“Oh,” I say. I tap on the counter. “So, could we get a record of who has bought the game?”
“Do you have a warrant?” Alexander asks.
“No, but I have a Glock 19 pistol,” I say. Lauren elbows me as Alexander goes pale.
“Alexander, ignore my partner,” she says. “Thank you for your time. We may return later with a warrant.”
She grabs my arm and half-drags me out of the store.
“Can you try to be nice while we’re getting evidence?” she asks.
“We weren’t getting evidence,” I say. “We were interrogating.”
“No, we weren’t!” she says. “We aren’t questioning the employees at the video game stores, we are trying to figure out who has bought these games. Which looks like it’s going to be difficult, but it doesn’t make it any easier if you’re terrifying the employees.”
She releases my arm and begins to walk in front of me. I hurry to catch up to her.
“Where are we going next?” I ask.
“Jim’s Video Games,” she says. “It’s just a couple blocks away.”
“Don’t you ever eat?” I ask.
“It’s 10:34 in the morning,” she says. “You should have eaten a bigger breakfast if you’re hungry.”
As we come up to Jim’s Video Games, I see that a black tarp covers the window and there is a sign on the front. Lauren reads it aloud,
“We are sorry to inform our customers that Jim’s Video Games was broken into and robbed on July 28th. We are currently uncertain of when we will reopen. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “It was robbed? So, even if we could compile a list, it wouldn’t matter because the killer could have robbed this store?”
“It was a long shot from the beginning,” Lauren says. I shake my head.
“This day was a waste,” I say. She glances over at a sports bar.
“Would it be a waste if we got some hamburgers?” she asks. I sigh.
“With french fries?” I ask. She smiles and I can’t help but smile too.
~~~~~
The sports bar, Devon’s, is mostly empty since it’s still early. Lauren and I get our burgers quickly. I take a bite out of my burger big enough that I can barely chew. Lauren watches me for a second before taking nearly as big of a bite out of her burger.
I swallow.
“So, tell me, how did you profile me?” I ask. “How did you know my father and grandfather were policemen?”
“Well, you clearly see policemen as superior to other professions and you have a very specific ideal of how a policeman should be, which means that you had a close role model that was a policeman. You have the same mentality as an old-school policeman, which means he was likely quite a bit older than you.”
“Alright, fine, I’ll give that to you. What makes you think that I’m not happy?” I ask. “That I put up…what did you call them? Walls?”
“I can see it in your face,” she says, shrugging. “And you work all the time. You can love your job, but nobody puts their whole life into their job unless there is no other part of their life that makes them feel…alive.”
“My job makes me happy,” I say.
“I’m sure it does,” she says. She shakes her head. “Forget it. I was angry at the time.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Are you happy?”
“I come from a psychology background,” she says. “Even if I am happy, I’m constantly analyzing myself, so I’m too busy to enjoy being happy.”
I raise my beer. “Well, here’s to being a bit dysfunctional.”
She clinks her water against my bottle. “Dysfunctional people trying to find a dysfunctional killer. How hard could it be?”
“You just jinxed us.”
“I doubt it,” she says.
“Why? Because you have faith that justice will prevail?” I ask.
“No,” she says. Her eyes pin me against the plastic cover of the booth. “Because I have faith in us.”
~~~~~
We return to the station at nearly midnight after visiting ten video game stores, none of which could give us an exact list of who bought the video games that were replicated by the killer.
“Well, that was a waste,” I say, collapsing into my chair. Lauren sits in the chair across from me.
“We could still get lucky,” she says.
“You ended up with me. How lucky could you be?” I ask.
She smiles. “I’m sorry about the comment I made about Anna. It is none of my business.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “I just don’t like my personal and professional life mixing.”
She stands up and looks over the cork board she made that has all of the crime scene photos. I’m usually not that organized, but I can appreciate it now that it’s in front of me.
“What happened to the drunk driver?” I ask. She smiles wryly.
“So, you want your personal and professional life separate, but you don’t mind asking your co-workers about their personal life?” she asks.
“I’m an enigma,” I say, shrugging.
“He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but he only ended up serving for five…you know, good behavior…early release…”
“It’s a shame,” I say. “All criminals should have to serve their whole sentence. I don’t care if they’re a saint in prison. You got there for bad behavior, you should stay in there for bad behavior.”
She nods. “But that is not how the world works.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the patrol officers walk out of the elevator. He has a manila envelope in his hands.
“Lauren Williams?” he asks. She glances over at him. He hands her the envelope.
“Thanks,” she says. He nods and walks back out to the elevator. Lauren looks at the front of the envelope.
“There’s no return address,” she says. She tears it open with her finger and empties it onto my desk. Only a CD-ROM in its case drops out. On the label of the CD, it says, Playing with Hearts. Her lips press together.
“What?” I ask.
“I think I just contaminated evidence.”
I stand up. “You think that’s from the PVP killer?”
“Nobody would send me a CD-ROM,” she says. “Who even owns CD-ROMs?”
