The Hallucitect

Chapter 10 (Part 2)

PART 2

The murder rate in Boston is around 60 people each year, sometimes more, sometimes less. Lazy cops preferred natural or even accidental deaths though, as they were pretty easy to process if they were cut and dry, and there was minimal paperwork. If the medical examiner didn't find anything fishy and if the accident scenario didn't seem fishy then... done, case closed. Gung-ho cops much preferred murders however, they were exciting, they had a bad guy, it required extensive investigation work, and ideally ended with the apprehension of the bad guy. No one seemed to like suicides though, they were usually just sad and depressing; unless they turned out to be staged, and thus it turned into a murder investigation.

If Kathleen Enderson were a cop she'd be one of the Gung-ho varieties. Kathleen, or simply Kat as everyone called her, loved to investigate stuff, she loved research, and she loved data. She thought about becoming a cop when she was young, a police woman, but she didn't think she would have been able to tolerate all of the procedural bullshit that cops had to deal with. Plus she never really liked guns and couldn't fathom having to carry one, much less use one. So Kat became the next best thing that she could think of, an investigative reporter.

Kat's best friend in the world was Detective Lisa Hochman who was a homicide detective for the Boston Police Department; they also happened to be lovers. They didn't call themselves "partners," nothing quite that serious, but they did spend an inordinate amount of time together. They maintained separate apartments but pretty much alternated their sleepovers between the two places. Lisa broached the subject of living together once, but Kat seemed a little cold on the idea, more so for Lisa; worried about her job. Lisa was still "in the closet" at work. She would like to come-out and figured if she and Kat moved in together she would have to. But she knew that a lot of homophobia still existed at a subtle underlying level within the force. She seriously doubted that she would have made homicide detective if the senior officers knew about her sexual orientation. If Kat were to be brutally honest with herself, she wasn't totally sure if she loved Lisa, or if she loved getting all the inside nitty-gritty from her while they cuddled in bed.

Kat was still a junior reporter for the Boston Globe and was yearning to break out. She just needed a good story. Sure, a good accident can make for good press as well as the occasional suicide (especially if it was a well-known person), but there was nothing like a good old murder to sell some papers. But even those can be boring at times, and with 60 murders a year, it's sad to say that they just don't have the zing they used to. Plus with everyone having access to the global media; anyone with a murder fetish can read about one or two everyday somewhere in the world.

Kat was looking for something different. A serial killer would be nice, but good ones seemed to be few and far between; and she would never get those assignments anyhow. The current one making all the headlines in the Boston area had been dubbed The Pedophile Killer. These were some gruesome rapes and murders of young boys, certainly sad, but certainly juicy stories. However, the seasoned writer Harvey Littlefield got to write all of those cover stories.

Not that she wished evil into the world, deep down she really didn't want that; but it existed and there was nothing she could do about it. She just wanted to report it. She was tired of writing fluff stories, especially of the top-ten tips variety. Two winters ago she was told to write an article on "Tips to avoid holiday shopping stress." Great, she thought, something that a thousand reporters write about each year that is nothing more than common sense anyhow. She took it in stride however and set out to make the most of it. She took the overdone topic and did new research, talked with doctors and other experts who nowadays get called wellness coaches. She gathered data from the last ten years and also conducted her own polls at local malls. She ended up with a great piece, "probably the best piece on holiday stress I've ever seen," the chief editor told her. He was so impressed that she was asked to come up with the "Top 10 ways to save energy in your home."