A Journey Begun - Chapter 2 - The Daily Grind
#5 of Saga the First - Book One - A Journey Begun
Bam! Chapter 2! We've only just started, folks!
A few more days and it's back to work. In the time that I spent on sick leave, I've been busy practicing how to control my newfound powers. As it turns out, not only can I freeze things on a whim, I'm also faster, stronger, more agile and quicker than a normal person. In addition, I have all the senses that a wolf would have; enhanced smell and hearing, better vision and a hunter's instinct. Frankly I'm not surprised, but I am worried that one day this facade's gonna crumble like an old building, exposing the weary, scared and fearful me within. But I have to suck it up, I'm a detective. I'm a man. This isn't going to stop me.
I step back into the station and gather the usual looks and greetings from my buddies. They're happy to see me back, and frankly so am I. Riggs is right there, with two cups of coffee and the day's reports, just like we always do.
Damn, it feels good to be back in a routine.
We take stock of the day's activities and I decide to go head a small takedown op on a gambling den downtown. DiMaggio money has apparently been put into the place, and another chance to work with Organised Crimes is always a plus. Sadly the op is really a small one, limited to me and Riggs, but we suit up anyway and an officer takes us to the place, a grungy part of town that reeks of crime and dirty money. The den is underneath a nearby pub, says the officer as he pulls over to let us out, but I'm barely listening. My eyes are glued to the place, trying to figure out where this den could be hidden. It's under the pub, he said, but where could the entrance be, and could there be a back exit?
Riggs and I alight from the car, but I stop before we move on. I turn back to the officer in his squad car.
"Hey man, d'you think you could go one round around the block for us? I have a feeling that this place has a back door, and if you find it, I want you stationed there. If it's in an alley, block one of the exits with your car and guard the other side. Me and my partner here are gonna wait on you before we make the hit."
The officer, a young man with bright brown eyes, nods and peels away, disappearing round the corner after a few seconds. Riggs and I amble up to the entrance of the watering hole and take stock, pretending to wait outside for a friend. He peeks inside as he paces by the window and returns to me.
"Couple a guys, nothing more. Don't think most of them are on anyone's payroll though. We could just blend in."
"Yeah. But we don't have anyone inside. Could be problematic. One wrong move and we're done."
"Good point. But it's still worth a shot though."
I nodded in agreement. Just then the officer radioed in. There was indeed a back door, he had blocked off the exit with his car and was currently positioned at the other end of the alley.
"Good man. Stay there, report anything suspicious. Stay hidden. Good luck."
The officer signed out and I gave Riggs a thumbs up. Together we went inside.
The establishment was small, quaint, but filled with men drowning their problems in Jack and Guinness. A soccer match was on a TV in the corner, but no one paid it any mind. Me and Riggs went up to the bar all smooth like. He grabs a beer and goes to one side to act casual, while I sit at the bar. The barkeep is a burly man, tall and thick, hired more to look tough than to mix complicated drinks. I stare him in the eye and he stares back, unfazed.
"Say, good sir, you wouldn't happen to know where a man could spend some...excess cash now, would you? I happen to have a bit...extra, and I'm feeling lucky today."
I give him a little peek at the wad of fifties in my chest pocket. He raises a thick eyebrow and points behind him with a meaty thumb. I follow it with my eyes and spot a door behind the bar, hidden in an alcove. I go over to Riggs and lean in close.
"Keep the bar covered. I'm going in."
He simply nods and resumes drinking. I turn around and head down the short hallway, giving the bartender a brief nod. Outside the door I can hear the clinking of poker chips and the shuffling of cards. I push open the door to find a single table, dominated by three mean looking individuals at the table and one more in the corner of the room. They all stared at me and I stared back. I took out a fifty from my pocket and one of them pulled out a chair for me. I nodded and took a seat, while the banker gave me a single green chip and a set of cards. 50 bucks. A bad hand.
Well, time to make the most of it.
