The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen on interests of community welfare and existence.
Robert Peel
"Are you sure that he's okay?" Jinet asked, trying not to smile to obviously.
Cooper glared at him as the old man who's name he couldn't remember gave him another once over. "I don't know, maybe you could tell me what was in that jam and I could tell you how long it would be before I can actually help you."
"You mean you had some of Meillenski's goat and blueberry jam?" the doctor said with an awful attempt to cover up his laugh.
"Did you say blueberry?" Cooper repeated in surprise causing several of the officers in the hallway to turn towards the noise.
For once the area was full due to the fact that the station had a partly caved in roof from the snow so the off-duty officers were working overtime to try and keep the files and computers dry and to get the roof back up.
"You're more worried about the blueberries than the goat intestines?" Jinet said, studying Cooper in a new light.
"I'm allergic to blueberries, they don't go down well." Cooper replied, he blinked and jerked back up. "Wait, what did you just say?"
Jinet quickly shook his head and tried to change the subject by asking if he'd finished reading over the case files yet, which he hadn't had time to seeing as he'd only had them for twenty minutes.
Even though Cooper wasn't the qualified doctor that most of his coworkers were he was able to tell when someone was making a joke at his expense, besides, he'd had goat intestines before and they tasted nothing like the jam he'd eaten, leaving him to spend the next hour of going over files wondering exactly what he had eaten.
It was during this hour that Cooper began to realize that his bosses had drastically misjudged the situation in Boslone. They had told him that there were simply four unsolved murders in the same area, not that all of them took place inside of a mental institution, let alone the Boslone Institute for Mental Health and Wellness, the place was notorious for its safety protocols.
He hadn't been informed that the victims were all girls between 14 and 18, the youngest being Misa Robinson, the second victim, the oldest Marie Vonn, at 18. No one had mentioned the messages written in blood on the wall, the time codes on the video, the silent and impossibly quick kills or even that they all took place in less than a few weeks.
Also not mentioned were the astonishing physical similarities between all of the girls, with their pictures taped to an old and cracked white board, without the labels identifying them, he might have thought they were sisters.
More disturbing though, were the after shots next to the photos that had been given by family members. It was like a home makeover show, from grass and smiles to red on white.
There were no other boards to write on as Cooper soon found out, apparently the only one that they had was a donation from one of the schools on the island, after the mine closed down it did too, and any children on the island were shipped off to the nearest school on another island about half an hour away, if you took the boat bus as the locals had called it.
This meant that the suspects had been taped, pinned and balanced precariously to stay somewhat flat on the wall of the detective's room, there were 28 faces on the board with a number beside them corresponding to the file that was organized in order on the floor directly in front of the wall.
He was currently reading the file belonging to a Mr. Henry Uul, a cook at the Institute as Cooper had begun to call it, who had a record after he assaulted his niece. No charges were ever brought against him, but there were several other cases of girls in their teens leaving the neighbourhood a short while after he arrived no matter where he lived. Cooper believed in coincidences, however, that was a little more than a coincidence in the eyes of most people.
Mr. Uul also had a tendency to get into bar fights and was known to be violent by the few people he'd managed to get a hold of over the telephone. They had only talked to him because he said there was a reward for catching the Wolverine, the media had named him and it stuck, and they might be helping catch his killer. It helped that no one particularly liked him too though.
The French culinary graduate was bunking in the staff quarters of the Institute and hadn't been able to verify his location during any of the murders so he was a promising suspect.
If the girls who ran off weren't all blondes and it hadn't been scientifically proven that he was an idiot.
Cooper had decided to set him in the "bad but probably not our guy" as Jinet called it, section, which already had six names from the past few hours alone. Not too horrible considering the lack of real computers and databases as well as the none to effective emergency lights that had gone on to conserve power, or the fact that the station was constantly being swarmed by people desperately trying to report a crime or get inside.
He was in the process of picking up a second one when the officer he'd met when he first arrived entered the room.
"Hey, Carl." Jinet called back, a frown crossing his face when he noticed the pile of boxes in the officer's arms. "Already?" he asked.
Carl nodded and shrugged. "It's a pretty bad storm, we've already had to stick all of the reporters who didn't bring their own van in the conference room and most of them have refused to do any work without some sort of statement."
"What is going on?" Cooper said, trying to figure out why Carl was talking to them about this.
"Whenever we have a really big storm we have to start sending out care packages." Jinet explained. "It helps keep the calls down a bit and it keeps some people from turning to crime to get power."
Carl nodded in agreement, but it was countered by a glare in Cooper's direction. "We've got some food in here that we stocked up on near the beginning of storm season, there are also some flashlights and batteries. We take this out of the government funding we get and each family will get at least one package, after the first storm its food and some blankets if we have them."
Cooper tried not to look too surprised at this unconventional method, he'd grown up in the city without any thoughts of a snowstorm crossing his mind. As far as he could remember, the most snow he'd ever gotten barely went up past his shoes, here there was already enough snow to swallow one whole in some areas.
