Tensions rise within the Serial Killer Crime Unit as Panetta grapples with internal conflicts, team dysfunction, and a chilling new lead in Eva Levi’s murder
Panetta stood by the glass door, flexing his fingers and watching his team. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all. The Serial Killer Crime Unit had sucked out all his joy in the past three years. He wondered if he ever felt happy after he started working here. If he could choose where to be now, he’d stay in his peaceful Delft forever, but because of his family, he had to move to a bigger city with so-called ‘promising growth opportunities.’ His wife, Anna, suggested relocating to the capital, explaining that there were ‘much better chances for their daughters’ in a larger city. He hated to admit it, but she was right.
Panetta had three daughters, but he always dreamed of a son, of a successor to the family, of male support, of someone who would be his little reflection. Fate decreed otherwise: it pushed him to his neck into a flowerbed of female blah, blah, between bright outfits and constant tears.
Panetta
He sighed, returning to reality. Then he put on his glasses and, still standing, opened an autopsy report from Enni Hakala on his desk. According to the document, the victim (Eva Levy) had been assaulted by two individuals, sustaining a stab wound to the neck with a broken bottle. The cause of death was a deep stab wound to the neck via vasovagal inhibition and parasympathetic nervous system stimulation. The trachea and bronchi contained no exudate or blood, but there was a hematoma near the vagus nerve trunk and its branches. The toxicology report stated the victim was drugged with ketamine. The hands were burned, but the victim wasn’t sexually assaulted.
Panetta grimaced after reading a file as if he had eaten a lemon. He re-read the document repeatedly, but nothing indicated any similarities to a previous case beyond the shaved eyebrows and burnt hands.
He moved closer to the glass wall again, studying his team. Zanna was a completely new agent and had not yet proven herself sufficiently. He knew she had found a connection between Maryssa and Gail’s daughter, which at first alerted him because he did not want his employees to delve into each other’s dirty laundry. And there was enough dirt… He knew this better than anyone else.
Panetta’s eyes followed Gail, who sat by the window and spoke on the phone. Gail was an old-school police officer, but despite his epic undercover work in Rotterdam, his son was the leader of a gangster group in the Bijmermeer district. Panetta ignored this because Gail had been his golden goose in case he needed to find information. Still, it became more difficult to cover it up every year. Panetta wanted to work in peace, but with his constant unshaven face and lousy breath, Gail reduced those opportunities to zero.
The laughter distracted Panneta from his thoughts. It was Rocco Benedetti. He stood near the new laser printer, flirting with Zanna.
This guy has gone completely crazy! She has a child, and he has a fiancée. Where is this world going… The chief inspector snorted, then opened the door and shouted, "Rocco, my office!”
A pretty smiling face in a green beanie entered the room of annoyance. The chief inspector invited Rocco to sit across from him. Not knowing how to start the conversation, Panetta jumped up and grabbed an autopsy report.
Rocco Benedetti
“I have a few questions, Rocco. First, if you don’t stop pestering the girls during work hours, I’ll instantly…do you hear me? Instantly…” Panetta couldn’t finish; his hoarse voice broke off, and he fell into a chair. Having met Rocco’s excited eyes too close to his face, he waved his hands and whispered, “Go back to your seat. I’m absolutely fine.”
“What was the second matter you wanted to discuss?” Rocco felt awkward.
“Any development on Eva Levy’s murder? Or should I draw down my trousers and go to ask for help Eggart?” Panetta answered.
The problem was that the man who showed up at Eva Levy’s apartment wasn’t her husband. When Nura got back to the office the following day, she was introduced to the man who turned out to be the victim’s real husband. Nura was devastated, and the whole team saw it. Because of her stupid mistake, the investigation was thrown back again.
“We are still trying to establish who that man was. I went to the Miles2Go Art and Design Gallery this morning and spoke with Eva’s colleague and co-owner, Gloria Berkenbosch, and she told me that Eva hadn’t been at the store last week. Gloria claims that Eva called her and asked to take a break from work because she felt under the weather. We are checking her story and tracing that call. I asked her about the husband, and she confirmed his description. The man Nura met at the apartment was only an imposter.”
“The man was our murderer! And you let him go, Rocco!” Panetta shouted.
“But I wasn’t even there, sir…”
“Exactly my point. You weren’t! And I have my own theory about that, okay?...”
