The Avian Phantom

(Gore, language)

“Canary, they’re waiting for you.” My boss, Oliver, said as soon as I reached my desk.

           “What? Now? I just got here!” I complained.

           “On the bright side,” He replied, “You get paid by the hour. Now go.” He ordered before walking away to his desk.

           I sighed, set my bag down, grabbed my coffee, and walked to the director's office. If this were to go well, I’d be getting my well-deserved promotion. If it wasn’t, I was getting fired.

           On my last investigation, I didn’t get permission from Judge Murray to get a warrant for searching the suspect's house. Mostly because I had a hunch and followed it, and I figured it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. I was right, of course, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t get off without a scratch. Or paperwork.

           I knocked on the door. “Come in.” Was the bland response. I walked in and shut the door behind me. “Ah, it’s Canary. Please, sit down.” The director of the DCO, Margaret, said. “I need to discuss a special incident regarding-“

           “If this is about the last case,” I interrupted, “I am so sorry for not getting a warrant. I should have, but the answer would have been no because I had no factual evidence that they were the one. But I was right.”

           “Indeed, but I wasn’t going to talk about that just yet. It’s about a new case.” She pulled out a folder and handed it to me. “Just last night, I got a phone call about a murder. All three of these girls were found dead in Sunnyvale. One of them was at the dump.”

           I opened the folder, revealing pictures of three girls with gnarled blonde hair. All of their eyes were missing. “Holy shit, that’s gruesome,” I said, examining the pictures of the murder scene.

           “Indeed,” Margaret said grimly. “Their names were Dove, Starling, and Robin. They were all found in Sunnyvale, as I said. They have alike deaths, according to the police. We’re sure we’re dealing with a serial killer.

           My head snapped up. “Bird names?”

           “Bird names, blonde hair, blue eyes. We need to make sure you are safe. We got this early this morning in the mail.”

           She pulled out a photograph of a yellow Canary from her desk.

           I closed the folder. “I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to some safe house.”

           She huffed. “Oliver told me that you would act this way. That you would refuse.”

           “Oliver knew about this? He didn’t tell me anything!”

           “He tried to call you last night, but you didn’t pick up.”

           I fumbled for my phone but didn’t find it. “Well, shit,” I said.

           “We’ve decided we wouldn’t move you into a safe house, but we would move you.”

           “Where?” I stopped fumbling with my coat.

           “You’re going to be Oliver’s new roommate.”

           I nearly screamed. “Seriously? Why do I need to have a roommate at all? Especially him?”

           “He was the first one to offer.” She sat back in her chair. “And together, you will solve the case.”

           “Fine,” I said. I held up the folder. “Can I keep this?”

           She nodded. “I’ve got a copy.”

           I thanked her and left, feeling slightly nauseous. “Hey, roomie.” Oliver grinned up at me, his brown eyes twinkling.

           I glared. “You could have told me when I got here.”

           “Better late than never, eh? You got told. Just not immediately. Plus, it’s not my fault you didn’t pick up last night.”

           I opened the drawer in my desk and pulled out my phone. “Left it overnight,” I replied cooly. I set the folder down and sat, sipping my coffee.

           “Ah. In a rush?”

           “Had a date.” I put in the pin on my computer before taking a look at the news reports.

           “I love that you’ll go on dates with other guys, yet you’ll never go out with me.”

           I didn’t look up as I said, “I don’t date people from work.”

           He stood and walked behind my computer, staring me down. “One time, Canary, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll stop pestering you.”

           I looked up at him and smiled sweetly. “Let me think about it.” I turned back to the computer. “Ross Dierks. I want to ask him a few questions. I told him.

           He pulled out his phone and made a call.

“When you saw the girl, what did you do?” I asked.

           “I made a call tuh nine-one-one, that’s wha’ I did.” Ross shuddered. His accent made the conversation a lot harder because I was trying really hard to understand him.         

