[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/un6MMuh.jpg?2[/img][/center] [b]December 22nd, 1946[/b] [b]Kavanaugh's Pub[/b] [b]8:13 AM[/b] The cop bar was decorated with Christmas crap. Bartenders wore goofy Santa hats. Red and green tinsel strung up around the bar. A drunk patrol cop wore a red Rudolph nose and puked beer on the floor. Christmas music played on the jukebox In a corner booth, Jim Corrigan crushed bennies with the butt of his service revolver and used the barrel to line up the powder. One, two, three neat little lines on the table. Jim got the shit from a drug dealer who peddled out of some fruit nightclub. He walked through a group of sad, middle aged queers gyrating under blacklights to the Andrews Sister. He found the dealer in a bathroom stall geezing up with Big H. Jim kicked the needle away and shoved him against the stall door. He gave the drooling shitbird the spiel: Your bennies or your life, which is it gonna be? He snorted the lines quick-like. The shit hit his system. His eyes pinned, his pulse raced. The bennies mingled with whiskey and beer and sent him off into the stratosphere. He left earth behind and slouched in the booth. The pills were to help him forget the dead girl's face. A day since he found that body and it spooked him fierce. He saw her dead body every time he closed his eyes. It made no sense. He was twelve years a cop, he'd seen scores of DB's. THIS was different. SHE was HIS victim. Number eight with a bullet. SHE was still just a she. Officially Jane Doe #29 at the city morgue. Canvassing around the area of the crime scene revealed no eyewitnesses. Nobody in the neighborhood recognized her. They deadpanned Jim when he showed photos. Nobody gave a fuck. Another dead girl? So the hell what? As long as it ain't me, now keep moving, cop. He was out of his zone on this one. He was a Narco dick, this was a Homicide. Max Eckhardt didn't care. He co-opted him to work canvass around the scene. He told Jim, you found the body so you're involved now. The entire PD wanted it solved bad, Whiskey Max wanted it solved even worse. He salivated for a silver LT bar. He coveted rank almost as much as he coveted hooch. Jim jumped from the booth. He ran out the bar and to his car. The bennies did not kill his thoughts on Jane Doe #29. He hauled ass down side streets. He sweat through his clothing. The bennies made his thoughts race. They raced around in a circle and came back to Jane Doe #29. He hauled Code 3 down the parkway. He tried to outrace his thoughts. He failed. The radio in his car squawked. Dispatch asking to patch a call through. "Corrigan." "It's Max Eckhardt. The PD brass is holding a meeting in an hour to discuss these Snapshot Killer murders. I want you there." Jim said, "I'm Narcotics, Sarge. I discovered the body, but what--." "I have my reasons. Let's leave it at that. Be there in an hour." [center]*****​[/center] [b]O'Neil Heights[/b] [b]8:13 AM[/b] Slam rolled ghettoside towards a rendezvous. Winos and junkies were up and at it even this early in the AM. They spat at Slam's car as he passed. They flipped him off and waggled their dicks at Slam as he passed. Slam ignored it and kept on driving. The natives acted like natives, Slam acted like a good white man and ignored native behavior. The Finger Housing Project loomed ahead. The Finger: a New Deal funded slum. They were six twelve story firetraps filled with felonious activities. A mini Sodom and Gomorrah rolled up into a half dozen rickety buildings. Pushers pushed product outside the entrances, dealers dealt drugs from stairwells on every floor. If you were ghettoside, this was THE place to be. It was très slum chic. Slam got hard looks from the boys outside the Finger's A building. They smelled cop from a mile away. They saw the shape of his .45 underneath his jacket and got scarce. He rode a rickety elevator up to the top floor. He lit a cigarette on the ride up. A big brouhaha at Gotham Central loomed in an hour. Boyle gave him the details. The gist: This spree killer shit is from hunger. Close the goddamn case by new year's or else. All of Homicide and some additional muscle would be there. Elevator doors slid open. Slam walked down a shadowy corridor. Concrete walls, graffiti on the walls and apartment doors. 12F near the end of hallway. Slam rapped hard and fast. That cop knock. The door yanked open. Two black men pulled Slam inside. A small living room and two more armed men. A goon plucked the cigarette from Slam's hand and stubbed it out. Slam took in the digs. Fading paint on the walls, crappy furniture. A radio set worth about a thousand bucks, an actual television set. Those were rare as a motherfucker. On a couch: Dope peddler Jefferson Skeevers. He was dressed in all purple, his hair in a slicked back conk. Jeff works for Carlo Giacomo. He runs drug crews and dealers all through the city. His shit was mob-approved and GCPD blessed. His shit was the best around. If you got it in Gotham and it got you fucked up, then you got it from Skeevers. Skeevers Coke and Dope: Accept no substitute. Skeevers held out a mirror with lines of coke and said, "Mr. Bradley. Thank you for coming, want a bump?" "It's Detective Bradley. Tell me what you want, and why you called me instead of Grogan." One of Skeevers' bodyguards popped a switchblade and scratched his neck with it. He got hard stares from the rest while Skeevers snorted lines. He came up from the mirror, rubbing his nose and snorting. "I say gotdamn..." Slam cracked his knuckles. "Today, Skeevers. I got somewhere else I need to be." Skeevers rubbed his nose and nodded. "Alright, alright. A cop is fucking with my business. This motherfucker is shaking down dealers and taking their shit. He took pills from