Five hands in and I'm up three hundred but wanting to leave. This is not what I came here for. I came here to bust some heads and get some arrests. Time to get this in motion. With another bad hand, I decide to play the dumb newbie and go all in. I get beaten, as I thought, and the pot goes to the guy on my left. He smirks as he scoops up the chips and I scowl in return as I stand up and make to leave. I hesitate. The men behind me freeze. I walk back to the table slowly, reaching into my jacket. The guard in the corner does the same.
I reach the table.
Everyone's not moving.
The guard is right in the corner, glaring right at me.
I place my badge on the table, right in the centre.
"Mind if I play one more game with this, gents?"
He pulls a gun.
Too slow.
Everything goes into slow motion.
My foot goes up and flips the table over as he fires a salvo. The tiny bullets don't punch through the thick poker table, as I suspected. I duck as the table comes down, avoiding the Uzi that spits fire at me.
The table lands on its side.
I hear a click from the other side of the room.
I stand.
He's on the other side, reloading his gun.
My leg shoots out and punts the table forward.
It smashes the goon square in the chest and lays him out cold.
My senses catch up to me.
The three men around me are stunned, not moving. All around me are poker chips, wood splinters and broken glass. I spot my badge amidst the carnage. I stroll over, pick it up and dust it off.
"Anyone else?"
They all shake their heads.
"Good."
I radio in to Riggs and the other officer, confirm my safety and the capture of our suspects. I start cuffing and searching the detainees as Riggs comes in to survey the damage. He secures the Uzi and cuffs our last perp. After I cable tie the last one, he taps me on the shoulder. He's got a big smile on his face as I turn to look at him.
"Nice work, Daniel, though I swear you're a lot faster now. How long did that take, couple of seconds?"
"Yeah, a couple."
I never did explain to him how I felt like I should've died back there. Guess that's the price you pay for being inhuman.
Couple weeks pass. Me and Riggs rack up quite the score. From busting more gambling dens to doing the simple things like tagging and cuffing dealers on the street, we make our presence known in our district. Slowly I see other cops in our department doing the same. They realise they can't slack off when the rookie's catching more bad guys than they are. So they get out there and make a difference too. Soon the Vice desks are loaded with major cases, and all our detectives and officers are weighed down with all of them. Life, though tough, is good.
Riggs and I have a bet going. Whoever catches the most perps by the end of the month buys the whole level lunch. So far we're even, though I suspect that's going to change. One fine day, chief calls us into the conference room. As we get seated, I see that Evelyn and a few of her team are there too. Then I spot some pretty hard faces and I realise that within this room sit three teams, and though the Crimes guys are badass, the ones sitting ahead of us are top of the lot.
Homicide. The team to end all else. The only crime team right now to dominate the scene when it came to high profile, newsworthy capers. Each and every detective there earned his desk by facing down some of the country's most crooked, twisted and evil killers. These guys weren't to be messed with, and I could tell right away that this thing was serious. Very serious. I sneak a glance at Evey and she shakes her head at me, while drawing a thumb across her throat. Suspicions confirmed. I turned back and gave my focus to the chief, who was starting up his briefing by bringing up a pretty gruesome scene. In the photo were two cop cars and four patrol officers. All of them were mutilated and torn up beyond recognition. In each corpse, there sat a knife, lodged in their chests. A grim calling card, if I ever saw one. Chief clicked the photo off and faced us.
"This just happened a few hours ago. Techs are still processing the scene, but we know we have a bloody killer on our hands. A cop killer. He's sending a message to us not to screw around with someone, but the question is who. That's where you guys come in. We need to find out who he's after and why. All the evidence we've recovered so far is in the files at your seats. Take 'em and read up. I expect a preliminary report in the next three hours. Tox and post mortems should be up shortly. Now get to work!"
With grumbles all around the team got up and dispersed from the room. I caught up with Riggs as we headed back to our desk.
"Shit man, a cop killer? This just got major serious."
"Well we have to keep ourselves together. This isn't the first cop killer you've handled, Riggs."
"Hell I ain't worried about myself, it's you I'm worried about man. Your first cop killer case and it has to be a nutjob."
"Well, I gotta start somewhere, right?"
Riggs sat down and looked me right in the eyes. I froze.
