Stuck in the Middle

“This had better be good, I think we caught a break,” Gerard says when he picks up his phone.

“Well, you’re about to catch another one. I found out who Jane Doe is,” Patrick replies.

“You did not,” Gerard says gleefully, “Patrick, I love you. Who is it?”

“Her name is Magnolia Kent.”

“That’s a pretty unique name,” Gerard says.

“Yep, you were write about your hunch though. We found her because the landlord reported a break in. I’m sending her address to your phone now,” Patrick says.

“Great. You’re perfect.”

“I know,” Patrick responds, “So what have you got for me then? What’s your break?”

“I’m fairly sure that all of our victims were on a jury,” Gerard states.

“A jury?” Patrick asks.

“Yep,” Gerard replies.

“Why do you suppose that?”

“The names that the reservations were under correspond to the actors from the movie 12 Angry Men. They were all in order as well. Our first death was Juror number one, and so on. I believe this means that the people being killed are specifically being murdered because of a jury they were on. If this idea is true though, that means we likely won’t have clearance to finding out precisely what jury that is, because nothing came up when we searched through the second victim’s record, which leads me to believe that it was a big trial. Something that would put these people into danger were their identities revealed.”

“Wow. I never would’ve put that together. So, if I’m correct the next murder will take place under the name of the next angry man? Right?”

“Yep,” Gerard says. “Marshall. That’s the name we need to keep our eyes on. Can you run some sort of program to find any reservations for an E.G. Marshall?”

“I’m not a tech wizard. I’ll look into it, but I’m not sure how successful this is going to be. I’ll give it a whack though. I’ll see what I can do about finding out what jury they were on as well. I’m not so sure this’ll be easy, Gerard.”

“Do whatever you can to find out then,” Gerard says. “I don’t want to lose another nine people.”

“No, I don’t either.”

“Then let’s go,” Gerard says, “talk to you later, Patrick.”

Patrick makes a noise of affirmation before he hangs up the phone. Frank is looking at him when Gerard turns his head.

“So he found the address of the latest victim?” Frank asks.

“Yes,” Gerard says, looking through his phone to find the text from Patrick with the address.

“Are we heading over there?” Frank asks.

Gerard just nods, finding the address in his messages, “I know where this is. Let’s go.”

Frank sighs, but buckles his belt a second before Gerard’s pulling the car out of their spot, and pulling onto the road. The woman’s apartment building isn’t too far from where the restaurant is, so they’re quiet for most of the trip there.

“How did you know there would be signs of a break in if they stole the woman’s keys? Wouldn’t the keys make it look less like a break in?” Frank asks.

“I had enough faith in how chaotic the crime scenes are to figure out that they’d leave the apartments in the same way. These guys are very good at keeping themselves under the radar and because of this they’re too confident in their own skills to be careful. I didn’t think they’d expect us to know that we’d check for breaking and entering.”

“What about the second victim though? We knew who he was, so obviously we’d check his apartment. How come I haven’t seen a file on his place being burglarized?” Frank asks.

“He didn’t have a listed residence. We’re not sure where that guy was living.”

“Alright,” Frank says, and, he keeps himself quiet they pull into the parking lot of the woman’s building. She lived in a fairly fancy place. That’s probably why it was so easy to find her. She’d looked like she was rich at the restaurant and he building reflects that.

Gerard groans when he sees the black and white cars parked out in front of the building, because he is not in the mood to handle dealing with cops right now.

“Not again,” Gerard says, pulling himself out of the car while Frank does the same.

“What’s with the fucking animosity between cops and feds?” Frank asks.

“They don’t like us taking over their cases, and we don’t like them contaminating our crime scenes. Besides, they don’t have nearly as high a closure rate as we do.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your closure rate?” Frank asks.

“That’s not important,” Gerard says.

“Have you ever been unable to catch a killer?” Frank asks, following Gerard up the stairs to the building.

“We can’t catch ‘em all, Frank,” Gerard says sadly.

The door has been left ajar by a rock, probably by the cops, so Gerard just enters into the upper class looking place. The lobby is elegant and grandeur, nothing like the place Gerard lives. There’s a man who’s standing beside the door, who doesn’t even get to ask what they’re doing there before Gerard flashes him his badge.

“The rest of your people are already up there,” the man, who Gerard assumes is some sort of doorman, says.

“They’re not my team, and I’ll have them escorted out soon,” Gerard says. The doorman doesn’t look at all interested, he just waves a hand in the direction of the stairs.

There’s an elevator next to the steps, but the woman only lived on the third floor, so Gerard decides to head for the steps instead.

“What floor?” Frank asks, following behind him.

“Three.”

