The Kyra Daniels Cases: Cold Feet

My partner, Jeffrey Hayes, is currently being held captive somewhere by a deranged lunatic with a game-master mentality and a history that has yet to be solved by some of the best detectives that I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

“Jeffrey, talk to me,” I plead. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

“To save your partner,” Jeffrey replies, “you’ll have to play my game.”

As I listen to his voice over the phone, I can note the fear, but he doesn’t stammer like the previous two victims.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“Do you like skating, detective? I love skating. I love how freeing just gliding across something can be. I enjoy the simple things like that.”

“Jeffrey, you don’t have to be her puppet. I know she’s not there right now.”

O’Halloran and Lawson exchange a look, both puzzled.

“Time’s running out, detective. My next victim has gotten some very cold feet indeed.”

The line goes dead. I make my move towards the door, despite an obvious visual cue from O’Halloran, no doubt about to tell me it’s too personal for me to solve. Lawson, however, stops me in front of the door.

“How do you know that the Judge wasn’t there?” she asks.

“My previous conversations with the Judge have been more responsive, as though she’s carrying a live conversation with me. This feels scripted.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Jeff wouldn’t be afraid of a mad-person pointing a gun in his face; we’re detectives, we deal with that every day. Thus, there must be a script or a teleprompter that he’s reading from and some contraption that’s forcing him to read it verbatim. I guess that the Judge would’ve had a contingency if he deviated. We’re dealing with a madwoman who enjoys control.”

With that, I rush out of the office.

-

Half an hour later, I’m opening the door to Jeffrey’s apartment. It’s not exactly how I imagined it: tasteful, sensible, and clean. I guess that makes sense since he had a date the night that he was abducted. I guess I should’ve been more tactful towards Lawson, seeing as how she was his date.

As I approach his kitchen counter, I see that he has a bottle of wine placed on the counter, with two wine glasses on top.

My phone rings. It’s the Captain. I’m being called to a new crime scene: the skating rink known as the Frozen Pond. The Judge’s words echo in my ear: I love skating.

As I turn to leave, I hear a small crunch. I lift my foot and see a small sparkling glass shard. After a brief examination, I bag it and one of the wine glasses, and I’m out the door.

-

The surface is smooth, and the lack of ice built up means that it would’ve been frozen after being submerged. The corpse is in the artificial ice pond, a bullet hole in her head. The Judge’s second voice has been revealed. But why her, and how does this help Jeff?

“Helen Carter,” Anderson states the minute I set foot on the crime scene. “Ex-fiancé identified her immediately when he found her.”

“And that is?” I ask.

Anderson merely points. I see a skinny man sobbing as he speaks to another officer. I walk over to him, glancing at the body as I do so.

“Detective Anderson,” I say to him, flashing my badge.

“Yuri Usanov,” he replies with a heavy accent.

“My colleague informs me that you’re the victim’s ex-fiancé?”

“Yes. She broke it off a month ago. She was always picketing for that old courthouse. Between that and our jobs, there was no time for us, and we drifted apart.”

I nod.

“Did she have a criminal record?”

“Criminal… not unless you count her endless protests.”

I shake my head. “That would depend on how she protests.”

“I didn’t kill her,” he blurts out.

“I’m sorry?”

“Whenever someone turns up dead, it’s usually the ex who did it. I just want to clarify that it wasn’t me.”

I pat him on the arm.

I know that he didn’t do it, but that’s not information I can just give him, in case he is culpable of something. I know that the Judge is behind this. Why she chose to bury this poor girl in ice, I’m not sure. All I know is that the clocking is ticking for Jeffrey.

-

“Is it true?” Lindsay asks.

I nod.

“What can you tell me about Ms. Carter?” I ask.

“I can’t believe it. I mean, one of our own. I didn’t even tell him –”

“Lindsay,” I announce, bordering on shouting, “Jeffrey is in trouble, and we will find him. But the Judge promised me that this woman, this victim, would be the key to saving him. So please tell me what happened, so we can save him.”

She nods and looks at her clipboard. She wipes away a tear. I feel a little bad.

“Look,” I say, “I know that I can be mean, but we need to focus.”

“Well,” Lindsay replies shakily, “based on how the body was frozen, it was submerged in water before being frozen.”

I nod, knowing this already.

“But she died from a bullet hole to the head. Unfortunately, there’s nothing else unique about this death.”

“What am I missing?” I ask angrily.

My cell phone rings. Unknown number. I pick it up almost instantly.

“Jeff, I know that you’re scared, but I want you to know that I am on the case and I’m looking for you.”

“Detective,” Jeff says in his shaky, but calm, voice, “Are you frustrated? Is my game too much for you?”

“Judge, listen to me,” I seethe, “I will catch you and you WILL go to prison. I swear it.”

“Let me give you a hint: cold feet.”

The call ends.

