Diary of a Detective

Stake

6/12/1997 10.05am Irvine's house

Tejas stands over the unmoving body of Irvine, face grim. A deep s***h straight to her face, the only wound inflicted, had left her to bleed out slowly. A shotgun lay broken by her side, the firearm smashed into two at its barrel by a force unknown. A shattered window behind. No other evidence. Tejas chews his lip in frustration. Bites down. The tang of blood is bitter and metallic in his mouth. The only lead he had is gone.

Tejas walks out of the house into the yard, leaving Hanna to take charge inside. Slowly plodding around the premises, he thinks to himself. The killer's pattern defies explanation. There isn't a seeming demographic at all - this is a terrifying spree killing. It is as if the killer knows every single one of Tejas' next moves, getting rid of suspects and prominent people on purpose.

He pauses at the broken window and peers in at the officers milling about. The killer could be any one of them. An inside job. His moves are being predicted - it's as if someone had read his mind. Someone with access to the case files. Someone with a gun. His gaze travels past Zahra, the coroner, across a coat-clad Matvei, the medical examiner, sweeping the room before coming to rest on his own assisting officer. Hanna. The one who had been on the case with him all the time. The quiet first responder. An officer trained in evidence collection, weapons handling, medical knowledge. His hands go cold. He could have been working right beside the killer all this while. He turns away from the window pane.

Tejas needed evidence, of which there was scarce. He had to take things into his own hands.

6/12/1997 10.18pm

I'm about to head out to Hanna's house. I have my camcorder and a pair of handcuffs, as well as my pistol. I'm going to be staking out there the whole night, forsaking my sleep even in this horrible condition. If any lights turn on, anyone heads in or out... I'll have my killer. This stops tonight.

7/12/1997 2.08am Hanna's house

Tejas sits behind a few thick bushes just outside of Hanna's house. A strategic position - he is concealed from view from within the house, but he can peek through the opening in the bushes and scan for any activity. The dark, unlit house towers over him in the darkness, the full moon in the sky obscured behind clouds as if hiding from the killer too. He has been waiting for 3 hours and counting with no sign of life. The weight of lost sleep, of corpses and death, bears down upon Tejas and his eyelids. He doesn't even notice as his eyes start to close, slowly, inexorably, shut.