"Either way, we need the extra hands, we don't have enough packed this year. They got put off because of this case so you guys can help or you can tell the press something and get them to." Carl said.
"What a difficult choice." Jinet said, it was impossible to tell if he was being honest about that or not up until he grabbed some of the files and beckoned for Cooper to follow him.
It didn't take long for the twisting hallways to lead to a small, cramped space full of uniformed officers with multiple cups of coffee each, some people dressed in civilian clothes with volunteer pins and a few others with cameras and press badges were all squished around a table, methodically putting items in the cardboard boxes. These boxes were then passed to the scientist who had come into the room earlier, to be wrapped in plastic bags and piled near the door.
The conveyor belt came to a halt though the moment they walked in the door. Some went directly back to packing, but most of the uniforms glared at Cooper until Hunt stared them down, none of them lasted long under his gaze.
Cooper considered apologizing for his behaviour, and the first syllables of "I'm sorry" had already left his mouth when the scientist turned to them and pointed towards the hallway.
The detective and agent turned to find themselves confronted by a tall college student with a small file clasped between his massive hands.
Jinet took the file without hesitation and proceeded to flip through its contents. He glanced up at the student, who nodded, and then the detective turned to Cooper.
"Do you know who Wolverine is?" he asked.
Cooper looked at the detective in surprise. "You mean the guy with the, you know claws or whatnot?"
Jinet's frown deepened. "Indeed, it seems the name was more appropriate than we originally thought." he said in a hushed voice as he closed the door and lead the two away from the reporters.
"That's what Elise said." the tall man said.
The detective tried to seem uninterested, but even Cooper knew that there was something more to the look than one might originally think.
"This report shows that there is a steel residue in the wounds on all four victims, one of the other scientist at the lab on another island did an analysis of the blood spray patterns and the cuts and said that the victims were lying in the middle of the floor." Jinet explained. He looked up at Cooper and shoved him down to the ground. "Like this." he said.
Cooper attempted to get up but by the time he had gotten his hands out, Jinet was already positioned on top of him, file in hand.
Jinet then mimed a downward slashing motion followed by a series of tearing and ripping gestures.
He was in the process of ripping out Cooper's eyes when Carl came out of the room holding a stack of the boxes. The officer quickly stepped out of the hall and into the entryway as Jinet jerked up and dusted himself off.
There was a long moment of silence before Cooper spoke again. "So, aside from suspect interviewing, what are you doing to keep the public safe." he said, it was more of a conversation starter than anything else, he already knew exactly what had been done.
"We had the Institute improve its security guard schedule after the first two murders, we provided a few officers, we can't spare many, but it seems that wasn't enough. We were originally checking for indicators of a canine in the area, that appears to have been a total waste of time though." Jinet replied.
The silence continued. Cooper had never known the true meaning of deafening silence before that point.
"This confirms that the victims were drugged though. They were lying on the floor and the report says that what the Doc thought were defensive wounds were just from her being dragged on the carpet by someone wearing claws over their fingers." Jinet said.
"How do you know they were claws?" Cooper asked doubtfully. The case was real to him now, however, he didn't put much faith in a bunch of college students figuring that out.
"The wound patterns are consistently spaced in some areas, as if the steel was attached to their fingers." Jinet told him.
"So Wolverine has claws growing out of his fingers too now. I'd hate to see those nail clippers." Cooper muttered.
Jinet sighed, then his frown returned. "That's true." he said, quietly at first, then growing in volume. "He would need to sharpen these, wouldn't he? Plus, he'd have to know how to make them in the first place. One of the suspects was a metal worker. He may be our guy!" he exclaimed, the frown dissipating.
"Oh, that reminds me, we had a call from Hunt earlier while the weather was a bit lighter. Apparently one of the patrols found a Mr. Vincent Rogers? Hunt was notified a few hours ago, we only got the reply a few minutes ago. He was killed in what looks like a car accident." a new voice said, it was Carl, he'd come back for the next load of boxes.
It didn't take much to realize that was the lead Jinet had been talking about.
"Do you have any details?" Cooper asked.
"Just that it looks like he swerved to avoid someone and hit a tree instead. No sign of anyone in the area though, just some boot prints. The officers had to use their cells to take photos, the techs aren't going to get out their anytime soon." Carl shrugged.
Cooper knew that this meant that the case was likely going to be yet another of Boslone's unsolved.
"The storm is supposed to be gone in a couple of hours. We can go over to his place and see if we find anything." Jinet decided.
"We've gone over the place already." Carl said. "The officers are supposed to send us the pictures when they get a signal, apparently they were looking for a wife and found something else instead."
There was a dinging sound and Carl pulled out a touchscreen phone.
"That was convenient." he said with a smiled as he tapped the screen and passed it to Jinet.
Jinet looked concerned as he flipped through a few photos and then zoomed in on one of them. "What do these look like to you?" he asked Cooper.
At first, the picture was practically a blur because of the angle. After he tilted it though and managed to zoom out enough for the picture to be less grainy, Cooper could clearly see the blood covered steel on the work bench.