All characters and places in this series are fictional. Any resemblance they bear to actual people or places is purely coincidental.
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Thanksgiving morning, 0610 hours:
The squad had just finished their shift and, after a quick meeting with Eddie – the squad sergeant – they were heading home to get some much needed sleep. No matter how good one slept when working day work or evening shifts, when you worked midnights you became sleep deprived. Eddie and Max were the same way. Both men, after a midnight shift, no matter how tired they were, would go home, get in bed and sleep five hours at best. If they were really lucky, fatigue would catch up with them and they’d get another hour or so in a nap late in the evening before getting up and going to work.
On this particular morning, though, it was Thanksgiving; one of those holidays so many celebrated as much for the long weekend as for what the holiday was supposed to be focused on – thanks for the blessings in our lives. The rest of the squad had left before Eddie looked at Max and said, “So, Ann and I wanted to invite you and JP over for dinner this afternoon. I was supposed to have asked you a few days ago but I kept forgetting and she was all over me last night before I came in.”
Max chuckled. As badass as Eddie had been and was, his wife, Ann, could really whip him into line and keep him there. She was a genuinely nice lady and always a great hostess. The only thing Max didn’t like about visiting with Eddie and Ann was their cats. “I appreciate the offer,” replied Max, “and I’d love to take you up on it, but I already promised my older sister that I’d bring JP for brunch and then we’re going to JP’s folks’ house for dinner.” Max looked at his watch. “If I haul ass home I can get about three or four hours of sleep before JP and I go to Rose’s.” Rose Childers was Max’s older (adopted) sister. She and her husband, Donald, made a point of always inviting Max for holidays even though they knew he often had to work and couldn’t make it. On all the times he couldn’t make it, Max felt guilty so he was shorting himself on sleep this Thanksgiving to make sure he COULD spend the time with them, at least for an hour or so before he went to JP’s parents’ house with her.
Eddie nodded his understanding and acceptance of Max’s response. “Fair enough,” he said. “Get enough sleep to be safe driving, okay?”
“Yes, dad,” Max said jokingly. He knew Eddie’s concern was genuine but he liked giving the man grief. Eddie had been at different times his FTO, senior partner and now squad sergeant across the span of the last 18 months. The two men had a friendship that went beyond the workplace. Eddie just laughed and shook his head at Max’s reply and they both headed out.
Max drove home with the windows on his Jeep partially open. It was, after all, late November and the temperatures were cold even for the time of year. Max glanced at his dashboard and saw the thermometer indicated an outdoor temperature of 31°F. That was colder than he had thought it was, but the crispness of the cold air blowing in certainly helped to keep him awake and alert for his ride home.
At his place, he went in quietly, stripping off his gunbelt just inside the door and the rest of his clothes in the living room. His body armor went into a chair; his boots on the floor in front of it. Everything else went on one end of the sofa as he padded over to his kitchen for a small glass of milk before going to get in bed. JP was there waiting for him, sleeping right in the middle of his queen sized bed – as she usually did if he wasn’t there. He smiled as he looked at her and realized, even as small as she was, she somehow managed to take up the whole dang bed. Since it was his bed, he had long ago decided that he wouldn’t have ‘his side’ if she was sleeping in it. He just went over, lifted the covers and slid in on the closest side. She snuggled up to him and he drifted off. One of his last thoughts was that she had BETTER have set the alarm she was supposed to… or they’d be REAL late getting to his sister’s house later.
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Thanksgiving morning, 0710 hours:
Detective Lieutenant Dick Coleman was delighted to have been able to sleep in. On most mornings he was up at 0500 and out the door to work by 0545. He liked getting a jump on the day and his aggressiveness in his investigations at work impressed his higher ups. On the weekends and holidays, though, he enjoyed not waking up to his alarm. He was usually up by seven in the morning anyway though. His body just didn’t take to being in bed too long. It was Thanksgiving and he was being a little bit extra lazy – to his way of thinking. Seven a.m. had come and gone and he was still laying in his warm bed, pondering what he would or wouldn’t do during the day… whenever he finally rolled out of bed. He smiled at the pleasure of just staying in bed an extra couple of hours (which he’d already done) and being lazy. Then his cell phone rang.
He had forgotten to silence it when he went to bed the night before. The agency had his home phone number – something some of the officers on the agency didn’t even have – so he didn’t have to leave his cell phone on for ‘emergency’ notifications. He had the phone set up so that it wouldn’t ring between midnight and six a.m. unless it was a member of his immediate family calling. He had forgotten to extend that… or to turn his phone off all together before he went to bed.
Coleman grumbled to himself as he rolled over and grabbed his phone. Punching the connect button to silence the ringing he held it up to his ear and said, “Coleman.” It was a far cry from his usual way of answering his office phone, but he wasn’t at the office and he wasn’t pleased about a call at seven in the morning.
“Detective Coleman, Lieutenant Griggs,” came the energetic and happy voice on the other end of the phone. “You sound like I woke you up.”
