It was a wonder our eardrums didn’t shatter. The level of sound the Police Chief managed to produce could have shattered all the glass in a mile-wide radius. His face was red. In short, he hadn’t responded well when we had asked him to get the press involved in the search.
Petra continued trying to convince him. “Look, Chief, we need to make a trap of our own for whoever is helping this guy, and by using the press we may be able to force him to make a mistake. We have been following the path this jerk had laid for us, blindly, like sheep. And what good did it do us? We still know nothing.”
His face was still a mask of anger and disgust. “And what exactly can the leeches of the press do to help that?” he asked, giving us a vile look.
“They can help by doing what they do best,” I said calmly. “Lie, exaggerate and whip the people up into a city-wide frenzy. Mothers will keep their daughters at home or send them out with a friend. Whoever is helping our murderer is bound to mess up sooner or later, and when he does we will come down on him like a gargoyle on a dove.”
He looked at me and stood up. “The idea is solid, but we have no idea what will happen if we do that. The press does not like to be used like that,” he said.
Petra slammed her hands down on his desk. “Fuck the press! Since when do we not do something because they won’t like it? That is bullshit. We will tell them what we know – not all, of course, but enough to get them interested – and if they don’t like the fact that they are doing something for us then fuck them.”
His face turned even redder as he glared at her. “Do you want me to suspend you, Officer Petra? You do not have the right to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, is that clear?” he shouted back.
Standing on opposite sides of the desk, glowering at each other, they looked more like two dogs fighting for the alpha spot, rather than a human and an angel who worked together. “Well maybe somebody shouldbe telling you what to do,” I said. “You haven’t exactly been helpful; you shoved the case off to us and that’s it, it is like you flipped the switch on a doomsday device and got the hell out of town.”
“And you,” he shouted, turning to me, “I should have you arrested, for insulting a senior police officer.”
I smiled at him calmly; he didn’t scare me one bit. “Go ahead and arrest me, but know this: the moment you do that I will use my one phone call to contact the press and turn this into a clusterfuck beyond comparison. So instead of working against us I think it would be better if you got off your fat ass, forgot about your hatred toward the press, keep your threats to yourself and help us out.”
The lackluster behavior of the humans was legendary. They called it bureaucracy, which as far as I could see meant a lot of talking about taking action but never actually taking it. And he was demonstrating this to a sickening level today. The Chief looked stunned by what I had said. Petra sat down and looked at him.
“She is right, you know,” she said. The Chief just stood there. “So what are you going to do?” Petra asked as she leaned back in her chair.
The Chief glared at her, then closed his eyes and sighed. “Arrange a press conference.”  

Next Chapter: The Press conference