Panetta pushed two crime-scene photos across his desk toward Rocco and said, “It’s been twenty-four hours. Focus on the man who did it, and you’ll find the one who murdered Maryssa Goldsmyth, too. Stop being distracted by each skirt you see. I’m not immortal… My position will be free in two years. Do we understand each other?”
“What about Nura and Gail?”
“What about her? She is a woman, and Eggart doesn’t like her. Gail is too ancient. He should retire in four or five years.”
Panetta ended the conversation and asked Rocco to leave him alone, but to report the slightest change in the current investigation.
Rocco opened the door, and the humming sound of constant calls and chatter hit Panetta’s ears. The chief inspector observed his detective go to his desk, check some papers, and answer a call.
Everybody at the unit knew that Detective Cocasse had invited Maryssa’s mother to the station to be questioned again. Only this time, it was official, which naturally threatened the unit's existence since Goldsmyth’s family was well known in the royal circles. With a heavy heart, Panetta stood up and walked around his chair, nervously moving his lips. He knew that Eggart would do his best to prevent this questioning from happening since Lydia Goldsmyth was a part of his family. And you always protect your family.
Panetta circled his room, dreaming about the upcoming weekend. He approached the glass wall and noticed Nura Cocasse's thoughtful figure. She was standing not so far from him, with her back turned to his room. Panetta frowned; he couldn’t understand how she could make such a stupid mistake. In recent months, he had noticed a certain detachment in her work and internal tension in Nura’s actions. It seemed she was trapped in such a lump that if he tried to unravel this lump or shake it, it would explode immediately. That feeling frightened Panetta.
Perhaps the reason for Nura’s mental state was the recent death of her sister. After all, she asked for a transfer from Leon to Amsterdam because her younger sister began studying at the university. She didn’t expect her to die…
Panetta tapped on the glass and saw how Nura flinched, and without giving it much thought, he pointed to a sofa in the corner of his office, inviting her inside.
“No news yet, but we are ready for interrogation. Goldsmyth’s lawyer has already arrived. Looks pretty angry, sir. It seems Rocco can’t sit for questioning, so it will be Gail and me this time,” Nura reported as soon as she stepped in.
“Let Gail do the talking. Let him scare that lawyer a little, so to speak…How are you, Nura?”
“Okay, I guess, considering it was my mistake… I mean, I should ask him for identification. I don’t know why I assumed he was a victim’s husband.” Nura paused, remembering the situation. “Why did he do it? It should be made with some kind of purpose.”
“Let me hear what you think. I see you have a theory, Cocasse.”
“Let’s imagine there’s a group of people connected by friendship or by darker motives we can’t even imagine,” Nura stopped, checking the reaction of her boss.
“You mean there’s not one, but a group of serial killers?” Panetta was terrified by the idea. He stared at Nura uneasily. “The next week is the TSM Marathon; we can’t allow a group of murderers to gallop around Amsterdam.”
“No. This is not what I’m trying to say. I think the mastermind behind these murders, I mean all of them—in Bern, Stockholm, and here—is one person. But he or she got help on the way…”
Panetta crossed his arms and shook his head in wonder.
“I believe the killer’s actions symbolize something that happened to him a long time ago. So, my take is that we have to go back to the first murder, sir,” Nura finished and looked at the giant digital display above Panneta’s chair. It said 2:14 p.m.
“I see you don’t sleep much. What’s going on with you lately, Nura?” Panetta had changed the topic. He saw how Nura’s cheeks flushed, how she absent-mindedly clenched her fists, how she stood up and went for the door, then stopped at the doorway, looked down at the floor with an empty face, and said, “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like ‘nothing’ to me.”
A loud laugh stopped Panetta from further digging into the mental state of his best detective. The door opened, and Gail proclaimed while holding a document in his hand, “We found him. Enni checked all fingerprints and found him in the international database. He was in the apartment during the murder; she is 100 percent positive. And there’s more. She found a fragment of skin and some fabric under Eva Levy’s nails. It matches our impostor. Here he is—Philip Burns.”
“Show me his photo,” Nura said.
From the photo glared a clean-shaved face with small dark eyes and a somewhat wild excitement in his posture.
“Good job. Now we have to find him,” Panetta cut short.