I grimace. “There’s probably no prints on it anyway.”
“I’ll go get some plastic gloves from forensics,” she says. She walks out to the elevator. I keep my eyes on the CD-ROM. The killer must have seen Lauren at the last crime scene, but why wouldn’t he send the package to me, the lead detective? And what the hell would he risk having sent to a police station?
~~~~~
Lauren
WITH PLASTIC GLOVES ON, I take the CD-ROM out of the case and put it into Tobias’ laptop. After a second, the words Playing with Hearts flash across the top of the screen. There are two options below it, 1 player game and 2 player game. A heart blinks in front of 2 player game. I try to select 1 player game, but the game doesn’t allow me to. I select 2 player game.
The James Scott Fountain appears on the screen and a cartoon woman with light brown hair and dark brown eyes walks up to it. The shape of a man walks up to her and wraps his arm around her waist. They begin to kiss while the man’s hands roam down to the woman’s hips. I try to move the woman, but every time I move the mouse, the woman kisses the man and every time I press one of the arrow keys, she runs her hands down his back.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “Are there two killers? The woman is his girlfriend?”
“Are you kidding me?” Tobias asks. “You don’t see it?”
“See what?” I ask.
“That’s you,” he says. “The woman is you. And apparently the killer is the guy, which is why the guy doesn’t have any distinguishing marks.”
“What makes you think it’s me?”
“Because you were wearing those clothes when we were investigating,” he says. He’s right. The red
blouse, the blue jeans, the red flats…even a silver chain necklace is visible. “Obviously, you caught the killer’s eye. He wants you. Apparently, you’re the killer’s type.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t…I’m not even that noticeable.”
“Well, maybe you have serial killer vibes,” he says. “Williams…I told you that you shouldn’t go with me to the crime scene.”
“This is good, Tobias,” I say. “The killer just gave us evidence.”
“You’re smarter than that,” he says. “He’s not going to leave fingerprints or anything.”
The characters on the screen are now lying on the ground and the man is undressing the woman. The words +1 heart pops up with every piece of clothing that comes off. I close Tobias’ laptop.
“He’s getting bored,” I say. “And when serial killers become bored, they slip up. They make mistakes. This is what we need right now. We need him to believe he’s better than us.”
“I’m not sure that’s a lie,” he says. “He doesn’t need to be a step ahead of us because we aren’t even in the same race as him right now.”
I look over at him. “Has your pessimism ever helped you?”
“I’ve only been shot once, so yes…it has helped a lot,” he says. “Pessimism would help you too right now. You should be thinking about the fact that this guy has thought about you enough that he made a video about having sex with you.”
“He’s just taunting the police,” I say. “He’s saying, I saw who was at my crime scene and I’m not scared. In the end, it has nothing to do with me.”
He exhales loudly.
“Well, let’s figure out who sent the package,” he says. “It either had to be sent through the mail or dropped off. Either way, we can figure out who it was.”
“Nobody is here, so we don’t have access to the surveillance cameras, and the postal office will be closed right now,” I tell him. “We should go home.”
He watches me as I put my coat on.
“You do realize that I’m not going to let you walk home alone?” he asks. I raise an eyebrow.
“I didn’t know I needed your permission.”
“Well, you do. Because if you get killed, then I need to get another new partner and that doesn’t look good on my resume,” he says. He puts the CD-ROM in an evidence bag. “I’m going to put this in evidence. Don’t leave.”
~~~~~
Tobias stays a step behind me as I walk to my apartment. I keep my eyes forward, though I can hear his feet kick up fall leaves every few steps.
“Hey, pretty girl, you feeling lonely tonight?” a man in his twenties calls out to me from his stoop. He has spiky black hair and he’s toned but not muscular. This doesn’t stop him from wearing a sleeveless shirt and flexing as he walks up to me. “You wanna keep warm in my bed? I could make you feel things you ain’t never felt before.”
The man steps in front of me. I try to walk around him, but he stops me. Tobias’ body tenses and before I can react, he moves in front of me. He shows his badge.
“Why don’t you go inside, kid?” he asks. “Don’t harass this woman. Don’t harass any women. Just go into your house and be quiet.”
“Or what?” the man challenges. “You going to arrest me for speakin’? Freedom of speech, popo. Freedom of speech.”
Tobias’ lip curls up and for a moment, I’m afraid for the other man. Instead, Tobias takes a pad of paper out of his jacket.
“What’s your name, kid?” he asks. The man’s eyes narrow in suspicion.
“Why do you need to know?” the man asks.
“Well, my partner and I are tracking down a murderer and the murderer has shown interest in her…just like you show an interest in her, so I figure I should add you to the list of suspects.”
“That’s not fair, man. I was just complimenting her. She has to know that she’s a pretty girl, and men would take a ride on that any day.”
“That’s not what I see,” Tobias says. “I see a kid who is harassing my colleague, just like a mass murderer is.”
The man shows Tobias his palms. “I didn’t mean any harm.”
“Apologize to my colleague,” Tobias says.
The man looks over at me.