one of my guys last night and he is becoming a righteous pain in my ass. His name is Corrigan." Shakedown Jim. Who the fuck else? He saw Corrigan earlier at the latest Snapshot Killer snuff scene. He thought Corrigan looked fucked up. Now he knew whose supply he was getting high on. Skeevers blew snot from his nose and said, "I call you up because I know you will take care of the matter without getting out of hand. Your boy, Two-Gun Jack, the same can't be said about him. Ofay motherfucker is playing fast and loose lately. I asked him to just scare a crew of independents operating out of the west side and he killed half of them! The word is he owes somebody out there a lot of fucking money. I think that peckerwood is chafing under the pressure." Slam deadpanned him. "I'm on it. Is that all?" "Yeah, amscray." The goons tittered. Skeevers grinned. Slam took it and walked out. He hit the elevator and back down to his car. He blew through O'Neil Heights and beelined towards Gotham Central. Skeevers' reading hit true. Slam noticed something off about Grogan the last few times they talked. He talked too much about philosophical bullshit. The nature of man, the nature of murder, greed, darkness. Way out there. he talked up Max Eckhardt just as much. He hated Whiskey Max. He wanted him crushed post fucking haste. It unnerved Slam. Killing a fellow cop could not be rushed. Two-Gun Jack's impatience rankled. It made him worry he was getting sloppy. There was no room for sloppiness in what they did. These animals they dealt with could smell weakness. One misstep destroyed perceptions of strength. One mistake would create chaos. Slam needed time to think and confirm what Skeevers said for sure. But right now it appeared Grogan's blood was in the water, and the sharks were circling. [center]*****​[/center] [b]Gotham Central[/b] [b]9:15 AM[/b] Max sipped coffee laced with booze. Too much profile on him to outright chug from the bottle so he opted for the subtle route. At his desk, the particulars of the Snapshot Killer case strung up on a corkboard to his right. Eight young women all murdered on the city's west side. They all had the basic appearance. White, dark-haired and thin. All of them were late night habituates of the west side bar/drug scene. Hookers, cocktail waitresses, barflies, and bartenders all. Outside of the looks and jobs, no common links. The killer patrolled until he found a potential victim that fit the description. Premeditated, the victims chosen by chance. Max looked at the photos of the eight girls. The killer took pix of them in their last moments. Some of them cried, some of them fought, some of them accepted it. He zeroed in on victim number eight. She did a bit of all three. Shakedown Jim found her. No ID found on her body to identify her with. A Jane Doe for now. Fields and a bunch of uniforms were on the streets canvassing in the area around where the body was found. All the previous canvasses turned up jack and shit. Nobody wanted to talk to cops about the dead girls. Max polished the rest of the Irish coffee and stood. He walked and worked out leg cramps. The phone on his desk rang. Charlie calling from a payphone. They hadn't turned up anything in the immediate area around the crime scene so they were expanding the search. He put the phone back in the cradle and saw a scribbled message beside the phone. His lawyer. The custody fight over Mary stalled. He paid the lawyer to stall it out until after the first of the year so he could have a chance to solve this case. Daddy Max, LT Eckhardt the crimebuster, would look golden compared to abandoning Alice Eckhardt. The Homicide conference room packed. All of Homicide, save Fields, crowded in the room and mingled. Twenty detectives along with GCPD high brass and other detectives Max recognized. There's Corrigan, there's Bradley looking at Corrigan. There's Two-Gun Jack Grogan and his goon squad near the corner. Grogan talked with Inspector Merkel. Lieutenant Boyle pulled drags off a cigar. He looked like he was circling the drain. Super-thin and sunken eyes. Yellowed skin. Less cop and more holocaust victim. Commissioner Akins polished off a paper cup of coffee and walked to the head of the conference table. Murmurs stalled as he held his hand up. Akins said, "Settle down now. For the eighth time in the last few months, some sick fuck killed a woman on the west side. The same monster taunts our police department with pictures of his victims. The press are calling him the Snapshot Killer. I don't care what the hell they call him, I want him caught. I've let you run the thread out on this one, but now the heat is on. The FBI has informed me that they're bootjacking the case after New Year's. I am here to tell you it won't come to that. It won't come to that because we are solving this goddamn case before the first of the year." Merkel stepped up and said, "Homicide will continue to investigate the case normally. To help supplement their investigation, Captain Grogan's squad will comb through sex offender records and interview any potential offenders who could be culpable for the crime. Those that do not have alibis for the dates of the murders will be brought in for interrogation." Max felt his stomach go cold. Couched in bureaucratic speak was the truth written in bright neon. FRAME JOB. GCPD's specialty. Grogan and his thugs would find a pervert or depraved mind that would fit the bill. They would then beat a confession out the man and pin the murders on him. They would have him declared mentally incompetent to stand trial. The case would be solved, but the killer would not be caught. A desk sergeant elbowed his way to Max. He passed him a note. CALL FIELDS ASAP. EXPANDED CANVASS TURNED UP POTENTIAL LEAD.