The second victim, Merrilee Trask, was shot while calling in an abandoned car licence number. Different precinct, opposite side of town, and their detectives began to pursue the same routine and proscribed course as their colleagues were following in the Santosa murder.
Until Ballistics paired the bullets.
The two precincts liaised, gingerly at first, co-ordinating their investigations and pooling information. What was the link between Santosa, a good-looking bachelor, and Trask, a divorced woman? The obvious connection – that they had been seeing one another off the job – was quickly discounted. Santosa had a steady girlfriend, and the two victims had never met.
And then the killer hit again. Third victim, Sandy Randolph, was shot while returning from investigating an arson report. His partner had been hurt when their car went off the road and hit a telephone pole, and so had not been able to pursue the killer, who had fired from a passing car.
Randolph was nearly thirty, black, had been married a year, and was about to leave the uniformed branch and train in computers with an eye to either working with them or teaching trainee cops to do so. He liked police theory, but not street work.
Yet another precinct, yet another professional ‘family’ involved. Although this killing had been done with a handgun – the first two had been rifles – there was a general agreement that the three might be connected. They all seemed to be motiveless murders, all were head shots, all cops.
The case was turned over to Central Homicide.
The task that faced them was monumental. That there was a common killer seemed probable. But was he killing at random, or was there a deeper reason behind the murders?
If it was random, there was nothing to be done but increase their vigilance, follow up all the tips and rumours that came in, check out gun shops for new or unusual sales of weapons or ammunition, go over files of known cop-haters and other assorted psychos.
And wonder about all the others that weren’t on the files.
If, on the other hand, there was some motivating factor, some pattern to the killings, what was it and where could they find it? Where could they begin to find it? All they had to work with were the victims themselves. They put the computer to work, looking for an answer. It came up with thousands of possibilities. Each one had to be followed up. There were only so many officers in the Department. As many as could be spared were put to work checking out the leads the computer threw out, which left the rest to keep up with the day-to-day work that faced them whether they were being shot at or not. Of course, in the interest of public safety and to avoid private anguish, they would have liked to keep all this activity to themselves.
Unfortunately for the Department, police reporters are not deaf and they are certainly not dumb. The minute the papers put it together and began screaming ‘Cop-killer’, the already over-stretched Departmental ranks began to waver and wane.
Randolph’s partner, Frank Richmond, had been severely shocked by having his partner’s head blown apart while they were driving quietly down the street, and had quit the force shortly after leaving hospital.
He was not the first.
Those in the Department who had been uncertain of their vocation suddenly became terribly interested in selling real estate, taking up plumbing, going back to school to study law, agriculture, or applied art. Even old hands, good hands, found themselves whistling in the dark, looking over their shoulders, and watching the high places.
Those civilians who had been toying with the idea of joining the police decided maybe something else, such as sky-diving or professional football, would be the safer alternative.
The reason for the growing panic was simple, and had little to do with closing ranks or seeking revenge. It had to do with simple logic.
A person who would kill a cop respects no-one.
A person who would kill a cop would kill anyone.
Anyone.
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Paula Gosling
Paula Gosling was born in Detroit and moved to England in 1964, where she has lived ever since. She worked as a copywriter and a freelance copy consultant before becoming a full time writer in 1979. Since then she has published close to twenty novels and has served as the Crime Writers’ Association Chairman. Her debut novel, A Running Duck, won the John Creasey Award and has been adapted into the films Cobra, starring Sylvester Stallone, and Fair Game, starring Cindy Crawford. The first novel in her popular Jack Stryker Series, A Monkey Puzzle, also won the Golden Dagger award for the best crime novel of 1985.
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First published 1985 by Macmillan
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Copyright © Paula Gosling 1985
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