           “Okay, was she dead when you saw her? Did you check a pulse or anything?”

           “Nah. I wa’nt gonna touch her. She looked dead tuh meh, though.”

           “Was there anyone around when you found her?”

           “Nah. Only meh and the buds.” He drawled.

           “Birds?”

           “Yeh, saw some starlin’s.”

           “Starlings? Black and white birds?”

           “I though’ it was weird, tuh see starlin’s squwakin’ and makin’ ruckus, buh, there they were.”

           “Alright, that’ll be all.” I said, closing my notepad. “Thank you, Ross.”

           “You're welcome, least I could duh.”

           I showed him out and walked back to my desk. “There were Starlings around when Starling died,” I said to Oliver. “Do you think that the assailant has birds with him?”

           “It is possible,” he answered. “The news reports said that there were flocks of robins, and doves the days that the other two died. It makes sense.”

           “Have we gotten the bodies into the morgue yet?”

           He shrugged. “Nancy hasn’t said anything yet, but it’s possible.”    

           “Alright. I want to see them when they get here.”

           “Sure thing.” He said. “Anything else?”

           “Yeah. I want to see the scene.”

           “Done deal. I‘ll get the car ready.” He left, keys jangling.

           I stood and slid on my trench coat. I picked up my coffee cup and drank the rest. Picking up my phone and bag, I walked to the elevator and took it down to the garage.

           “Thanks, Oliver, now, to Sunnyvale.

“Look at this,” I said, calling Oliver over. We were now at the dump where Starling had been found.

           “What?” He looked down at what I was looking at.

           “Exactly. There’s nothing here. It’s taped off, and everything, but there’s nothing here. Only the blood right over there. From the papers, the police said that the time of death was about 2 hours before. And that she was moved, but there are no blood trails.”

           “Maybe the killer cleaned up?”

           “But that would mean there were cleaning products involved. But there was no sign of anything to clean up any kind of mess. You know what that means?”

           “What?” He asked.

           “She was brought in through a dump truck. Someone working here must have seen her. There’s no way you go and work all day and not see her being brought in.

           “So, what do we do?”

           I picked a piece of trash off my shoe, throwing it back into the pile. “We interrogate.”

Later, I found myself in yet another interrogation room. “Mr. Hanigan, I’d like to know what you were doing around 4:30 last night.”

           The dark-haired man shrugged “I was sorting through the trash.”

           “How was it that no one saw a young woman in the trash?”

           He looked vexed. “I don’t know, ma’am. I was just doing my job.”

           “Can you recall anyone looking a little suspicious while you were working?”

           “I think there was one man, he looked a little fishy. He was driving a Ford.”

           “What model?”

           “F-250, I think. 2013.”

           “Color?”

           “Black. I remember because the windows looked too tinted to be legal.”

           “Alright, that’ll be all,” I said. “Do you know your way out?”

           “Uh... yeah, I think-“

           “Good. Thank you for your cooperation.” I left, leaving the door open for him to leave.

           I dialed Nancy’s number. “Hey, Can. What d’ya need?”

           “Video footage from the dump. I need the license plate of a black 2013 F-250 with tinted windows.”

           “I’ll try.” She said and hung up.

           “Hey,” Oliver said, walking up to my side. “What’d you get?”

           “Information. You?”

           He snorted. “Excuses. Seems like this dump doesn’t exactly control what they get in.”

           “What better place than to hide bodies, though, right?”

           “Gross. So, what’d you get?”

           “Apparently, a shady dude showed up in a black truck and tinted windows. The guy I interrogated said it was a Ford F-250.”

           “Alright.”

           We walked to the office. “Did you think about it?”

           “Keep on dreaming.”

           “C’mon, Canary! I’ll only keep on asking!”

           “And I’ll tell you to keep on dreaming. It’s a lovely conversation.” He rolled his eyes and sat down.

