Hardwick sank wearily onto the chair at his desk and started typing up the report on both Sandra McIntyre and Brooke Madison. Now that he knew that there was a connection, he could add the necessary details and combine both files. He realized, however, that there would be another body added to the file soon, if he and his fellow detectives didn’t find the next person abducted by Price—when he got around to abducting her, that is. The more he realized that the end wasn’t in sight, the angrier he got, until he was fairly beating on the keys.
“Shouldn’t we be out searching for Price?” Wilson asked, as he watched Hardwick type aggressively on his keyboard. “If we catch him, he can’t abduct any more women, and we’ll close the book on at least two dozen murder cases, and you’re about to punch a hole in that keyboard.”
Hardwick started to respond, but his gaze fell on the image of Cassandra Bouchard on the television monitor in the captain’s office. She was standing in front of the abandoned warehouse reporting, no doubt, on the incompetence of the APD. He watched, with renewed dismay, as paramedics carried the black bag, holding Brooke Madison’s body, to a waiting hearse. The coroner had pronounced her dead at the scene.
Bouchard had attempted to question him as Wilson and he left the warehouse, but he’d rushed to his car and drove directly back to his precinct. He couldn’t see himself justifying his incompetence. Not right now. Right now, he just needed to return to his cave to lick his wounds.
As the image of Bouchard faded and returned to the two anchors manning the Channel 5 desk, the anticipated wave of the captain’s hand came. Hardwick stood slowly, “Let’s go get this over with, Wilson. Cortez, Harding, you may as well sit in on this meeting.” He headed over, his legs feeling as if they were filled with concrete.
All four men filed into the captain’s office, expressions dejected, but the anticipated ass-chewing didn’t happen.
“It’s going to happen again,” the captain softly, worry in his tone. “Just before I waved you in here, the news agency stated that Price called them a few minutes prior, saying that he would definitely be abducting another woman, and that he was giving the local police department one more chance to prove some level of competency.”
“Well, isn’t that just thoughtful of him,” Harding snapped sarcastically.
“Any word yet from the other Zone Commanders, on a willingness to offer some assistance?” Hardwick asked, trying to keep the frustration in his tone at a minimum.
The captain nodded, “I received word from every one of them, offering their condolences on landing this nut job in our precinct, but, as anticipated, they feel they have too many of their own head cases to deal with, without adding ours to their agendas. Quite frankly, they’re just glad they aren’t the focus of this madman or the media. They also feel this is a political time bomb, so are reluctant to offer any support that’s going to draw attention to their own precincts.”
“What a bunch of dicks,” Wilson snapped.
“Politics at its best,” Cortez muttered.
“Give me something, Hardwick,” the captain moaned. “I’ve got the commissioner and the mayor breathing down my neck now. Tell me you’ve got something that I can give them. A lead on this guy’s whereabouts? Anything?”
He and Wilson exchanged glances at the request of a location, but before Wilson could throw them under the bus on why they didn’t pursue that information, Cortez piped up, “We can give the press the information we have right now on Price’s former victims,” Cortez volunteered. “That will give them a focus other than our own asses.”
“What information?”
“Hardwick had me start an immediate search for Price’s other victims,” Cortez started.
“What made you think there were others?” the captain interrupted.
“A conversation that Price and I had just before we started the investigation.”
“I really need to read the reports more frequently,” the captain muttered. “So, this guy’s done this before?”
“In five other states that I’ve located thus far, and there have been at least twenty other victims. We give that information to the press and they’ll run with it. They’ll be doing so much investigative work on their own, that they may even tell us something we overlooked. It’ll also make us look less incompetent, because it’ll show that the deadlines are impossible and that other police precincts had the same difficulties, despite putting their best men on the job,” Cortez concluded.
“Okay, bring me the data and I’ll contact the press.”
Cortez left the office and the captain turned back to address the remaining three officers, “Okay, onto other business. Has the lab been able to find any trace on the camera or the canister left at the scene?”
“There hasn’t been enough time for the lab to find any trace evidence. They’ve been advised that it’s a rush,” Wilson answered. “You know what I don’t get? That was a wireless remote camera, which means there had to be a Wi-Fi signal in use from somewhere, but that’s an old warehouse, not one that’s been revamped yet…”
“It was a wireless camera, as you mentioned, Wilson. In order to use it, he would simply need to be—”
“He was nearby!” Cortez interjected angrily. “¡Ay Dios, Santa Maria!”