Frank doesn’t respond, just follows behind Gerard. He also stares at Gerard’s ass a little bit, but it’s hard not to when you’re going up the stairs. And it’s also totally intentional.

“This is it,” Gerard says when they’re standing in front of the door to the dead woman’s apartment, also ajar.

“Excuse me,” Gerard says as he enters the apartment, “I’m taking over this investigation.”

Gerard recognizes the big tuft of curly hair the instant he sees him, and rolls his eyes obnoxiously as the cop walks over to him.

“So you’re intruding on my crime scene again, are you?”

“Fuck you,” Gerard says, “and may I ask why it is that you consider this your crime scene, detective.”

The man falters, Gerard thinks his name is Ray. Gerard’s not an idiot though, he knows a detective should have no reason to be at the crime scene of a simple robbery, unless he’s aware that this isn’t just the regular robbery of a high class woman.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he says.

“Sure you were,” Gerard replies sarcastically, “next time you decide to keep working on a case that isn’t yours, I will report you. Got that?”

“I told you he was a bitch,” Frank whispers to Ray.

“You shut up,” Gerard says, “and you, take your officers and get out of my crime scene.”

“Whatever you say,” Ray says, gritting his teeth as he beckons for the two uniforms to leave. Gerard can tell he’s either flipping him off behind his back or sticking his tongue out.

“Frank, you canvas the neighbors,” Gerard instructs, as he begins to walk into the apartment.

“What?” Frank asks.

Gerard rolls his eyes and turns around to look at Frank, “You’re so stupid. Go ask the neighbors if they saw anything, and what it is they saw. Also ask them about what kind of person our vic was.”

“What’s her name? You never told me,” Frank asks, heading back to the front door of the apartment.

“Magnolia Kent,” Gerard responds.

Frank nods and walks back out of the apartment. He walks over to the first door on the right, knocks and waits. No one answers the door and he doesn’t hear anyone moving around either, so he just moves onto the neighbor across the hall.

When he knocks on the door he hears someone moving around and then the door opens, and he’s facing a woman in her mid-forties wearing a bathrobe. Frank feels like he’s imposing on something. He’s decided that he doesn’t enjoy this part of the job.

“Hi, I’m uh,” Frank stumbles, and then reaches into his pocket for his badge, “I’m Special Agent Frank Iero, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the woman who lives across from you?”

“Yeah, sure. Is she in trouble?” the woman asks.

“Actually, she was murdered last night,” Frank says, not knowing how to put it any way that isn’t blunt.

“Oh, oh my,” the woman says, frowning, “Was she killed here?”

“No,” Frank assures, “but we do believe her apartment was broken into.”

“Oh yes,” the woman nods, “I heard about that. What do you need to know?”

“Were you well acquainted with her?”

“Not particularly. We didn’t talk much.”

“Do you know if she’d had any visitors? She lived alone, right?”

“As far as I know,” the woman says. “Can’t recall anyone visiting, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any.”

“Were you at home last night? Did you by any chance see who broke in?”

“No, I wasn’t in last night.”

“Okay,” Frank nods, “Is there anything helpful you can tell me about your neighbor?”

“I’m afraid not,” she says, “I really didn’t know her that well.”

“Alright, that’s fine,” Frank says. He then proceeds to get her name and number in case he needs to reach her, recalling that from a textbook he’d read not too long ago. Frank moves on to the next neighbor, receiving basically the same answers. None of the people here seem to have known the victim very well at all. They don’t seem to be ones for sharing.

Frank makes his way back into the apartment, where he finds Gerard with a pad of paper looking around the way too fancy living room. This is the kind of apartment building that you’d actually expect to see people rob. Not because it’s easy to access, but because there’s way too many expensive things in here.

“She’s missing a lot of shit,” Gerard says when he sees Frank.

“So are you. Like your brain,” Frank says.

“Yeah whatever,” Gerard says. “Did the neighbors tell you anything?”

“No one really knew her.”

“A recluse? That doesn’t surprise me. I’d be too, if I had as many DVD’s as she does.”

“Would you maybe stop looking at a dead woman’s movie collection and focus on the fact that she’s dead and her murderers are still out there?”

“I was just saying,” Gerard shrugs. “Whatever. Let’s head out.”

“That’s it?” Frank asks. “We barely even looked around!”

“I’ll send out people who’ll do a more thorough search,” Gerard says, “and we need to figure out more about this jury. Priorities, Frank.”

“I fucking hate you. That’s priority one,” Frank murmurs.

Notes

I'm sorry that this chapter is so awfully written. This is why I wanted a coauthor for this story, but now I'm on my own and it just really depresses me to have to write this by myself.