“Exactly,” Nura said in a louder, more excited tone, throwing herself out of the room. Gail managed to escape the crashing somehow, and with a sinister smile—showing all his teeth covered in an orange tint—he made a significant remark, “Even gravity can’t stop us from catching this killer, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah…I hear you. I want all the physical evidence associated with this acting brute and the details of all four murders: Bern, Stockholm, and here on my table. Tell Enni to test all the bloodstains from Maryssa’s site again. I need to know if he was there, too,” Panetta replied.
“He wasn’t. I already checked,” a voice behind Gail’s back said.
It was Enni Hakala. Gail's arm blocked the entrance to the room. Enni pushed it aside, went to the sofa, and sat there with her hands behind her head.
“Gail, listen. Before you go…We need to talk with Augusta. When is she coming to the station? It is urgent,” Panetta said, pretending he didn’t notice a strange grin on the pathologist’s face.
“This afternoon. I’d like to ask for a favor.”
“No. The answer is no. If you want to know why, I’ll tell you. Because you are a police officer, you should serve the people on the streets and not hide the facts from the current investigation only because your daughter knew or met the victim. Her statement could be crucial, Gail.” Panetta stopped him mid-sentence. “And be thankful I didn’t kick you out of the SKCU right away…I need all the brains I can get. Now go, I have to chat with Enni.”
When Gail closed the door, Enni shook her head and chuckled, “Brains?”
“You have no imagination, Enni. That was my psychological move to set him to work more and harder.” Panetta laughed.
He and Enni were old friends. He was the one who advised Commissioner Eggert to transfer Enni Hakala from Espoo to Amsterdam.
“What he needs is a detox week, not a vanity complex. You are spoiling him. All of them.”
“But they are good at catching serial killers, aren’t they?” Panetta went to a small table near a bookshelf and tapped on the bottle of the mulled wine. “Want some? Anna made it for me.”
Enni thought for a moment, then agreed, “Your wife is an angel. I’ll take a double.”
“I thought so…You can’t just hang around here all day without trying Anna’s mulled wine."
Next post - Endless Faces of Immortality: A Deep Dive into the Paradox of our Desire to Escape Death.
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Mathilde Kschessinska didn’t just dance for the Romanovs - she moved straight through their bedrooms, their revolutions, and their collapse. Ballerina, mistress, exile and teacher, she outlived the empire that made and nearly destroyed her.
This post is a humorous, science-informed guide to “cleaning” your overloaded brain by cutting junk inputs, dealing with toxic relationships, and simplifying your inner narrative.
CHAPTER 12.
Panetta stood by the glass door, flexing his fingers and watching his team. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all. The Serial Killer Crime Unit had sucked out all his joy in the past three years. He wondered if he ever felt happy after he started working here. If he could choose where to be now, he’d stay in his peaceful Delft forever, but because of his family, he had to move to a bigger city with so-called ‘promising growth opportunities.’ His wife, Anna, suggested relocating to the capital, explaining that there were ‘much better chances for their daughters’ in a larger city. He hated to admit it, but she was right.
Panetta had three daughters, but he always dreamed of a son, of a successor to the family, of male support, of someone who would be his little reflection. Fate decreed otherwise: it pushed him to his neck into a flowerbed of female blah, blah, between bright outfits and constant tears.
He sighed, returning to reality. Then he put on his glasses and, still standing, opened an autopsy report from Enni Hakala on his desk. According to the document, the victim (Eva Levy) had been assaulted by two individuals, sustaining a stab wound to the neck with a broken bottle. The cause of death was a deep stab wound to the neck via vasovagal inhibition and parasympathetic nervous system stimulation. The trachea and bronchi contained no exudate or blood, but there was a hematoma near the vagus nerve trunk and its branches. The toxicology report stated the victim was drugged with ketamine. The hands were burned, but the victim wasn’t sexually assaulted.
Panetta grimaced after reading a file as if he had eaten a lemon. He re-read the document repeatedly, but nothing indicated any similarities to a previous case beyond the shaved eyebrows and burnt hands.
He moved closer to the glass wall again, studying his team. Zanna was a completely new agent and had not yet proven herself sufficiently. He knew she had found a connection between Maryssa and Gail’s daughter, which at first alerted him because he did not want his employees to delve into each other’s dirty laundry. And there was enough dirt… He knew this better than anyone else.
