The killer heard the sound of sirens in the distance.
They could have been to tell a speeder to pull over. Or a lazy uniform trying to beat a light.
Or they could be coming for him. He couldn't take the chance that they were.
In his line of work, it was better to be dead than caught. If he were caught, the police would ID him as Cole Maddox, which wasn't his real name. He'd taken on so many identities over the years; it was sometimes difficult to remember what his given name was.
The name Cole Maddox was tied to several crimes that had occurred around New York City. The first crime they'd connect him to would be to the shooting of a NYPD detective at a funeral. The charge would be attempted murder. He thought of it as failed murder. Following that, he'd been instructed to wait, which he did easily, until he was called upon again.
After nearly a year of silence, Maddox was given a second batch of instructions just five days ago. They included two deeds and one guideline. Completing what he thought would be the easier of the two deeds was proving far tougher than he had anticipated.
It was to retrieve a police file from some dead cop's house. Easy enough, Maddox thought, may as well outsource and keep my nose clean of this one.
Except the crime wasn't perfect. While Maddox thought he picked the right man for the job, some former gang banger turned soldier named Orlando Costas, he was thrown for a loop when the widow of the cop showed up at the house. She had shot Costas in the shoulder on his way out the door.
To his credit, he grabbed what he could and got out. Since things had gone so bad, however, Maddox had to move on to clean up duty, killing the hired thief and inadvertently bringing the attention of the person involving the second task.
The file he was looking for wasn't among the stolen items, but it did include one very valuable lead. The wedding album of the dead cop. A picture record of some of the people he would trust the most. If the cop didn't have it, he may have passed it along to one of his cop buddies to keep it safe.
That reasoning had led him here, to this house. Another former cop. Thankfully, no wife for this one. Maddox had been able to take his time in asking his questions.
This was the guy who had the file, but it wasn't here anymore. At least, he didn't think it was here anymore.
Making a murder scene looked like a botched robbery was something Maddox was quite skilled at. He was sure to add defensive wounds to the victim's forearms, he used the cop's own gun for the kill shot, and made sure certain areas of the home had looked disheveled. The safe, underneath the desk, Sock drawer, those kinds of places. The places an ordinary, everyday thief would look in first.
But he had also looked in several other places which he was careful to return to their original state. Large light fixtures, ceiling panels, cereal boxes. First glances would hopefully lead the police to the conclusion that the dead guy had walked in on someone going through his valuables. A fight ensued, and the old cop was shot accidently by his own gun.
But if a good Medical Examiner got a hold of the body, and looked deeper, they'd notice a few broken bones, a missing tooth, and duct tape residue around his wrists. OK, maybe even an average ME could figure that out. But if he burned the house to the ground with the body inside, and the file was somewhere he hadn't checked, he'd be in big trouble. He could always come back at a later date to do a more thorough job. And he didn't have time to move the body to a river, so this was what he was going to go with. Botched robbery.
Frustrated with himself for failing a second time in obtaining the file, Maddox quietly slipped out of the house, noticing the sirens were getting closer. He could even adjust his breathing as to not make puffs of steam every time he exhaled into the cool night air. Using the shadows to his advantage, He navigated the neighborhood, beginning to formulate a plan in his head regarding what to do next.
He still needed the file. But finding it was secondary to the other task. If he could finish that job, the file wouldn't be as important.
It was a job he was glad to take on, because it was one that he'd fail to do one year ago: Kill New York Police Department Detective Kate Beckett.