Julia had red hair on her mind from the moment she woke up. To think Donna actually spoke to her, and gave her a solid lead! To think the dead could talk at all. She couldn’t wait to get to the office. Well, maybe she could wait long enough to stop for boba. Maybe she’d try the Thai Tea this time…
At 8:16 she arrived at the doors of the 23rd precinct. She was always fascinated by the architecture; it looked like a medieval castle. It had windows that looked like turrets and a crenelated wall on top.
She was practically skipping to her office when the low rumble of Captain Picclin’s voice cut through her train of thought.
“Julia, I need you over here for a minute.”
“Oh. But Captain, I got a fresh lead on the subway case, and I’m dying to see where it goes.”
“It can wait, Julia. We need all hands on deck for this one.”
Julia growled, crossing her arms as she plunked down into a chair right next to Officer Greaves. The man looked like he’d been former military, all the way down to the blonde buzz cut. He wore a simple moustache and was all-business, no fun.
“What’s it this time Jules?” Greaves asked, “couldn’t find your car keys?”
She hated when he called her that. It was always in this snooty “better than you” kind of way.
“Ugh, can we just start with the briefing already?” Julia asked.
Officer Greaves smirked, and nodded to the captain to continue.
“We were alerted at 7am this morning to a high-profile child abduction. Tom Cruise’s daughter, Ocean, was last seen in Central Park…
“Wait, so her name is Ocean Cruise? That’s wild.” Julia said.
She thought she saw Captain Picclin sprout another grey hair.
“Ernn.. Yeah. We received a tip that Ms. Cruise was last seen leaving Central Park and entering an H2-Hummer, white, with tinted windows. No plates. Every department in New York is sending a dedicated patrol to try and track it down. Julia, go with Officer Greaves to the Astoria Area along the East River. Follow it up to the La Guardia airport. They’ve been given orders from the Commissioner to not let anyone fly or drive out of New York.
“On it Captain. Jules, you coming?” Officer Greaves stood.
“Yeah..coming.”
Julia begrudgingly pushed herself out of her chair and followed him to his police cruiser.
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This is gonna be a looong day, Julia thought as the door closed and Greaves pulled out of the driveway.. If I’m gonna spend all this time on patrol, I might as well tackle two cases at once.
Julia flipped out her phone. Luckily the case files were also stored in the cloud.
Alright, Mr. Redhead, time for some hide-and-seek.
Julia did some quick mental math, and figured with about 8.26 million people in New York City, with 4% of them being redheads that was still 330,400. Thankfully she had some data points she could cross reference to bring that number down.
First, let’s search the redheads that had a ticket through the Green Line on July 12, 2019.
“Only 263? That cuts it down quite a bit!” she said. Out loud.
Officer Greaves shot her a look.
“Jules, focus. I need you to help me check my blind spots.”
“Nothing yet, boss. I’ll let you know if I see anything.”
She made it a point to swivel her head in all directions for a few minutes. The only things she saw moving past them were the clustered buildings, ornate bridges, and deep blue waters of the East River. No Hummer.
Oh well, let’s see how far we can bring the number of redheads down. What if we cross check the suspect’s height too? We could probably roughly gauge it from the subway security feed.
Officer Greaves mumbled something and got out of the car, which happened to be no longer moving. Julia looked up and saw him quickly approaching the front door of the Gulf Gas Station.
“Huh, he probably needed a bathroom break,” she mused. She returned to her screen.
Suspect in the blue jacket is probably 5’7-5’9, somewhere around there. That gives us a total of… She held her breath as the roster refreshed with the new fields.
“Twelve!” Julia shouted in triumph. That was definitely a number she could work with. She would look into their alibis later.
Julia looked up just in time to see a young man burst out of the convenience store. He had jet black spikes for hair and two large gauges with a lip ring. He turned back to see Officer Greaves in hot pursuit. Greaves tackled him to the ground. A very flustered-looking Ocean was shouting at Greaves. That’s when Julia noticed what they had been running towards: a white Hummer H2 with tinted windows. How did she miss that?
Greaves looked up at Julia as she stepped out of the car. He practically roared out her name.
“Julia! Did you at least call it in?”
“Nuh..no, not yet, I was…
Greaves let out a growl and yanked the young man behind him as he pushed past Julia and shoved his arm in through the window to grab the car phone. He spit out the words.
“Officer Greaves to Dispatch, we found Ocean and have the kidnapper in custody. We’re at the Gulf Gas Station near the Ditmar’s Steinway.”
Natalie’s nonchalant voice sounded through the other end. “I hear you Greaves. Two other patrols will be with you in a minute to compile the report.”
Officer Greaves hung up the phone and threw the protesting kidnapper into the back seat of the cruiser with one hand. Ocean was silently huddled in an oversized black hoodie with her face in her hands, sitting on the curb. Julia approached the fuming officer.
“Greaves…” Julia said.
“I told you to cover the entrance and call it in, Julia! It could have gotten bad out there. What if he had a gun?”
Julia couldn’t find the words to say. They died in her throat.
Greaves drew a shuddering breath.
“I don’t know why I trusted you to watch my back to begin with. I won’t be making that mistake again.”
He marched up to the two patrol cruisers who were turning into the parking lot.
Now there were two young women on the curb with their heads in their hands.