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Dan slowly put her head in her hands, staring at the three photographs in front of her. This had been tormenting her for days already - it was beyond ridiculous at this point. Matt insisted that someone else should take the case, but Dan just couldn’t let that happen.
Before she’d gone to college, and then the police academy, Dan had worked at a club on the edge of the city. The nightclub was probably one of the seediest Dan had ever investigated (she’d pulled it to shreds when she finally became a detective, mostly out of spite) and sometimes she laid awake at night, wondering how on earth she made it out alive. She’d grabbed a fake ID in high school to work there, having felt like she was out of other options.
This case hit a little too close to home.
She was black, her hair matted and bloodied. Her face had become so bloated with death and violence that she was hardly recognisable, but what was even more horrid was the state in which she was found. It was in the middle of a parking lot - she’d been moved there postmortem - splayed on her front with her legs spread, her dress in tatters. Across her lower back were three X’s, two healed, one fresh. She’d been strangled to death.
There were no prints. No weapon. No fluids. No cameras, no witnesses, even the person who’d called 911 had ducked and run. Dan hated it when bodies were found outside of the scene of death: it made the case that much harder, and removed them from their context. She owed it to this poor girl, who was still wearing one of her clear dancing heels, to find out who had done this to her.
With another aggravated sigh, she leant back in her chair and pressed the heels of her hands into her eye-sockets. She needed a coffee. She needed to go home and pick Hannah up from school to make sure she was safe and watch Bridget Jones’ Baby together with Chinese takeout and have Matt braid her hair whilst Hannah painted her nails.
A small scuffle to her left was enough to drag her attention away from the abysmally small file. Across the room, Andrew was leaning back in his chair, a new figure leaning against his desk. Dan watched as Neil handed Andrew a brown paper bag - his lunch - and smile at whatever remark Andrew made.
“How the hell did he get in here?” Dan inquired, exhausted. Matt looked up from his desk and grinned: he’d come to rather enjoy Neil’s company, in spite of the fact that Neil was definitely a seasoned murderer and letting him go was against everything they’d ever learned about corruption and loyalty.
Though, Dan thought, watching Matt clap Neil on the back. Their height differences were rather amusing.
“No personal crap in the bullpen, Andrew,” Kevin groused, glaring at Neil. He still wasn’t over it. He probably would never be over it.
“Did you just call me personal crap?” Neil echoed. At Kevin’s narrowed eyes, he held up his hands in surrender. “I was just heading out anyway. Just dropping off lunch.” He shook Matt’s hand goodbye, saluted Wymack good day and chanced a kiss to the crown of Andrew’s head, very narrowly avoiding his husband’s swatting. He shoved his pockets and walked animatedly down the desk aisle.
His gaze drifted over to Dan’s desk, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Not again.”
Dan’s instinctive reaction was to cover up the photos. Instead, she swivelled her chair to face him, eyebrow arched.
Neil came closer, leaning against the desk to look at the photos. He made a scathing noise and shook his head. “I don’t understand why Striker thinks that’ll work.”
“Who?” Dan demanded.
Neil gave her an odd look. “Striker? I mean, I’m not sure of his real name, but he earned the nickname with the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy for his girls. Runs the Catamounts Club.”
“So this has happened before,” Dan managed, fingertips brushing over the photo.
Neil shrugged. “Usually the bodies are shown off to the girls to scare them, and then obliterated from existence. It’s not like prostitutes are ever put down as missing persons, so he’s never been caught.” Neil leaned over the desk to look at the photographs. “Seems like someone finally wants to do something about it.”
“Catamounts Club,” Dan repeated. “Striker. Repeat offender. You think he’d keep trophies? Some way to track the number of girls he’s murdered?”
“She’s only got one shoe,” Neil affirmed. “He keeps the other hanging up on a string of lights above the booze shelves behind the bar. Though with a body found, he would have taken them down. He won’t throw them out, though. They’re reminders for the girls to behave.”
For a moment, Dan just stared. It took a little while for her to process all Neil was saying - which was a lot. It was a lot. Abruptly, she stood up, snatching the photographs and holding them to her chest.
“You know,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Letting you walk goes against our oaths as a police force. I should lock you up in max security and never let you see the light of day again.” Her breath shuddered. “But - if you can give us information like that - whenever we ask - I’ll be willing to put it aside.”
Neil gave her a quizzical look. “I’ve been informing your cases for years. How else would I have convinced Andrew to marry me?”
Dan had to grin at her colleague. “How did you manage to wrestle him into a ring?”
Neil snorted. “I said that I could be his CI forever. He wasn’t amused. Anyway - yes, Wilds, I will help you out, to keep my ass out of jail. If that’s what it takes.” He gave her a little wave, leaning off her desk and walking towards the exit.
Dan glanced to Andrew, who was still glaring at the elevator, long after his husband had left. She shook her head and sat down, switching on her computer monitor.
She had the Catamounts to bust.