The next day was emotionally draining for Jon, Ponch, Baricza and Fritz. They were clad in their funeral uniforms of brown and forest green as well as several other officers from O'Brien's division, as the strains of the song no police officer ever wants to hear soared upon the air by bagpipe, "Amazing Grace". As they fired their salute into the air in the midst of mourning friends and family, Jon, particularly, was filled with questions that had no answers, something that he hated experiencing. How was O'Brien mysteriously abducted in the first place? Who was the gang that killed her by beating her to death, it was later found out, according to the autopsy, with her own baton? Who was the driver of the Malibu, and where was he taking her to? Who was this mysterious "Ghoul?"
The day after that, Jon and Ponch, usually talkative at briefing, didn't say a word to each other, yet their silence spoke volumes to each other. Deep inside the center of their hearts, brave and courageous though they were, they were frightened. After all, the mysterious driver, whom they'd never met before, said they were "next". Who knew what fate had in store? Finally, when the last officer entered the briefing room, an older, stern-looking man in uniform entered. Sergeant Joseph Getraer stood at his podium. "Good morning," he said. "Not much in the way of very positive news today, but we nevertheless have something hot on the murder of CHP Officer Chloe O'Brien. According to LAPD's best detectives, she was driving along the San Diego freeway on April fourth at approximately 2:00 in the afternoon. She came across a speeder riding a 1976 red and white Honda dirtbike, license number Roger-Sam-Adam 2429. A rag filled with choloroform was found near her car as was her holster, LAPD is still trying to trace the fingerprints on the rag. One can easily assume whoever the driver was of the bike had abducted her using the chloroform, then stripped her of her holster. We have reason to believe their may have been more than one abductor, though we've only begun this case. The bike, even more mysteriously, was found burnt to a crisp later on down the road at approximately 3:00 am. Apparently to try and get rid of the evidence; we're still trying to trace the owner of the bike, whose plate was actually a Montana state plate. According to the autopsy of O'Brien, there were burns from a lighter, knife marks, and marks from what looks like a rattan cane. Apparently, she was tortured before her demise."
"This killer of this officer," Getraer continued, "and this elusive 'Ghoul' he works with are new on the crime scene. This particular driver of that blue Malibu Classic that Ofiicers Baker and Poncherello attempted to apprehend has a name. William Orly. He was a worker at a local gas station. Beforehand, he lived in Pennsylvania. His father and mother, since his childhood, had apparently built up his dark history, a history of very violent physical and sexual abuse against him ever since the age of three. Surprisingly, his father was a police officer, noted in his force as, supposedly, one of the best of the best, ironically enough. At seventeen he was taken to his aunt's house to live and his parents put in jail, but he nevertheless turned to crime. Graffiti, robbing convenience stores, mugging women with purses. He has quite a rap sheet in Pennsylvania, and at eighteen was eventually sent to a reform school in California, where he lived with his grandparents after his aunt sent him there, apparently having had enough of him. No particular rap sheet in California before the O'Brien murder, in California, this was his first and last crime. Nothing else has been found as of yet, leaving CHP and LAPD baffled, but we'll find this 'Ghoul' scumbag in time, I promise."
Little did Getraer or the rest of CHP Central realize, this gruesome beguine was only beginning...
Jon and Ponch stepped out of the briefing room with the other officers, preparing to go on their beats, when Ponch excused himself to the men's restroom. "A man's got to fix his hair properly before meeting the public!" he laughed, always livening things up for his partner with his sense of humor. Two seconds after he entered, he yelled in terror, "Jon!" Jon immediately stormed in to find a terrified Ponch looking inside one of the open stalls. An officer, Officer Brian Richardson of CHP Northwest, sans holster, was lying inside, wrists and ankles bound by duct tape. He had apparently suffered death by six fresh gunshot wounds, three to the chest, two to the stomach, one right between the eyes. Getraer, Baricza, Fritz and a few other male officers hurried in and looked in horror. More questions ran through their minds. How did the killers get in to Central without anyone seeing, and with a freshly shot body? Why would the killer or killers bring a slain officer here, to Central, and from far away? How did they kill the officer without anyone noticing?
To make matters worse, being that the officer had apparently lost a lot of blood which was all over the floor, scribbled right in front of him in that blood was something that particularly gave Jon chills down his spine.
Jon and Ponch are next! Amongst a million others...
"Sweet Jesus," muttered Getraer under his breath.
God have mercy on us all, thought Baricza.
Jon and Ponch, once again, were much too stunned to speak.
