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Copycat

Mike Foley sat with Lydia Summers as she was crying. The two policemen, who had come to her door half an hour ago to tell her the sad news, were sitting opposite her on the couch, waiting for her to regain her composure.

Mike felt very uncomfortable. He really didn´t know Mrs Summers very well, he had only met her the evening before at the barbecue. But she had come to him that morning, worried, saying her daughter was missing. Since his cousin was out to work, his wife out shopping and Tucker somewhere with his friends, Mike had gone with her to take a look at the girls room.

The first thought that came to his mind as he entered the room was ´pink´. Everything was pink, from the walls, the carpeting to the desk and the covers of her bed. For a moment Sam Manson came to his mind. She would have despised this room. The bed was perfectly made, and several stuffed animals were sitting on it. He smiled at that, sixteen years old and still having stuffed animals on your bed.

He wondered if she slept with them as well, and if she didn´t, did she sleep with anyone else. Tentatively he asked Lydia Summers if the Ashley had a boy friend, but she just shook her head.

"Not that she knows of anyway," Mike thought darkly.

It appeared that Lydia had returned from the party early, because she had been tired, but had waited up until she had heard her daughter come home. What time that was? About eleven.

Mike looked around the room a little more closely and noticed the window was slightly ajar. Carefully he pushed it open a little wider and peered outside. There was a very convenient rain pipe right next to the window. Anyone who was agile enough and a little determined could come up. Or go down for that matter. He looked at the bed again. It clearly hadn´t been slept in, but upon closer inspection it looked like someone had been lying on top of it.

He looked at Lydia, who stood in the doorway, her hands wringing.

"Well," he said carefully, "What it looks like is she came home last night, laid on her bed for a while and then left through the window. Are you sure she doesn´t have a boyfriend?"

At that point Lydia got angry, first at him and then at someone whom she called ´that double-crossing no-good creep´. She left to to call him, only to return moments later, white faced, that the ´jerk´ hadn´t seen her, hadn´t spoken to her and had in fact been with his new girl friend. So they called the police.

And now they were sitting in in the living room and Lydia was crying. It had been a trying morning, first seeing the news report of the girl that was found in the park and Lydia fearing that was Ashley, only to have her fear come true as the two police cars had parked at her house. The police were currently searching Ashley´s room, after having heard Mike´s assessment of the situation. He had talked to them briefly, explaining who and what he was.

He saw Mary Foley´s car pull up at their house and excused himself for a moment. After quickly filling in the horrified woman, he returned and at the front door ran into the detective who was in charge of the investigation. He had been introduced to Mike earlier as Peter Zimmer.

"Could you give me some details?" he asked quietly. The policeman looked at him suspiciously but then sighed.

"Why not," he said, "Looks like you´re sort of involved anyway. We got a call last night that somebody had found a dead girl in the park and it proved to be true. It was pretty gruesome, I don´t think you´ll want to tell the details to Mrs Summers. Her clothes were just soaked in blood and the worst part is her head is missing. That´s why we had a little trouble identifying her."

Mike felt the color drain from is face.

"What," he choked, "She was what?"

The detective looked at him strangely. Mike took a deep breath.

"I´m sorry," he said, "I put a case just like that behind me only yesterday."

Now Zimmer looked very interested. "Care to tell me about it?" he asked.

Mike shrugged. "Not much to tell now. We had a serial killer in Chicago a couple of years back. Abducted young girls, cut their heads of. And then he left them at a playground somewhere. He managed to get nine girls that way before we caught him."

"Now that is almost too much a coincidence. He didn´t escape, did he?" Zimmer asked, but Mike shook his head.

"No. He was executed yesterday morning. I saw him die on the electric chair."

Zimmer sighed. "Maybe a copycat then," he mused, "Could you get me every bit of information about your guy? I´d like to compare it to what we´ve got so far."

Mike nodded. "I´ll get on it." He spotted Tucker and his friends coming home, looking pale and distraught. "Let´s go talk to them," he pointed.

Danny, Tucker and Sam headed into Tucker´s house and went into the kitchen, where Tuckers mother hugged him, crying.

"She was just here yesterday," she said, "She looked so happy. Didn´t she look happy? That poor, poor Lydia, first her husband leaving and now this."

"Yeah mom," Tucker said.

There really wasn´t much to say after that so they just sat there quietly, waiting for news. They didn´t have to wait for long, as Mike entered the house, followed by detective Zimmer.

"Hi guys, I guess you´ve heard," Mike said gravely, picking a chair and sitting down at the kitchen table. They nodded mutely. "I want to introduce you to detective Zimmer here, he is going to ask you a few questions, OK?"

Again they nodded, looking curiously at Zimmer. He cleared his throat and took a seat as well. Tucker´s mother hovered nearby at the kitchen counter.

"I heard you were all here at the party last night," he began, "Did any one of you talk to Ashley?"

Tucker and Sam looked at Danny, who answered. "I did. Well we all did but I was sitting next to her."

Zimmer looked at him questionably. Danny was figeting, looking very uncomfortable.

"I... well she was alright wasn´t she. I mean, I just talked to her for a bit."

"What did you talk about?"

Danny frowned. "I really don´t remember. About my dad, you know, ghosts and stuff."

"Did she mention her plans for the evening?"

Danny shook his head.

"Do you know her boyfriend? Any of you?"

At that both Danny and Sam shook their heads but Tucker frowned, trying to remember. "I think I saw her with a boy a couple of times, at her house. He goes to our school but I don´t really know him since they are older than I am."

"When was that?" Tucker shook his head. "I don´t know, I´m sorry. A while back, maybe two months. I haven´t seen him lately, but then I didn´t really pay attention to it."

Mike sat there, just watching. Nothing was really out of the ordinary with them, although Danny seemed very upset, more so than the others. Maybe he had really liked the girl. Then another thought hit him. He turned to Zimmer,

"There was a ghost here at the party last night."

That caught Zimmer´s attention immediately. "Which one, did you see?" he asked.

"Looked like some kid," Mike answered, "They said his name was Phantom."

"The ghost kid was here last night?" Zimmer said sharply, his attention now fully on Mike.

Mike raised his hands. "I really don´t know much about it, I only got here yesterday. But I saw him, he came around the house, into the back yard where we all were. I was looking straight at him. He seemed to be looking for something and then disappeared into the house through the wall. The Fentons went after him, but they couldn´t find him."

"Oh really," Zimmer said, looking pensive. "It´s funny the ghost should turn up here too. He was spotted at the crime scene you know." He got up. "Maybe we should pay the Fentons a visit," he said, "Wanna tag along?"