“Almost,” said Coleman, removing some of the gravelly unhappy tone from his voice. “It IS Thanksgiving, Lieutenant. I’m off today unless someone gets killed… God forbid.”
“No one else got killed,” replied Griggs. “I’m sorry to bother you this morning but I finally got the report back on ALL of the fingerprints from the Different Flavors. It hit my desk late last night and I wanted to at least advise you of what was found.”
“And an email wouldn’t do it?” interrupted Coleman with a chuckle. Now more awake and alert he continued, “Go ahead. What’cha got?”
“We finally identified all of the fingerprints that were lifted off the boat. Our forensic team commented on how some of the places there should have been fingerprints, they couldn’t find any. Places like the toilet handle, refrigerator handle… places people HAD to have touched… were wiped clean. Out of all the fingerprints we DID lift, every print can be accounted for except for two barely complete prints we pulled out of the main head. According to the forensic report, which details HOW the prints were lifted, one came from a bottle of shampoo and one came off the chrome toilet paper roller.”
Coleman whistled. “Not bad, Lieutenant. Your forensic team does good work to pull prints, or even look for them, from those.”
“I know, right?” said Griggs. “But those two prints don’t match the boat owner, his buddy, or any of the victims we’ve found. Those two prints most likely are from whoever killed Doug and Stan. We’re running them through all the systems and have even sent paper copies out to the FBI just in case, but we don’t expect anything back. I suspect that whoever belongs to those prints has never been arrested.”
“Probably not,” replied Coleman as his brain worked on the challenge. “But whoever it is will pop up someplace sometime. A cannibalistic serial killer, even one with some serious OCD issues, will make a mistake sometime.”
“They already have,” said Griggs. “Or we wouldn’t have found these two prints.”
“True,” agreed Coleman.
“One other thing,” said Griggs. “From what the forensic report says, unless we’re dealing with someone who is not full grown, the prints came from a petite person. The prints are whole and small. I don’t know how they know, but that’s what the report says.”
Coleman thought about that as he said, “Okay. Thanks for the information.”
“Yeah,” said Griggs. “Happy Thanksgiving. Sorry to have interrupted your obviously busy morning.”
Coleman chuckled as he said, “Happy Thanksgiving,” back. “Take the day off, eh?” He pushed the disconnect button on his phone but didn’t lay back down. Instead he decided it was time to start his day and he got up, pulled on his robe and headed into the kitchen where his coffee machine was full and hot.
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Thanksgiving morning, 0750 hours:
With temperatures just barely above the freezing mark and blustery winds coming in off the ocean, it was damned cold on the beachfront in Oceanside. That’s where Detective Lieutenant Andrea “Andi” Desalis and her partner Detective Sergeant Jacob “Mac” MacGregor were. It was a horrible way to start Thanksgiving, thought Andi, but not as bad for her as for the family of this little victim.
Under the boardwalk, right near third street, another child’s body had been found. They had already identified the victim and, as per the usual M.O. of the recent string of murders, he had been kidnapped weeks before, held, molested, tortured and killed before being dumped. It occurred to Andi that this was NOT a good way to start out her Thanksgiving morning. Mac felt the exact same way as he said to her, “Ya’ know what, Andi? Mornings like this make me think I should have done something different instead of homicide investigations.”
Her reply was heartfelt and simple. “I agree with ya’, Mac. No one’s morning should start like this, but… at least that’s not OUR child, ya’ know? I feel for the family.” Mac just nodded in agreement.
The forensic team moved around doing its thing, taking photographs, measuring, diagramming, marking evidence, gathering evidence, cataloging evidence. Everyone on the scene tried hard not to look at the small broken body that was the cause for them all to be there. This was NOT how a life was supposed to go.
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Jessica couldn’t figure out why she was where she was and what she was doing. The beach was cold. The sun was high in the sky and there was no wind, but it was dark and the waves were crashing into the sand high and hard enough to cover her with spray even though she was almost a hundred feet away.
No wind… but at the same time it was hard in her face, making her struggle to move forward; the sand seemed to clutch and hold her feet. She had on her boots, but she could feel the sand grinding in her toes at the same time. What was going on? She couldn’t seem to think straight.
“Sam!” she was yelling as she fought the sand and wind to move down the beach. “Sam!” It felt like she was moving backward even though the big pier was getting closer… or was it? “Sam!!” Who is Sam she wondered to herself – also knowing that Sam was her daughter. “Sam” was short for Samantha – her beautiful five year old blond haired little girl. Max’s daughter. Who was Max?
“Sam!!” Jessica knew she had to find Sam. Children were being kidnapped. Weeks later they were being found, having suffered horribly before being mercifully killed. What kind of world could make you think it was merciful to kill a child? “SAM!” Where was her daughter? Why couldn’t she call out? Let Jessica know where she was? Why was nature trying to hold her back? The very beach itself and all its components seemed to be struggling against her; keeping her from finding her child. Why?
“SAM!” Jessica’s throat was raw. She didn’t know how many times she had called her daughter’s name. It wasn’t enough… not until she found her beautiful girl. Where was Max? Why wasn’t he there to help look? Jessica looked around on the beach and couldn’t find anyone… anywhere… there was no one around. She was alone. Just her and the beach – and the beach was fighting her. “Sam!”
