The Sorority

"Got one," one of the police officers says, pointing to a female in the yearbook who matched the redhead. "Hope Lighthouse."

"Put it on the board," I say. I got you now.

"Got another," the other officer said pointing at one of the males. "Shawn Fitzpatrick."

"Board. You find a name, picture goes on the board."

"Copy that detective."

"Chase, check this out," The Kaiser says, and I lean over his shoulder as he points at something in her record. "School nurse administered a pregnancy test that came back positive in September twenty-eighteen. Nothing after that."

"Any pregnancy centers around the school? A Planned Parenthood?" I ask.

"Planned Parenthood doesn't do prenatal or postnatal and we know she carried the baby to term. I'd look for a crisis pregnancy center or adoption agencies," The Kaiser explains.

"Do that then," I say and look at my rapidly developing wall of perps. We find all nine within four hours with just the year books. The only odd woman out is the camerawoman.

Just before a majority of the people leave for the day Captain Whitaker returns and asks for results. I brief him off my board.

"ME Lab report came back and confirmed a few of our initial assumptions," I begin and see Jill lean against the wall to watch as well. "Two assailants is the most likely scenario and our only working suspects are these nine individuals who for lack of a better word, humiliated her in a video that could easily be construed as non-consensual.

"Of these nine on the board, one is already dead. Twenty-twenty-two, self-inflicted gunshot wound of one Gregory Kingsley. All of the others live out of state. I have put in a request with the FBI to assist in finding the others."

"How did you find Gregory?" Captain Whitaker asks.

"Searched his name and found his obituary. They used the same picture from his college yearbook," I explain and he nods.

"That other lead I asked you about?"

"Amanda got pregnant in her freshman year and gave the baby up for adoption in twenty nineteen. Closed adoption, but we're working with the agency to get a name. I think she got curious a few years later and the adopted parents gave her a picture, but I'll confirm that. Records of the birth from the hospital say she had a boy from the birth certificate."

"I have a friend in the FBI, so I'll get that expedited," Captain Whitaker says then walks closer to the board. "Excellent work, all of you. We have nine more...eight more suspects than we did this morning. Let's start whittling them down to the two."

"Yes sir," the room says, though not all at the same time.

"Keep going," he says and leaves, his wife smacking his ass on his way out. He looks back nervously to see if anyone saw that. We all did, and all turn away once his scowl destroys our grins.

"He is not impressed very often," Jill says as I sit in my chair and stretch. I am running on nearly two days on all cylinders with only a few hours of sleep. I am so fucking tired right now, but I cannot show it.

"Most of it is grunt police work. Nothing particularly noteworthy," I say, which is true. Everything I said at the scene would have been confirmed later. Where we are right now is through monotonous digging and questions.

"Too many detectives don't put in the work," Jill says as my desk phone rings. I groan and pick it up.

"Detective Kramner."

"This is Sergeant Yates from the call center, a woman with information on the Hopkins case is requesting to speak with you directly. Want me to patch her in?" the Sergeant asks.

"Fuck it," I say and I hear a few clicks and know she has been put through. "Detective Kramner, homicide."

"Detective, my name is Karly Goodman," she says, and her name rings a bell immediately. I look at the wall and see her name on it. Holy shit. I look around my desk for a notepad but do not see one. I snap my fingers until I get Will's attention and gesture like I am writing. He digs through his desk, pulls out a pad and tosses it to me.

"How can I help you ma'am," I say, not giving away I am already aware of her existence and relevance to the victim.

"I have information regarding the murder of Amanda Hopkins. Can I come in and speak with you personally tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, what's a good time," I say, getting ready to write that down.

"Is ten in the morning good?"

"Absolutely."

"I am staying at the motel on Kennedy just before the highway if you need to find me."

"I look forward to speaking with you," I say and hang up. Did one of them literally come to find me? Unreal. I write down the address of the motel, fold the paper, then slide it into my pocket.

"That was Karly Goodman apparently. Look for passenger manifests coming into the city within the last three days. She may have drove so don't dig too far if you find nothing," I say to one of the officers who starts up that search, getting in touch with the TSA.

"When is she coming in?" The Kaiser asks.

