She needed the extra time to contact the homicide squads in Bridgeport and
Providence. Heat could have delegated these checks to her own crew, but that might
have raised alarms, and next thing, she’d have been shackled to a protection
detail. The detectives in both out-of-state departments recalled the cases clearly
and didn’t need to research old notes; cop killings never go cold.
The cases in both cities remained unsolved. Referring to the Murder Boards across
the bull pen, Detective Heat shared bullet points from her own serial killer,
including victims and MOs. None matched hers: no colored strings; no props; no
apparent connections between victims. The only similarity was the killer’s outreach
to the case’s lead investigator by phone with the altered voice. When she asked how
each detective died, she got one additional similarity. Each one had been shot
unexpectedly after being lured into an ambush set up by the killer.
The glorified closet Rook and Detective Raley had commandeered to follow the
consumer trail of Tyler Wynn had outgrown itself with the addition of Malcolm and
Reynolds to the detail, so the operation moved to more spacious digs in a far corner
of the bull pen. The three detectives chattered simultaneously on calls to retail
distributors around the country, accumulating tracking data from the RFID chips in
the packaging of Wynn’s favorite brands. They relayed their findings to Rook, who,
between his own calls, pushed colored pins into a tristate map to mark the delivery
zones for everything from outerwear to whiskey to sunglasses to artisanal sausages.
“The thing is,” said Rook to Nikki as she came over to him, “that we don’t know
which—if any of these—are products going to Wynn. But the idea is that if enough
of these items intersect with his consumer habits, we’ll be able to narrow the list
when we see a discrete pattern.”
“Right, so if only five people are buying, say… Barbour coats, Whistlepig rye, and
D’Artagnan rabbit-and-ginger sausage, you’ve, at least, tightened the likely
prospects and we can go knocking on doors.” She looked at the colored pins on his
map and added, “Not seeing much of an overlap yet.”
“It’s slow going.”
“But it feels promising. Keep at it. I’m heading over to interview Joe Flynn’s
assistant and then on to Algernon Barrett.”
“Really.”
She didn’t like the judgment. “Rook, you know how hard I’ve been working to brace
him.”
“I do. It’s just… first the Tyler Wynn–Salena crew wants you dead. Now the
serial killer? Is it really wise for you to be gallivanting around with two killers
hunting you?”
If life wasn’t shitty enough, Nikki felt him planting the fear seed, and if that
took root, she knew she might as well be dead. So she pushed back. “Rook, I refuse
to live my life in paranoia. And the only sure way for me to stop them is to get out
there and stop them.”
“Oh, splendid logic,” he said with some bite. “Maybe with any luck they’ll both
come after you at the same time and you’ll be able to duck so they’ll kill each
other.”
Heat interrupted his sarcastic laugh, snatching him by the shirt and drawing him out
of earshot of the others. “I will say this once. This is what I do. I multitask. I
spin plates. I live in danger. I have to. Why? I’m throwing John Lennon back in
your face, Rook. Murders happen while I am making other plans. But I see my plans
through. And yes, that includes following up on persons of interest like Algernon
Barrett.”