The mood in the precinct when Riley arrived was extremely grim. A Sunday morning was generally a fairly quiet time, just the leftovers of the Saturday night rush to deal with. This Sunday felt different. Moreno had called in half her roster to provide extra hands in dealing with the nurse-killer. There was a buzz of conversation and a purposeful ebb and flow of people moving between desks, taking cell phone calls, entering or accessing data on laptops, tablets and fixed computer terminals. An observer might be forgiven for imagining that all this concentrated effort would surely catch the killer. Riley knew enough by now to know that this was completely wrong.
Fusco was at his desk staring at his computer screen. He looked up as Riley approached and twitched a forced smile at him. "The file's on your desk, John," he grunted, and turned his attention back to his screen. Riley slumped into his chair and pulled the file on the latest body towards him. Dominique Riviera, 32, divorced with two young children. There was nothing in it he especially wanted to read, but he forced himself to pay attention to the details of the latest attack. The devil was in the detail.
The killer was no longer making any attempt at camouflaging his activities. There was no token robbery. But suddenly Riley felt a surge of hope. Much as he hated to admit it, the rape offered a chance to catch this man. Because a rape left behind DNA... "Lionel, when will the forensics be back from the rape kit?" he asked.
Fusco glanced up. "Not for a week or so. And don't get your hopes up. This guy's been flyin' under the radar, so there may not be anything else on him in the system. A DNA sample'll come in useful once we have a suspect, but until then, well - it's only any good if there's somethin' to match it to." He turned his attention back to his computer screen.
Riley went back to the file. A week was far too long. At this rate the perp could have killed half a dozen more times in that period. But apart from the possible future lead there was nothing more in the file. He returned to the surveillance camera footage from the first two murders. The killer must be on there somewhere...but after several hours of intent staring he had achieved nothing except an incipient migraine and a strange blurred patch in the centre of his vision.
An email alert blinked in the top left-hand corner of his computer screen. He checked his inbox. A message copied to him from Maxine Angelis.
RUN RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN
YOU CANT CATCH ME IM THE GINGERBREAD MAN.
I THINK ILL STAB THE NEXT ONE. :-)
xxxxxxxx
The Monday morning newspaper held even worse, if that were possible.
"The NYPD's handling of a major manhunt has been more reminiscent of the Keystone Kops than anyone, in or out of the Department, can feel comfortable with," Moreno read aloud. "At first misidentifying the killings as muggings gone wrong, the NYPD has assigned a former Narcotics investigator with only three months' experience in Homicide to what will surely be one of its most important cases in decades. Detective John Riley, in charge of the investigation into the Gingerbread Man, is confident that he can catch the killer, despite admitting he has no leads. In the meantime, the taunting email sent early Saturday morning – still untraced - has been followed by another in the wake of the latest murder." Moreno dropped the copy of the New York Journal onto her desk as if it was a dead skunk. "Jesus, Riley, what the hell did you say to her? You were supposed to keep her sweet!"
He spread his hands helplessly. "Captain, I followed the media protocol-"
"But you admitted you had no leads? How did you think that was going to go down? For God's sake, Riley, she's a goddamned investigative reporter who's been around this town a long time. You may have been buried up to your ass in a narcotics case for years, but let me assure you, batting your eyelashes at her and depending on your chiseled good looks was never going to cut it." Moreno leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Alright, Fusco can handle her in future. If she does corner you, you offer no comment even if she's just asking about the weather." She eyed him without favour, and then sighed again. "Okay, get outta here. And try to scrape up a lead from somewhere. We're grasping at straws here."
He made a dignified retreat from Moreno's office and went back to his desk. Fusco eyed him sympathetically. "Captain tear you a new asshole, huh?"
Riley nodded ruefully.
"Aw, don't sweat it, John. Happens to us all sooner or later." He eyed the clock on the wall. "C'mon, it's nearly lunch time. What say we go find a good falafel stand and take a walk, might get the brain cells workin' a bit faster."
Something in him rebelled at accepting Fusco's pity, and he shook his head. "You go ahead, Lionel. I need to finish up here first."
xxxxxx
By mid-afternoon there was nothing further he could do at the precinct. He couldn't bear the thought of returning to the empty brownstone, and so he caught the subway to one of the closer stations to the den and walked. He was almost there when his cell went; Joss wanted to know how things were going. When he told her she said, "I'm coming down there."
"Thanks, Joss, but that's not necessary-"
"No, it's not, but I'm still coming down."
"Are you getting invested in this case too? That's probably a bad idea," he told her.
There was a pause at her end. "If you really don't want me..."
"No, of course I do. It's just-" Just what? I don't want you to hurt like I'm starting to hurt over this? "I'm just worried you'll get hurt. This one's getting personal for me." There. The truth out in the open; let her make of it what she would.
