CHAPTER 13

Darrell woke up to the sound of the phone ringing.

“Damn it!” He said as he flicked the light on to answer the phone.

“This had better be about someone dead or dying!” he growled into the phone.

“Dead! Same place.” Gayle replied.

“I’m on my way to your place; I’ll be there in 10.”Gayle finished. Darrell hung up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His cat, Schrödinger, lifted his head just long enough to meow his displeasure at being woken up at such an awful time.

“I know Schrödinger.” Darrell said as he patted the cat’s head. “Time for work.” Darrell got up, got dressed and grabbed a bottle of cola from the fridge on his way out the front door. When Darrell got into Gayle’s car, he noticed that she had stopped for coffee. “Try this.” Gayle said to Darrell as she handed him the coffee. “Thanks.” He said as he grabbed the cup. The pair drove to the familiar crime scene and saw floodlights being put up.

“Again.” Darrell sadly commented. We need to have this area set up with cameras, lights and constant patrolmen. I don’t care if the brass like it or not! This is getting ridiculous, four girls dumped in the same area!” Darrell was starting to yell. Gayle had assumed that Darrell was a mild mannered guy but she saw a different side to him tonight.

Feeling the same way, she understood completely. But she knew how the brass did things. Hell, she was the brass in Organized Crimes. She rose through the ranks as far as she could and then transferred out to Homicide. “I think I have a way of getting what we need for this case and it won’t cost us the farm.” Gayle said to Darrell. Gayle explained what she was going to do and by the time she was finished Darrell had cooled down and was eager to get to the work at hand. Dr. A. pulled up in the coroner’s van. He got out of the van and waddled over to the body. “Anyone touch anything?” The short, stout man demanded. “No, nothing has been touched, or moved.” Gayle told him.

“This girl has been severely mutilated. She is missing both her breasts, her eyelids, her ears and her mouth has been sewn closed. It looks as though she was disemboweled. Any other discoveries will be noted at the time of autopsy.” Dr. A. did his perfunctory duty and then asked the detectives if they could give him a hand putting the body into a body bag. When the three of them moved the body they found the ‘missing’ parts.

“Well,” Dr. A. said, “I see most of her is here; just not attached.” The parts of Kristen Campbell were labeled after being put into individual bags. When that was accomplished Dr. A., with the help of the detectives, rolled the body into a body bag. Dr. A zipped it up and initialed the tag and then fastened it to the bag. This was necessary for all bodies that came into the morgue. It was protocol and Dr. A lived on protocol. He then took the body back to the morgue.

Darrell looked at Gayle and tilted his head to the left

“You said something about two perps last night? What do you think now?”

“ I still think that there could be two perps and I think that they could be here with us now; watching us, taking notes and gathering information about us.” Gayle looked directly at Darrell, then at all the police officers, news crews and the few ambulance chasers that followed any emergency vehicle to the scene of whatever crime scene there was.

“Do you think it would be that easy?” Darrell asked.

Before Gayle could answer, the Chief of Detectives walked up and said “There are FBI agents on the way from the Behavioral Science Unit as well as three or four other detectives from other departments. You will be starting a task force on the Industrial Park Killer and you two will head it up. Any questions?” Neither Darrell nor Gayle had questions for the Chief of Detectives so they shook their heads no.

When the detectives got back to the office, they saw that there was a paper sign on the conference room door. “IPK Task Force”

“I guess we are in here.” Darrell said.

The two of them walked into the room and on the walls were pictures of all the victims of the IP killer. The pictures resonated with Darrell. It was sad to see the contrast between the pictures of the girls living and then after they died. The only girl so far still alive was Alicia Booker, but the two pictures of her were definitely different. She looked almost dead in her ‘after’ shot. Alicia was a mystery. Until she could handle more questioning, her story would remain a mystery. Darrell was staring at Alicia’s picture when the FBI made their presence known.
”SSA McLaughlin, Tallon, Frie, and Gatsburg. How much do we have on this case?” SSA Gatsburg asked the detectives.

“We have one suspect but we don’t know how credible he is.” Gayle looked directly at the FBI agent sounding almost like she was challenging him.

“Look Detective - we are here to help, not run you over. We may be able to give you more than just your one suspect and if we can then we will. We are not running roughshod over your investigation and I hope that you will take my word on that.” SSA Tallon said to Gayle.

“So who is the suspect so far?” SSA Frie asked Darrell.

“He is a white male, 41; successful, a self- made business man, Randy Collins.” Darrell said as he pulled Gayle back from SSA Gatsburg, getting her to focus on Randy Collins instead of the FBI agent.

Darrell pulled Gayle aside and asked her what was going on. She looked at Darrell as if he had grown a second head and then spoke in a voice a little above a whisper, “These guys always say they are ready to help but they always end up taking over!”

Darrell shook his head, “I’ve worked with some FBI guys before, and these guys are different than the guys who do Organized Crimes. They really do help. They give us an idea of why the perp does the things he does and they can give us a good sense of who might be doing this. They will help. Trust me and let them prove to you that they can do what they say.”

Gayle took a breath and then nodded. “If they don’t though, it is you I am gonna be pissed at!”

“Fair enough!” Darrell replied. While the two detectives were chatting the FBI had started looking at the files of the victims and had the rest of the photos and info up on the walls.
”Wow, you guys work fast!” Gayle spoke while looking at the walls in the task force room. “So where do we start?” Gayle said with a little less venom than she had before.

SSA Tallon shook his head at Gayle and said matter of factly “At the beginning. Can you take me to the crime scene?”

“Sure thing.” Gayle said as she grabbed the keys from Darrell’s’ hand.

Everyone in the task force room looked busy and almost frantic. They all knew what was at stake; they had only one suspect and he was quickly being eliminated. Things just weren’t adding up for the Detectives and FBI agents. Randy Collins was not their guy. He might be into something illegal but it wasn’t the murders. There was not enough evidence to consider Randy Collins as a suspect.