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Journals: Book 3, Entry 04 “STILL AT LARGE” "Quatrain 77, Century 9. Redemption is offered by a woman of scarlet, for the twice bless'd to seek out. Enter the belly of the beast and become one." There's no more reason to hide. The ruse is over. The way I see it, we didn't have a choice.  Eddie received a computer tip from a user known only as "Red." She said she knew about the Gua and that she'd found the true file on Hannah's murder Š and that the ones read at my trial were a fake. Traced the e-mail to a PD in Chicago, I had no choice but to go undercover. A convicted killer walking into a cop station sounds crazy, especially for a "dead" convicted killer. If I was recognized it would be feeding time at the zoo. I'm writing this now, so you know that's happened. But I couldn't stay away, the prize was just too huge. There was a secretary in Operations with red hair who hadn't been seen for a few days she was our best lead. I had a few things going for me there, since the assassination of my clone on live TV the cops weren't looking for me anymore. The heat was off. The other was Jordan, our new ally. She infiltrated along with me posing as clerical support. With her watching my back, at least I wasn't alone in the belly of the beast. The plan was to be in and out within an hour. Posing as Officer Jeff Thompson, transferring over from the 18th Precinct, I quickly started scanning personnel files, until I was caught-in-the-act by Sergeant Cznoffsky who didn't have a clue who I was and why I was rooting through his files. Fortunately Eddie was on top of it sending in a quick dummy "transfer" file via some first class hacking.  Eddie made Jeff sound like a nightmare so they'd put me in a nice, low-profile desk job. I just didn't expect it to be in Homicide. The Sarge boasted how the guys in Homicide had broken some of the most famous murder cases in Chicago. What he didn't know is just how familiar I was with these goons. Asked about "Red," Cznoffsky figured I was talking about the secretary named Emma, who had a thing for sex in the workplace. Emma's rep was known throughout the precinct she'd taken most of the cops on the force down to the evidence room for tricks. The Sarge figured she got fired for leaving marks. Seems the wives didn't appreciate Emma's idea of overtime. And then I met Detective Gavin, my superior in the Homicide department. Gavin was said to be a hard nose the kind of guy who took the fun at of being a cop. And of course he said he recognized me, he just didn't know from where Š yet. I knew I had to get out of there fast. Disguised or not, the heat was already building. Eddie said the records he sent over wouldn't hold up long but the quatrain said that red would offer redemption. And that could be the key to us getting some serious public recognition to exposing the Gua. I wasn't leaving. Jordan hadn't found much in Emma's desk everything had been erased. But she did lift a paper with a bunch of odd scratches on it the letters MAB. Mabus, newly arrived leader of the Gua. There were aliens in the precinct. It was the only answer. And here we were worrying about cops.  Ran into Gavin in the hallway with Jordan. He offered me a plastic file and then took off with it. Jordan and I knew it right off I'd just been fingerprinted. We had even less time than I thought. We headed for the evidence room. I'd been thinking about Emma, Jordan figured her for a nympho, but I knew better. Emma wasn't kinky, she was scratching the cops as a test trying to figure out if they would heal. Trying to see if they were alien. We slipped the Evidence Room guard a twenty and told him Jordan was a friend of Emma's a little nudge got him to shut off the surveillance camera but we still had to make it sound real. Between moans I figured out what Emma was trying to tell Eddie in her message before she was cut off she wasn't talking about dead people, she was talking about dead files unsolved cases. That's where we found Hannah's file. It was like living the nightmare all over again. Gavin came looking for us but we were able to get away with Hannah's autopsy report and then we got the hell out of the precinct. Back at the trailer we reviewed the coroner's report. It read: "The severity of the damage to the victim's neck and the complete crushing of the trachea and crushing of the vertebrae were caused by a force greater than any hand could inflict. I have no theory to account for the degree of bodily injury to the deceased Hannah Foster." Red was right, that wasn't what they read at my trial. Eddie was enthusiastic. Said they were gonna have to reopen my case. But the papers we'd smuggled out were copies, no time stamps, signatures they were no good to us.  But what good could these papers have been to the Gua? And why would they keep them around at all? The real paperwork could exonerate me their sworn enemy. There was only one answer. The Gua didn't know where the real coroner's report was. Someone had gotten their hands on it, but who? And where was the rest of the evidence? If Emma got herself killed for the info she'd found it was important to us. The surveillance camera was the key. If we could screen the tapes we might be able to find the proof. The cops were onto me. By now they'd have my prints. They'd know that Cade Foster was alive. We had to go back in. And this time we were taking Eddie with us. “Still At Large” Writer: Gary Sherman Director: Ken Girotti Executive Producers: Francis Ford Coppola, Larry Sugar Created by: Chris Brancato |
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