Panetta’s eyes followed Gail, who sat by the window and spoke on the phone. Gail was an old-school police officer, but despite his epic undercover work in Rotterdam, his son was the leader of a gangster group in the Bijmermeer district. Panetta ignored this because Gail had been his golden goose in case he needed to find information. Still, it became more difficult to cover it up every year. Panetta wanted to work in peace, but with his constant unshaven face and lousy breath, Gail reduced those opportunities to zero.
The laughter distracted Panneta from his thoughts. It was Rocco Benedetti. He stood near the new laser printer, flirting with Zanna.
This guy has gone completely crazy! She has a child, and he has a fiancée. Where is this world going… The chief inspector snorted, then opened the door and shouted, "Rocco, my office!”
A pretty smiling face in a green beanie entered the room of annoyance. The chief inspector invited Rocco to sit across from him. Not knowing how to start the conversation, Panetta jumped up and grabbed an autopsy report.
“I have a few questions, Rocco. First, if you don’t stop pestering the girls during work hours, I’ll instantly…do you hear me? Instantly…” Panetta couldn’t finish; his hoarse voice broke off, and he fell into a chair. Having met Rocco’s excited eyes too close to his face, he waved his hands and whispered, “Go back to your seat. I’m absolutely fine.”
“What was the second matter you wanted to discuss?” Rocco felt awkward.
“Any development on Eva Levy’s murder? Or should I draw down my trousers and go to ask for help Eggart?” Panetta answered.
The problem was that the man who showed up at Eva Levy’s apartment wasn’t her husband. When Nura got back to the office the following day, she was introduced to the man who turned out to be the victim’s real husband. Nura was devastated, and the whole team saw it. Because of her stupid mistake, the investigation was thrown back again.
“We are still trying to establish who that man was. I went to the Miles2Go Art and Design Gallery this morning and spoke with Eva’s colleague and co-owner, Gloria Berkenbosch, and she told me that Eva hadn’t been at the store last week. Gloria claims that Eva called her and asked to take a break from work because she felt under the weather. We are checking her story and tracing that call. I asked her about the husband, and she confirmed his description. The man Nura met at the apartment was only an imposter.”
“The man was our murderer! And you let him go, Rocco!” Panetta shouted.
“But I wasn’t even there, sir…”
“Exactly my point. You weren’t! And I have my own theory about that, okay?...”
Panetta pushed two crime-scene photos across his desk toward Rocco and said, “It’s been twenty-four hours. Focus on the man who did it, and you’ll find the one who murdered Maryssa Goldsmyth, too. Stop being distracted by each skirt you see. I’m not immortal… My position will be free in two years. Do we understand each other?”
“What about Nura and Gail?”
“What about her? She is a woman, and Eggart doesn’t like her. Gail is too ancient. He should retire in four or five years.”
Panetta ended the conversation and asked Rocco to leave him alone, but to report the slightest change in the current investigation.
Rocco opened the door, and the humming sound of constant calls and chatter hit Panetta’s ears. The chief inspector observed his detective go to his desk, check some papers, and answer a call.
Everybody at the unit knew that Detective Cocasse had invited Maryssa’s mother to the station to be questioned again. Only this time, it was official, which naturally threatened the unit's existence since Goldsmyth’s family was well known in the royal circles. With a heavy heart, Panetta stood up and walked around his chair, nervously moving his lips. He knew that Eggart would do his best to prevent this questioning from happening since Lydia Goldsmyth was a part of his family. And you always protect your family.
Panetta circled his room, dreaming about the upcoming weekend. He approached the glass wall and noticed Nura Cocasse's thoughtful figure. She was standing not so far from him, with her back turned to his room. Panetta frowned; he couldn’t understand how she could make such a stupid mistake. In recent months, he had noticed a certain detachment in her work and internal tension in Nura’s actions. It seemed she was trapped in such a lump that if he tried to unravel this lump or shake it, it would explode immediately. That feeling frightened Panetta.
Perhaps the reason for Nura’s mental state was the recent death of her sister. After all, she asked for a transfer from Leon to Amsterdam because her younger sister began studying at the university. She didn’t expect her to die…
Panetta tapped on the glass and saw how Nura flinched, and without giving it much thought, he pointed to a sofa in the corner of his office, inviting her inside.
“No news yet, but we are ready for interrogation. Goldsmyth’s lawyer has already arrived. Looks pretty angry, sir. It seems Rocco can’t sit for questioning, so it will be Gail and me this time,” Nura reported as soon as she stepped in.