           I sat at my desk and flipped through the file. The assailant had dumped one girl at the dump, the other in the woods, and the last in a river. All had been found within one day of being dumped. I flipped through another page. The newspaper headline said Avian Phantom.

           A perfect name for a psychopath, I guessed.

           Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head. “Hey, Oliver?”

           “Did you rethink it?” He called back.

           “No. But, tomorrow, I think we should go check out someone who really likes birds.”

           He grunted. “Who do you have in mind?”

           My vision zoomed in on the picture. Of a man in rags with birds on his shoulders. He was staring off past the yellow tape.

           Directly at the camera.

“Guest room is to the left, first door on the right,” Oliver said. “It connects to a bathroom, so you’ll be set.”

           “Why did you offer?” I asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

           “Because I care. I care for my team, and I care for you. I know you more than you like to think and knew you wouldn’t stay at some shit safe house. So, I offered.”

           “Mm.” I picked up my roll from dinner. “What do you think the murderer's goal is?”

           “I think they’re deranged and can’t get a hold of reality. Probably someone with mommy issues.”

           I bit into the sweet roll. “Why would they come after me?”

           Oliver shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out eventually.”

           “True, that.” Just as the words left my mouth, gunshots blew apart the room.

           “SHIT! GET DOWN!” Oliver yelled and threw himself at me, knocking me to the floor. I covered my head as the glass rained down from the windows overhead on the ceiling.

           “As a cop,” I whispered. “You should know better than to have glass ceilings.”

           “Shut up, Canary. I don’t know if they’re gone.”

           I shoved him off me and stood. He tried to pull me back down, but I shook him off. “It was a shoot and run. They weren’t going to wait around. We’re in the city.”

           He stood, dusting the glass off of his clothes. He had a few cuts around his face. “Well, it’s a good thing I had night vision cameras installed when I bought this house.”

           “Dramatic of you,” I replied cooly and grabbed the broom. “How did they find us? I thought this was supposed to be like, top secret. Fuck, I know this was top secret.”

           “I don’t know. Inside job or something?”

           “We should leave. In case they come back.”

           “Well,” he said, picking up the fruit bowl that had fallen. “I guess we’ll be camping out at work. I can pull up the footage there and search the database for facial recognition.”

           “They could’ve been wearing a mask, for all we know.” I countered.

           “Damn it. You’re right.”

           I rolled my eyes, and he grabbed his keys. We headed out to his car and got in. “This is in-fucking-sane. Now, we’re being attacked by some fucking maniac.” I put my head in my hands.

           “Whoa, there, Can. It’s all right.” He soothed, rubbing my back. “We’re all right.”

           “God, I can’t believe that happened,” I murmured, wiping my face. “It feels like it can’t be real, yet I’m awake and experiencing it.”

           “It does feel that way, but right now, we need to get out of here, and I need you to stay calm.”

           I inhaled deeply, then exhaled. “Alright. Let’s go.”

           He pulled out of the driveway and started driving. “I am sorry that this happened. I’m not quite sure how it all happened.”

           “One of the many joys of working for the DCO. Death threats, and attempted murder.”

           “Yippee.” He said unenthusiastically.

           We got to the DCO HQ and Oliver went to work unlocking the back door. “Why do you have a key?” I asked.

           “Never mind that. Get inside.” He said and shut the door behind us. He switched on a light, and I realized we were in the morgue. Three bodies lay on each of the cots.

           “They shouldn’t still be out,” I said. “Who-”

           “Oh, it’s just you guys.” Nancy came out from inside the body freezer. “I was worried for a minute.

           “Yeah,” I said. “We just had a problem with something. So, we came here. Why are you still here?”

           “Well, we got the bodies in late, so I decided to stay overnight.”

           I examined the bodies of the girls. “What did you get?”

           “Cause of death was a heart attack on the first one, I’d assume that she was traumatized by what she saw. The second died from a blow to the head, and the last one held out until her eyes were ripped from her skull by something sharp. A knife, I think.”

