Rivals

A Dark, rainy street in Philadelphia....Circa 2044

Rick Latimer, better known as the Purple Pimp...walked down the streets, looking over his shoulder...He was clearly frightened....for his life...

He looked like somethin g out of the 1970's...Purple Brim covered by Leopard skin...Purple and Leopard skin valor bell bottoms and Gold Heels....

He stepped inside the doorway of the ratty rooming house he was staying in , above the Chinese food store and saw Monica...

"This is a step down for you isn't it Ricky?" said Monica..

He smiled..

"Detective Talbert....How long has it been??....Heyyy what are you doing down here...You aint Plain Clothes cop no more or uh even a Narco….I heard you're Murder Police now and uh I aint killed nobody..." he said, smiling from ear to ear and checking out Monica's sexy body...

"No...you've killed nothing but good tastes..." she said... "It's not Talbert anymore...It's Nellis...I got married "said Monica..

"Ummmph your husband is one lucky guy...LAWD!!!  You shouldn't be in this part of town alone detective....On a rainy night like this...you should be with your husband..." said Rick..

"Well Actually She is with her husband....but not snuggled up as I would like." I said and flashed my badge..

"Detective Nate Nellis, Homicide.." I said.

"So you see Ricky...I am with my husband.." said Monica..

''Wait!  You two are married and partners?" he asked.

"That's right..."said Monica..

"But we are not here to talk about us...We are here to talk about you.....Three of your girls were murdered recently....That must have put you back some change....They were major earners.." I said..

"I didn't have nothin to do with that....That other girl detective , the dark skinned one with the huge boobs.....she interviewed me and cleared me.." he said..

He was talking about Kylie....

"We know that... but three of your nearest competitor, Johnny Mullen's  girls were murdered too!"said Monica..

"Look, I aint had nothin to do with that either....I heard some serial killer ,some nut strangled all of those girls..." he said..

"He did and now he's dead too...Murdered in Lemuria...."I said.

"What? Well I aint been nowhere near Lemuria...Not in months."said Ricky....

Monica gave me the eye...He was telling the truth....

"Problem is...Johnny Mullen is dead too! We found his body a few hours ago out by the Port area.." said Monica..

"Again, I aint had nothin to do with none of that.." he said..

"We know that! But it's a little strange...Your girls are murdered, then his girls are murdered..We get on the trail of a serial killer , he's murdered and then Johnny boy is murdered...Leaving just you in the mix." I said.

''I gained nothing from this.. Nothing at all...In fact I'm afraid for my life.." he said.

"Which explains why you're uh slumming...down here...You're running from something, from someone...We need to know who..."said Monica.

''I don't know...Strange things began happening around all of this...All of this..That's why I'm laying low.." said Ricky..

"If we found you, whoever you're running from can find you too...Why don't you come in and let us put you in protective custody." said Monica..

"Nah, I needs to be free...loose baby....." he said.

I passed him a card...

"Keep this...Call us when you're ready to tell us about the strange things that you say were happening..."I said.

He looked at the card ,put it in his wallet...

"I'll be in touch.....Nice seeing you again Detective Talbert....I-I mean Nellis.." he said..

 Monica watched him as he vanished into the night... Then she said.

"He really is afraid... He intimated that something was going on down here...Something strange..."she said.

 "Something tells me that this is more than just about a serial killer.." I said.

We got in my flying car and took off..

II-

We headed back to the squadroom where Kylie was waiting for us..

"You guys are back...You talk to the uh Purple Pimp?" she asked...

 "Oh yeah.....He knows something...He's afraid of something...someone ,but he won't tell...I scanned his mind...He doesn't even know...but he has a bad omen about something...someone.."said Monica.

'This goes beyond our serial killer..wayyy beyond, and yet somehow I feel there is a connection..."I said.

"Well here is what we do know...Those six girls were doing buffo business...at least two of them were underage... What they had in common was the same john...which was how we got DNA and prints and eventually identified our serial killer...Harry Dean... but two girls, two working girls were murdered in that same area and they weren't traced or linked to Dean...Dean couldn't have committed these two murders because he was in jail... I looked at their autopsy reports...THEY WERE BOTH STRANGLED WITH A GAROTTE! just like Dean, Just like Johnny Mullen...."said Kylie..

''Are you saying a Copycat??" I asked..

"Maybe Harry Dean was a copycat? None of his victims were killed with a garrotte...He used pantyhose...and he tied it a certain way...we found that much in his apartment..."said Kylie..

"Kylie is on to something...We thought this was a turf war at first remember....then we discovered a serial killer...What if there is or was...TWO serial killers working the same area at the same time and one knocked the other off?" asked Monica...

"Hmmm" I said. The thought of this was terrifying...

We put a team on the street cams, traffic cams and business cams in the areas where all of the girls vanished....

Because they did such brisk business, the next few days we were checking out johns , by the license plate numbers we pulled from their cars...

Kylie ,Monica and I and our teams checked credit card, debit card and bank account information on hundreds of guys and interviewed them all...eventually clearing them... Outside of Harry Dean's victims we had nothing on the other two girls murdered...just like we had nothing on Dean's murderer or Johnny Mullen's murderer except that we believed they were both killed by the same person...Somebody who liked to, who needed to get up close and personal and kill...

Monique hadn't released the bodies of the first two murdered girls...No one had claimed them...

Monica and I observed them and looked them over......

and we came to a conclusion...

"I think we have another serial killer on the loose...Operating in the same area and targeting the same types...Except that this guy kills men and women..."said Monica..

"Sis, Brother in law...You sure get some creepy cases..." said Monique...

"Tell me about it.." I said.

III-

 So it was no surprise that within a day, we got another call...Another body had been found....

 Kylie waited for us...she was standing over the body..

Crime Scene Investigators and Forensic Investigators were snapping photos when Mo Mo and I arrived..

Monica looked up at us...

"He was a colorful guy." she said.

Monica took one look..\

"Ohhh noooo." she said.

I kneeled down and looked at the body of Rick Latimer, better known as the Purple Pimp.  I checked his neck...

I looked at my sister in law...

"Neck broken....killer used a garrotte...Just Like Harry Dean, just like Johnny Muller and just like those two girls...same contusions and abrasions on the neck...The killer caught this guy from behind...
He put up a great fight...There is blood here...The victims and his assailant...I'm going to get it to the lab and see what I can find.."said Monique..

"Great...we got rival serial killers..

''We had Rival Serial Killers..One is dead remember?" I said..

"Yeah you're right..."said Monica.

'One killed working girls...The other killed their pimps and two working girls and a serial killer...What do you make of that?" asked Kylie.

"A Crusader....A moralist, a Purist...somebody who is trying to clean the neighborhood of all that he perceives to be dirt..." I said..

"That makes sense...a perfect profile brother in law.."said Monique..

''See why I love this man? His mind turns me on..."said Monica..

 "Oh is that ir? His mind?" joked Kylie...

Monique laughed...

Once again we watched a body being courted off..

(TO BE CONTINUED)