A re-writing of the Suburban Legends fanfic.
A serial killer from New York City has arrived in Miami in the run up to Halloween, their M.O - to kill their victims by copying urban legends. Detective Ridley Moon who worked on the case in NYC is sent down to help investigate. She is determined to close the case once and for all and exact revenge for her murdered partner, Detective Justin Silver.
Horatio suspects Ridley is hiding more than information to do with the case and that she may have a link to a past case of his in NYC. Can they solve the case of the Suburban Legends killer before the killer gets too close?
Will Ridley's own personal devils hinder her work on this case and what will the Miami team think as they learn more about her and her curious oddities and promiscuous ways? Is everything as black and white as it seems with the detective or is there something darker to her nature? And could a casual fling lead to a death?
Detective Justin Silver's death scream broke the silence of an early October morning. It drew a fresh shudder from me and I fumbled in my pockets with gloved hands for a lighter. Finding it beside a crumpled tissue, I clenched it hard and fixed the calmest gaze I could muster on my superior.
Lieutenant Larry Gilligan hit Pause of the tape recorder. His stern brown stare stayed focused on me as he clasped his hands together on the desk.
"Was that necessary?" Detective Mac Taylor's tone came out clipped but calm, his ire clear but kept in check.
"I want Detective Moon to remember the risks before she agrees to anything," the lieutenant answered. I could see the taunt in his stare as he willed me to embarrass myself with a breakdown, maybe a scream or a curse word so he could justify a suspension.
I glanced to the left to the tinted windows of his office in an effort to calm myself and caught Mac's piercing blue stare out of the corner of my eye.
Detective Mac Taylor headed the C.S.I. Department in the NYPD, he's a decent man, better at trying to build the bonds between the police and the scientists of New York's finest better than most. I didn't know which side of the ranks he leaned towards today, if he had empathy for me or if he had come as a C.S.I only.
Outside I glimpsed tower blocks and heard the distant hum of the metropolis' twenty-four / seven bustle of life. Even though someone died every thirty seconds or so out there, life never stopped. It's why I moved here, to be distracted by the chaos and never find a minute to myself. Time to myself has always proved dangerous, too much thinking happened then. After Justin's death I had a month of it, a month to mourn and be angry and worry and fill up with guilt until I spilled over with it and ended up an exhausted, chain smoking mess. It took me just three days before the solitude in my apartment scared me to another's bed. Smoking, sex, shooting ranges and several shots are temporary distractions, they're not great but they're better than nothing. This job was always the best distraction until some sick psycho polluted this world for me too and my nightmares became poisoned with the scream the lieutenant has just played.
"What am I agreeing to?" I asked the obvious. "Why did you play that?"
I clenched at the lighter and released it momentarily as I returned my attention back to Lieutenant Gilligan and his smug stare.
The lieutenant was turning soft around the edges, too much sitting and brown nosing at parties has left him carrying a few extra pounds now. Seems the higher up the ladder one goes the less they do. Can't blame the public for their lack of faith in the force when they see someone like him wielding a badge in one hand and an overpriced pheasant leg in the other. Do people eat pheasant legs? I don't know, I don't get invited to those kind of parties.
"They had a double murder in Miami a couple of days ago," the lieutenant explained. "A boy and a girl sneaked up some beach path in his car to do what horny teenagers will do and got attacked. The girl made a call while it was happening, said someone was trying to get into the car and that she could hear someone on the roof."
The lieutenant paused and started to hunt in his desk drawer. I speculated it was all for dramatic effect and looked outside the window again. Everything out there looked smudged and stained in the grim grey and bruised blue of a damp morning
People saw New York as a city of prospects, I saw it as a maze of concrete blocks and intercrossing streets that would devour you if you dropped your guard for just a second. Too many came here with the same naivety starry eyed, good looking youths went to L.A with as they hoped for acting jobs and got caught by the porn industry instead. For every successful writer, designer, or artist New York allowed to emerge there were about a hundred others languishing forgotten in the shadows of subways and undercarriages of its bridges dying slowly from drugs, neglect and the reality of a broken dream. When I arrived here I was already broken and my naivety of the world long gone, it kept me safe from suffering further damage and gave me the tough exterior needed for this job. At least, that was all true until three months ago when I was shattered all over again.
"Here's the file." The lieutenant slid a thin, brown cased file across his desk. "The summary is that the police attended the scene but by the time they got there the girl and her boyfriend were dead. The girl was inside the car slashed up, no signs of forced entry, and the boyfriend was suspended above the car roof, hanging from a palm tree with his feet scraping the roof."
The lieutenant's stare focused hard on me as he waited for a reaction. I felt the cool edge of the lighter and tried to focus on it to keep calm. I knew he was baiting me, building up to some revelation that might just get the scream he wanted from me.
"The CSI team there did a thorough check over the bodies and found something unusual lodged in the girl's mouth, an Ace of Spades card."
There it was, the revelation the lieutenant had been building up to.
"What?" Detective Taylor snapped out his surprise. I stayed silent as shock started to wash over me.
I saw Lieutenant Gilligan nod in answer to Detective Taylor though his gaze stayed rooted on me.