"Listen man, the last time I went up against a cop killer, some of my best friends ended up as casualties. This is deadly serious. This man is apparently a lunatic out for the blood of us blues, and if he happens to learn that there's a rookie here, your life's gonna be in a whole lotta danger, pal. And I don't want you to end up as another casualty. So this time it's serious business. No screwing around. Time to bring out our A game."
I nodded and returned to my laptop. All while I worked, thoughts swam in my head. My first cop killer case. Would I be a huge target? I had nothing to lose other than my life, so I had lots of motivation to nail this asshole down to the ground with six inch nails. Would many more officers die during the course of the investigation? Of course, death was a certainty, but all of us would strive to keep the casualty count to a minimum, even if it meant putting our lives on the line over the patrolmen who walked the sidewalks and roamed the streets. Would the killer receive justice?
Oh hell yes he will. He's not going to carve a bloody swath through the NYPD and not get hell for it. No sir. Not on my watch.
After three hours, the joint team gave the chief their reports. Ours was last, since we didn't have much to contribute in the first place. Vice doesn't exactly work many angles except for drugs, prostitution and illegal gambling, so it was hard for us to come up with anything short of a scandal so ridiculous that it was hard to believe. The other teams had better stuff to show anyway. Crimes linked the killer to a series of expensive payoffs made entirely with bank transactions, though they were still working on tracing who sent the money. Homicide gave their report, mostly using the lab results they got back. All the officers were apparently dead before they got cut up, so we had a slightly more human killer than we thought. The knife was a calling card, a miserable looking shiv made of a large glass shard wrapped with bandages on one end. Meant that our killer was a former prisoner with a keen liking to prison tools, according to them. We had less than a hunch and nothing to go on except our killer's MO. Chief wrapped up the brief meeting and told us to get back to work, as usual. The case was top priority, so it was all hands on deck for the both of us, not so much everyone else in Vice. I had my mind occupied trying to figure out what this bastard was up to, so I didn't notice when Riggs walked into the cubicle. He tapped me on the shoulder and I started a little in my chair.
"Jesus, warn me next time man."
"Sorry dude, I didn't know you were that lost in thought. Anyway, big news."
"What is it?"
"He's struck again. Recent."
I froze. My blood ran cold.
"Where?"
"Few blocks away, I'll take you there, c'mon!"
The scene was a grim one; two more squad cars had apparently gone silent earlier in the afternoon, but no one had paid any mind until they had spent roughly two hours without checking in once. When a third was sent to check on them, the two patrolmen that found the cars also got ambushed and slaughtered. Six more casualties and it wasn't even dinner time yet. The implications had everyone on edge. We arrived at the scene as the detectives from Homicide were leaving and the team from Crimes was packing up. I saw a dash of Evey's gold hair as she bundled herself into the team's SUV, then no more as the car peeled out from the alley. We parked and got out. The place was almost deserted, there were still a few techs around taking photos and looking for evidence, but we were the only detectives there. I approached one of the techs that was busy checking his camera.
"'Scuse me man, but who is the tech in charge of the scene?"
He pointed over to the furthest car, where a frumpy lady in a full protection suit was bent over one of the corpses. I nodded to Riggs and together we approached her. At our footsteps she stood up and faced us. Dark blue eyes, a face like a school teacher, wrinkled and worn by the graces of time, but with all the seriousness of a veteran in the industry. A camera hung on a strap around her neck and a messenger bag sat at her feet. She nodded to us and returned to her work on the body, a pair of tweezers in her hand as she gently prised some flesh samples from beneath his fingernails.
"I presume you two are the men from Vice?"
What struck me first was her accent. She wasn't local, oh no. British accented English, perfect to a T but gentle and motherly.
"Y-yes ma'am. We were, uh, told you were head of forensics?"
She gave me a glance.
"Yes I am, though as you can see I'm busy right now, but if you two gentlemen give me just a minute, I'll finish up here and we can all go back for some tea and scones while my helpers cart these poor young men back to the morgue."
Both of us exchanged glances and stood back, letting her do her work. Riggs gave me a look and muttered under his breath.
"Weird lady, man."
"I know, right?"
Just then she turned, apparently finished with her work. She dropped several glass vials into her bag and gave us a friendly smile.
