RelationDigest

Eyebrow Killer chapter 2

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Nura navigated through the thick gloom of the narrow tunnel of old trees until she came upon a dark alley. She could have sworn she had heard her heartbeat carried by the gust of wind speeding past her ears. She glanced at her hands—shaking, anemic and sweaty—and felt frightened.

Nura suspected that her follower had given up the chase. Still, her legs carried her as far as they could before growing heavy. She came to a halt between two familiar buildings, opened a door, and stepped into a room full of mirrors. Her throat tightened; her body went stiff. She turned to leave the room when the door suddenly shut, trapping her inside that spooky place. At first, Nura tried to remain calm around the mirrors, but when several hands breached the shiny surfaces and started reaching for her, she lost it.

“Just a nightmare,” she whispered to herself until she saw a pair of mysterious hands draped around her body. Nura jerked backward with widened eyes; the force of the movement caused her to hit her head on the wooden headboard. A few seconds later, she realized the hands in question were hers. She sighed and attempted to get up, but her body vehemently refused to leave the bed: another set of hands was around her—and this time, she was confident they were not her own. These hands were different from each other as they both possessed different hues. But one thing they had in common was that they were actively trying to hold her down. The panic rumbled in Nura’s chest. Where is my gun?

Nura tried to reach for the gun in her nightstand—it was a matter of life and death. She gave one last stretch and pulled the knob off the drawer. She was about to liberate herself from that nightmare when her eyes readjusted to the light, and she understood that the new set of hands belonged to the two women who had kept her company through the night.

To the world outside, Nuralain Cocasse was a tough woman with a lot of patience, wit and stamina. Her strong female intuition, love of riddles and ability to solve crime made her an indispensable asset to the Serial Killer Crime Unit. The Unit had been set up as a part of the International Homicide Division in Amsterdam three years ago. Nura’s usual day was a combination of being assigned new cases—whenever they might arrive—running down leads in various locations, questioning suspects, and catching murderers.

After a workday, she usually found herself in a pub or a club. Although she found clubs made a stressful day worse, she went there anyway. She wasn’t a drinker but enjoyed being in the crowd, especially in female company. They made her forget about everything: her job, the death of her sister, and cold-blooded killers.

She liked to dance, too. Dancing was not among the attributes that made her indispensable to the police corporation or any dance floor for that matter, but she loved the rhythm of the music and often ended up bringing one or two women home. And together, they exorcised the demons of the previous day.

Nura couldn’t remember what happened the night before, but then again, she often resigned herself to fate. She didn’t really have to remember anything about what happened on the dance floor or after, as she was going to forget these two girls the moment they stepped out of her house. If she was being honest with herself, she had already forgotten about them even as they still clung close to her body.

The phone began to ring. Nura tiptoed around female clothes and a couple of wine bottles that littered her bedroom floor. The phone wasn’t far from the bed, but her journey felt miles apart. A massive bout of vertigo washed over her, causing her to fall onto the couch with the phone. Once she brought the screen to eye level and saw the caller, she regretted standing up from the bed at all. She dropped her phone back on the couch, pretending the call never came. The phone rang again.

“Yes, sir,” Nura answered. “No, sir, that will not be satisfactory for me. Yes, yes, I’ll be there. Right away. Yes, now…that’s exactly what I meant,” Nura said as she ended the call.

After that, she sat on the couch and tried to clear the effects of the hangover by sheer force of will. When it didn’t work, she slapped herself several times until her pale cheeks reddened. She glanced at the women on her bed—she knew it was time for them to leave; they had long overstayed their welcome. She went to bed and tapped them both until they woke up.

“What do you want?” The one on the right asked.

“Time to go,” Nura replied.

The woman looked around as if something was missing or she was trying to recognize where she was.

“I called a cab for you. Both of you.”

The two women picked their clothes up off the floor. They dressed and were about to leave when they asked for a mirror to remedy their scattered hair.