"It's a tough one all right, John. But I would really like to help you out if I can. And besides, this is a chance for me to be a cop again."
Put like that, he couldn't refuse. She must have been on her way over in any case, since it was only a few minutes before she came down the stairs to the station. Finch was still absent along with Bear, and Shaw was apparently taking a day off. Carter moved over to her window. "Which hospital did your new vic work at again?" she asked.
"City General."
"Not Manhattan General like the others?"
"No. He's widened his area of operations."
"It might be your big break, though," she said, suddenly excited. "We know he knew Karen Smith because the Machine gave out her number. That tells us he's not just targeting people at random, he's going for specific individuals. So we're looking for someone who knew both this cluster of nurses at Manhattan General-" she drew a big dot in the left-hand bottom of the pane and labeled it MG "- and Dominique Riviera at City General -" another big dot labeled CG in the right-hand bottom. "We look of someone who had contact with both hospitals-" a slanting line up from one dot, another slanting line from the other, forming an inverted V. She stabbed triumphantly at the intersection of the two lines. "That's our perp."
"Unless Riviera had recent contact with Manhattan General," commented Reese. "But I don't think she did, I think she'd been working at City for about four years." A great wave of relief swept through him. A lead at last! He found himself hugging Joss very tightly from sheer relief.
"This is Finch's area of expertise," Reese commented. "I'll get him onto it." He slipped out his phone to call Finch, but just as he was about to hit the number, Finch himself arrived, his uneven footsteps echoing across the station platform as Bear paced at his side.
"Good afternoon Detective, Ms Carter," he nodded to them both. "We have another Number."
Reese came back to earth with a start. "Can Shaw work this one, Professor?" He asked. "I may have a lead on this serial killer."
Finch regarded him in his birdlike manner. "Since I no longer pay you, Mr Reese, it seems only fair that you choose your own priorities. As it happens, this number is a little peculiar. When it came through I could see at once that it's not a social security number. In fact, I really can't work out what the number refers to at all, and until I can figure it out the question of how we work it is rather moot." He was booting up his computer as he spoke. Reese could see the abstracted look of Finch's computer trance settle over the other man's face, and knew there was no point in trying to distract him now. Like a teenager wanting to borrow the car, he would have to wait for the right moment to ask Finch to run down Joss's lead. In the mean time, he rather thought having Carter back to the brownstone for dinner might be a good move.
He cooked them both pasta, nothing very fancy, and they ate in near silence with the TV news on, both absorbed in their own thoughts until the coverage of the Gingerbread Man murders came on. They both stared in astonishment at the screen. Fusco was taking the press conference, and Reese found himself envying the man's ability to project the bluff, no-nonsense persona of a New York cop. "'You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man'. Detective Fusco – doesn't that taunt make you angry?" One reporter wanted to know.
"Yeah, well just remember what happened to him at the end of the story," Fusco shot back. "Maybe this creep never read that far." The assembled reporters laughed, and the news presenter passed on to the next story about striking city garbage collectors.
After they washed up the dishes, still in near silence, they sat down on his lumpy sofa. Joss glanced across at him. "C'mon John. You can't bear the weight of the world on those shoulders all the time." He leaned towards her so their shoulders touched. "I hate playing catch-up. Guess working with Finch spoiled me. I got used to always being one step ahead."
She said nothing, just took his hand, interlaced their fingers and squeezed. They sat like that for a long time.
xxxxx
He felt better the next morning. A decent night's sleep, curled around Joss's warm body. They'd awakened early, but put the time to good use. He was relaxed and rested. What was more, he'd contacted Finch and explained Joss's insight to him; Finch was trawling for data from the whole range of sources he could access and setting his computer system to cross-matching data sets. He was confident that he would have a result by the end of the day. The relief almost made Riley want to dance. The only cloud on his horizon – and it was a big cloud – was the knowledge that the Gingerbread Man was going to strike again soon. He prayed Finch's programme would deliver a name in time.
Arriving at the precinct, he was hanging up his overcoat when Fusco came over.
"Hey Riley, a word," he said.
They went into a vacant interview room.
"Just so you know," said Fusco quietly, "Moreno's worried. You remember how there were no unis the other morning when we went hunting our man down by Manhattan General?"
Riley nodded, suddenly tense.
"Well, it seems Moreno had ordered a big increase in foot patrols in that area. But a computer glitch meant her request just vanished. Her PC's got a copy of the memo, but there's no record of the overtime request or the alterations to the roster being entered into the system. The high-ups are bustin' her balls about this, lookin' for a scapegoat, right? And that Angelis broad aint helping. But it's like when the lights went out for the perp. Real convenient. You gotta wonder – is there someone on the inside helping this creep? Watching over him the way Glasses watched over you?"
Riley could only shrug his shoulders in worried bemusement.