Prologue

A Chapter by Confidential

I leafed lazily through the grisly photo album. "And, these pictures are all victims?" I said, dropping the open book on to a large pile of evidence. Standing on the other side of the table, Sgt. Reginald (Regge) Price, my partner of 18 years, remained silent. The answer I was looking for came from directly behind me. "Yes," said Lt. Perkins as she glanced over my shoulder at the mountains of maps, photographs, and old reports. "As you know, we've previously linked nearly two dozen murders to this guy, but then we get this album in the mail yesterday with pictures of over ninety. Ninety-four, to be exact."

"He sent a whole album full of pictures of his victims directly to the Little Rock Police Department?" I said, "this guy wants us to catch him."

"Well," said Perkins, "we didn't get it directly from him, no. We got this along with a letter directly from DC."

I looked up. "DC? As in, FBI headquarters DC?"

Perkins nodded.

"I don't understand," I said, running my left hand through my hair while sifting through some of the papers on the table, "How long have they had the album? Why haven't we been notified until now? And if every victim in here is dead thanks to the same person, why the hell would the FBI send us the evidence? Do they think the LRPD is better equipped to handle a guy with 94 kills- that we know of- under his belt than they are?"

"Well, twenty-two of the victims were found in Little Rock, and of the 94 victims in total, over half of those found lived within 30 miles of Little Rock, so that's exactly what they think. They're sending a special agent that deals with big cases like this one out to, 'guide us with the investigation'. What a load of bullshit."

Regge and I looked up at each other, thinking the same thing: "God damn it. God damn it."

Regge picked up the photo album and was looking through it. He sighed, "I don't get it, man. How can people do something like this?" he turned the photo album around and revealed one of the pages, neatly decorated scrapbook-style. On the left, a collage of pictures of a young woman, no older than thirty, all depicting her laughing, smiling, simply enjoying life; on the right, a large photo of her lying dead in a bath tub, columns of red still pouring down from her empty eye sockets and giving the water an eerie pink, cloudy look. The picture had a nice, white lace border glued around it. Regge shook his head and set the book back down. "Friggin' disgusting."

"So," I said, still looking at the picture of the dead woman in front of me, "when is Mr. FBI coming to 'help' us out?"

Perkins folded her arms. "Tomorrow."

She crossed the room to leave and stopped with her hand on the doorknob. Without looking back, she said, "Know this case inside and out. That photo album is your new family album. Learn it. Love it. We WILL catch this prick." She opened the door and exited the room.

next chapter