"Alright gents, I'm finished. Now would one of you young men help this poor old lady to her car? My knees aren't what they used to be."
"You two arrived at the right time actually, I was looking for two good men to help me out here tonight. Oh dearie me, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm April Keyway, forensic anthropologist of roughly forty years and recently employed by the NYPD to help with their more serious cases."
She set the cups delicately down on the desk and filled them from a beautifully crafted teapot. Me and Riggs sat at her desk as she rummaged around for something. Everything about her office reminded me of my grandma's place, from the weird wallpaper to the fact that it smelled like tea, perfume and old people. I couldn't help but feel slightly amused that this little old lady was also the best forensic anthropologist in the region. I stole a glance at her desk. Papers were stacked neatly to one side of the old oak table, but what dominated everything was the jet black typewriter that sat in the center. A sheet of paper was already fed into it, and judging from the light, it seemed like she was halfway into typing something. Finally she returned with several packets of sugar and instant creamer.
"I'm not sure if you gents like your tea with any milk or sugar, so here you go! I'm sorry this place is in such a mess, I've had barely any time to unpack ever since I got here."
"It's alright, doctor Keyway."
"Please, sir, call me April. Being called doctor makes me feel so old."
She tittered and sat down at her desk. I glanced at Riggs and he rolled his eyes. I shrugged and returned my focus to the doctor. She had a pair of big spectacles on and was busily typing away at get typewriter.
"Oh, I'm sorry again, but I introduced myself but I never got your names. Must've slipped my mind during all the commotion."
She chuckled again.
"Well, April, I'm detective Daniel Anderson, and this is my partner Eddie Riggs. We're with the team that's heading the case you're on right now."
"Well pleasure to meet you, sirs Anderson and Riggs! Now please sit, I'm sure men like you have bad men to catch and all that, but my work here has produced some preliminary results."
She pulled a manila folder from her drawer and handed it to me. It was thick, full of writing and pictures. As I flipped through it, she stopped typing for a while to address us.
"I took the time while I was examining the area to send these preliminary samples back to the lab for processing. Blood, hair, the usual. And what I found was something odd. All of their blood results tested positive for blowfish poison. A rare find in today's world, but blowfish venom is a powerful paralytic agent, it causes muscle paralysis and numbing until the victim either suffocates on his own spit or his heart stops. Which leads me to believe that..."
My mind made the connection. I felt sick to my stomach from the implications. Riggs got to the same conclusion and voiced what I could not.
"...that these men might have been alive while they were cut up like sandwich meat?"
"Exactly, mister Riggs. Now, I'm no behavioural analyst or some such, but what I do know is that whoever did this must've savoured the deeds. And pure blowfish venom isn't easy to come by either. He must have some big connections or he harvested the venom himself. Which leads me to another conclusion, that..."
Another puzzle piece fell into place in my head and I beat Riggs to the punch.
"...this guy's being paid something big by someone just as big. Well we have general motive now; he's a paid killer, most likely with a long prison record, and right now he's being paid by someone to fuck with us."
"Oh my, dearie, watch your language, but yes, that would be my logical conclusion."
I stood and shook her hand.
"Thank you, April. I think we can finally take bigger steps in this investigation thanks to you."
"Oh it's my pleasure, besides I still have more results I'm waiting on, and I have to go conduct the autopsies as well. I'm sure you have to report this to your boss, so I'll leave you two to it then!"
She waved us goodbye as we left her office. Riggs glanced at me as we walked.
"She remind you of anyone?"
I smiled.
"Yeah, my grandma. Except she doesn't have a healthy interest in corpses and death."
"We suspect the work of a contract killer, chief."
I told him everything we gathered from our own thoughts and Doctor April's. He gave his approval and told us to make copies of all the relevant info and pass them on to Crimes and Homicide, so we did. I also advised Homicide to run a background search for known killers with the current MO, a prison record and a penchant for being paid to kill, so they did. I returned to Vice and got together a to-do list, the first item of which was to run a check on big money transfers in and out of Manhattan, so I did. Finally, we were taking steps in the right direction to catch this psycho. We were doing things right for once.
And it felt fucking amazing.