           Oliver gagged. “That’s disgusting.”

           “True, but that comes with the job,” Nancy said. “And I found marks around their necks that could mean a possible strangle.”

           I slid on a pair of rubber gloves and picked up the first girl's hand. “Did you check for any DNA that could lead us to our suspect?”

           “Not yet. But I was just about to.”

           I grabbed a pair of tweezers and checked under the girl's fingernails, pulling out strands of hair and skin. I set it into an evidence bag. “I’ll go run this in diagnostics. You can try to pull some more out.”

           I walked to the lab, Oliver on my heels. “I’m thinking that the murderer knew the four of you.” He said. “How else would he have known you had bird names? There’s got to be a connection that something other than just names.”

           “Well, while diagnostics are running, why don’t we do some research? Camps, maybe. I’ve gone to lots of camps.”

           “Yeah. School, maybe. A store?”

           “I don’t go into enough of those to have some kind of relationship with anyone.”

           “Oh, come on. Women love shopping.”

           “Not this one.” I typed in the password and started to run DNA tests on the samples I’d extracted.

           “What camps have you gone to?”

           “Boy Scouts, a reading camp. Also, a detective camp for teenagers.”

           “That would be the one.” He said as he typed. “All three of the girls that were murdered were graduates from the detective camp, granted, it’d been four years since the youngest one had done it. But they all did.”

           “Jesus.” I raked my hand through my hair.

           “Well, anyone that could have-“

           “Yes.” I interrupted. “There was someone. And they had a serious interest in birds.”

           “Good morning, Deryn. I’m agent Oliver, and this is agent Canary.” Oliver said, we were in the interrogation room, after asking the bird-like woman to join us.

           “Why am I here?” Deryn’s eyes flicked to me with recognition.

           “You’re here for the murder of three women.”

           “What?”

           Oliver said slowly. “We’re going to arrest you for murder. We found four DNA on the girls that were killed.”

           “Do you have anything you’d like to say?” I raised an eyebrow.

            Deryn was silent for a moment “I killed them!” She started crying. “I just couldn’t stand them!” she shrieked, her tears turning to rage.

           “Why not?” Oliver asked.

           “Because… because I couldn’t- I cou- couldn’t.” She stuttered, her eyes shuttering. "They looked like her!"

           “Deryn, you are under arrest for the murders of Starling, Dove, and Robin. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

           She shrieked louder as Oliver pulled her up and handcuffed her. “You bitch!” She screamed at me. “I’ll get you for this!”

           “You’d have to get out of prison first,” I replied, gathering my papers. “Goodbye, Deryn. Have a nice afternoon.”

           She snarled and Oliver pulled her out of the room. I picked up the rest of the papers and walked out.

                                                           TWO DAYS LATER

“How did it go at court?” Nancy asked me when I returned to the lab from the courtroom.

           “Ah. Decent. Deryn got a life sentence and is getting sent to some psychiatric ward.”

           “I suppose that makes sense. I mean, she killed girls with bird names.”

           “True. Anyways, I just wanted to thank you for helping.”

           “Well, It’s my job.”

           “Yeah, but you still deserve a thanks, so I brought these.” I pulled out the Tupperware of brownies I’d made earlier this morning.

           “OMIGOODNESS! Thanks!” She pulled me into a hug.

           “You’re welcome. I have to go now, I’ve got to deal with one more thing.”

           “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

           I left the lab and went to the office.

           “Hey,” I said to Oliver.

           He leaned back in his seat. “Thought about it yet?”

           I rolled my eyes. “One date. If it doesn’t work out, it’s over.”

           He jumped up out of his chair. “Really?”

           “Yes. Saturday night. Six-o-clock. You’re late, we’re done.”

           “Deal.”

           I picked up my bag. “See you later, Ollie.”

           He winked, enthusiastic. “See you, Can.”