“Not necessarily,” Hardwick said, shaking his head. “There are Wi-Fi boosters that can extend a signal a fair distance from the source. Either way, his location makes no difference. The fact that he managed to set up so elaborately tells us he’s highly educated and skilled…in electronics and chemicals.”
“Okay, how can that help us?” the captain queried.
“If there were a serial number on any of the equipment left at the scene, we maybe could run a trace on it. Get a better ID on the guy,” Wilson replied dejected. “But he didn’t just file it off, which may have been reversible—at least according to a Bones episode I watched.” Wilson blushed at the looks aimed his way and cleared his throat, “Sorry. Anyway, if he had filed them off, it may have been possible to read the serial numbers still, but he didn’t; he removed them in a way that has left it impossible to retrieve.”
“Okay, since he removed identifiable markings, we can assume that he’s also familiar with forensics,” Hardwick added.
"Great, we’re dealing with a Kim Ung-Yong," the captain quipped sarcastically.
“Who?” Harding asked.
“One of the smartest geeks on the planet, with an IQ of around 210,” Hardwick replied instinctively.
“Sorry,” the captain apologized, “I know that wasn’t helpful. So, this guy, Price, he monitors the area with a camera. When his deadline is reached, he releases a chemical agent into the room via…”
“It was set on a timer,” Hardwick responded. “Our techs say it was set so that the timer cancelled if the door was breached by whatever time Price designated. If the door remained closed, the countdown went to zero and activated the release of the gas. He didn’t have to be anywhere near the location to know what was happening, to know whether Brooke lived or died.”
The captain sighed heavily, “Okay, so do we have any idea on how to approach the next abduction? How do we go about finding her without wasting manpower on all-out searches? This city is simply too big to conduct effective sweeps, and if he places her outside of our particular jurisdiction, we’ll really be up shit creek.”
“There isn’t anything we can do different, Captain, other than alert hazmat to be ready at a moment’s notice and continue to work around the clock,” Hardwick replied. “Unless he gives us better clues, there isn’t a damn thing we can do. We followed the leads we had, but they were pointing more toward finding Price than the victim.”
“What do you mean, finding Price,” the captain queried with a heavy knit in his brow. “You mean, we had the opportunity to stop—”
“No,” Hardwick interjected quickly. “We were only following up leads—”
“And the primary lead,” Wilson jumped in, not wanting his partner to take the full brunt of the captain’s wrath; especially since the decision not to pursue was equally his fault, “didn’t guarantee an arrest.”
Hardwick sighed and picked up the explanation, “The priest gave us a hint, a nibble, as to an area in which we might locate Price.”
“But the area was too sizable, much like the search for the warehouse,” Wilson continued. “It wouldn’t have been prudent to split our search teams. We needed all men looking for Brooke.”
“Okay, I get it, but now we have quite a bit of leeway before Price’s next abduction—”
“That we know of,” Hardwick interjected. “For all we know, he could the call within the next hour.”
“Fine, if the call comes in, we recall all units, but until then, we have some time. What can we do with it?”
“I’m not certain it will be effective because it would mean doing another all-out sweep of the residential zones around The Tavern at Phipps Plaza, and that’s assuming that he’s still lying low in a place around that area. He could’ve moved on. If not, what can we do? We’d have to call in all black and whites to accomplish a search that extensive, and not one of them has slept in over thirty-six hours. Still, with the sketch we got from the bishop, we’d definitely have a better shot at getting Price into custody than locating an abductee at this point.”
“Searching for Price is better than sitting around doing nothing while he plans another abduction. So, let’s get the sketch to every patrol’s on-board computer,” the captain snapped, “and have officers start an immediate sweep. I want each area in each grid closed down during the search. No one enters or departs until cleared. Put the men on rotations. I know we’re short-handed, but the officers aren’t going to be any good to anyone if they crash a patrol car, or overlook something vital. Half on patrol, half on mandatory rest here at the precinct. Two hour rotations.”
All three men nodded as Cortez came back carrying a file for the captain containing all the other potential victims linked to Price. “I’ll take care of getting this to the press; you take care of the other,” the captain said, picking up the receiver to dial the local media.