Chris Carter - The Executioner

‘All this doesn’t really bother me… yet,’ the captain said, locking eyes with Hunter. ‘I don’t care if this reporter somehow managed to link both cases together. What we must, at any cost, keep from the press is the numbering on the victims. If the press gets hold of that, we’re screwed. We’ll have a citywide panic on our hands. Not to mention the nuclear pressure to find the first two victims.’

‘They obviously don’t know anything about that,’ Garcia said, waving the paper in his hand. ‘Or else it would’ve made the headlines.’

‘And we’ll do our best to keep it that way,’ the captain countered. ‘I want this case completely sealed off. No one else is to have access to this room or the investigation files without you clearing it with me first. Is that understood?’

Captain Blake approached the corkboard and studied the new photographs. Hunter noticed she visibly flinched before falling back into her usual controlled demeanor. ‘Did the killer use blood again to draw the number?’ She pointed to one of the pictures.

‘Yes,’ Hunter replied, pushing his chair back with a scraping sound and standing up.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ the captain called ahead of Hunter and Garcia.

Ian Hopkins entered and was instantly surprised to see Captain Blake in the room.

‘Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were having a meeting.’

‘It’s OK,’ Hunter said, motioning him to stay.

Captain Blake turned to face Garcia with a questioning expression.

‘He’s OK.’ Garcia gently shook his head. ‘He’s the officer you assigned to us to help with the legwork, remember?’

‘I just came in to tell Detective Hunter that no one took down the Monica girl details,’ Hopkins said. ‘When the officer got to the interrogation room, she was gone.’

‘Monica?’ the captain asked, turning around. ‘Is this the girl who came in yesterday saying she had some information on the Seven Saints church murder?’

‘That’s her,’ Garcia replied, leaning against his desk.

‘So what came of that?’

‘We had just started talking to her when we were told about the new victim.’ Hunter joined the captain by the photo board. ‘She never got a chance to tell us what she came here to tell us.’

‘Was she at the church? Did she see anything?’ The captain’s interest grew.

‘No to the first and in a way to the second,’ Garcia replied, scratching his chin.

‘And what the fuck does that mean?’

‘She wasn’t at the church,’ Hunter said calmly. ‘All she told us is that she had a vision.’

The captain’s posture tensed. ‘Hold on,’ she said firmly, lifting her right hand. ‘She came in claiming she was psychic?’

‘Not as far as we know,’ Hunter replied.

The captain stared around the room and came to rest on Garcia. ‘Somebody better tell me something.’

‘According to the officer who first talked to her, she didn’t say anything about being a psychic or having any visions. She claimed she had some information, but she’d only talk to the detectives in charge.’

The captain took a packet of mints out of her dark blazer’s breast pocket and popped one in her mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’ She turned to Hunter. ‘But if she is a crackpot claiming she’s psychic, why are we after her?’

‘She’s not a psychic, captain,’ Hunter said cautiously. ‘She seems to feel things deeper than most people.’

‘She what?’ The captain almost choked on her mint.

‘Extrasensory perception.’ Hunter didn’t hesitate.

‘Please tell me you’re joking,’ she shot back. Her hands on her hips. Her voice half an octave higher.

‘I’m as skeptical about this as you are, captain,’ Hunter replied, ‘but the fact is, whether we believe it or not, people with ESP do exist.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Robert.’ The captain crushed her mint with a loud crunch. ‘We’re not the supernatural freaking police. The press is already out in force to get us, and so is the mayor. We are under severe pressure. Now imagine what would happen if they found out we enlisted the help of a psychic. How incompetent would we look?’

‘I’m not enlisting anyone’s help, captain. I just wanna talk to her. Find out what she has to say. If it all turns out to be bullshit, we’ll disregard it like we’ve done with one hundred percent of the tips that have come in so far.’

She popped a new mint in her mouth and rolled it from one cheek to the other. ‘What makes you think she’s the real deal?’

Hunter stood behind his chair and leaned his elbows against it. ‘As I was rushing out of the interrogation room yesterday, she stopped me to tell me something.’ He looked at Garcia. ‘You’d already left.’

‘And what was that?’

Hunter paused for a moment. ‘She said, “He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her.”’

The room went silent and all eyes fell on Hunter.

‘It couldn’t have been a guess.’ He shook his head and moved from behind his desk. ‘But at that moment I had no idea what she was talking about.’

‘Maybe she’s using this hyper-sensitivity thing as a smokescreen,’ the captain said. ‘Maybe she’s more involved than she’d like us to believe.’

‘Whatever the reason is, I think we should talk to her.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Hopkins interrupted, ‘as I’ve said, no one got her details. She left no last name, address or phone number at the front desk.’

‘Yes, but we have CCTV in the interrogation room.’ Hunter nodded at Hopkins. ‘Ask the tech guys to get a snapshot of her from the tape and run it against the MUPU database.’

‘The Missing Persons database?’ Hopkins asked, looking puzzled.

‘I have a hunch she’s a runaway. Start the search with Pennsylvania.’

‘Why Pennsylvania?’ the captain asked.

‘She had a slight Pennsylvania Dutch accent. I think that’ll be the best place to start.’

‘I’ll get right on it.’

The captain waited for Hopkins to leave before turning to face both detectives. ‘If you find her, you bring her here, do you understand?’ she said firmly. ‘This has to run by the book, Robert. If she has information about any of our investigations, psychic crap or not, she has to be interviewed under caution and I wanna be in the observation room. Am I clear?’

Hunter nodded.

‘Am I clear, detective?’ She pressed him for a vocal answer.

‘Yes, captain.’ Hunter didn’t break eye contact.

‘OK.’ She furtively checked her watch. ‘Brief me on what we have so far on this Amanda Reilly.’

Hunter quickly explained what the autopsy had revealed.

‘The killer took a bite out of her body?’ the captain asked, feeling a wave of nausea starting to surge.

‘The doctor found indentations just under her right breast.’ Hunter retrieved a photograph from a paper envelope and handed it to Captain Blake. ‘A small chunk of flesh is clearly missing.’ He indicated what he meant on the picture. ‘Due to the state the body is in, it’ll be impossible to confirm the teeth marks, but the doctor is as certain as he can be.’

‘This is insane,’ the captain responded, rubbing her face.

‘It’s one of the very few things that’s consistent with the Seven Saints church murder,’ Hunter replied. ‘The killer drank some of the priest’s blood and now it looks like he ate some of Amanda Reilly’s flesh.’

‘Why?’ Captain Blake asked with a disgusted look. ‘Why would the killer do that?’

Hunter massaged his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. ‘History and textbooks will tell you that the most common reason why a killer would consume his victims’ flesh or blood is because he feels that by doing so the victims become a permanent part of him. Sometimes it gives the killer a sick sense of sexual pleasure.’