Snapshot

“He’s killing them in a specific way,” Davis whispered. “To prevent Snapshot detectives from being able to find him.”


Maria nodded grimly. “The Photographer preserves the bodies after killing them, which prevents forensics from getting a specific bead on when they were killed. Then, he or she dumps the corpses in the ocean, letting them drift and eventually wash up. The killer obviously doesn’t mind if they’re found, might even want it, but is stopping us from using a Snapshot on the case. He or she knows that we’d need to be able to point to a specific day or place to get a warrant.”

She scanned the report from today, which was still being updated by police on the scene.

Bodies show evidence of what we assumed earlier, one of them wrote. Killer was letting them soak in the pool to make it more difficult to tell when they were dumped in the ocean.

Davis nodded. “So why keep this quiet? Why hush the call today so soundly?”

“Best way to catch someone is to not let them know they’re being chased.” Maria grimaced. “This will blow up soon enough. We might as well keep this out of the news as long as possible though, right?”

There’s more to it than that, Davis thought, scrolling through a window, scouring notes and reports. Dangerous, one of them read. If people lose faith in Snapshots, the tool could be undermined in court.

“You still should have told us,” Davis said.

“Why?” Maria said. “What would be the point?”

“When we’re in Snapshots of certain days,” Chaz said, crunching on M&M’s, “we could go poke at things. Get more information.”

“Where?” Maria said. “When? Didn’t you hear that the killer is specifically working to make you two irrelevant?”

Davis glanced at his partner. Maria was being too defensive. She often got this way, as did the others. He and Chaz, they weren’t supposed to poke into the business of real detectives. To the rest of the department they were errand boys, sent to retrieve specific data and nothing else.

But the truth was, nobody seemed to know what to do with the Snapshots. The city had been pressured into buying the program, and so had sunk a ton of money into it—but privacy laws had then tied their hands tightly. It was a wonder that even two detectives were allowed in. And if the general public knew how much leeway Chaz and Davis took with their job . . .

Well, either way, it was a tool that—even years into the program—nobody understood, let alone knew how to properly exploit. But that still didn’t explain why they’d hide so much from the cops working in them.

“What aren’t you telling me, Maria?” Davis whispered.

She met his eyes defiantly. Then those eyes darted to the side as Chaz lifted his gun to her temple.

“Chaz,” Davis said, sighing. “Don’t kill her again, please.”

“Again?” Maria demanded.

“Just talk to me, Maria,” Davis said. “We usually don’t kill you. I promise.”

“It’s a Snapshot, Maria,” Chaz said. He shrugged. “Nothing we do in here matters. Tell the nice man what it is he wants to know.”

“I don’t know why they didn’t tell you,” she said, stubborn. “No, they didn’t tell you about the case. No, they didn’t want to use you to investigate it. I don’t know why.”

“You’re lying,” Davis said.

“Prove it.”

Davis looked to Chaz, sighing.

Chaz shot her.

Bodies don’t jerk as much as people think they do, even when shot in the head. They just kind of slump, like Maria did. A little puff from the gun blowing her hair, head bobbing as if tapped, and then . . . her body drooped in her chair. There wasn’t even much blood—the bullet didn’t exit the other side of her head. Some blood did come out her nose, and out the hole in her temple.

Chaz calmly held aloft his badge for the few people who were still there, those who hadn’t wandered out at seeing the badge originally—or who hadn’t been scared away by what the chief had done.

“You bastard!” Davis said, standing and stumbling back from the cubicle. “You actually did it!”

“Yeah,” Chaz said. “I’ve always wanted to, you know? That smug look on her face. Treating us like she’s a babysitter and we’re a pair of three-year-olds.”

“You actually did it!”

“What? You implied we’d done it loads.”

“That was an interrogation technique!”

“A piss-poor one, judging by results,” Chaz said, shoving her body off the chair and sitting down. “You going to help me look through this stuff? She’s got better access than us. We might be able to learn something.”

Davis spun about, scanning the precinct office over the cubicle walls. A few had remained at their stations, despite everything that had happened so far. Those had stood up at the shot, and now backed away from him. Friends . . . well, acquaintances. The fear in their eyes dug into him—like he was a terrorist.

Officer Dobbs had his gun out, and he looked at it, weighing it. Davis could almost read the conflict. If I shoot him, Dobbs seemed to be thinking, I’m shooting a real person. A cop who didn’t do anything illegal. But if I’m not real . . . who cares, right? I can’t be punished, not really.

Dobbs met his eyes, and Davis had the sudden instinctive feeling that he should draw his own sidearm and gun Dobbs down before the man could make the decision. But, frozen, Davis couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Dobbs proved to be a better person, even as a dupe, than Chaz was. Dobbs holstered his weapon and shook his head, then stumbled away.

Davis breathed out a long sigh. Not relief, exactly. More weariness. He ducked down beside his partner, trying to ignore Maria’s body bleeding on the floor.

Chaz wasn’t looking at the case with the serial killer. He’d pushed all those windows to the side, and was instead looking up something else. Personnel files.

His own.