Halstead found the Intelligence office empty when he walked in the next morning. He knew Olinsky was in because they had passed each other in the station's entrance area. Alvin had been heading out somewhere, talking on his phone. Purrazzo was in too, he saw, as her coat was on the back of her chair and a Starbucks cup was on her desk, with Deonna written on it but spelled wrong. He imagined she got that quite a lot. He tossed his keys on his desk and walked around it to sit down.
"Purrazzo has gone to the shooting range," came Zelina Vega's voice from her office.
"How did you know it was me?" Halstead called back.
"You throw your keys on the desk like that every morning. Apparently I'm the detective among us."
Halstead smiled. There was always a bit of Latina sass about Vega, and he liked it. "You wish," he called through to her. "You do what you're good at, sitting there drinking coffee all day and installing Windows 7."
"Windows 7?" Vega laughed. "What decade did you turn up from? Oh, Purrazzo said if you want to learn how to shoot, go join her."
"Purrazzo said that?" he asked doubtfully.
"Well, they might not have been her exact words," Vega admitted, and they both laughed.
Figuring there was some time to go before the official start of his shift, Halstead decided that yes, he would go and find his partner at the shooting range. Curiosity played a part in it. He was no slouch with an assault rifle, no one in Intelligence was, but the hype about Purrazzo's military experience suggested she was a step above. He wanted to see for himself if it was true.
Just then, Ruzek and Burgess walked in. Greetings were exchanged, then Halstead got down to pressing matters.
"Kim, how did it go with Jillian yesterday evening?"
"It didn't," Burgess grumbled. "No matter what we try with her, she just sits there repeating that she doesn't know anything about anyone being buried in her garden, and denying any knowledge of anyone ever coming to harm in the house, including her daughter."
"What about that horrific video Purrazzo and I found?"
"She said her husband liked to video her having sex with girls when they were younger. Said you'll probably find more videos, but everyone in them was there consensually, and nothing was done that they didn't agree too."
"Bullshit," Halstead said heatedly. "That girl, Beth, was terrified and in pain, struggling and trying to get free."
Burgess nodded without much enthusiasm. "Right. And if we were trying to pin an assault charge on her, we might be getting somewhere. As sad as it sounds, if we want something that starts making her for murder, we need to find Beth or someone from one of the other videos in that garden."
It was awful, but it might be true, Halstead had to acknowledge.
"What do you Lindsay's going to have us do next?" Burgess wondered.
"Me? Probably cleaning the canteen or something," Ruzek grumbled. "I don't think I've played a decent part in a case since she took charge. Feels like she wants me off the team because I stood firm about Kim coming back."
"She doesn't want you off the team," Halstead assured him. He believed it too. However, he also believed it was true that Lindsay was treating Ruzek badly because of the whole Burgess thing. And that was something she needed to stop doing.
"I don't know. But I can tell you one thing: If she wants me gone, she's going to have to fire me. And if she fires me, she'd better have a good reason."
"Adam," Kim said, urging him to settle down.
"Give it a bit of time, it'll be okay," Halstead said. With that, he left the office to head for the shooting range.
A few minutes later, Halstead entered the range equipped with his pistol and some ammunition, wearing the stupid safety glasses and ear defenders that they made people wear. He could never understand the point when safety glasses and ear defenders were obviously never used out in the field. But rules were rules, even when they were stupid.
There was an area for assault rifle practice, and an area for pistols. Halstead saw that the couple of people practicing with their pistols were men, so he walked down towards the assault rifle area. Sure enough, he found Purrazzo at one of the lanes.
Standing a few feet back for safety's sake, he stood and watched her work. Firing three round bursts, she was peppering the inner ring on the pop-up target's heads and hearts. Her groupings were so good that they ended up making large holes in the centre rings. On a range, it wasn't possible to shoot any better. He could have almost matched it, but not quite. It was safe to say that if she ever needed to make a shot while working a case, she would make. That was a large reason why she had edged out Amanda Rose for the Intelligence gig.
