Ready. Set. Psycho.

Chapter Nineteen: Greg

           

Greg arrived twenty-eight minutes later and walked into Solomon's apartment without knocking. Solomon was leaning on his counter with the bottle in his hand. He looked up at Greg and held out the bottle. Greg took it. "How much have you had?" he asked.

"Just the first sip. I couldn't, after that."

"The letter?" Greg asked. Solomon held out the Ziploc bag. Greg put on a pair of gloves and pulled it out, reading it to himself as he walked over to Solomon's living room and sat on the couch. Solomon followed but did not sit. Instead, he paced back and forth, still holding the whisky bottle.

"So it is him," Greg said. "Knew you were listening. Knew we were watching. Verified withheld evidence. We will take this in. Dust it for prints. Check for hairs or other DNA."

"There won't be any," Solomon said.

"I know; doesn't matter. We will do a writing analysis. When we find suspects..."

"We won't find suspects."

"No, Sol. This guy isn't better than us. He'll fuck up. He will make a mistake. He's exactly the kind of killer that gets caught. He's begging to get caught. He'll get closer and closer until he is caught."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Solomon said. "How close are we going to get? Will he need to kill once? Twice? Three times? A dozen?"

"We're not responsible for that, Sol. We talked about this. You can get out anytime."

"That's not what I'm trying to say. This guy is a psycho, and we'll catch him. Just fucking kills me to think that somewhere out there tonight, sleeping soundly in their parents' home, are one or two kids that are going to be killed, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"That's exactly how he wants us to feel, Sol. This is your first serial killer. Not mine. I've got fifteen years on the force longer than you, and this ain't my first rodeo. Yeah, some kids are going to die. This psycho knows it, and we know it. But we will catch him. We know it. And he doesn't know that; not yet. So let's get on with it, already."

Solomon nodded and took a swig of whisky.

***

The next day, Solomon entered the room in the coroner's office behind Greg. There were two chairs in front of a desk covered in papers but none on the other side. There was a man standing by an open window, his right hand extended out of the window, holding a cigarette. When he took a drag, he brought his head to his hand, breathed deep, and exhaled, his whole head out of the window.

"Still smells like shit in here," Greg said.

"Detective," the man said. "I hope you're not here to write me up for this," he added, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette onto the street below.

"Not likely, Doctor Maguire," Greg said. "This is my partner, Detective Roud."

"Sol," Solomon said, extending his hand. The doctor dropped his cigarette, wiped his hand, and met Solomon's hand with his own.

"Clive," the doctor said. "Most coroners become coroners because they killed one too many patients during residency. We're not all that attached to the idea of being called doctor."

Greg sat, and Solomon did as well. Clive picked up his cell phone and hit a button. "Linda," he said. He waited. "Linda!" He waited again and then yelled louder, "Linda, bring me the Goodwin girl file."

A woman, much older than the doctor, came in. She was wearing a blue floral summer dress. "That's your cell phone, Doctor." She dropped a file on top of the pile on his busy desk and left.