Detective Inspector Rick Williams screwed up the letter he'd just read and threw it in his wastebasket. "Why do all the nut cases pick on me?" he demanded of his young sergeant who had just walked into his office.
Phil Fernwood chuckled at the indignant look on his boss's face. "What now?" he asked.
Williams sighed. "A crank calling himself The Executioner. Says he's going to send someone to their judgment on Friday night. Claims he wants to give his quarry a sporting chance; that's why he's giving me the lowdown. Wants to see if I can match him in wits."
"Sounds like a real live one," said Fernwood, running his hand through his dark wavy hair. That, together with his olive complexion, gave him the Mediterranean look that he'd inherited from his maternal grandmother. Her family had migrated to Australia from Malta when she was a young girl. "What is it about society these days?" he went on. "It keeps throwing up all these loonies."
Williams opened a jar on his desk that was full of strong mints and shook out two onto his open palm. He chewed them inside the station because, like all workplaces these days, it was a smoke-free zone and they helped quell his cravings. Fernwood popped gum into his mouth when his cravings threatened to overtake him.
"Most people used to get their half-baked ideas from movies but now it seems a lot of them are coming from the perverse rubbish being posted on the Net," said Williams. "Our Executioner is probably at his PC now boasting to his weirdo pals about how he's put the wind up the police."
Fernwood gestured towards the wastebasket and said, "I wish the sick fool could see just where his correspondence has ended up. These crackpots always think they're smarter than the cops."
Williams popped the mints into his mouth and sucked them for a moment before saying, "Anyway let's get down to business. The reason I called you in is—"
He was interrupted by the shrill of his telephone. He picked it up and snapped the word 'Yes' into the receiver.
His annoyance was evident as the duty officer told him that Rusty Linden, the crime reporter for The Tribune, was on the line insisting on speaking to him. "All right," he said at last, "put her through." He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice as he asked, "Yes, Miss Linden. What can I do for you?"
Fernwood watched with interest as the expression on the inspector's striking face shifted from annoyance to surprise then back to annoyance again.
Williams listened to what Rusty had to say then questioned her intensely. He was tight-lipped though when it came to giving any information away himself. He elicited as much as he could from her until she refused to allow the interrogation to continue. Finally he admitted, "Yes, Miss Linden, I got a letter, too. But just because you got one as well doesn't mean this guy's on the level. We get letters and phone calls similar to this from cranks all the time. If we took even half of them seriously we'd need five times the manpower just for starters. I can tell you from long experience that serious criminals aren't in the habit of forewarning us of their plans. We don't usually hear of their deeds until they are well and truly done."
The conversation continued in this vein for several more minutes. Then Williams said a curt 'goodbye' and hung up the receiver.
"I gather The Executioner has written to Miss Linden, too," Fernwood said. "I don't blame you for being steamed up," he added, as a number of expletives exploded from his boss.
"God save us from intrepid reporters," Williams snapped. "She says she gets her share of crank mail, too, but has a gut feeling about this one." He reached down into the wastebasket and retrieved the crumpled sheet. He smoothed it out and read it again, then passed it over to Fernwood.
Fernwood scanned the pale yellow paper with the words printed on it in large fancy bold type. It took a few moments for his eyes to get used to the font. It wasn't a style that was easy to read but at the same time Fernwood guessed it was one that almost every computer that comes off the production line is equipped with. The sheet contained just one paragraph:
Dear Inspector,
I anticipate having the great pleasure of selecting someone in your precinct at random and sending them to meet their Maker this coming Friday. However, as I always believe in fair play I’m giving you advance warning. I want my quarry to have a sporting chance. Can you outmaneuver me and foil my plans or will I win out? Let’s see which one of us has the sharpest wits shall we?
Yours in crime,
The Executioner.
Fernwood laid the sheet down on the desk. He looked across at Williams and asked, "What did Rusty Linden's letter say?"
"He sent her a copy of the same one he sent me with an added note saying he wanted to make sure I took him seriously. Told her she was on to an exclusive." Williams' fingers drummed on the lid of the mint jar. "There's only one chance in ten million that this guy's fair dinkum but if he does bump off someone and we've sat on our hands then dear Miss Linden will crucify us—and so will our superiors."
"Well then, today's Thursday," Fernwood said. "What do you think we should do?"
A note of irritation had crept back into Williams' voice. "I don't need to be reminded what day it is, Phil. What we're not going to do is publicize the threat. All that would do is panic half the community on the one hand and result in a deluge of copycat letters on the other. I'll brief our officers and increase patrols around high risk places like railway stations, hospital and university grounds, parks, picture theatres, pubs, and so on. We'll also send the letter to the lab. They can check for any identifying marks. As far as I can tell the postmark is from central Sydney. He probably dropped it in a box in the city."
Fernwood got up and went to the window. A craving for a cigarette was starting to take hold, making him feel restless. "Right," he said, "but what about Rusty? Won't she be splashing the story all across the front page of her paper?"
"I don't think so," Williams said. "Her main concern seemed to be that we take some precautionary steps. Anyway, her credibility would take a battering if she did make a big thing out of it and nothing happened. She's no fool—and neither, I'm sure, is her editor. I'll call her back and tell her what I aim to do. That should placate her."