Eventually, Purrazzo ran out of ammo. When she was done, she made sure her gun was safe, then took off her ear defenders.
"Hey," Halstead said over the noise of other people's gunfire.
Purrazzo turned and smiled when she saw him. "Oh, hi. Didn't know I had an audience. Usually I charge for shooting lessons."
"Very funny," Halstead said dryly. "Those were good groupings though."
"Thanks. Are you going to have a go with that pistol?"
"Yeah," he replied. Suddenly, he felt a little under pressure. The woman he was mentoring was going to watch him do something that she was better at than him. He wanted to hit those centre rings like he never had before.
They proceeded down to where pistols were allowed to be used, and Halstead stepped into an empty lane.
"Good luck," Purrazzo said from a few feet behind him. There was a bit of smugness about it that Halstead didn't like. So long as the attitude was restricted to the shooting range, he supposed he would let it slide.
To his immense satisfaction, Halstead shot well. All but two of his shots found the centre rings.
"Not great, but not terrible," Purrazzo said after he took his ear defenders off.
"Yeah, yeah," he replied, only partially feigning grumpiness as he made his gun safe
"Don't worry, I won't mention it again. Do you know what we're doing today?"
"I don't. But Sergeant Lindsay is probably in by now. Let's go and see."
"I hope it's not watching that awful porn again. Think I saw my lifetime's worth of bondage yesterday," she grumbled.
Halstead stopped and looked at his partner with slightly raised eyebrows.
"I pissed you off, didn't I?" Purrazzo said regretfully. "Sorry, I was just trying to have a bit of fun."
"I'm not bothered about that. We can needle each other a bit, that's fine. It's what partners do. What needs to stop is the whining about what we have to do. Intelligence is like any other police work – sometimes the jobs you get given to do are shit. But regardless, we do what Sergeant Lindsay tells us, without complaint. Can I assume you don't have a problem with that?"
"I don't have a problem with that," she said respectfully. "Didn't feel comfortable with that kind of porn is all."
Having said what needed to be said, Halstead decided to let them both move on. He gave her a slap on the shoulder. "Come on, Lindsay will probably be waiting."
Lindsay was waiting, along with the rest of the team. The boss gave a pointed look at her watch, since they were coming back a couple of minutes late, however she didn't chastise them. Her briefing began with a summary of what had happened the previous day, culminating with voicing displeasure at Burgess and Atwater's ongoing failure to break Jillian Layfield.
"She's not going to crack," Burgess opined. "She's going to sit there denying all knowledge of anything until the end of time because she knows her husband is going to take the fall. If we want to break her, we need a different tactic."
"Either that or some hard evidence against her specifically," Atwater added.
Burgess nodded. "Or that."
Lindsay didn't look impressed. "Well, whether you think she's going to break or not, you're going to keep interviewing her until she does. At the same time, I'll consider other angles." Next, she looked at Halstead and Purrazzo. "You two are going with Layfield to the house. He's agreed to provide the locations of the other bodies, as usual insisting on dealing with you, Purrazzo."
"Yes, ma'am," Purrazzo said as Halstead nodded.
"Olinsky is taking a personal day, so Ruzek, I'm with you. We're going to speak to the two kids. I want to find out what they know about any young women who were in their house, nannies, friends, or anything else."
"Sounds good," Ruzek said, looking pleased to be involved in something fairly important.
"Let's get to it," Lindsay said, breaking up the briefing. "Halstead, Purrazzo, John Layfield will be ready for transport by the time you get downstairs. Two uniforms will be going with you. I'll be in touch for updates."
"Got it," Halstead said, and with a motion of his head to his partner, he turned and headed for the stairs.
Walking into the garden at the Layfield house, Halstead took a moment to survey the scene. The deck was completely gone, now nothing more than a pile of firewood at the bottom of the garden. In its former place was a large white tent belonging to the forensics unit, who were still working around the two grave sites they had discovered.
"Look what they've done to my house!" Layfield protested behind Halstead. The self-confessed murderer had walked out into the garden beside Purrazzo. Two male uniformed officers came out behind them.
