Once Upon A Crime

24 HOURS AGO-

Lt. Tragg answered a knock on his boat.....He was shocked to see he nemesis, Lt. Sissy Van Buren standing there...

''Well I'll be damned...If it isn't...Ace Detective, Lt. Sissy Van Buren.." he said with a bit of rancor and sarcasm!..

"Good Morning to you too Lt. Tragg." she said, ignoring his sarcasm...

He looked around...

"Where are the troops?" he asked...meaning her seven detectives, Carlotta Rodriguez-Wallace, Tyriq Pile, Jimmy Barlow, Sirena Pile, Tony Hopkins, Duke Baylor and Angie Belton and forensic investigator, Dr. Hazel Baylor and friend, FBI Deputy SAC,Sharon Hopkins...

Sissy ignored him...She knew how much he despised her team and how jealous and envious he was of their success...

"They're working this case.." was all she would say...

"You mean chasing leads that will lead them nowhere." he said.

"Whatever....I saw your news conference last night...and since you got the call on a department cell..we put a trace on the call you got...and we found an apartment in West Philly....It was empty except for some electronic equipment used to reroute calls....Your call came from a burner phone, which meant it was damn near untraceable..."said Sissy...

"I figured as much" said Lt. Tragg....

"But the electronic equipment was purchased nearly 15 years ago by an Edward Rigby...Name ring a bell?" asked Sissy...

"No...Should it? Where is he? You guys bring him in?" he asked..

"There will be no need for that...He's resting peacefully I hope at Westgate Cemetary....Where he's been for 15 years....He was a murder victim....Your case...Remember now?" she asked...

"Oh My God...yeah...one week before we found the body of the first blond...He was found beat savagely in an alleyway....We brought in the wife, boy was she a piece of work..She looked like a linebacker....but she alibied out....That case went cold.....And we got side tracked by the serial killings...

''What would our killer be doing with electronic equipment bought with a credit card by a long deceased murder victim?" asked Sissy.

''Who rented the room?" asked Lt. Tragg...

Sissy laughed...

"This is what's funny...the entire exchange was done over the phone with Rigby's credit card...but the room was supposedly rented FOR YOU!" she laughed...

"WHAT??" he bellowed...

"I think maybe you and I need to have a talk with the wife of your first murder victim."said Sissy..

"You think she has something to do with this?" he asked..

"I've been assuming our killer was a man...You say she was or is a big woman..."said Sissy..

"Oh My god..She looked like she could be on the Eagles Offensive line...I don't know what he ever saw in her..Whooooo..."said Lt. Tragg.

"I said our killer might get sloppy....Maybe he or she just did...After you Lieutenant."said Sissy...

Lt. Tragg smiled...

"Let's go Lieutenant." he said..."Look at us...back then I was a rookie Detective and you were a young patrol cop...Look at us now...Both of us are Lieutenants...back after this guy again..."he said.

II-

 24 HOURS LATER-

 I stood in the conference room and along with some plain clothes cops passed  hot steaming tumblers of coffee to the detectives and FBI agents assembled in our conference room....

"Anybody seen Sissy?" I asked..

Nobody had seen or heard from her since she had left the office hours ago..This was not like her and I was concerned...

Since she wasn't here...FBI Deputy Special Agent in charge ,Sharon Hopkins ,took her place and chaired the meeting...

"Okay guys ,so where are we so far in this case?" she asked...

My wife Carlotta, who was the primary on the first murder reported...

''So yesterday...Boss Lady and I traced and tracked Lt. Tragg's department issued cell phone...Turns out he did get a call from someone taunting him about not being on the case...The voice was garbled electronically ,so that we couldn't get a voiceprint...We thought it might be a crackpot...but we traced the call to an apartment in West Philadelphia...that was surprisingly enough rented in Lt. Tragg's name..."said Carlotta.

"So Boss Lady, Top,Junior and I checked it out...The place was paid for with a credit card belonging to a "Edward Rigby" Not his real name...He's actually Ivan Toltsoy from Moscow and it was done over the phone...The owner of the apartments never talked to the guy in person...So more than likely...It wasn't really Tragg who paid for the room over the phone..."said Tyriq..

"Somebody had to pick up the key right?" I asked..

"No...the key was mailed to another address...We checked that out too....It was said that a woman named Ruby Keeler lived there,but had moved out..."Ruby Keeler is dead and has been dead for forty some years....This was a clear case of identity theft...The equipment we found was electronic equipment that not only muzzled the voice to avoid identification,but it rerouts any calls to overseas locations....That and a burner phone makes the calls impossible to trace."said Jimmy...

''Sirena and I looked into ''Edward Rigby also known as Ivan Tolstoy.." He was murdered...manual strangulation...just like the three girls...one week before the serial killings started...He was beat with a claw hammer too..A crime of rage...They hauled the wife..a Wilma Rigby...Real name Olga Tolstoy in for questioning ,but she alibied out....She appears to have dropped off the grid after that...The case went cold and then the murders began..."said Hop...

"And here is where it gets cute....Edward and Wilma Rigby, The Tolstoys were Russians...semi legal immigrants with ties to the old KGB and the Russian Mafia...They had a jewelry store and a loan sharking business that was quite lucrative...They also were suspected of, but never indicted for wire fraud and identity theft....The two of them had amassed a small fortune...But Mr. Rigby or Tolstoy had a wandering eye and according to some witnesses ,couldn't keep his pants zippered up...Guess what kinds of girls he preffered? Blond, Attractive, Professionals...Just like our victims.."said Sirena...

"But he was dead before the murders occurred."said Sharon...

"Yeah but his wife wasn't...This is the only known photo of her...She's big, six foot four and built like a linebacker.."said Duke...

