‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Elwood said, ‘a while back, Blue Team took down Eric Romario, one of the most repulsive killers we’ve seen in this great city. They took him down with perseverance, good old-fashioned police work and great leadership. ’ He paused. ‘Great, great leadership. I’d hoped to come here to encourage you to redouble your efforts to catch the American Devil, but I’m here as the carrier of bad news.’
The lecture hall dropped to silence. Bad news in the NYPD always meant that somebody had died. The teams started looking across their ranks, thinking it might be someone close to them. Lenny Elwood looked left to right, top to bottom, his eyes trying to meet every person in the room.
‘Nathan Alexander Williamson, Detective First Grade, North Manhattan Homicide Squad, was found dead early this morning in the back yard of his own home. He’d been murdered. Details are unclear at the moment, but it looks like the American Devil is responsible. He has just made this very personal. But I wanted you to know that Nate died fighting. He was a fighter through and through. Nate leaves behind his wife and daughter. I’m very sorry for you all. It’s a terrible thing to lose a great detective, for a family to lose a father and for each of you to lose a friend. My heartfelt condolences.’
Lenny Elwood stepped back from the podium and Ged Rainer moved in close to the mic. ‘Detectives and police officers of North Manhattan, your job is one of the most dangerous and demanding there is. Make no mistake, you’re all heroes out there, but you’ve got no superpowers to protect you. When you get shot, you bleed, just like the rest of us; but that only goes to prove what real heroes look like in our day and age. They are not made of iron, they cannot fly, they do not have supernatural strength or amazing powers of recovery. Detective Williamson was an everyday, made-of-flesh hero, just like yourselves. Your job is to protect this great city and keep her from harm, to make America as safe for others as we want it to be for our own children. That is what Detective Williamson spent his life doing. That is what he died doing. Ladies and gentlemen, he gave his life in the line of duty, he died keeping our city safe, I salute him. God bless him and God bless America.’
A round of applause broke out in one corner of the room and quickly moved through the audience. Captain Lafayette was emotional as he rose to the platform.
‘Sorry, guys, that’s all we have. We will all miss a cynical old bastard, a good friend and a great cop. Nothing to add. We’ve got a lot of police work to do to find out what happened. Dismissed.’
Lafayette left a silent hall stunned and confused.
Directly after the briefing, Lafayette called the Blue Team together. He had already told his close associates an hour before the briefing and they’d had time to absorb the horrific truth that the American Devil had gone after one of their own.
Tom Harper was devastated by the news, but he didn’t show it to the other guys. The false profile had been his idea. He had forced it through and now Nate Williamson was dead, cut down outside his own home. He looked each of them in the eye solemnly as they listened to Lafayette going through the next steps. Then Lafayette turned to Harper. Harper was feeling bruised by his own guilt, but most of all he felt angry. He’d watched Nate walk away from the scene with his head bowed. He could have gone after him. He stared back at Lafayette.
‘Detective Harper, we need you to step up to the plate on this. I want you as the lead. Nate would’ve wanted it too. I know what you must be feeling, but bottle it. This guy has killed six people, none of which is anybody’s fault but his. Listen to me, Harper, I want you to take this bastard down for all of us. What do you say?’
Harper moved his weight from one foot to the other. He wasn’t worthy of it. He gritted his teeth and looked up. ‘I’ll do it if the team wants me to, otherwise you gotta find another guy.’
Lafayette looked around the room, and each member of Blue Team nodded the signal that it was okay by them. ‘Okay, I’m in,’ said Harper. ‘Let’s get to work. He’s a cop-killer now: we’re all targets.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Blue Team
November 21, 1.00 p.m.
L ead Detective Tom Harper knocked back his fifth cup of strong black coffee. He hadn’t slept at all since he walked in on Elizabeth Seale’s still-warm corpse and now he didn’t want to sleep. Williamson had been dead less than twelve hours and someone needed to focus the investigation. There were so many people involved now, the leads were in danger of getting lost in the mass of detail.
‘We can count on this being private until tomorrow morning,’ said Harper to Captain Lafayette and Eddie Kasper. ‘Then, if she’s true to form, Erin Nash will tell the world that the American Devil took out the lead detective.’
‘You want us to put the frighteners on her, Tom?’ said Eddie.
‘I tried that and she doesn’t frighten easy. I think I might have even strengthened her resolve. But maybe we could try to get the DA to agree to get her put under surveillance. What do you think, Captain?’
‘You want the District Attorney to agree to the NYPD spying on journalists? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Look, Captain, did you read her account of Elizabeth Seale’s murder? It’s just gone up on the website. She’s got everything. She knows about the false arrest in the wrong apartment and another piece of information that we only got back from the autopsy this morning.’
‘What was that?’
‘That the killer took another trophy. Elizabeth Seale’s uterus had been removed from the body.’
‘I didn’t know. How the hell did she get that information?’
‘Only Blue Team and the Medical Examiner’s office knew that her uterus was taken,’ said Harper.
‘You think it’s someone on the team?’ asked Lafayette.
‘I’d hate to think that, but where else? And if not, then we’ve got to pin her source down. Can’t you do anything at all, Captain?’
‘After what you tried with her, you’re lucky we’re not facing a lawsuit. Her editor made it clear that he’ll run with a harassment and assault suit if Erin gets any more heat.’
‘It was self-defence,’ said Harper.
‘Always is with you, but even if they make the complaint, you’re out. You made her untouchable.’
Harper shot looks between them both. ‘Look, if the DA won’t sanction it, Eddie, how about you see what you can get done unofficially.’
‘Will do, boss.’
‘And one more thing, Captain. Can you at least get us some peace? Guys are getting hammered as they go in and out of the building. The press have been camping outside since Erin Nash called this guy a serial killer. Now we’ve got news crews running hourly updates. If I’ve got a grimace on my face, they’ll report it.’
‘I can move them away from the building, but it’s a free country.’
‘Well, get them across the street, at least. Give our guys a chance.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Harper had been sifting through the files for an hour and he wasn’t at all impressed with Williamson’s approach to systematic logging and filing of case information. In fact, the dead man’s approach stank. Harper could see what was wrong immediately. Due to the speed of the kills, each murder hadn’t been fully investigated and the information hadn’t been cross-referenced with any of the other victims or even logged centrally. Williamson was leaving too much to chance and old-fashioned thinking. This all meant that they were walking blind through the case, hoping to stumble on something. With Harper in the lead spot, it had to be different.
At 1.15 p.m. Tom Harper called the investigation team together for a briefing. Along with the core members of Blue Team, he had over a hundred detectives working the case, but he only wanted his top people. He had six members of Blue Team, another six members of Manhattan North, four detectives drafted in from Manhattan South, and another six from the precinct detective squads. These experienced homicide detectives made up his core team. Along with his administrative team, there were twenty-five faces looking up at him, all angry and expectant.
‘Good morning to you all. I’m Detective Harper and this is Detective Kasper. Nate Williamson was a good cop and he didn’t deserve to die. So we’ve got to nail this creep for Nate. We’re here to take down the American Devil, but we’re not going to do it unless we’re organized. So far, as far as we know, this guy has killed five women in New York and one cop. Around the room, we’ve got five boards. I’m putting a team of six detectives on each woman. I need their lives fully investigated. We’ve got another team working Williamson’s murder. I want to know