I can feel my cheeks burning from my rage, a small stream of cold glances past them. Now is not the time for crying.

“Lindsay,” I ask. “Is there anything in her feet?”

“Her feet?” Lindsay asks, wiping her face. “I didn’t find anything there.”

“Damn. She just said, ‘cold feet.’ Is she just taunting me because she was literally frozen?”

“Um, Kyra,” Lindsay perks up, “Cold feet is a fairly common expression for being unsure about getting married.”

“I know that, but…” I trail off.

Helen broke off an engagement with Yuri. Is the Judge trying to tell me that he knows something?

-

Yuri looks so frazzled sitting in this interrogation room. He’s sweating a great deal and he’s shaking uncontrollably.

“Yuri,” I ask, “I need to know why the Judge is so interested in you.”

“Judge?” Yuri stammers. “I don’t wanna go in front of a Judge, I’m innocent. I’m trying to go to college for physics.”

“Your ex has turned up dead.”

“I didn’t kill her though.”

“I believe you. I also believe that I know who did, and this person doesn’t kill without reason.”

“No, Helen was a good girl. She wouldn’t hurt anyone, except maybe during her protests. And those were accidents, or at least, that’s what her lawyer said.”

“Lawyer? Which lawyer?”

“Some woman: cute, small, blonde.”

“Jennifer Lawson?”

“That’s the one.”

-

“That poor girl,” Lawson says, sitting down as she stares at the photo of Helen’s body, looking the same as when she found out Jeff had been taken. “It’s all my fault.”

Though I’m not sure why she feels guilty, it is common in situations like this.

“This woman is the key to the Judge, Law… Jennifer,” I reply. “I need to know what crimes she was accused of.”

“And what about Jeff?” she interrupts. “Are you any closer to finding him?”

“I know that he must be in some remote location or underground, maybe a basement. Otherwise, he could probably just call for help and be rescued by them. The Judge has given me the clue ‘cold feet’ in response to the victim, but that either refers to the husband, who pointed me to you, or the fact that she was frozen, which doesn’t point me anywhere.”

“It’s such a shame. I liked skating there. They were a happy couple.”

“The Judge only kills criminals. She’s a vigilante who thinks she’s exacting justice against these people. And I think she’s a disillusioned member of the court.”

“Well, that could be any of us,” Jennifer jokes. “But I can’t help. Everyone I know is upstanding, even for us lawyers.”

I chuckle.

“All I know is that she was protesting the demolition of that old courthouse.”

“Yuri told me that, too,” I say with chagrin.

Jennifer turns to her drink and takes a deep sip, clearly lost in thought.

I pat her on the back.

“I’m gonna find him, Jennifer.”

-

Once I get back in my car, a curious thought pops into my head. I take out my phone and check the internet.

If she was arrested for protesting the demolition of an old courthouse, that hardly seems in keeping with the Judge’s M.O.; she’s not a dark enough killer. This would’ve had to have been someone with access to her. Someone with access to all the Judge’s victims.

Someone who knew Linda.

Call it a hunch, call it blind luck if it works, but what if ‘cold feet’ brought me to the husband to remind me about that courthouse? The internet shows me that the site has been up for demolition for years and multiple times but kept getting put off by petitions to save it by Helen Carter. Yuri told me that the stress of this ended their relationship.

The Judge was disillusioned with the courts and she’s dramatic. Wouldn’t the best place to hide someone be an abandoned courthouse to symbolize her disillusionment?

-

It’s night when I arrive at the old courthouse. That old and rotting wood smell permeates my senses, and a chilly breeze pushes into my skin. I take out my flashlight and my gun.

As I enter the dilapidated structure, I can hear the creak of the wood beneath my feet and the scurrying of rats within the walls. The darkness is almost blinding, but my flashlight shows me the path ahead.

There isn’t much to search. The best part of old buildings is that they’re very small and going through them is easy. I sneak through the courtroom. The pews and stand cramped inside a room that can’t be much bigger than my apartment.

I notice a door towards the back that, upon opening the door, seems to lead to a basement. I don’t know exactly when my life turned into a horror movie, but when you deal with serial killers all day every day, I suppose you’re going to run into the odd one that does things like this.

I venture down to the basement.

Down there, I can feel the dirt beneath my shoes and see a large steel box, a light emanating from its crevices and a circular window at its door.

I open the door with ease. Sleeping inside, tied to a chair with a screen and a phonebox on a table in front of him, and a device pointed right at his head, is Jeff.

“Jeff,” I call out as I tear the device from his head. “I was so worried about you.”

He awakens and stares me. He beams.

“Where is she?”

“Jennifer?” I ask, puzzled by his reaction. There’s no tears, no blubbering, no hugging, little to no sign of gratefulness. Just focus and determination. “We can call her from the hospital.”

“It’s her, Kyra,” Jeff gasps. My heart drops. “It’s Jennifer. She’s the Judge.”