Trattoria Romana was one of the highest-rated Italian spots on Staten Island. Riley had done his homework. His last first date had been about as bad as they came, and even though he knew Samantha wasn’t going to drink herself silly, he still wanted to find just the right place. He’d arrived via the Staten Island Ferry at three o’clock, ready to go over some business, but he had ulterior motives to his visit as well, all involving the beautiful woman he’d met serendipitously on a bagel store line.

He was surprised that Samantha had agreed to meet him on the island for dinner at 8:00 pm. It was a little bit of a hike, but she’d agreed without any argument, and told Riley that she was taking the 7:00 pm ferry over, which gave him a few hours of pure police time with Emily before shifting his attention to Samantha. He took an Uber to Emily’s house, where she met him outside. “So how do you like it on this part of the island?”

“The verdict is still out,” Riley joked. “But ask me again another time.”

“Fair enough. Come in.” 

“Thanks.” Normally a meeting like this would have taken place at a precinct of some sort, but the fact that it was happening at a detective’s home spoke volumes about what the brass thought of this case, and what they thought of Detective Curtis. “Nice place,” he said. “Bigger than I’d expect on a detective’s salary.”

“It was my parents,” she said. “I could never have afforded this place on my own.”

Riley didn’t ask anything more. He wanted to, but the way she’d brought up the subject of her parents and then dropped it, made him not want to pry any further. “Well it’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. I grew up here.”

Emily led him into a back room that Riley could tell use to be a library of some sort. It had built in book shelves that were now either empty, or crammed with police files of one kind or another. The architecture was beautiful, but the room, like some of the rest of the house, seemed to have fallen into disrepair over the years. Emily didn’t seem the domestic sort, rather she seemed like the obsessed-about-her-job sort, which made her a great detective and a lousy host at the same time. “Come sit.”

Riley sat at a long, wooden table that had four boxes crammed with files on top of it. It looked like she had an entire evidence room at her disposal. Files upon files were crammed into those tiny cardboard boxes, each one representing the case of a different one of the murder victims. “This is a lot,” he said. “Where do we even start?”

“How long do you have?” she asked.

“I have to meet a friend for dinner at 8 at Trattoria Romana.”

“Good food,” she said. “And when is your friend coming in? I assume she’s not local.”

“And you assume that she is a she, also.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “A guy then? I didn’t get the gay read from you.”

“You got me. It’s a woman. Samantha.”

“Pretty name. I’ll make it work. I even put on a pot of coffee for us.”

“You’re the best.”

Emily went to get the coffee and left Riley with enough paperwork to drown in. He imagined that the meticulous organization of these files was for his benefit. He could picture them spread out all over the huge table, taped to the walls, and sitting on Emily’s nightstand as she obsessed over them before dozing off to sleep. He grabbed a file from the first box and started paging through it as Emily was grabbing some much needed caffeine. 

“That shit will keep you up at night. I know it does for me.”

“First case like this?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you been on the job?”

“Five years as a detective.”

“You’re a baby,” he joked. “I remember that time.”

“Don’t feel like a baby. Especially on cases like this. I feel like I’m seeing things no one else will ever see.”

“You are,” Riley said. “Don’t ever think otherwise.

They sat down and started looking through the materials together. Riley noticed that Emily brought cups of coffee for both of them this time. He supposed that she needed a little boost to be able to handle all of this horror. She was right, it was more than most people would ever see in their lives outside of a documentary or a movie. All things considered, she was doing well for five years in. They sat together for a few hours, taking the occasional break to talk about normal stuff, but otherwise going case by case through the four murders. It was exactly as she’d described. They were killed at regular intervals, in similar geographies, and in similar manners to the Ripper’s Canonical victims, which only left one obvious question for Riley. 

“When was the last murder?”

“A week ago today. We found the bodies a few miles apart, as he planned, I’m sure. Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked her. “The Ripper’s last victim was killed nine days after the double event. And if that holds true, if he’s a true copycat, then that means in two days there’s going to be another murder.”

“Fuck me,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. And, if I remember correctly, the last Canonical victim was killed inside her home, not on the street like the others.”

“That’s right.”

“So that means. . .”

“We need to pound the pavement and start talking to the sex workers of this community.”

“We start tomorrow?”

“Bright and early.”

Riley had an appointment with a friend in the morning, but after that he’d be on a ferry back to Staten Island. “How does 10:00 sound?”

“Perfect.”

They shook hands and Riley left to meet Samantha. He wasn’t sure where this case was headed, but he knew that he only had 48 hours to find out, one way or the other.