“I’m real sorry, ma’am,” he says. “I didn’t mean to disrespect you.”
He runs back into his house. Tobias puts his pad of paper and pen into his coat and we begin to walk again. A car honks as it passes by and a man blows a kiss at me.
“Does this happen a lot?” Tobias asks.
“I’m a woman in a city,” I say. “So, yes, it happens quite often. But thank you for scaring that guy.”
“Isn’t it irritating though?” he asks.
“It is,” I say. “But you get used to it.”
“If I were your boyfriend, I would be cracking some skulls,” he says.
“Good thing you’re not my boyfriend then,” I say.
“Mmm,” he says. “Maybe that’s why you’re not freaked out by the video. You’re used to that kind of thing.”
“Are you profiling me?” I tease. He tries to hide a smile. He takes a deep breath.
“Anna is my ex-girlfriend,” he says. “I proposed to her and she told me that she had been cheating on me for over a year.”
“Wow,” I say. “I guess that would make anyone bitter.”
He snorts. “I’m not bitter. I’m just realistic. People will always put themselves first. The only person you can trust is yourself.”
“Do you trust yourself?” I ask. He shrugs.
“Sometimes.”
“So, why did you suddenly decide to disclose all of this to me now?” I ask. He kicks a rock into the street.
“We work together,” he says. “We should know some personal things about each other. Besides, you told me about your parents and that is much more personal.”
“I wouldn’t make comparisons,” I say. “We all go through our trials.”
We stop in front of my apartment.
“Thank you for walking me home,” I say. “I’m glad we didn’t get attacked by a serial killer.”
“I kind of wish he did attack us,” he says. “Then I would be able to put him down.”
“Don’t say that,” I say. “Justice will be served.”
“You know how rare it is for that to happen, right?” he asks. I nod.
“But we’re on the case,” I say. “We’ll figure it out.”
He tilts his head. “I hope so.”
He reaches forward as if he is going to take my hand, but then his arm drops and he pivots on his heel. He walks away, the city lights eclipsing his body.
~~~~~
The tech guys have scoured the whole CD-ROM, but there is nothing on it that the killer left. To find the BTK killer the police managed to find metadata on a floppy disk, but this killer is immaculate.
“I might be adding technologically savvy to my profile of the killer,” I tell Tobias.
“Can you add a name to the profile too?” he asks. He rubs his face. “I asked Richardson to look into surveillance and the postal office. I have Pike looking into anyone who has bought CD-ROMs lately, but…it’s going to be the same as when we were looking for who bought the video games.”
I sip coffee from a styrofoam cup. Richardson walks up to the two of us, a big smile on his face.
“We found him,” he declares. “He dropped off the package himself.”
“The killer? Who is it?” I ask.
“Timothy Wood,” he says, showing a photograph of a thin man with sparse brown hair. I can’t make out much because the photograph is grainy. “I had to ask around quite a bit, but a waitress knew him and his driver’s license matched. Some patrolmen are bringing him in.”
Tobias brings up Timothy’s license on his computer. Timothy’s buggy brown eyes look back at us.
“Well, he doesn’t look sane,” Tobias says.
“Yeah…but the PVP killer wouldn’t be this careless,” I say.
“Nobody is pe
rfect, Williams,” he says. “He had to slip up at some point. Most serial killers weren’t caught because of some super investigative skills. They were caught because they got cocky and then they got careless. I mean, The Son Of Sam killer was caught because of a parking ticket.”
“This guy is different,” I say. “It’s almost like he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Maybe he does. He’s not going to mess up because of a surveillance camera.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the optimistic one?” he asks.
“Optimism without doubt is reckless,” I say.
“Well, it’s about time we get reckless,” he says. He stands up, his eyes looking over my shoulder. I turn around as two policemen walk Timothy Wood past us.
~~~~~
Tobias
“TIMOTHY WOOD,” I say. “You have led an interesting life. You went to MIT at sixteen years old. Then you worked for Technoware and made more money in a year than I make in five years. But you quit a couple years ago. Why is that?”
“I wasn’t happy,” Timothy says, shrugging his small shoulders. Sitting across from us in the interrogation room with only a table in between, he seems harmless. Still, I’ve learned that everyone can be dangerous once they have a weapon.
“Maybe you needed a hobby,” I say. “Maybe…something that mixed real life with technology. Like video games. And killing.”
His eyes are blank for a second before his jaw goes slack.
“What? You think I’m the PVP killer? No way. I would never do that.”
I lean back into my chair. “How did you know that the PVP killer was connected to video games? We never released that to the public.”
His eyes narrow. “Like you said…I went to MIT at sixteen years old. I’m not a moron. I knew it from the murder with the guy who had the quincunx bullet wounds.”
“Quincunx?” Lauren asks.
“The five dots…four dots that form a square with one in the middle,” he says. “The symbol goes back to the Roman Republic times, but it was also part of the game Joker’s Revenge. In order to get extra points, the player had to shoot the opponent in the same pattern as playing cards.”
Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance Page 3
