Body Count

The phones had been ringing off the hook since noon, as the panicked citizens called in their fury and distress at the mornings' events. Harried beat cops answered the calls, stuttering out rehearsed excuses, while simultaneously filling out forms and ripping hair out of their scalps.

Steve Lynch was one such person, a phone cradled on his shoulder, a pen and a sheaf of paper grasped in his sweaty hands. He nodded, grunted a confirmation, and dropped the receiver back into place. He sighed in a rather tired way and put his face in his hands.

"Who was that?" Munro asked, perching on the corner of Lynch's disastrously messy desk.

"Lady downtown. Another possible sighting. But that's not possible!" he burst, staring imploringly up at Munro. "That would put her at a corner store downtown, a skate park in the suburbs, and on an overpass at the border! I'm telling you, Munro, this is going to take years."

Commissioner Munro rubbed his eyes, yawning. "Years, yeah. Years."

Lynch bristled. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Sorry," his boss said sheepishly. "Haven't slept since her escape." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards a newspaper clipping tacked to Lynch's wall. It depicted a deranged teenager, giggling to herself as cops dragged her away from a busy theater. Her hair was blowing wildly about her pasty white face, a manic grin on her painted red lips. The headline on the clipping read, "Local Police Lose Track of Pint-Sized Mass Murderer". Along with the clipping, there were multiple names written around it on the white board it was stuck to including, "Dominic White, Riley McGibbon, and Brent and Brian Phillips."

"It's been a week," Steve muttered desperately, sweat glistening on his upper lip. "How did she do it?" he wondered, for the hundredth time that day.

"Who knows? All we do know is she did it without touching anything with her bare hands - there were no prints in the cell." Munro pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "Nobody ever thought to take her gloves away from her."

"Morons," Lynch murmured. "Damned morons. That's what we look like! First we let this massacre happen right under our noses, and then we let the convict escape. Right out of her cell."

"We'll find her," Munro assured him, nodding as if to convince himself. "We'll find her, and we'll put her away for good. No more funny stuff; no, we'll have a SWAT team guarding her at all times, if we have to."

"SWAT?" Steve laughed without humor. "They all think they're too good for cases like this. They'd rather be out there," he spat, glaring at his desk. "Protecting hostages during bank robberies. As if that's going to happen! We haven't had to call in SWAT for nearly a decade."

"I admit, they get a tad high and mighty from time to time," Munro said quietly. "But they're good men. They know what she did. They'd agree, I'm sure."

Steve snorted into his mug of coffee. His phone started to ring again, loud and shrill. "'Scuse," he said, picking it up. "Hello?" A pause. Sweat started to pour down his forehead; his hands started to shake. After a moment, during which Munro sat by with a curious expression on his face, Steve put his hand over the mouthpiece. "It's - for you." he choked.

Munro took the phone gingerly, as if he was being handed a bomb that might go off any second. He placed it to his ear. "Commissioner Mark Munro, here. Who's calling?"

A chuckle. "Evening, Commissioner."

"Who is this?" Munro shouted, panicking. He knew that voice. Everybody who had gone to the movies in the past two weeks knew that voice.

High, oily laughter. "You know who this is."

Munro was shaking his head, running a hand through his hair. His troubled expression flicked briefly to shock, and back again. "Where are you?" he said quietly.

"Me?" the voice inquired, a tone of amusement creeping through. "It's not me you want."

"I'll take you if I can get you," Munro said, supremely authoritative. "Where did you take her?" he asked abruptly.

The voice on the other end was very happy now. "I don't think you know who you're talking to, Commissioner."

Mark stopped. Surely, nobody else had this gravely, oily voice? Nobody. No, no, it couldn't be. And then his shoulders slumped. Foolish! he thought, before saying, "You."

They laughed again, this time using an undisguised laugh. "You let me escape!" they said gleefully. "And now I can do what I want, without fear of persecution!"

"We'll get you!" he roared, but he'd already heard the click. He threw the receiver down and stormed out of the room, Lynch close on his heels.

"Where is he?" he panted, jogging to keep up with the Commissioner.

Munro ignored the question. "Do you have the phone lines monitored?" he asked, bursting through doors and knocking several people off their feet.

"Of course." Lynch replied obediently.

"Search that last call," he ordered, making his way towards the flickering Exit sign at the end corridor. "As soon as you get a location, call me." He strode out into the cold night.

"But why did he call us?" Lynch called, framed in the doorway.

"It wasn't the Joker, you idiot!" Munro called back, unlocking his police cruiser. "It was her! The murderer!" He slammed the car door, kicked the engine into life, and roared away, leaving a baffled Steve Lynch in his wake.