looked at her watch. “Oh, shoot! It’s 6:45, we better get going.”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin. I noticed that she only ate a couple of sections of the grapefruit. I signaled the waitress and told her to charge it to my room and we left her a tip and walked out. Her car was parked along the curb in front of a wall covered with what I believed to be gang graffiti. The traffic was light and we reached the station in 15 minutes. During that the drive she pointed out a few historic landmarks and tourist attractions. I liked the way she told the back story to everything. She had a talent for placing you in the history of her unique city.
It clouded up quickly, and looked like a real downpour was about to begin when we reached the rear entrance of the precinct. We had just beaten the rain.
The muster room was full of uniformed and plain clothes officers. The odor of the old building lingered in the air even though a collision of different perfumes, colognes, and soaps tried to mask it.
I felt all eyes were on me. Coffy introduced me to a couple of officers. One being a tall chiseled jawed Detective named Bernard Santiago and the other a silver- hair uniformed Sergeant who stood with a military bearing named Paul Drexler who looked like he had been on the force for some years.
The commissioner was a balding man with piercing blue eyes. What little hair he had was grey. He stood next to a medium size black woman with a stylish wavy hair cut, wearing a business suit. I assumed she was the chief of police.
The black woman walked to the front of the room and centered herself on the audience of officers.
“Good morning, everyone…”
She went through the whole spiel about how much she appreciated the hard work the department was putting forth in finding the murderers of the two officers and then she introduced the commissioner to speak next.
He didn’t speak very long either. He touched on some of the things chief spoke about and then finally looked in the back and saw me.
“Ladies and gentlemen and fellow police officers, I want to introduce an Alabama officer who was sent as an advisor to help us along with solving this case. Most of you have probably heard or read about the recent Reaper murders in Alabama. Detective Jared Jackson there”—he pointed at me— “was very instrumental in capturing the killer and solving the case.”
The commissioner looked at all the puzzled faces in the room and anticipated their question.
“I requested his help here. I think that it is good to have a set of outside eyes that might detect something we may have missed. Again--this is nothing against any of you. I admire all of you, but we are a little too close to the recent murders and victims here. This way, most of us won’t be caught up so much in emotion as we investigate. Detective Jackson will be here with us until Friday and will be working close with uhm…” He looked at the chief.
“Detective Coffy,” said the chief.
“Thank you, and so I want all of us to be cooperative in this investigation,” the commissioner went on. “The goal here is to find and capture this guy before he kills again. Detective Jackson, this is Estelle Adelaide, chief of police here. You two will report directly to her and me on any and every issue and also whether there is progress being made in the case.”
“Yes sir,” said Coffy. I nodded.
He ended his briefing with a moment of silence for the fallen officers and a small vigil prayer.
“Be safe out there everybody; I don’t want to attend any more officer funerals for a while.” He said somberly and walked out the door wiping the tears from his eyes.
Chapter 6
“So where do we start?” I asked Coffy. I wanted to see what else she could tell me about the case.
“Well for starters, I could take you back over to both scenes and look over the areas.” She responded.
“I like that, and since
I wiped my mouth with a napkin. I noticed that she only ate a couple of sections of the grapefruit. I signaled the waitress and told her to charge it to my room and we left her a tip and walked out. Her car was parked along the curb in front of a wall covered with what I believed to be gang graffiti. The traffic was light and we reached the station in 15 minutes. During that the drive she pointed out a few historic landmarks and tourist attractions. I liked the way she told the back story to everything. She had a talent for placing you in the history of her unique city.
It clouded up quickly, and looked like a real downpour was about to begin when we reached the rear entrance of the precinct. We had just beaten the rain.
The muster room was full of uniformed and plain clothes officers. The odor of the old building lingered in the air even though a collision of different perfumes, colognes, and soaps tried to mask it.
I felt all eyes were on me. Coffy introduced me to a couple of officers. One being a tall chiseled jawed Detective named Bernard Santiago and the other a silver- hair uniformed Sergeant who stood with a military bearing named Paul Drexler who looked like he had been on the force for some years.
The commissioner was a balding man with piercing blue eyes. What little hair he had was grey. He stood next to a medium size black woman with a stylish wavy hair cut, wearing a business suit. I assumed she was the chief of police.
The black woman walked to the front of the room and centered herself on the audience of officers.
“Good morning, everyone…”
She went through the whole spiel about how much she appreciated the hard work the department was putting forth in finding the murderers of the two officers and then she introduced the commissioner to speak next.
He didn’t speak very long either. He touched on some of the things chief spoke about and then finally looked in the back and saw me.
“Ladies and gentlemen and fellow police officers, I want to introduce an Alabama officer who was sent as an advisor to help us along with solving this case. Most of you have probably heard or read about the recent Reaper murders in Alabama. Detective Jared Jackson there”—he pointed at me— “was very instrumental in capturing the killer and solving the case.”
The commissioner looked at all the puzzled faces in the room and anticipated their question.
“I requested his help here. I think that it is good to have a set of outside eyes that might detect something we may have missed. Again--this is nothing against any of you. I admire all of you, but we are a little too close to the recent murders and victims here. This way, most of us won’t be caught up so much in emotion as we investigate. Detective Jackson will be here with us until Friday and will be working close with uhm…” He looked at the chief.
“Detective Coffy,” said the chief.
“Thank you, and so I want all of us to be cooperative in this investigation,” the commissioner went on. “The goal here is to find and capture this guy before he kills again. Detective Jackson, this is Estelle Adelaide, chief of police here. You two will report directly to her and me on any and every issue and also whether there is progress being made in the case.”
“Yes sir,” said Coffy. I nodded.
He ended his briefing with a moment of silence for the fallen officers and a small vigil prayer.
“Be safe out there everybody; I don’t want to attend any more officer funerals for a while.” He said somberly and walked out the door wiping the tears from his eyes.
Chapter 6
“So where do we start?” I asked Coffy. I wanted to see what else she could tell me about the case.
“Well for starters, I could take you back over to both scenes and look over the areas.” She responded.
“I like that, and since
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