Solomon and Greg were staring at his phone, looking for subtext and clues in the message Solomon had received. "I got nothing," Solomon said.
They angled Greg's computer screen upward so they could read it while they paced. The video feed was clear enough, and they recognized Francine. There was a timer in the bottom right with a countdown that ended in just over two days.
"We've got a serial killer in the making," Greg said.
Solomon nodded.
The two walked his phone down to the tech department. A kid named Kevin took the phone and asked a few questions. He made some calls, read out the return number for the phone that had sent Solomon messages, and came back. "It's a burner. Bought with cash out of state. Only this morning."
"Can you tell us where this suspect was when they sent the text? Can we trace the phone?" Solomon asked.
"Not right now. We're working on it," Kevin responded. "Phone went dead as soon as the second text was sent."
"And the website? Can we trace the source of the video?" Greg asked.
"Not soon enough," Kevin replied. "Not today, not tomorrow. There will be layers of security we can't crack soon enough. Not before the countdown is done."
"What's our move?" Greg asked.
"We don't sit on this," Solomon said. "The link has a few dozen hits. People have seen it. People also think it is fake. Eventually, someone's going to make the connection to the missing persons report."
"Or he's going to leak it," Greg said.
"We need to tell the captain, and we need to narrow down where we are looking right now. And someone needs to shut that fucking site down before any of this happens."
"You're with us, kid," Solomon said.
"But, the lieutenant. I've got a pile."
"You've got nothing," Solomon said, walking away. "Bring your laptop."
Kevin stood and followed, awkwardly carrying his open laptop.
Greg and the two went up the three floors to the captain's office. Her door was closed. Solomon peeked through the mostly opaque glass door and saw that she was speaking with Lisa. Solomon opened the door.
"Excuse me, Detective Kellogg?" Captain Bell said, standing. "I'm in the middle of something."
"Show her," Greg said, pointing at Kevin. Kevin put his computer on the captain's desk.
"We found Francine," Solomon said. "And we have a problem."
The captain was silent as she read through the page. After a pause, she spoke. "Oh, fuck. Who knows?"
"Just us. I don't think anyone who has viewed the site has made the connection. The perp sent me a text with the link."
"Has he sent it to anyone else?" Captain Bell asked.
"No," Greg responded. "Not that we know of. Used a burner. Can't trace him. Kevin is going to need help tracing the video feed."
"Who's Kevin?" Captain Bell asked.
"Oh, hi," Kevin said, waving. "I'm your point person on the eJusticeNY platform."
"Don't wave," Greg said, shaking his head. Kevin put his hand down. "He's a kid with a computer, and now he works for us."
"Does he even work for the department?" Captain Bell asked.
"Technically I am a contractor. I work for the vendor." Kevin ran his hand awkwardly through his hair. "Technically, I am the vendor. I was doing an onsite today."
"You are the vendor?" Solomon said.
"Yeah. I made the software," Kevin said.
"Didn't we pay forty million dollars for that?" Lisa asked.
"Yeah," Kevin said. "Thanks?"
"Whatever. He's got clearance. If he can help, great," Captain Bell said.
"I can help," Kevin said. "I want to."
"What do you need to find the source of this video?" Captain Bell asked.
"I can almost assure you that we won't, not in time. If you can get a warrant to force goregoregore.com to open up their user list, we can get the IP address for the source of the video. We probably won't be able to trace it in two days, but I may be able to knock it out. So that nobody watches her..."
"I'll get the court order," Captain Bell said.
Greg grabbed Solomon by the arm. "That's good enough. Keep up the work, kid." Greg and Solomon left the room, Kevin followed behind them but went back to his desk rather than follow the detectives.
"Listen," Greg said when they were alone. "Sol, this is a first for you, yeah?"
"First murder? No."
"Serial killer."
"Oh," Solomon said. "Yeah. First one."
Greg led Solomon down the stairs and out into the street. "This stuff changes you," he said, looking both ways as they crossed the street to the deli. "You're about to look evil right in the face."
"I'm ready."
"There's no ready for this," Greg said. "There's just this. There's just the job. There's just me and you, Kevin and the captain, and it is us trying to make sure that girl does not die."
