Shooting in the Dark

she’s safe, Sam? The guy obviously knows she’s living at your place.’
    Sam shrugged. ‘We can only watch her. I’ve told her not to answer the door unless she knows who’s on the other side. When she goes to work they pick her up in a car and bring her back the same way. If we don’t get this guy soon, we might have to think about moving her somewhere else.’
    ‘Going backwards and forwards to work isn’t a good idea. Does she have to?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘She has to. She doesn’t want the guy to turn her into a prisoner.’
    ‘What strikes me about this,’ JD said. ‘All of a sudden we’re talking about this guy as if he’s a nerd. But before the note we were thinking he was intelligent.’
    ‘What’re you saying?’
    ‘Well, the killing of Isabel left us without a clue. This is someone who can get hold of veterinary drugs, knows how much to use in a syringe. He could keep a watch on the two sisters but never be seen himself. He’s a clever guy.
    At least he’s shrewd. But then he comes up with a dork note like that thing on your desk.’
    ‘It’s true,’ said Sam. ‘I’d never’ve thought the guy was after money. Seemed like we were dealing with a psycho.’
    ‘Dual personality, then?’ asked JD. ‘Is that possible?’
    ‘Yeah, it’s possible, but remote. Takes us back to the realms of fiction.’
    ‘How about two guys? A clever one and a dork. The clever one’s a nutter, into some kind of obsession, and his mate’s trying to make a buck out of the situation. Could even be brothers, which is why the clever one got fixated on two sisters.’
    Sam was leaning with an elbow on the desk. With his thumb and forefinger he got hold of his top lip and pulled it out and away from his face like a deformity. ‘Dunno,’ he said, still holding the lip. Then he let it go and sat back in his chair. ‘Some moments in life have too many possibilities in them to live all at once. You have to take the time and work your way through them. One man, two men, clever or stupid, hell, for all we know this note could be a sick hoax.’
    ‘Whatever,’ JD said. ‘It’s certainly made the thing more complicated.’
    ‘Murder’s never simple,’ Sam said. ‘Not when you get down to it. Usually it’s the last resort, and by that time it’s a burning passion. Sometimes it’s not the last resort at all, it’s the first response to a situation. But that doesn’t make it simple, the kind of mind that arrives at murder as a first response is as twisted as the stuff in a breaker’s yard.’
    ‘Not something we can leave to Mr Plod, then?’
    Sam grinned. ‘Last I heard,’ he said, ‘they were gonna try to pin it on me. The police don’t solve cases, JD; you know that as well as I do. Sometimes they get lucky and find the perpetrator on the job, catch him red-handed, as they say. Other times they get a tip-off, somebody who wants to get rid of the competition. Or the guy’s girlfriend gives him up for the reward money. But most of the time they’re feeling their way around in the dark.’
    ‘Your favourite people, the fuzz, aren’t they, Sam?’
    ‘By a long way. They blow the competition right out of the water.’
     
    He reached for the phone and dialled the number of the local cop shop, waited for the operator to put him through. He could use four fingers of his right hand, the thumb was still hidden in the folds of bandage. ‘Rossiter?’ he asked.
    There was a pause. He could see the guy at the other end weighing up his reaction. Dark hair with a touch of premature grey at the temples. Sharp, needle-point eyes. A flare to his nostrils that could’ve won him an Oscar if he’d been in the movies. He’d have to work out if the call was from one of his superiors or a nobody. Sam had a silent bet with himself that the guy’d play safe.
    ‘Detective Superintendent Rossiter speaking. How may I help you?’
    Sam smiled into the mouthpiece. He said: ‘Sam Turner. Listen, Angeles Falco’s received a note you might be interested in. Asking for five grand.’
    ‘Turner,’ said the youngest detective superintendent in the country. He spoke Sam’s surname as though it was a fresh turd. ‘When was this received?’
    ‘Couple of hours.’
    ‘Careful how you handle it. It might be a vital piece of evidence. Have you opened it?’
    Sam didn’t reply. He left the question where it hung, waited for the cop to answer it himself.
    ‘I expect it’ll have your prints all over it,’