"Ten tomorrow morning."

"We've exhausted leads for the time being and we'll work the rest in shifts. Go home and get some sleep man," he says, and I want to protest, but I simply do not have the energy to. I nod instead and start packing up my stuff.

--

What a hell of a last few days. I am so tired I start wobbling a little in the elevator. While I am waiting for the door to my floor to open, my hand starts shaking again. I suppose if I am completely engrossed in work even my hand is too busy to quake.

My apartment is at the end of the hall, last door on the right. As I approach, I notice my door is cracked open. I grip and flex my hand then draw my weapon. Slowly, I push the door open to see Marlene packing a few things into a box in the living room. She turns and sees me with the gun.

"Why is your first instinct to draw a gun?" she asks.

"I don't know, near midnight, four hours of sleep in the last forty-eight and I'm in the middle of a murder investigation. Do you calmly walk into your house with the door cracked?"

Marlene rolls her eyes and keeps packing some of her books and a few of her framed pictures. It seems like the one she came back for specifically was one of her and her dad when she was young. She looks roughly ten years old and her father is teaching her how to tie sailing knots. In the photo she is holding two ends of the rope with a dedicated look on her face.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Getting some of my shit," Marlene says, standing up from her kneeling position. "You look awful."

"Like I said, I haven't slept in nearly two days, so finish up and do whatever," I say, closing the door behind me and dropping my badge and gun on the kitchen table. I groan as I take a seat, resting my head down on my arms.

"What case is it?"

"You know I can't talk about it," I reply.

"Is it the girl stabbed behind the bar?" Marlene asks, and I look up at her. "That's a yes. Scary thought that a girl can just get stabbed like that. Over what, a few bucks?"

"We haven't released the cause of death," I say, a little concerned.

"It's already in local press," Marlene says and quickly pulls out her phone to show me an article on it. I fucking despise the media.

"I have to get up in a few hours to go talk to someone who may be blowing smoke up my ass, so just lock up on your way out," I say, standing up from the table and walking toward the bathroom. I lean around the door frame to hit the light switch over the sink.

"Talk to who?"

"Someone who knew the victim. Some chick from college," I say. I am planning on a shower before sleep. I strip at the washer and dryer stack and close the door behind me.

By the time I get out, Marlene is gone with her box, but she was considerate enough to fold the clothes I left on the ground and place them on the dryer. Probably a force of habit for her.

--

Thursday -- 27 March, 2025

The office is still buzzing with activity when I arrive at roughly nine in the morning. I feel tired, but refreshed and ready to attack this case again. The FBI managed to come through on two of the men in the video during the night.

Brock Lancaster, the black male in the video had a recent firearm purchase in Arizona. The Kaiser already ran that lead and his alibi is rock solid, so I have his name scrubbed from the list.

Travis Breckenridge is the second one we find. When we called his wife, she was told he was on a business trip. When we called his business, they said he was on vacation. Travis just became one of my lead suspects.

Of the women, we still have to find Hope Lighthouse, Jaqueline Moore, and Meagan Kilgallon. Karly Goodman seems to have found us, and I will be speaking with her in the next hour.

The men we still have to find are Shawn Fitzpatrick, and Liam McMaster.

One of the officers did interviews with people at her culinary school, and the story is the same. Well-liked and private. It is very apparent that Amanda was a very likable person who preferred to keep to herself. No one recalled any ex-boyfriends, or girlfriends.

At ten fifteen I look at my watch and call down to the reception desk. I ask if she ever arrived, and I receive a 'no' in reply. What the fuck? There is almost no chance someone is trolling me. No one outside of the department knows who the suspects are, so no one would know what name to give me to get my attention.

At eleven I have waited long enough.

"Where did Karly Goodman say she was staying?" I ask The Kaiser as I search my pockets for the address I wrote down. I must have left that in the pockets of the pants I wore yesterday.

"Hotel on Kennedy before the highway. You about to make a house call?" The Kaiser asks and I reply with a nod. "Just take Fairmont south and take a left onto Kennedy. You need back up?"

