I'll Protect You

Chapter 7

After the frankly terrifying interview with Henry, Madeleine and Tom returned back to the station and Jerry took on the challenge of researching Scott Harold. He didn't have to look very far to find out exactly where he was at the present moment.

"Hey Madeleine, come look at this," he called from in front of his screen and Tom followed even though he hadn't been called.

"Oh," Tom breathed when he got to the computer screen. Scott had died several years ago in after a hit and run incident.

"Guess he's not a suspect," Jerry said, scrolling through the information, still completely ignoring Tom's presence and Tom had no idea why. Did he do something wrong? Was Jerry jealous? But he said that they weren't dating?

"Well, unless he came back as a ghost," Tom said and both of the more experienced officers ignored him this time, instead of just one.

"Wait, stop!" Madeleine called as she saw something on the screen. Jerry stopped scrolling and Madeleine jabbed her finger into the screen, "the car had no number plate," she read, "but the driver was described as tall, and very muscled. They were wearing a crocodile mask," she practically crowed, eyes scanning faster, "during his stay at the hospital someone wearing an eagle mask snapped Scott's neck."

"It's not a shark," Tom said, and Jerry shot a look towards him.

"The dates match up, it's about two days after the breakup. It could be our murderer, but just starting out?" Jerry said and Madeleine grinned.

"Henry said Oliver broke it off because he felt pressured and trapped, do you think the person doing the pressuring wasn't Scott?" She asked, finally having something solid to work off, more witnesses, definite evidence of the murderers wearing masks, etcetera.

"Yeah, it's a definite possibility," Tom threw in, and Madeleine suddenly stopped.

"All we know now is that he's done it before and he'll do it again, not any names or anything like that," she said, and Jerry nudged her.

"It's something," he said, and Tom had to agree, this was proving bigger than he thought it would be, here was proof that murders had been happening around Oliver for longer than they thought.

"The driver and neck snapper were never found, nor arrested, so they could easily be the one doing the murdering now," Tom said and Madeleine brightened a bit.

"Yeah, we got a shot, don't we?" She said and both of the boys nodded, "yeah, we got a shot."

——

The relief of the crew was short lived as they found another body, and for once there was an actual traceable motive. The victim, twenty something named Tyler, was seen arguing with Oliver and Richard the day before, using slurs and insulting them both.

Like the others, his body was horribly mutilated, bits of him spread around the cafe where he was tied to a chair. Unlike Ian, (and how it hurt the officers to think about him,) the cut of chunks of meat were unaccounted for, and now matter how much they searched they couldn't find them. Also missing was Tyler's tongue, and Oliver rang up to tell them that he received another package. Jerry, who was sent there with some other police, confirmed that the tongue was in fact gifted, with another note proclaiming that there would be something big soon.

"This one's a bit different," Jerry said when he came back, "the note was rushed and there wasn't any decorations aside from the usual paper at the bottom. I think this kill was more rushed than the others."

"I agree, the body isn't displayed like it usual is, and most of the wounds seem to have been done post mortem," Madeleine said and Tom nodded at her.