“Let Gail do the talking. Let him scare that lawyer a little, so to speak…How are you, Nura?”
“Okay, I guess, considering it was my mistake… I mean, I should ask him for identification. I don’t know why I assumed he was a victim’s husband.” Nura paused, remembering the situation. “Why did he do it? It should be made with some kind of purpose.”
“Let me hear what you think. I see you have a theory, Cocasse.”
“Let’s imagine there’s a group of people connected by friendship or by darker motives we can’t even imagine,” Nura stopped, checking the reaction of her boss.
“You mean there’s not one, but a group of serial killers?” Panetta was terrified by the idea. He stared at Nura uneasily. “The next week is the TSM Marathon; we can’t allow a group of murderers to gallop around Amsterdam.”
“No. This is not what I’m trying to say. I think the mastermind behind these murders, I mean all of them—in Bern, Stockholm, and here—is one person. But he or she got help on the way…”
Panetta crossed his arms and shook his head in wonder.
“I believe the killer’s actions symbolize something that happened to him a long time ago. So, my take is that we have to go back to the first murder, sir,” Nura finished and looked at the giant digital display above Panneta’s chair. It said 2:14 p.m.
“I see you don’t sleep much. What’s going on with you lately, Nura?” Panetta had changed the topic. He saw how Nura’s cheeks flushed, how she absent-mindedly clenched her fists, how she stood up and went for the door, then stopped at the doorway, looked down at the floor with an empty face, and said, “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like ‘nothing’ to me.”
A loud laugh stopped Panetta from further digging into the mental state of his best detective. The door opened, and Gail proclaimed while holding a document in his hand, “We found him. Enni checked all fingerprints and found him in the international database. He was in the apartment during the murder; she is 100 percent positive. And there’s more. She found a fragment of skin and some fabric under Eva Levy’s nails. It matches our impostor. Here he is—Philip Burns.”
“Show me his photo,” Nura said.
From the photo glared a clean-shaved face with small dark eyes and a somewhat wild excitement in his posture.
“Good job. Now we have to find him,” Panetta cut short.
“Exactly,” Nura said in a louder, more excited tone, throwing herself out of the room. Gail managed to escape the crashing somehow, and with a sinister smile—showing all his teeth covered in an orange tint—he made a significant remark, “Even gravity can’t stop us from catching this killer, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah…I hear you. I want all the physical evidence associated with this acting brute and the details of all four murders: Bern, Stockholm, and here on my table. Tell Enni to test all the bloodstains from Maryssa’s site again. I need to know if he was there, too,” Panetta replied.
“He wasn’t. I already checked,” a voice behind Gail’s back said.
It was Enni Hakala. Gail's arm blocked the entrance to the room. Enni pushed it aside, went to the sofa, and sat there with her hands behind her head.
“Gail, listen. Before you go…We need to talk with Augusta. When is she coming to the station? It is urgent,” Panetta said, pretending he didn’t notice a strange grin on the pathologist’s face.
“This afternoon. I’d like to ask for a favor.”
“No. The answer is no. If you want to know why, I’ll tell you. Because you are a police officer, you should serve the people on the streets and not hide the facts from the current investigation only because your daughter knew or met the victim. Her statement could be crucial, Gail.” Panetta stopped him mid-sentence. “And be thankful I didn’t kick you out of the SKCU right away…I need all the brains I can get. Now go, I have to chat with Enni.”
When Gail closed the door, Enni shook her head and chuckled, “Brains?”
“You have no imagination, Enni. That was my psychological move to set him to work more and harder.” Panetta laughed.
He and Enni were old friends. He was the one who advised Commissioner Eggert to transfer Enni Hakala from Espoo to Amsterdam.
“What he needs is a detox week, not a vanity complex. You are spoiling him. All of them.”
“But they are good at catching serial killers, aren’t they?” Panetta went to a small table near a bookshelf and tapped on the bottle of the mulled wine. “Want some? Anna made it for me.”
Enni thought for a moment, then agreed, “Your wife is an angel. I’ll take a double.”
“I thought so…You can’t just hang around here all day without trying Anna’s mulled wine."
Next post - Endless Faces of Immortality: A Deep Dive into the Paradox of our Desire to Escape Death.
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