“As soon as we get back to the office.”
“He shot you down twice already. You keep fucking with him, he’s going to see to it you get fired… again.”
Murphy gazed around the filthy, abandoned bar. Then he stared again at the dead woman. “Maybe,” he said. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this son of a bitch.”
CHAPTER TWO
Tuesday, July 24, 8:00 PM
“Whatever you’ve got to say, Murphy, say it quick,” Captain Michael Donovan said as he stood behind his desk, packing his briefcase. “I’m on my way home.”
Murphy and Gaudet squeezed into their commander’s office, a converted closet in a corner of the cramped Homicide Division, which was itself jammed into a corner of the police academy on City Park Avenue.
Since Katrina, the homicide cops had wandered like Bedouins, first working out of a commandeered cruise ship, then out of a pair of trailers in City Park, and finally from a set of cluttered rooms at the police academy.
A pair of Goodwill chairs stood in front of Donovan’s desk, but he did not ask the detectives to sit down.
Murphy cleared his throat. “I need resources, Captain. Money, investigators, support staff, enough for a task force.”
“A task force?” Donovan said. He dug a fingernail into a small sore on his head. He was nearly bald but tried to disguise it by keeping his remaining hair buzzed close to his scalp. “Are you still beating that dead horse?”
“Captain, there’s a serial killer out-”
“Bullshit,” Donovan barked. “The murders you’re talking about are unrelated and were committed by different perpetrators.” He sounded like he was reading from a departmental press release.
“How the hell can you say that?” Murphy snapped. “You haven’t been to even one of the crime scenes.”
“Watch your mouth, Detective,” Donovan said. His boozer’s nose was flushed. “I’ve read all the reports and I’ve seen all the photos. It’s obvious these cases were not the work of the same killer.”