“Ehm… look, the cab is already here, sorry,” Nura said as she tried to push them out the door. She was tired of explaining to everyone who came over that she had no mirrors in her home. She didn’t need it. For the last two years, she wore a short bowl-cut pixie and barely used make up.

After the door closed, she dragged her legs across the cold wooden flooring until she got to the sliding window overlooking a beautiful canal with colorful buildings of different lengths. She closed the curtain to protect her apartment from the light flooding the room, moved over to her empty bed, and let her body sink into it again. The phone beeped. It was an SMS from Gail: Outside. Cheese and ham.

Nura took a quick shower, grabbed her badge and car keys, and opened the door, trusting that her hair was well-packed, before moving down the narrow steps that brought her outside the building. Near her vehicle stood Gail with takeaway sandwiches and a cola.

Wittenburg was beautiful this time of the year. Despite the colder winds, the sun shone, and the streets were still full of tourists. Nura would never choose this place—it was too posh, too central: the Wittenberg area was sandwiched between a road of luxury flats and a canal in a perfectly peaceful green location, only twenty minutes from the Central Station—it was her mother who found the apartments. Initially, Nura despised it, but later, she learned to love it. She heard somewhere that the building dated back to 1772 and was owned by the Lutheran church, which built a hospital nearly 100 years later. The hospital became a famous hotel, drawing people to this area. Ultimately, it was sold and fully renovated.

“For a split second, I thought today was going to be different, but then I saw duas garotas running out…” Gail chuckled. “Sorte sua!”

“The boss called. He said Maryssa’s body had been already identified by her adoptive parents. I want to talk to them. Today, if possible. What about that anonymous caller?”

“This is where the problem lies. It was a call from a burner, but we are working on it. About Maryssa’s parents… well, they are a very wealthy family. The victim’s mother is a third cousin to the second uncle of the sister-in-law of the King of the Netherlands.”

Nura whistled in surprise. “But we still need to talk to them.”

They stood near the car, discussing the case details, and Nura noticed that Gail was nervous. She wondered what it might be—she usually saw Gail as a phlegmatic and lazy man. They had worked together for almost two years, but Nura didn’t know much about Gail’s life; they had never been close like that. She knew that Gail was separated, he was a fan of Kapuka vodka, and he had two grown-up children: a son and a daughter. Nura remembered that Gail always bragged about his intelligent and beautiful daughter but never mentioned his son. She took her sandwich and cola from Gail, “Any news from Enni?”

“Yeah. But what’s the point?” It was one of the most favorite phrases in Gail’s lexicon.

They continued their chat inside the car on the way to the station.

The briefing was underway when Nura and Gail slipped in behind Zanna Mahdi — a candy-looking new constable — holding a heavy stack of documents under her arm. Zanna’s task was to record statements from suspects, write official reports, process different collisions the division dealt with, and speak with people who, for whatever reason, came to them. She was modern, balanced, and dedicated to her desk work.

As he saw Nura and Gail walk in, Panetta furrowed his brows and said, “Punctuality is the first step towards solving the crime.”

“Any matches on DNA?” Nura pretended she didn’t hear the remark.

“Too many. I don’t know where to start,” interjected Rocco Benedetti, a thirty-five-year-old Italian man, with a dark green beanie on his head and a light beard. He was already at the whiteboard, ready to take over or answer any question. “I know you’ve probably been asking yourself why we are working on this case. If it’s a suicide, then we shouldn’t bother. But unfortunately—not for us, but for Maryssa Goldsmith—it might be the work of a serial killer. Here, in my hands,” he raised both hands with two thick folders, “I’m holding two similar cases from Sweden and Switzerland. The victims, one female and one male, each died from an overdose, but they were tortured before death. What is most interesting is that someone shaved their eyebrows, too. I sent digital copies to you, but you can also grab a paper copy from the table on the way out.” Rocco paused. “I know it’s a long stretch; it might be a coincidence because it seems there was no connection between those victims. Or perhaps this is a very sophisticated murderer, too clever. Or escalating? Let’s prepare for anything…We need to talk to people who knew Maryssa well; we might find some connection with Bern or Stockholm. After all, she was a book influencer, and the female victim from Stockholm’s case was a bookseller. So, let’s look at it from every angle, okay?”

