Doug groaned to himself as he lay stretched out on his couch that night. Ohh his aching everything. After what happened last night he'd gotten practically no sleep, so today in school he fell asleep during gym class and wound up being used as first base in a game of softball. He swore he was going to track down everybody that slid on him and he was going to punch their lights out. Now, Hanson swore up and down that he hadn't participated in the game, but Doug had a sneaking suspicion to the contrary…
He heard something.
Opening his eyes he looked around the living room of his apartment. It was night, it was dark, the only light was from the TV that had gone over to blue and static snow. He heard its crackle, he head it slightly better after removing the headphones that had long since quit putting out music. There it was again, somebody was knocking on his door, at…3:30 in the morning.
Doug grabbed his gun and headed to the door, asking loudly, "Who is it?"
There was no response from the other side of the door but the knocking persisted. Doug hit the lights, stepped beside the door and asked again, louder, "WHO IS IT?"
No answer. Doug reached the doorknob, kept his gun ready to shoot if need be, threw the door open and…
Tom Hanson stood on the other side of the door, eyes wide and tired, skin paler than usual, he looked dazed; there was absolutely no register of surprise at the door being flung open so suddenly. Instead he moved his fist over to the doorframe and started knocking on it.
"What're you doing here?" Penhall asked him, shocked as hell by this sudden appearance, but concealed it very well save for a subtle drop of his gun on the inn table.
"Can I come in?" Tom asked.
"What're you doing here?" Doug wanted to know.
"Can I come in?" Tom repeated.
"Come in, now what are you doing here?" Doug asked as he closed the door behind Hanson.
"I can't sleep," Tom answered as he shuffled his feet against the floor to move into the living room.
"Well isn't that funny? I just about WAS asleep when you came pounding on my door," Doug pointed out.
Without waiting for permission, Hanson sat down on Doug's couch and looked up at the other cop. It was obvious he really hadn't been sleeping, anymore than Doug had been, maybe even less in fact. Doug felt some of the hot air go out of his balloon at being rudely awakened and he came down a notch and asked Tom, "What's the matter?" He figured anything that would possess Tom Hanson to come across town and see him at 3:30 in the morning had to be a pretty big deal.
Tom tilted his head down to a level state and stared straight ahead at nothing and with a glassy eyed expression, slowly shook his head back and forth and said, "I can't stop thinking about it."
"About what?"
"Kenny Bradshaw," Tom answered.
Penhall huffed and sighed and sat down beside his partner on the couch and said, "Tom, you got to stop beating yourself up over this, we couldn't help it. We can't be everywhere in this city that some high school kid is out alone in the middle of the night."
"Every time I close my eyes I see that kid just staring at me," Tom told him, ignoring Doug's comment, "Like he's asking me of all people, why he had to be killed? Why couldn't we catch this guy? Why can't anybody catch him? When's it going to stop?"
Doug raised a hand to get Hanson's attention and said, "It's a horrible situation, I know, I'm living with it too, Hanson, and don't you ever forget that."
"I'm sorry."
"We're doing everything we can, it's not enough, but we can't do any more or we would and we would catch this psycho and drag him in hogtied," Doug explained, "You can't let it eat you up."
"Well…that's not the only reason I can't sleep," Tom confessed.
Doug looked at him, "What else, then?"
Tom turned to him and explained, "I was watching TV earlier, there was this program on, serial killer on the loose, this woman left home alone all day waiting for the locksmith to come and change her locks so she won't have to worry. All day long she encounters these guys she thinks is the killer, and everyone is a red herring…then the locksmith comes, and he's the killer, and he strangles her."
"So?" Doug asked.
"If you're not even safe getting your locks changed, when are you safe?" Tom asked, "It made me realize, who can you trust? Who can we trust? Who is this guy by day? Is he a locksmith? Or is he a delivery guy? Or a plumber? Or…"
"Or a cop?" Doug hinted.
"Yeah," Tom replied, "When you get down to it, there's no profession in the world that you could say without doubt, that nobody who works in that field could ever be a killer, because they can be anywhere, they can be anyone. Who's safe? Who's being watched? Who of them are being watched and don't know it? Are we being watched when we go about our normal days? How would we know?"
