Ready. Set. Psycho.

Chapter One: Reg

           

Reg sat at his desk working on a tablet, consuming the file with all his attention, his right hand only intermittently dipping into the bowl of high-fiber granola or down to his alkaline water when he remembered he was hungry or thirsty. He swiped through the notes Detective Solomon Roud had made on the Psycho case. It was clear from the increasingly stressed tones and urgent language that Sol was losing it.

He skipped forward to Greg's notes, briefly shuddering as he realized he was reading notes from a dead man. He forced himself to swallow the building guilt and remember he had not been a cop when it happened, and this was exactly why he graduated from Columbia Law and never really considered being a lawyer before enrolling with the NYPD.

Greg had notes on the crimes — more fulsome descriptions than Sol, less of the pontifications and Sol's incessant worry that he could have stopped the murders. Simple facts about what the accused did or may have done and some ideas about how he may have done it. Where possible, evidence — and that helped. But that was not why Reg was reading.

Three weeks earlier, Lisa came to see him. She offered him a short cut to the force and the opportunity to start his career in deep cover. They needed recruits — smart ones. Recruits whose backgrounds would not suggest a desire to get onto the force. A few manipulated data points here and there, and it was like he had never applied, but he was in. He said yes before they told him what he would be doing.

A week after accepting, he met Lisa in a small rented boardroom in midtown. Sham was there, a skinny South Asian who had just finished a tour with the Navy. He was a doctor by training and, near as Reg could tell, a shit-talking asshole by nature. He never shut up, and the sound of his voice put Reg on edge.

When Lisa did get the room quiet and find a few minutes to string together the operation, Reg was not surprised, but he would have been if he knew better or had any experience. Sol had been removed from the force and had not been an officer for months. He was seeing the force shrink once a week on mandatory visits. "And," Lisa added after a crude joke from Sham, "he came in three weeks ago and told me he had a part in four robberies in the last six months. Big ones. And he could connect them all back to the same ringleader."

"Everyone needs a part-time job," Sham said.

"And that he was in over his head and needed to get out." Lisa said, ignoring Sham. "But this is not the type of gang you quit. You work, you get paid, and when they cut you loose you die or you escape. He needs to escape."

Lisa needed to build a team for the next planned heist and work with Sol to get to the person planning the thefts. To be clear, Lisa did not need to build a team or do anything — that was not lost of Reg. Sol had gone rogue; he was an officer removed from active duty, and he fell in with this gang on his own. He was a criminal working with criminals. But here was Lisa, going out on a limb to help Sol, and Reg knew there had to be a good reason. He parked his intuition and promised to ask later.

"Who are we after?" Reg had asked.

"We don't know who the Big Kahuna is," Lisa said. "The Chief could be a man or a woman. Could be here or overseas. Could be a suspect on one of our lists for something else or could be someone entirely new. Could be someone in jail. We don't even know if this somebody exists or not. We hadn't connected the crimes before."

"So it could be Sol playing us all," Sham said, giving voice to Reg's suspicions. Assholes have their place, after all.

Lisa paused and stared at him.

"Raw nerve?" Sham said, putting his hands up in a peace offering.

"It's a fair question," Lisa said, though by the tone Reg sensed she thought it was not fair, and that this was not the first time she had heard the question. "You need to spend some time getting to know Sol. Did he commit some crimes? Yeah. And if you are wondering what it takes to break a cop, then read his file. It's on the tablets I'm giving you today. And read up on the Psycho case. Sol's notes. Greg's, too. If you can read all that and not sympathize, then you let me know, and we can find someone else."