Zanna listened to every word, and when Rocco Benedetti finished his speech, she jumped out and presented the list of the victim’s friends and enemies on the whiteboard. “Here’s the list of people Maryssa Goldsmith met often, I’d say daily, as well as the names of people who constantly harassed her or sent threatening, horrible comments via her social media. I’m still working on it. Her social life is truly bewildering.”

“That was quick,” Panetta was surprised.

“Thank you, sir. AI analyzed it.”

“Who is that? Working here?” frowned Panetta in return.

“It’s no one. Just artificial intelligence, sir.” Rocco smiled. He knew Panetta’s struggles with modern technology because he often filled in the forms and did a lot of paperwork for him.

"It’s a tool, sir. An AI assistant. It scraped and clustered Maryssa's interactions with other people, then ranked them by frequency, sentiment, and escalation. I just cleaned the data.”

The room shifted—half curious, half wary. Panetta narrowed his eyes. “So a damn machine tells us who matters now?”

“No, sir,” Zanna replied, holding his gaze. “It just tells us where to start. We still decide what matters.”

The shade of doubt covered the face of Chief Inspector, “I’m not sure we should work with AI. I mean, can we trust it?”

“Of course, sir.” Zanna glanced back at Nura, looking for support.

“Sure, Gail uses it all the time.” Nura nudged her partner, who’d been busy messaging on his phone and missed the conversation.

“If you say so, but it has to be checked by… well, humans. It is never wrong. Right, Gail?” Panetta asked.

“Sure. But do they ever listen to us?” Gail chuckled in agreement. He and Panetta were almost the same age.

“Did your AI check CCTV as well? Any witnesses?” Panetta wouldn’t give up.

“It did. We got some interesting results, which I already shared with Detective Benedetti,” Zanna said.

“Yeah, true that. On CCTV, we see three people passing by or entering the building on the same evening after 10 p.m. One of them is still unidentified—that woman in a blue wig. I’m sure this is the same wig we found at Maryssa’s apartment.” Rocco Benedetti pressed the button on the table, and three CCTV pictures appeared on the black section of the whiteboard.

“And who are the other two?” Panetta frowned.

“One is a local journalist, Leye Ogundamisi. The other is a man, lives on the first floor. His name is Nan-Chuan Chanoyu; heard nothing, seen nothing. I promise you, sir, we’ll talk to them all as soon as Gail, Nura, and I meet Enni Hakala. We must establish the time of death and check for similarities with the previous cases in Bern and Stockholm.”

“Okay. Remember that the first twenty-four hours in any investigation, especially if it is a murder, are always the most important. Let’s analyze the hell out of it—when, what, how, and who…Keep me in the loop,” Panetta stood up and began his walk to the door.

“And we need to talk to Maryssa’s parents, sir,” Rocco added.

“Not yet. Too early…” Panetta didn’t stop.

“It’s such a bizarre murder. The most important thing is understanding why the killer did what he did—why he shaved her eyebrows?” Nura said.

It was so sudden that Panetta stumbled in the middle of his step. It looked like Nura spoke to herself because she sat on her chair with empty eyes, looking nowhere.

“This is what we are usually doing here. Aren’t we, detectives?” Panetta sounded irritated. “We are searching for the answers to all your whys, Cocasse. Let’s start with a detailed post-mortem. Get back to my office after you speak to Hakala,” he said, rolling his shoulders as if settling into a fight. "You, Rocco, try to coordinate with Sweden and Switzerland, see how much they’re willing to share now that we’ve got a possible link."

Rocco Benedetti didn’t show his disappointment; he was used to being left behind. The team left the briefing room one by one. Only Zanna stayed to clean up and rearrange the pictures on the whiteboard.

“Good girl… You see, AI can’t help you here. Sometimes, we just need two hands,” Gail chuckled near the doorframe.

Zanna said nothing. She didn’t turn and didn’t stop but methodically continued her task.