The waves crashing sprayed her with ice cold pieces of foam, freezing as they moved through the air and stinging her skin like high pressure sand. The sand… it was cold and grinding into her feet, between her toes… how had her boots gotten so full of sand? A blast of wind hit her and almost knocked her down as she leaned into it and kept struggling forward. She couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop. Where was her daughter? Where was, “Sam!!”
Down the beach, almost beyond where she could see, there was something in the sand. Right at the line where the water was reaching with every crash of a wave… right where it slid up and then receded. What was that? A body? A child? Her Sam?? NO!!
Thanksgiving morning, 0815 hours:
JP woke up struggling to breath. She realized she had been holding her breath, feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances of her dream. She sat up and then realized she was in Max’s bed… he was softly snoring next to her. Looking over at the clock she saw that it was about eight a.m.. Past time for her to be up. She’d rather stay in bed and wake up Max, but she knew he hadn’t gotten home and into bed until just before seven. He needed to sleep and she was supposed to wake him up about ten-thirty. They had a brunch date at his sister, Rose’s, house and then they were going to JP’s parents.
All that went through JP’s head as she quietly climbed out of bed, making sure the covers were tucked down around Max… as she would have if her child had been in the bed. The thought struck her as odd but the memories of the dream were still fresh in her head. As she pulled on her PJs and a robe she realized she’d never dreamt about having a child before… and to have such a dream where she couldn’t find her child, only to MAYBE find her child’s body…
As she got her morning coffee she realized that she was obviously reacting to the recent series of child murders that had been occurring. The innate fear any mother would have if her child had disappeared under such circumstances was impacting JP. But why? She wasn’t a mom. She didn’t even have any fear of being pregnant. Why was it impacting her this way?
As she sipped her coffee she continued to think about it. Maybe it was her subconscious’ way of telling her she should do something more than she was. Maybe she needed to ask about being assigned to the case… or part of the task force if they announced one. JP may not be a mom (yet) but she felt a strong urge to help find whoever was committing these heinous crimes and bring them to justice.
Inside the privacy of her own mind she realized that “bring them to justice” meant shooting them down instead of arresting them. She admitted to herself that her own personal outlook would feel that was justified. The professional side argued. Innocent until proven guilty. Arrest. Process. Testify. Convict. Punish. There was a specific order to how the law was enforced.
The female and potential mom inside her replied: JUSTICE and her mind filled with the image of emptying her handgun into the killer. In an attempt to distract herself, she turned on the television, muting it so as not to disturb Max. She immediately turned it back off. In the two seconds it had been on she saw that another body had been found… on the beach… and the screen had showed the surf raging in the cold wind behind the scene.
Deciding she needed to distract herself and burn some energy, JP got up and got dressed in her gym clothes. The gym itself wasn’t open because it was Thanksgiving, but that wouldn’t stop her from getting in a workout. Using her own body weight she started exercising and didn’t stop until almost an hour later when every muscle in her body was warm and she was dripping sweat. Focusing on the workout had helped cleanse her mind of the horrible images in her dream and had helped her think about the pleasures of visiting with Max’s sister and brother-in-law.
In the shower she thought about the afternoon and evening she’d get to spend with her own family and how well Max fit in with them; how they’d welcomed him. It put a smile on her face. By the time she was done in the shower it was after ten and she’d soon be able to wake Max up. She went back to the kitchen to make sure the coffee was still hot so he’d have plenty when he got up. Dressed for the day, she found a DVD to watch until Max got up. She was careful to avoid the news channels… even if she expected to find a parade.
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Thanksgiving evening, 2115 hours:
Max and JP had just gotten home from her parents’ house. The day had been full of good food and great company. They had enjoyed visiting his sister’s house for brunch and had felt stuffed when they left and went to JP’s parents’ house. The usual lunch hour and early afternoon were filled with snacking and visiting until, about 3:30 JP’s mom and dad – Leslie and Matt – had served a huge Thanksgiving feast. Surrounded by family they ate their fill and then some.
After the meal, the day was consumed with football games, idle talk, a long walk and some catnapping on the sofa, snuggled up together. It was dark out by 5:30pm and the day felt “over” by seven. They had loitered and chatted some more, helping Leslie’s clean up from the cooking and eating of the day. They finally said their good nights and headed back to Max’s place. Thankfully, Max’s squad had just come off its last midnight shift, so Max didn’t have to go to work. Just as thankfully, since he’d gotten so little sleep, he expected to be able to sleep well that night. Having JP there would help.
By ten pm they were in bed… Max was exhausted but JP had some energy. Unfortunately for her, Max’s fatigue won out and he was sleeping before she could entice him into any play. Remembering that she had the next morning to try again, she snuggled in against him and pulled the covers carefully around them both. She fell asleep up against him with thoughts from a beautiful and enjoyable Thanksgiving fresh in her mind. The day had been so good that she didn’t even think about her bad dreams from that morning.
