During her drive home, Hoffs realized that no matter how rattled her nerves were by the murders and their long hours put into investigating, she would be able to sleep tonight, this she knew because she started to nod off twice on her way back. If she didn't get some sleep soon, she wouldn't have to worry about the killer catching her during her nightly routines as a decoy, she'd die of exhaustion first.
She got home, went inside, closed the door behind her, locked it, turned on the light, walked in to the living room and started to unzip her jacket and remove it. She had just gotten ready to sit down for a minute when her phone rang. Now who would be calling this late at night? She picked up the receiver and said, "Hello?"
There was no answer. Judy felt her tired eyes grow wider as an unsettling thought occurred to her. She repeated, "Hello?"
No answer. She listened a little longer, and then hung up and looked at her phone as if it had transformed into a venomous snake.
It rang again, she yanked the receiver off the hook and yelled into it, "Who is this!?"
"Yiiii!" she could hear Penhall exclaim painfully, "Hoffs, you trying to make me go deaf or something?'
Judy growled under her breath and rolled her eyes, "Penhall, what're you doing calling me at 3 in the morning?"
"Bite my head off," Penhall grumbled, "I was just making sure you were alright."
"Did you just call?"
"Yeah, why'd you hang up on me?" Doug asked.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Judy asked him.
"I was yawning, okay? I'm tired too, but I wanted to make sure you got home alright."
Judy tilted her head to the side inquisitively and asked him, "Since when do you care?"
"I don't," Penhall told her, "But you know how in every movie the killer's always hiding in the house and waits until you lock up to pop out with a knife in your back. If you hadn't answered the phone I was going to come busting in there."
"From where?" Judy asked as she turned and glanced over to the windows, which had all had their shades drawn earlier when she left.
"I'm at a payphone around the corner," Penhall said, "I decided to follow you before I headed home…you're losing your touch, Hoffs, you're a cop and you don't notice when you're being tailed?"
"And what would you have done if I'd been in the shower?" Judy asked him, just able to picture him being a bonehead and busting down the front door.
"It's not in your living room, is it?" Doug asked.
"No!"
"Well then I don't see the problem," he replied, "Now, are you sure there's nobody there?"
Judy moved her head back and chuckled to herself, this case was starting to get to everybody, and it was starting to show in all of them. She shook her head and smiled, "Yes, Doug, I'm fine."
"Alright…then goodnight," he said.
"Goodnight, Penhall," Judy laughed as she hung up.
But a moment after that, she stopped laughing and started to consider the same possibility; if the same killer who they were after had followed her, then he'd know that she wasn't a teenager. All the same it didn't mean that he wouldn't break his M.O. just this once if she seemed like a good target. And if not this killer, maybe some other psycho from the city, who could tell these days? She drew her sidearm and went through the apartment checking behind every door, in every closet, in every possible place someone could possibly hide. Satisfied that nobody was there, she let out a sigh of relief, put her gun on the coffee table, and headed off to get a few hours' sleep before resuming her cover at an all girls' high school the next day.
"What'd you have to come along for when you did, huh?" Penhall murmured to Hanson as they left the school, "You know I was supposed to get detention to get in next to this guy Pembleton to find out if he's running with this gang or not."
Tom noticed that another guy wasn't far off from them and possibly within earshot, so he punched Doug and said, "Hey man, you know if we were late home today, Dad's gonna kick my tail for it, so let's just get out of here, okay? You can make kissy faces with your boyfriend tomorrow."
"Ha-ha," Penhall dryly remarked. He turned and saw the other students leaving and waved back to them with both arms, "See ya later, losers!" He leaned in towards Tom and asked, "So what's up?"
"I don't know," he said, "I think we just need to get back to the Chapel and see what's going on."
"Jenko ain't gonna like us shirking our responsibilities for your gut feelings, Tommy boy," Penhall told him as they went to the car.
As part of their brotherly act, they fought over the car keys but Penhall won and Tom raced around to the other side and got in.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" he asked Penhall as they drove out of there.
"What kind of a stupid question is that?" Penhall asked, "Of course I slept, that's what you do at night, Hanson."
"You know what I mean," Tom said, "Every time I closed my eyes I kept seeing those kids in the morgue. You really think anybody's going to catch this guy?"
"I wish they would, maybe then you'd shut up about it," Penhall replied, "You're making me nuts."
"Whatever you say, Doug," Tom said mockingly, then out of nowhere he asked, "By the way, you talk to Hoffs last night?"
"Yeah, she said she was alright," he grumbled.
"And this morning?" Tom asked.
Doug took his eyes off the road for a minute to ask Hanson, "Hey what do you think, you think I got nothing else to do with my time that I call her all the time?"
Tom avoided the question and asked again, "So did you talk to her this morning?"
"Yeah," Doug answered, "She said she's fine."
"Well, I guess we'll know for sure when we get back to the Chapel," Hanson told him.
They had barely gotten in and had a chance to say hello to Hoffs when they heard Jenko as he came their way, "Hanson, the man of the hour!"
Uh oh, Hanson asked, "Is there a particular reason why, Captain?"
"Ask Ioki," was all he said.
Tom didn't get it. He turned and started to look for Ioki when he saw the man coming towards him.