"You think ...You think a woman is doing this?"I asked...

"She's big enough.....and she is certainly capable...She is ex-KGB.....and if she  caught her husband cheating on her enough, that certainly gave her the motivation..."said Angie....

"We triangulated all of the credit cards of all of our victims...The first three girls all were engaged and they got their jewelry from the same jewelry store that Edward and Wilma Rigby owned...it was on the way to each of their jobs....Each woman stopped in there at some time or other...They may have been just a little too chatty with Mr. Rigby for his wife's tastes."said Carlotta...

"The girls didn't know each other.."I said.

"They didn't have to...The fit the description and they all were in that shop within days before they vanished.."said Tyriq...

''What about our three recent victims?"asked Sharon...

"They all frequented a coffee shop in midtown...it's in between all three places in which they worked and guess who worked at the coffee shop until last week?"said Jimmy.

"A big woman named Esther Jones...also known as Wilma Rigby,real name, Olga Tolstoy......This woman in the photo...We showed the photo to the owners and they said it was definitely her."said Sirena.

"We got an address on this woman?" asked Sharon...

"Three...I gave em to boss lady..." said Hop..."She told me to hold all of her calls, that she would be back...That was hours ago."said Hop.

"I'm worried about boss lady." said Carlotta..

Angie put her arms around Carlotta...

"Me too little sis..Me too!" she said.

Just then Hazel walked into the room...

"I've got good news... I was able to pull some finger prints off of the skin around all three victims necks...Carlotta,Duke,Tyriq.....Your idea about using corpse sniffing dogs to search the area paid off in spades...We found latex gloves in the trash and in the sewers...I pulled fingerprints off the inside of the gloves and I got a match for my prints off the neck.."said Hazel..

"You run em through the system?" asked Duke...

"I did...Nothing...Nothing in the FBI's VICAP either..."said Hazel...

"Give em to me...I'll call Homeland Security and Interpol."said Sharon....

"Now we are getting somewhere." I said...

"I'm glad you are..I sure didn't!" came the voice of the Boss lady herself , Sissy Van Buren.

III-

 "BOSS LADY!!!" came the roar from all of her detectives and policemen and a few FBI agents...We were all glad to see her...She looked tired ...She sat down and took her heels off...

"I reached out to Lt. Tragg today with the information we pulled...I figured since it had been his case and he had done the initial investigation I'd throw him a bone...We went to all three of those locations you guys gave us looking for Wilma Riggins...She's gone...gone from all of those places long enough to have left no trial...At the end of the day...We both stopped in Sam Mothers for some coffee....

I excused myself and went to the ladies room...When I returned...Sam Mother told me that Lt. Tragg got a call and left abruptly....and without paying the bill.." she said.

"What did I tell you Siss..He's just not a team player...You try to reach out ,throw him a bone and he ducks out on you ..He wants to take all of the credit for the collar.."said Duke..

"Like it's a competition or something."said Tyriq...

"I've seen his type in every city I've ever worked in." said Sharon...

 "Maybe he'll catch up with her and she'll make him her next victim"laughed Carlotta....

"We are just glad you are okay Boss Lady, we were worried about you."said Sirena...

''We've made some progress in your absence..."said Hop...

"Good Get me some coffee, tell me all about it."laughed Sissy...

Just then, her husband, Eddie C. came in with three crates...

 "Hey guys....Wine for the ladies...Imported beer for the guys...." he said smiling...

"I've always liked this guy...Now I know why."said Tyriq as we all burst into laughter...

IV-

 Meanwhile in another part of the city, Lt. Tragg and Sgt James Clarke drove up to the apartment complex.....

 Sgt Clarke ,who had worked under Lt. Tragg in Major Crimes looked at him....

"That bolo you told me to put out panned out...We located the vehicle that Lt. Van Buren said was last seen leaving the last murder sight...A hulking female was seen getting out..."he said.

"Good Work Joey."he said.

"Shouldn't you have given Lt. Van Buren a heads up...I mean she did after all reach out to you."he said.

"Maybe..but this was my case...She only came to me because she knew her detectives were stumped..She's desperate to close this case...She's closed enough cases....This one is mine...Not hers.."he said..

Just then Sgt. Clarke jerked forward and fell up against the dashboard.....blood poured from his forehead...

Lt. Tragg jumped in horror...

"Jesusssss...What happened to you?" he said...Just then his phone rang....

He grabbed his phone..

"Hello" he said...

"GET OUT OF THAT CAR AND GET YOUR HANDS UP OR YOU'RE NEXT!" came the voice..

"WHAT IS THIS?" screamed Lt. Tragg and then he turned and saw her...

She was blond, about six foot four and was holding a pistol with a silencer....She was smiling a maniacal grin...

"At last we meet Lt. Tragg....You've been chasing me since you were a rookie detective. Now you have me or rather...I have you.."she said.

"You killed those girls?" he said.

"Well....I see you were at the head of your class...Get out and take your damn pants off.."she said...

"What, you crazy bitch, you're out of your mind??.." he said..

She cocked her pistol...

"Okay...Okay...They're coming off..."he said and he took his pants off ,his suit jacket and his shirt...

She pulled the dead body of Sgt. Joe Clarke over to the passenger seat and got in the back seat...

"DRIVE!" she laughed....

"Where are you taking me?" he asked..

"Questions aren't in your vocabulary ,just drive..."she laughed...

"We know who you are....You won't get away with this...Damn it I'm a cop!!" he said.

"I've killed my husband, six girls and a cop....Now will killing you get me any less time or any less of a needle?" she laughed...

"When you put it that way.."he gulped....

"There you go...See..You're smart after all..." she laughed..

(CONCLUSION NEXT)