"To talk to one woman? I think I'm good," I say and grab my car keys to leave. I take the elevator down to the first floor, and then leave the building through the stations parking garage. I turn into traffic after scanning my pass at the gate which raises to let me pass.

The drive takes roughly fifteen minutes before I pull into the parking lot of the motel. I do not recall her giving me a room number, but I ask the guy working the desk and he lets me know she is in room one eleven. That was a lucky break; there was a good chance the receptionist would not help at all, so I will take that win when I get them.

The side of the motel with room one eleven is away from the main street and facing a fence. A total of seven cars are in the parking lot, scattered about with two of the seven in spaces directly next to each other. The count starts at room one zero zero and ascends without skipping any numbers. I am looking for the eleventh room of the fifteen on this side.

I knock loudly on the door and hear no movement from inside. Turning around, I see one car across the lot but directly in front of the room and read the plate.

"Could you run a plate?" I ask Kaiser after I call him and knock again.

"Ready to copy."

"Iowa plate. Seven, five, alpha, alpha, tango, niner," I say and wait as I knock again. "Ms. Goodman, this is Detective Kramner!"

"It's a rental," the Kaiser replies.

"Thanks," I say and hang up. I peek through the blinds and see two beds and a television. The television is on with loud volume I can hear through the door. I lean a little more and I see in the space between the bed and the television a body lying on the ground.

"Shit," I say to myself, drawing my weapon and trying the door, but it is locked. I position myself for a door kick, quickly assessing that the door does open into the room. I kick as close to the locking mechanism as I can, which cracks the lock but does not open the door on the first kick. I kick it again and it slams open. "Police!"

I see what I will assume is Karly Goodman on the ground in a puddle of her own blood. My first instinct is to check for signs of life. The moment I kneel to check for a pulse, I see a blur charge out of the bathroom door. Of course someone is still in the room, it was locked. I aim up, but my gun is kicked into the television which cracks. I jump back to avoid a horizontal slash.

Now I am trying to remember key features in case he gets away. Male in a ski mask, grey eyes with a thin tall build. Right handed and not very skilled with a knife in real combat.

I think that before I am grabbed from behind by a second assailant. The first charges at me, but I jump up and kick into him, sending him tumbling over the bed. I jump again, this time higher, grabbing their shirt and dropping to my knees as I fall to fling the second person over my shoulders. They crash to the floor next to my gun and grab it, but I stomp down onto their wrist. I hear a high-pitched squeak from the hit. It is a woman. No wonder throwing her was so easy.

The first attacker recovers and comes at me again, but I roll away over the second bed to dodge him. I grab the lamp on the side table and throw it, making him duck and giving me a window. I step on the bed to propel a jump over and punch him square in the face, making him tumble back to the ground before the woman recovered and took aim at me. With no time to kick or move, I grab the gun and aim it away, my ears ringing as she fires a round into the door.

I yank the gun away and reverse my momentum to ram my elbow into her head, making her fall into the television table. I aim back to the man who had already routed me. When I try to aim, he grabs my wrist to move it away, and stabs into my right side with his free hand.

I grab his wrist to stop him from twisting it, grunting in terrible pain. I lean back and head butt forward. He falls back onto the bed and I rebound onto the other. When he rises to continue his assault, I aim up and fire three rounds into him. His body slumps over the bed and slowly slides down until collapsing to the floor. I aim at the woman who had already ran out of the room.

I jump up to pursue, but drop to a knee and start strained, wheezing breaths. Suddenly the Public Integrity Sergeant telling me to never do that Scooby-Doo shit again comes to mind.

I open my phone and flip to favorite numbers, one of which is ICE. In Case of Emergency.

"Officer wounded, send units and emergency medical," I say after dialing. I provide the address and am instructed to stay on the line until someone arrives.

I sit against the bed, holding the knife wound with a pillowcase I took. I try not to touch the handle of the blade best I can, as I have not directly contaminated it yet. My hand is shaking uncontrollably as I wait, so keeping pressure is difficult. The pillow case is drenched, so I stumble into the bathroom and use a towel.

I hear the ambulance and other officers arriving and pass out before they enter the room.