There was a brief pause between the two men before Doug sat up straight on the couch and said, "Well I hope you're happy, now you made me paranoid."
Tom gave a slight shrug but otherwise made no movement that would determine what was on his mind. There was another moment's pause between the two men before Doug reached for the remote and asked, "So what do you suppose is on this time of night?"
"You look lousy, Penhall," Judy said the next day when everybody reported in to the Chapel before school.
"Thanks, I feel worse than that," Doug replied as he struggled to keep both eyes open at the same time. Two nights without any sleep, he could tell today was going to go real well.
Harry watched as Hanson walked in and said to Judy, "Look who's runner up for lead of 'Night of the Living Dead'."
"Ha-ha," Tom remarked.
Judy looked at the two of them and said dryly, "I'll believe you two are brothers today, you look exactly alike."
Both men sneered in response of what an insult that was to be compared to each other. They'd both wound up watching TV until 5 in the morning, only to nod off for about an hour's sleep before they had to get ready for work. But with the morning sun, Hanson's paranoia hadn't gone away, and he doubted that Penhall's had either, even if he wouldn't admit it. He felt like they were going out into the morning with a big target on their backs, and didn't even know it. If not the killer they were looking for, what were the odds there could be another killer out there just waiting for a target? Why stop at one? This was a big city, there could be a dozen killers out there that they didn't know about, and if so, they could be anywhere, they could be anything.
"Hanson!"
Tom yelped in shock at the sudden sound and turned to see it was Ioki trying to get his attention.
"You alright, Tom?" he asked.
"Fine…never better," he answered, not convincing in the least.
"Hanson, I got a strange feeling that we're going to be meeting up later today," Ioki told him with a knowing sneering smirk, "I got an idea that the car thieves I'm trying to bust, just happen to know the gang you're trying to infiltrate."
"That would be great," Penhall noted, "If we could close two cases at the same time."
"It would be better if we could make it 3 for 3," Judy said as she got between the guys and explained, "The girls I've been getting in with mentioned introducing me to their boyfriends, supposed to be something of a wild bunch. Wouldn't that just be a kick in the head?"
"It'd be fine with me," Tom replied, "I'd like one of our cases to be over, though I'd prefer it to be this murderer."
There were low murmurs of agreement from everyone on that one.
"Well," Harry raised his arm to show the time on his watch, "Looks like we better get going."
"You know there are times when I hate this job," Doug murmured to Tom as they headed out of the Chapel and over to their cover car.
"I hate it too," Tom agreed.
"But you know," Doug said as they got in the car, "I think my experience in hating it really started once you came around."
"Ha-ha, very funny," Tom dryly remarked as he slumped down in the passenger seat and closed his eyes.
As the engine roared to life, Doug's right hand went to the radio dial and started turning through the stations until he found one that wasn't all static, but when he did, he was sorry that he had once he heard the words coming out of the radio speaker,
"There's a killer on the road,
His brain is squirming like a toad,
Take a long holiday,
Let your children play,
If you give this man a ride,
Sweet memory will die,
Killer on the road."
"Ehhhh shaddup you," Doug told the radio as he punched it and killed the volume.
Tom held a hand to his forehead like he had a headache and said, "Hey Doug?"
"Eh?" Penhall asked.
"Is it true they made that song about Charles Starkweather?" Hanson asked.
"Who?" Doug turned to him.
"You know," Tom said nonchalantly, "That guy who went on a shooting spree in the 50s with his girlfriend."
"Boy you are just full of them lately, aren't you?" Doug asked as he put the car in gear and drove off for the high school, "Would it be possible for you to go one day without asking these stupid questions about homicidal nuts?"
"I just asked a question," Tom replied.
"Yeah well I got a question for you," Penhall replied as he gripped the steering wheel with one hand and balled his right one into a fist and held it just under Hanson's mouth, "How many more questions could you ask if I busted your jaw right now?"
Tom put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and slumped back down in his seat and remained quiet for the rest of the ride to school.