it done, no matter what the obstacles.
Billy would do much of the legwork on Jenny’s murder investigation, since I would obviously be spending a lot of time on the overall case. Hank was going to handle the threat against Matt, and he had an officer under him to help him do so.
“We have to operate under the assumption that most of the targets have not been hit yet,” I said, as I was wrapping things up. “In fact, it’s very possible that they’re taking place in the order in which they were placed. But George Myerson’s death may mean that the capsule getting dug up has accelerated the killer’s time schedule. So we need to move fast.”
I asked if anyone had any more questions, and no one did.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s get the son of a bitch.”
I’m not interested in “the public’s right to know.” I like it as a concept, especially at those times that I’m part of the public. But when I’m in uniform, and working on a case, I’m more interested in “the public’s right to be protected.”
In this case protecting the public meant catching the killer, so that’s all I thought about when it came to deciding whether or not to keep a lid on the situation. That, and trying to determine whether I had the ability to keep that lid on at all.
As a practical matter, secrecy was going to be a tough one. First of all, I knew that Katie was going to publish the fact that the dead body was found on top of the capsule. The rest was off the record, but she and Matt were good journalists, and since they knew what they were looking for, finding independent confirmation seemed inevitable.
Everybody in my department was already briefed, and there was certainly the possibility, maybe even the probability, that there would be a leak, either intentional or otherwise. That danger would only increase as we started to investigate more intensively.
But independent of our ability to keep the secret was the question of whether it was in our interest to do so. We were more than four years behind the eight ball, and except for the George Myerson murder, everything else was ice cold. Solving the case was going to be uphill all the way, unless digging up the capsule was going to set the perpetrator off on a killing spree.
I wasn’t inclined to root for that.
There was always the possibility that someone out there knew something that they would be willing to share. Perhaps they didn’t realize it was significant, but when the news of what was going on came out, they might put two and two together. It certainly seemed worth a try.
So I was coming down on the side of going public, at least within reason.
The decision itself would be harder than the execution. In the internet / cable news / social media world, there was nothing easier than getting a story out. And this was an interesting story; I could leak it to a copy boy at the Yemen Gazette , and it would be everywhere within the hour.
But an overseas trip wouldn’t be necessary; I had Katie Sanford. Her paper would more than suffice as the conduit to the world, and she deserved the position. The fact that her employee was specifically threatened would make the story even more appealing to the media at large.
“Katie Sanford is on the phone” were the next timely words I heard, and I picked up.
“Katie, I was just going to call you.”
“I’ve got the photographs from that day,” she said. “There are quite a few of them.”
“Good, can you bring them over?”
“Now?”
I looked at my watch; it was past seven thirty. Days seem to go faster when there is a serial killer on the loose.
“You hungry?” I asked, regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Maybe even sooner … probably just as they were reaching my front teeth. Rehashing Jenny’s murder and Roger’s conviction was going to be difficult and emotional enough; I should have tried to keep it as professional as possible.
“Callahan’s?” she asked, suggesting
Billy would do much of the legwork on Jenny’s murder investigation, since I would obviously be spending a lot of time on the overall case. Hank was going to handle the threat against Matt, and he had an officer under him to help him do so.
“We have to operate under the assumption that most of the targets have not been hit yet,” I said, as I was wrapping things up. “In fact, it’s very possible that they’re taking place in the order in which they were placed. But George Myerson’s death may mean that the capsule getting dug up has accelerated the killer’s time schedule. So we need to move fast.”
I asked if anyone had any more questions, and no one did.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s get the son of a bitch.”
I’m not interested in “the public’s right to know.” I like it as a concept, especially at those times that I’m part of the public. But when I’m in uniform, and working on a case, I’m more interested in “the public’s right to be protected.”
In this case protecting the public meant catching the killer, so that’s all I thought about when it came to deciding whether or not to keep a lid on the situation. That, and trying to determine whether I had the ability to keep that lid on at all.
As a practical matter, secrecy was going to be a tough one. First of all, I knew that Katie was going to publish the fact that the dead body was found on top of the capsule. The rest was off the record, but she and Matt were good journalists, and since they knew what they were looking for, finding independent confirmation seemed inevitable.
Everybody in my department was already briefed, and there was certainly the possibility, maybe even the probability, that there would be a leak, either intentional or otherwise. That danger would only increase as we started to investigate more intensively.
But independent of our ability to keep the secret was the question of whether it was in our interest to do so. We were more than four years behind the eight ball, and except for the George Myerson murder, everything else was ice cold. Solving the case was going to be uphill all the way, unless digging up the capsule was going to set the perpetrator off on a killing spree.
I wasn’t inclined to root for that.
There was always the possibility that someone out there knew something that they would be willing to share. Perhaps they didn’t realize it was significant, but when the news of what was going on came out, they might put two and two together. It certainly seemed worth a try.
So I was coming down on the side of going public, at least within reason.
The decision itself would be harder than the execution. In the internet / cable news / social media world, there was nothing easier than getting a story out. And this was an interesting story; I could leak it to a copy boy at the Yemen Gazette , and it would be everywhere within the hour.
But an overseas trip wouldn’t be necessary; I had Katie Sanford. Her paper would more than suffice as the conduit to the world, and she deserved the position. The fact that her employee was specifically threatened would make the story even more appealing to the media at large.
“Katie Sanford is on the phone” were the next timely words I heard, and I picked up.
“Katie, I was just going to call you.”
“I’ve got the photographs from that day,” she said. “There are quite a few of them.”
“Good, can you bring them over?”
“Now?”
I looked at my watch; it was past seven thirty. Days seem to go faster when there is a serial killer on the loose.
“You hungry?” I asked, regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Maybe even sooner … probably just as they were reaching my front teeth. Rehashing Jenny’s murder and Roger’s conviction was going to be difficult and emotional enough; I should have tried to keep it as professional as possible.
“Callahan’s?” she asked, suggesting
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