--

Thursday 27 March, 2025

-Lincoln-

I get word that Chase got picked up and the self-aid he performed likely made all the difference that saved his life. One of his assailants is dead at the scene, another victim dead with a slit throat and evidence of prolonged torture. Bruised and bloody wrists, lacerations on her face, and cracked ribs.

This is the second time in just a few weeks my department has had an officer wounded on duty. Also the second time it involves Chase. This is not a good look, and I am already expecting Derek to come down hard on the department. And by department, I mean me.

Jill and her people gather evidence at the scene and the knife that is still in the side of my detective last I was told. I will give him this, Chase is very calm under pressure. Him not pulling a trigger on Edward Taylor wasn't reluctance, it was observation that civilians were behind him. When it matters, he's incredibly restrained.

On paper, Chase Kramner is an outstanding officer. His time as a uniform was satisfactory. Only two people in the history of the precinct have ever scored a perfect on the detective's exam. Jill was the first. He had a very rocky start, mostly fueled by his natural smartass attitude. It doesn't help that he is very intelligent, and he knows it. It was very nice to see Jill take him down a peg. It has done wonders to give him humility.

Oddly enough, I think Derek really likes him, or at least sees his potential. Don't get me wrong, I see it too, but promoting him to Sergeant when the spot opens in a few months in Narcotics? I may need to put my foot down on that one.

The room comes to attention, so I know Derek is coming. That was faster than I thought it would be. He comes right into my office and shuts the door, and not quietly either.

"Did you authorize one of your detectives to interview a suspect without backup?" Derek asks immediately.

"I wasn't aware he left to do that," I reply. Derek does not like that response.

"Get control of your fucking department," Derek says, and I nod, him breathing loudly for several seconds before he sits down. "Thankfully on top of being a fucking idiot, he's smart. He didn't panic and pull the knife. He let his training kick in and fought off two assailants. I need you to understand this pisses me off not because he's stupid, but because he's enormously bright."

"He is," I agree. Chase is also a colossal douche, but I will keep that to myself.

"His mouth gets the better of him, and he panics if leadership asks him to answer simple questions suddenly, but he has the makings of a good detective. I am seeing how he handles this case before I make my final determination if I promote him," Derek says, and I sigh. "You don't agree."

"He's not ready for that level of leadership."

"I'm a firm believer in throwing people in the deep end and seeing if they sink or swim," Derek replies. Not like I can overrule him anyway. He doesn't need my permission.

"Making the impact as temporary chief while you can?" I ask, and Derek looks over his shoulder to make sure no one is near the door.

"The mayor has been telling me he wants it to be permanent. Chief isn't coming back, and the senior deputy has his bags packed for Phoenix and Jeffries is moving to the academy. I am not a huge fan of the mayor, considering I know what he did to get there, but I'll do what I can with the role. Which means the division needs a new Captain when I'm official."

I'm skeptical I'm doing lieutenant correctly. Captain Queen? So much for the retirement packet I drafted last week. I am already at twenty-one years and that is at least another three year commitment. Not to mention the optics of promoting his wife's old partner being construed as nepotism.

"I'd recommend Wu over me," I say, and I am sincere. Dean Wu was my old Sergeant when I worked in property crimes. We made lieutenant within months of each other, and his career is seven years younger than mine. He is a much better choice.

"Wu is already slated to be my junior deputy," Derek says, and I laugh a little. Rung skipping mother fucker. That is exactly what we need, the hard ass with charisma and the one without it. He's a good pick. By the book and incorruptible.

"I need to talk with the wife about Captain," I say, and he nods in understanding.

"Get your team back on the buddy rules," Derek says and leaves. That could have been a lot worse.

--

Friday -- 28 March, 2025

-Chase-

I have no sense of time and space when I open my eyes to an EKG pinging with my heartbeat. I study it for a brief second, seeing my pressure is good and my beats per minute is within my norm of approximately fifty a minute. A clean white sheet is over me, and I see the outlines of my chest to my toes forming twin tents at the foot of the hospital bed.

How long ago was I stabbed?

"You had me worried for a minute," I hear a voice say, and turn to see Marlene sitting in a chair against the wall. Today she is wearing the earrings with little anchors. "You've been out almost a full twenty-four. How you feeling?"