"I get it," Solomon said.
They reached the deli, and Greg took a seat in a booth in the corner, flipping their coffee cups over. Solomon did the same, and within seconds both were filled with coffee. "I'm not asking you to get it. Not asking you to understand. I'm asking you to take this one lead at a time, one step at a time, one person at a time. I'm telling you that we might fail."
"It's the job," Solomon said.
"Not this, it isn't," Greg said, sipping his coffee after adding three creams and three sugars. "This isn't anyone's job. This is the stuff, you walk away from it before it is done, no one judges you. You leave homicide and end up on vice, or on white-collar crime, or pushing a fucking pencil or writing parking tickets and directing traffic, normally, they bust your balls. But then someone asks why you got busted down or you left, you say serial killer, they don't bust your balls. They don't judge. They nod their heads and go on with their fucking lives. This is the real shit. This is not something you process with logic at your own pace. This you can walk away from at any fucking time."
"I'm not going anywhere," Solomon said, sipping his own coffee, black.
"Say it now, sure. Don't feel like you need to say it forever. If this isn't for you, it isn't for you."
"Is it for you?"
Greg put his right hand to his mouth and then ran it through his hair. "Five years back, after six years as a detective in homicide, we get called in to a stabbing. A kid in an apartment. Second kid in the building in three weeks. So that's suspicious. But it looks like one of the parents did the first, and the same thing for the next — the parents do the second. Both were on meth, so they don't even know what is happening, can barely defend themselves. Before we knew it there was a third dead kid and a fourth in that building, and then it stops. A month later, another druggie's dead kid in a building four blocks north. And another the same building two days later. We go in. Same MO: kid, druggie parents, stops after the third in the building, this time."
Greg emptied his cup and put it to the edge of the table, waiting for it to get refilled. "Next month, another building, another dead kid. So we get a list of everyone that just moved in that month. Find one guy who lived there and the previous address. Obviously, that's our guy. We catch him. We ask him about it. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't deny. Insisted he did those kids a favor. Should not be raised by druggies, he says. Eight fucking kids, Sol. Eight fucking kids. Three before we saw there was a pattern, and then we had to keep watching, keep our fucking hands in our pants watching this happen until the pattern tightened around a single fucking unsub. And there he was. Just waiting to get caught."
"You made it through."
"Lots of counseling, Sol," Greg said, his coffee refilled. "Lots of talking to people. Lots of restless nights wishing I could have figured it out, pinned it on that fucker one kid sooner, two kids sooner. Hell, why not in the first building? There's cracks, Sol, cracks everywhere in our city. You know what amazes me as a cop? It amazes me there isn't more crime. It blows my mind every day that in a city of twenty million people, only a few thousand — less than one hundredth of one percent — are criminals. And of those, maybe only one hundredth of one percent are the truly scary fuckers who kill like this. You and I know how easy crime is. Fuck, I've walked into crime scenes, and the first thing I do these days is try to game out how it could have been cleaner, what could have been done differently so that someone like me doesn't see the clues, find the leads, and get the bad guy. And it isn't hard. Right?"
"Yeah, I get it."
"Good. And that's the point. Crime is easy. And if the twenty million people in this city knew how easy it was, fuck, Sol, we would have two problems. One: there would be so much crime, no amount of cops could stop it. And two: people would walk around all day just waiting to be victims, just walking along on sidewalks waiting for something terrible to happen, for something to hit them.
"But none of that matters," Greg said. "What matters is that you're only getting through this if you can remember, whether he kills one kid or eight, three kids or a hundred, not a single one is your fault. This isn't on you. It's your job to find him, your job to follow the leads and to try to stop him. But he's choosing to kill, he is choosing how and when and who, and none of it is on you. If you're blaming yourself, you won't make it through this. You'll be off the squad quick, and there's no shame in that. But I'd like to keep you around."
Solomon nodded, and Greg seemed to feel that he had made his point. They finished their coffee, and Greg paid. They left the deli, Solomon heading back to his fancy Manhattan apartment and Greg headed to his Brooklyn duplex, probably half the size of Solomon's pad, and home to his wife and two kids.