"How did they make the connection to here?" Detective Taylor demanded. "We didn't release that information."
"No but we logged it," Lieutenant Gilligan answered, "and Detective Silver had the sense to put an alert against it, so that if there were any other killings with the same calling card it would flag on our system. They logged it and we got flagged."
My mind spun as information swept through it in a blur and I caught flashes of memories. At the mentioning of Detective Silver I glimpsed his smile but then his scream intruded on the memory. Justin. I glanced down to the tape recorder holding a copy of the tape that captured his final futile attempt to get help so it could be played out beyond the grave. For the umpteenth time a repetitive thought plagued me - that it should have been me and those should be my screams immortalised on there.
"Detective Moon," the lieutenant addressed me again, bringing me back from my morbid guilt. "I know you've only been back a couple of months and on light duty as it is but this was your case and you are the closest we have to an expert on it, it would be remiss if I didn't offer this opportunity to you."
"What opportunity?" Mac's voice answered in a hostile manner. "Is this the best way you could have shared this information?"
"As I said, I want Detective Moon to remember the risks before she makes any decisions here."
"What decision?" This game had me drained and I wanted the lieutenant to reach his point already.
I knew he wanted me to quit the NYPD, a lot of folks on the force wanted the same thing. I was seen as a curse, a dirty reminder to them of the loss of one of their own and of the killer that got away. I was already viewed as strange even before that, always catching the bizarre cases and the odd criminals. No one wanted to be my partner in work except Justin and now he's gone I knew no one was eager to fill that space. Out of work sure, I could always find a bed when the loneliness got too much and I needed the distraction from my own mind but on the job, men I've seen naked act like strangers to me save for a very limited few.
"To go to Miami," the lieutenant explained at last, "and assist them on this case."
Miami. It sounded like a joke and I gave a bitter smile. I had never been before and had never felt a desire to go. All I knew about Miami was that it had palm trees, gators, and too much sun, hell that was the whole of Florida, I really had no clue what distinguished Miami from any other city down there.
Only when I felt the coolness of the coins did I realise my left hand had reached up to brush against my necklace. I pressed a fingertip against one of several gold plated coins hanging about a chain and tried once more to steady my growing nerves.
"Do they want me?"
Lieutenant Gilligan cracked a smile that gave me my answer. "They need you," he lied, "you are the only detective who's worked the cases of this killer before."
"That's not entirely true," Mac's scorn returned. "Plenty of my CSIs assisted, and I took plenty to do with it."
"I know." Gilligan holds up a hand to wave Mac down. "And I invited you here as a courtesy since it is an open case for you too." I couldn't tell if he mocked Mac with those words or not.
"Well where's my invite?" Mac quipped sarcastically.
"Mac," Gilligan addressed him docilely like they were friends in a tone of niceties I wouldn't ever get from him. I supposed Mac's rank got him that respect, if it was respect. "We have enough active cases here without worrying about old ones and we can't spare staff to run to other states. Look, I think we give Detective Moon the opportunity to see if this is our guy or not and if someone else needs to go to help we can think about it then."
I realised what Gilligan really wanted, another chance to get rid of me if I wasn't going to quit. Send me off to Miami and forget about me, maybe he hoped I'd get sunstroke or eaten by a gator. I wondered how often that happened to people and knew I was stereotyping but at the same time, the stereotypes had to start somewhere.
I clenched a coin and released it. Even though I knew what Gilligan really wanted I realised I'd still take the bait because no way in hell would I be missing this opportunity. Sure, maybe it would be a coincidence or a copycat or maybe the killer had left Miami already but I had to find out.
A girl crying about hearing noises on a car roof and then it being revealed to be the sounds of her hanging boyfriend's feet was a story more than I knew, it was an urban legend. The irony of those two words was that a lot of them weren't legends in New York anymore, not since some sicko had decided to make them real a few months ago by killing people in the same fashion as the legends.
Three months ago Detective Justin Silver became the last known victim of our Suburban Legends Killer as the press dubbed our unknown murderer. Justin's death had mimicked the style of the killer in the back seat of the car as he had been found deceased in the front seat of his car. Except he hadn't actually died there, ambushed in there maybe and returned there but, as the tape he had been found with and his many wounds had indicated, there had been a lot of torture somewhere else for Justin before death.
"Well let me call them first," Mac said, his tone curt to make his opposition to this clear, "so they don't think Ridley here is being sent to step on their toes. I know the CSIs boss down there."
"Yes, Lieutenant Horatio Caine, I've heard he tends to be hands on with his cases."
Horatio Caine. I turned in a rush and bolted for the door. As I felt a horrible heat rush up my body I sprinted down the crowded detectives' domains for a bathroom. My stomach lurched with each step and I wondered if I would even make it.
Seeing the door to the Ladies, I shoved it open as a wave of nausea overpowered me. My late night noodles came up in a rush of vomit, too quick to make a toilet bowl but just managed to hit a waiting waste basket. I doubled over and winced as my ribcage shuddered and I retched again.
Lieutenant Horatio Caine. The name repeated through me and I filled with rage and despair as I waited out the nausea. I had never met the man but I knew I couldn't work with him.