"They've hardly started yet," Purrazzo said without sympathy. "You've got eight locations to give us, so why don't we get on with it and we can get out of the cold?"
"I want to see my wife," Layfield blurted out.
Purrazzo looked at him suspiciously. "What?"
"I want to see my wife. I'm not giving you anything until I've got a guarantee I can see Jillian."
"That's not what was agreed," Halstead said.
"I don't give a fuck what was agreed," Layfield snapped. "I want to see my wife. Make that happen, or I'm saying nothing."
Halstead's decision was an easy one. He would pass it on to the boss. "Get Sergeant Lindsay on the phone," he said to Purrazzo.
"Okay," Purrazzo said. She took her phone out of her pocket and removed one of her gloves to use her thumbprint to unlock it. With that done, she called Lindsay's number. It took a while for the call to be answered.
"Lindsay."
"Hi, Sergeant Lindsay. I'm at the Layfield house, and we've got a bit of an issue."
"A bit of an issue?" Lindsay asked with concern.
"Mr Layfield is saying he's not going to tell us anything unless he gets to see his wife. He wants a guarantee on it from you."
There was silence on the line for a moment while Lindsay considered it. "Put me on speaker," she ordered.
Purrazzo took the phone away from her ear and tapped the speaker icon. "You're on speaker now."
"Mr Layfield?" Lindsay asked.
"Yeah," Layfield said.
"Come what may, we're digging up every inch of that garden. You're there to make the job easier, not because we need you in order to do it. Having said that, I can make a short visit with your wife happen. It will be on the condition that Detective Halstead and Officer Purrazzo return to the station and tell me that the forensics team have eight locations to work with. Do we understand each other."
"We do," Layfield said, happy at the prospect of seeing Jillian.
"Good. And those locations had better turn out to be the right ones, or I'll make sure the next time you see your wife will also be the last." With that, the call was ended from Lindsay's side.
"You heard the lady," Halstead said to Layfield. "Starting at this end of the garden, give us the first location."
"Okay. I need to wait for their spirits to come up," Layfield said.
Halstead remembered him making weird comments like that on the previous visit to the house. He decided not to bother responding to it. He wanted locations, not theatrics.
After a couple of minutes, Layfield stepped onto the lawn to the right of the large tent and walked about five feet down the garden. He stopped and looked around to get his bearings, then moved to his right a bit. "I'd say try here, where I'm standing."
"I'll get one of the forensics guys to come and mark the spot," Halstead said, making for the entrance to the tent.
His departure left Purrazzo relatively alone with Layfield, for the two uniforms were standing near the house's back door.
"You know, one of these girls looked quite like you, Officer Purrazzo," Layfield said, quietly taking pleasure in it. "She hadn't killed anyone though. That's quite a turn on, that you've done that."
"Want me to tell you about one of the people I killed, John?" she whispered back to him, leaning in close. She didn't wait for an answer. "When I was serving in Afghanistan, we got word of a camp located near to where we were stationed. The leader of that camp was having women abducted, and was raping and killing them. It was decided that this man should be taken out in a covert op. Me and two others were assigned to the mission. We went in one night when we knew there were only a few men and the leader in the camp. When we went in, it ended up being me who snuck into the leader's tent. He was the only one in there at the time. When I snuck in, he was standing there looking at a map, with his back to me. I crept up on him, put my hand over his mouth and slit his throat from ear to ear. He collapsed, and I held him down, keeping him nice and quiet, and looking into his eyes as he bled out. He hated that it was a woman who killed him. They don't let us do things like that in the Police Department, which I think is a shame. Because if they did, suspecting what you did to these girls, I'd visit your cell one night and bleed you, real quiet, and leave you for uniform to find."
"Everything okay?" Halstead asked, having emerged from the tent with one of Dr Manning's men.
"Yep," Purrazzo said cheerfully.
Halstead noticed that some of the colour had drained from John Layfield's face. He assumed it was because they were in the garden, where his appalling crimes were coming back to him.