"Hey Hanson!" Ioki said as he walked up, much to everybody's surprise, with Terry Livingston following him, "Look what I found."
Despite the beatdown she took last night, she wasn't looking any the worse for wear either; but she looked like she got about as much sleep as the rest of them did. Today she still wore the military jacket and blue jeans with holes in them, but today she'd ditched the rag and they saw that underneath was a head full of short brown curly hair; now she bore a little more resemblance to the all American girl…who just happened to be dressed like the all American boy.
Penhall was not pleased to see this and he asked Harry, "Ioki, why did you bring her here?"
"Hey I was on my way here and she practically threw herself on my car, what was I supposed to do?" Ioki asked as he took off his jacket and adjusted his holster.
"Did something happen?" Hanson asked as he approached her, "Are you alright, Terry?"
She looked like hell but as far as he could tell it was just from exhaustion, as she spoke she did well to keep her eyes halfway open.
"No, nothing's happened," she shook her head, "Look, can I just please stay here for a while? I…" she raised a hand over one tired eye and explained, "My parents are gone, my friends are all off until tonight, and I don't feel safe being alone."
Hanson had a good idea that it wouldn't have done any good to try assuring her that she didn't have anything to worry about since the killer never attacked anyone until 10 P.M., it'd be just his luck he'd say that and then the killer would change his M.O.
"I'll have to run this by our Captain," he told her, "Just a minute."
As soon as he left to find Jenko, Terry wobbled back and forth before collapsing on the floor, or rather she would have if Hoffs and Ioki hadn't caught her at the last second and helped her up.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Hoffs asked her.
Terry nodded shakily and groaned, "I just need to sit down and rest a minute."
"Hanson, you know as well as I do that despite the face value of this Chapel, that we are not a babysitting service," Jenko told Tom after he finished explaining their predicament.
"I know, but…" Tom started to say but was cut off.
"However," Jenko added, "Since she already knows about you guys and I'm guessing she's smart enough not to blow your cover to anybody she knows…if she stays out of the way she can stay here, but only temporarily. At least that'd make one less teenager we'd have to worry about before the shift's over."
Tom nodded, "I'll go tell her."
"Good idea, you go tell her, and I'll go with you," Jenko told him, "I want to make sure she gets the message."
That seemed simple enough, but by the time they got back, Tom looked around the room and couldn't find her anywhere.
"Oh ho, what is this, the Invisible Woman?" Jenko asked.
Hanson looked to Hoffs and Ioki and asked them, "Where'd she go?"
They both pointed and Tom turned to see that the teenaged girl was seated at his desk with her arms folded on it and her head resting on them, and she was completely dead to the world.
"Oh brother," he commented, "That's my desk!"
"So noted," Penhall remarked, "But I doubt you'll have long to worry about that because we've got to get out of here and meet up with that goon squad again, remember? You interrupted me before I found out anything vital."
"Oh…right," Tom replied.
"So long as everybody knows what they're doing," Jenko said, and added sarcastically, "Go on, get out of here, you bug me." He glanced over to the figure passed out at Hanson's desk and commented, "Hmm, might be the smartest thing we did all day letting her stay here, we do not need that behind the wheel of a car right about now."
"I don't get it," Judy said with a slight shake of her head.
"What?" Penhall asked.
Judy pointed to the girl and said, "I think she's about the smartest person in this city right now. I mean there's some maniac running around targeting teenagers and everybody knows it, but what's everybody doing? Instead of staying home where they'd be safe, they're still out roaming the streets all hours of the night, why?"
"Well let's face it," Penhall said, "A good majority of them are out every night getting drunk and stoned out of their minds anyway, intelligence really does not come into the equation for a lot of these people."
"It's asking for it," Judy said.
"Of course it is," Doug said as he put his jacket on, "And personally if this guy just happens to be seeking out the biggest idiots then he has my blessing to proceed. Were that the case I'd only wish somebody would catch him so we could stop doing decoy patrols when it's 30 degrees out at night."
"That's a terrible thing to say, Doug," Hoffs told him.
"Oh yeah?" he asked as he straightened his collar out, "Hoffs, why do you think this division exists? We go after teenage criminals, now some of them might be smart operating million-dollar illegal businesses and doing it so most people never catch on, but the vast majority of them are just plain stupid. We go after gangs, after dealers, after drunks, if most of these guys had a brain in their skull to begin with, we wouldn't even know about them because they wouldn't be doing any of that stuff. It would make our job a whole lot easier if that would just happen to be the case. But it'll be just our luck that this guy's actually picking off the more productive members of the next generation."
"Uh-huh," Judy replied, "You want a tip, Doug? Wear your long underwear tonight."
"Ha-ha," he sneered as they made their way out of the chapel.
Once the young officers had gone, Jenko tiptoed around to Hanson's desk to get a look at their guest for the afternoon. Despite the noise going on around her, Terry Livingston had slept clear through the whole discussion, and the only movement in her whole body was from her low, regular breathing. It left Jenko shaking his head and wondering just what the hell had happened between last night and today that it got this kind of response from her. And he couldn't help wondering also if tonight would be the night that they caught the person responsible, or the night that there would be a new victim?