It had been many years since Detective 1st Grade Rita Ortiz hsd pulled a double shift and, technically speaking, it still was. This was not a double shift that Lieutenant Rita Ortiz was working, not really, though the standard 4 PM end of shift time for the day shift had come and gone. Connie was also gone, as was John Irvine, Abby Archer and Saxon McGuire. Rita had yielded her desk to the 4 - 12 watch commander, and was sitting at Sax's desk reviewing her notes on what she was calling The Mackey Case for want of a better title.

That which we call a rose is still a fucking mystery, she thought as she typed up the notes she had written in what even she was forced to admit was atrocious handwriting.

They had learned one important detail before 4 PM scattered her friend and her detectives across the city.

"No encrypted DVD's at any of the other three apartments," Abby said after hanging up the phone, "and nothing interesting in their wallets."

"And nothing at their apartments either."

"No, huh?" Connie.

"They gave them a good toss?" asked Rita

"Yup. Wasn't that hard apparently. They were all dumps, mostly empty. Nothing like how you described Mackey's place."

"Shit," Rita said after a moment.

"What?" Connie asked.

Rita just looked at Connie and waited for their old telepathy to kick in.

"Shit," Connie said after a few seconds.

"What?" Sax asked.

"Mackey didn't flip on the AIC. Mackey was the AIC."

"Come again?"

"He pointed to another guy on his crew as the asshole in charge, but it was really Mackey. That's why Mackey had the DVD and the long ass number to unlock it. That's why Mackey had the nice crib. He was leading that team."

"Why point to someone else?" Abby asked.

"Because it got him protective custody instead of Rikers," Connie said, "which he escaped from when the time was right."

"Which got him killed."

"How long after he escaped did he turn up in the park?" Rita asked her friend.

"A bit over twenty-four hours."

"So he escapes one night and gets dumped in the park the next night," Abby said, "What was he doing for an entire day, and why was he still doing it in the city? He should have booked."

"He didn't go home. He would have grabbed the disk if he had gone home, wouldn't he?" Sax asked.

"Possibly."

"Nobody else went to his place either. Assuming they knew where he lived. No one else had tossed it." Connie said.

"So he went somewhere else, and never had a chance to go home or leave the city on account of turning up dead," Saxon said.

"Seems like."

"Either they grabbed him up, or he went in on his own," Connie said.

"Reporting in, like any good little soldier would?" Rita asked.

"If so, they didn't like the report he delivered. They killed all four men because of it," Connie answered.

"Worried someone would spill the beans?" Abby asked.

"Or not tolerant of fuck ups." Sax answered.

"A very aggressive zero defect program." Rita said.

The 4 - 12 shift was just starting to trickle in, and Rita had to make a decision.

They had four days until the next event according to the contents of the disk. They could sit on the place until then and see who turns up. They could raid it now, but they would most likely find an empty building. Probably they had other options as well. But whatever they were going to do, they were not going to do it tonight.

"Abby, Sax, take a ride to Chief of D's office. Give the task force the disk, the thumb drive, and copies of your notes. Hang around for a while if they have questions, but don't burn your whole evening over this. And log your overtime. Time for us to let this fucking task force do its job. It's check out time for us. They can bitch at us tomorrow during regular business hours for giving this to them so late."

"Will do, boss."

"Remember to let them know that TARU is still working on deciphering the ledgers."

"Got it."

"Right, off you go," Rita said in another failed attempt at an accent from across the pond.

"What was that this time, Irish?" Connie asked.

"Fuck you sideways, mate," Rita replied.

"Wiedersehen," Connie said as she smiled at her old partner before walking out of the squad room that at one time had been her second home.

An hour had passed since then, and Rita had not checked out yet, but she was close. The longer she waited the less traffic there would be on the drive back to Brooklyn. She sent her typed notes to the printer, logged off the computer and stood up. Her hand went to the pocket of her jacket where the duplicate thumb drive sat safe and sound. It was then that her stomach made an urgent plea for food that was loud enough to get more than one head turning.

She thought about the Thai place near Mackey's apartment, which was too far, but there were tons of other places much closer, and she could always just drive home and stop along the way.

The words stop along the way jogged her memory.

Shit, I have the thing tonight at 7 in Clinton.

She had just enough time for a quick bite to eat. Besides, these things never start on time.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, ten years ago the world was introduced to Inspector Klara Bergman of the Ystad Police Department. The Chill of Winter would go on to become the third highest grossing movie of 2012, and the highest grossing movie of that year with a female lead actor," the man on the stage said once the noise in the theater had died down.

Technically speaking, or at least professionally speaking, Rita was not supposed to enjoy this sort of movie; no cop was. It was a well known rule that cops hated movies and TV shows about cops, or crime, or law enforcement in general. That rule would probably hold true now if the main character in this trilogy of movies had been a cop in the states, or even an American cop solving a crime overseas, but she was neither. Klara Bergman was a Swedish cop solving crimes in Sweden. If Rita was being honest, she would admit that it was the foreignness of the landscape combined with the vaguely familiar, but still foreign, police ranks and procedures, and that fucking gorgeous sergeant that Klara relied on (and, Rita suspected, though it was never explicitly shown, was secretly fucking, because that's what Rita would be doing in her place) that appealed to Rita.

"The world's highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016, Annelie Bodin's films have grossed over $6 billion dollars worldwide to date."

Rita had arrived later than she had wanted, but was still in time to see Annelie Bodin and her entourage make their entrance. Rita had hoped, even though the notice had not mentioned him, that Annelie would be accompanied by the edible Sergeant Anders Lindberg, but it was a woman Rita did not recognize that stuck to the tall actress like glue.

Jesus, give her some room to breathe, you suck up.

It was only a moment later, when Rita saw how the two women looked at each other, that Rita realized her mistake.

Well, at least one of us is getting laid.

It had never occurred to Rita that Annelie Bodin was interested in women instead of men. Maybe, Rita thought, Klara Bergman was also interested in women instead of men. Maybe that was why the three movies never showed anything other than personal and professional friendship between the tall Inspector and the equally tall, ridiculously attractive Sergeant that always had her back. The possibility should not have made Rita smile, but it did; and as she began to build a fantasy in her mind involving herself and the blonde haired, blue eyed, nordic Adonis of a Sergeant, she could not wait until he appeared on the screen, bathed in the light of the revelation that Rita had him all to herself.

"Ladies and gentlemen, The Chill of Winter."