Within moments the Chief Garrett entered. Tall, dark-skinned and built like a Mack truck, he gave everyone a nod as he made his way to the front. The room fell silent, as they eagerly awaited his brief.
Whispers were exchanged between the heads, before Ford turned to address the room.
“Everyone accounted for?” Ford asked, glancing about. The heads nodded. “Alright,” she said, “let’s get on with this. Detective Lewis Caine of the Homicide Division was brutally slain sometime this morning between 2am and 3am. He was stripped naked and tortured, and bled to death,” Ford said looking each in the eye. “He was strung up and left to die.” Salvi darted a glance to Belle who lowered her face and pressed her lips together. Burke squeezed her shoulder in comfort.
Ford continued looking at the faces before her. “So, I don’t care what you’re working on, because as of this moment, we are all working this case. We have a cop killer out there, and we are going to bring that son of a bitch in.” She let the silence sit for a moment, then motioned to the Chief. “You know who this man is.”
She stepped back and the Chief, grave-faced yet stoic, stepped forward. He too eyed everyone, but Salvi saw his mind turning over; knew he was buying time to formulate his words. Eventually he found the ones he wanted to say.
“There is a deadly new enemy on our streets,” he said frankly. “One that is going to stack each and every division’s casefiles up to the roof if we don’t stop it now. I’m talking a potential epidemic of violence so brutal that our city will no longer be safe.” He took a deep breath, letting the silence hang for a moment. “You see, Detective Caine had been working undercover for me for a couple of months now.” Both Mitch and Beggs straightened a little in surprise. This was news to both of them. “I asked him to keep it quiet. The only people who knew what he was doing, outside of myself, were Detective Shadid from Narcotics, and all three division heads.” The homicide team turned their eyes to Ford. She stared back at them, face unapologetic.
“What I am about to tell you will not leave this room. Are we understood?” he said. No one had any trouble nodding in agreement with the fierce look he gave each of them. “Good… Because, you see, this case involves my own daughter.” If the room had been silent before, it now felt like it had fallen into a complete vacuum. The Chief swallowed. “Clare, my daughter, fell in with the wrong crowd. She wanted to be a model and, at first, I supported her ambitions. She started hanging with those industry folks, trying to network her way to win exclusive contracts… But then she started disappearing for long periods of time. When she did show, I noticed she’d lost weight, wasn’t acting herself… It got to the point where she could no longer look me in the eye… Then there came a time where she did not come home at all…” He took a moment before continuing. “I’ve been a cop long enough to know it was drugs. When she went missing, I feared she was dead. So I asked Detective Shadid to ask around her contacts on the streets for anyone who might’ve seen my daughter. She got word that Clare had been hanging around the Sensation scene, and one club in particular. The club was incredibly exclusive and their clientele was of a certain type; young, attractive and rich. I’m not rich, but my daughter was attractive, so she overcame that barrier. I asked Detective Shadid to see what she could find out, but it was taking some time infiltrating these elite circles, so I chose to increase the manpower on the job.
“Detective Caine fit the club’s profile, so I sent him in to give me more eyes on the ground. Caine made great progress and we believe we were on the verge of breaking open the case when… this morning happened. I can only assume that last night, he stumbled on something big… and it got him killed.” The silence sat another moment. “He died, doing his duty, trying to find out what happened to my daughter… and I can never repay him for that.” Salvi lowered her eyes a moment. Knowing Caine had died on a personal, private undercover job for the Chief, sat uncomfortably with her. Had Ford volunteered Caine for this? Pulled him from his other cases? Or was Ford given no choice?
“Nor can I repay you for stepping into his place,” the Chief said, making Salvi look up again. “But this has gone far beyond my daughter now. This terror has hit the streets, and if we don’t stop it, it will escalate until there’s nothing left.”
“What terror, sir?” Beggs asked. “What’s gone far beyond your daughter?”
The Chief looked to Kara. “Detective Shadid will take it from here,” he said as he motioned her forward.
Kara moved to the front, her long silver earrings glinting in the light as she did. “As you know, the narcotics team regularly works the ‘Sation club scene trying to stop the flow of known drugs. Well, a few months back we heard whispers of a new drug, one that was apparently way off the charts compared to anything we’d seen before. But it was expensive, pure as anything, and you needed to be part of a special, secret club to get your hands on it. We’ve been working hard to get close to it, and gaining ground, but very slowly. Around the time the Chief’s daughter went missing, we got word a new drug was starting to hit the streets. We assumed it was the drug we were investigating, however we now believe it’s different, but related. Somewhere along the way
