. I want her to be the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning.
I shake my head. This is my partner. The extreme factors in this investigation are messing with my head.
“Do you need help?” I call out to her.
“No,” she yells back. I hear something crash to the ground.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “It was just…everything in my closet.”
I walk into her room. An avalanche of clothes and shoes are strewn out of her closet. She’s hurriedly picking everything up and throwing it back. I pick up a hanger and slide a ruby red dress onto it. She blushes.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’ve been so busy lately that I just throw everything in here when it’s in the way.”
I shrug. “It’s better than my apartment. I pretty much only sleep there, so it’s mostly empty.”
“Maybe I can fill it up,” she jokes. I smile. I think she could fill up a lot of my life.
~~~~~
Lauren
TOBIAS’ APARTMENT REMINDS me of an old warehouse with a lot of empty space and where everything is made of metal. When I walk into the apartment, the first thing I see is a dining room, except it looks a lot like the interrogation room with only one chair.
“Where do your friends sit when they come over for dinner?” I ask, setting my suitcase down.
“I don’t bring friends over,” he says. He grabs two beers from his kitchen. “Actually…I don’t think I really have friends. Occasionally, I’ll go to the bar with one of the other detectives, but…I don’t even like them.”
Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance Page 6