Unlike some of my neighbours, this was my first time in a police station. I have to admit to being a bit nervous sitting here - who wouldn’t be? These pokey little interview rooms are just as intimidating as they look on TV. I was delighted to be asked to help the police with their enquiries. Well, I’d been banging on at them to do something for months. The first few times I called I was given the brush off, but finally an officer came to the door to take a statement. Nothing happened of course, and I might as well have been talking to myself. Seemingly my Facebook post was the “final straw” and had galvanised them into taking action which is why they have called me in to help. Ever since that business at work last year, I’ve been struggling to fill my days at home. It’s nice to be needed again and have something useful to contribute. The younger of the two policemen is actually a policewoman, but I’m told “police officer” is what they prefer now. She leans forward and smiles at me, but it’s not a sincere smile. More of a self-satisfied grin. “ Why don’t tell us about the relationship between you and your neighbours, ” she says and leans back in her chair with her arms folded. “ Well, I’ve tried to do that on numerous occasions but nobody seems to want to hear.” Even though I’m offended at her silly smirk and raised eyebrow, I can’t help feeling pleased that at long last somebody wants to listen and take my side. I go through the whole story and it feels good to let the police know what a menace these people have become to our community. I list the numerous ways they have refused to fit in and I go into great detail about the efforts I’ve made to keep the peace. “ It’s intimidation, Mrs Clark,” she says. “Breach of the peace, criminal damage and possibly common assault.” “ At last!” I say and let out a huge sigh of relief. “ You don't know how long I’ve waited to hear somebody say that!” I’ve watched enough Vera’s to know this is the bit where they should ask me if I want to go ahead and press charges, but they both just sit staring at me and making me feel uncomfortable…like I’m the criminal here!

“Let me get this straight, ma’am. Your girl, I’m sorry, your wife is missing, been gone since 11:30 last night. Now did you say you two were fighting on the phone, no not fighting just having words. Having words, having words about what ma’am? No no offense, I’m trying to understand get a complete picture. Ok ok, you were talking to your friend sorry wife as she was leaving the Speedy Nines. She said there was a car circling the block. Did she describe the car? Good, very detailed. And the license number? Got it. You were talking and then your roommate screamed. And then you called the police. Listen ma’am sometimes people just go.They’re adults. Roomies fight and need a few days to cool off. If you want my advice, wait a couple of hours then call one of her girlfriends. She probably drinking margaritas with her besties. Hey, hey. She hung up. Some people are so dramatic.”

⛈️IMPORTANT PLEASE READ⛈️

⁉️🤷‍♀️WHAT ARE YOU DOING?🤷‍♀️⁉️

🌻FOLLOW🌻

🌵🥰JAYCIE🥰🌵

🕦RIGHT NOW!👇

👍LIKE HER POSTS!👍

🙆‍♀️SHE NEEDS TO MAKE FEATURED🙆‍♀️

😍JUST READ ONE STORY U WONT REGRET IT!😱

🌌🌄PLEASE MAKE HER DAY🌄🌌

👯🏼‍♀️SHE DOES SO MUCH FOR ME👯🏼‍♀️

💜LEMME DO SOMETHING FOR💜

🌵🦤💅🌻HER🌻💅🦤🌵

i’m so good at fake crying! I think to myself. It’s a good thing too, because I really need to find that transformer. Optimus prime, the coolest one. I don’t quite remember when I lost it, but I think, it was the same day that the police came to our house. Mama says it has to be at the house somewhere and stop bugging her, because she has too much on her mind already. Daddy just yells at me every time I ask.

Last week, people kept stealing stuff from us. AND our car. And then they came and stole other stuff, and, uh… I forgot. But yesterday, I made a new friend. His name is Joe. He has A car with lights on top!

I’m about to ask Mom again, but then we hear a big boom, and our window breaks! Cool! I run over to go see, but mama holds me back. Is it dangerous? I ask her, grinning excitedly.

She runs upstairs with me, and we hide in the closet. Dada looks scary, AND scared. Isn’t that crazy! But anyway I found my transformer in The closet. So, the end!

“So, tell us” a voice said from the dark, “What happened that night?”

“You know that I’m not going to speak about it.” I said smirking as he slammed his hand on the table.

“We know that you were there, what’s the point of hiding it!” “Acting like this will just get you into just as much trouble as he is!!” Officer Lin yelled.

“He moved” I said calmly, “Your never going to find him.”

“How are you so sure about that?”

“Well Lin, I’m never sure about anything.” I said, “Though there is one person you can talk to, for a lead on him.”

“Write it down.” The officer scoffed as he set the paper and pen down harshly.

The silence filled the room and the glare from behind the window added to it all. “Why am I even here? I only met the guy last night, what much could I say about him?” I yelled, as I lost it.

“Your here because, you, Dix Mckolf, we’re the last one with him!”

“Here, the address is on the paper and so is this guys name.?” I spat, “Are you happy now?”

Now here I am, left in this cell. It’s not as bad as I imagined, I could get used to this. Minutes passed, and while I finally got comfortable, the chaos had finally started.

“Ring ring ring”

“Someone pick up the damn phone!” Yelled a lady behind the desk. “I’m on it Ma’am!” A girl yelled running past me.

Her hair was long and golden, in a pair of braids. Bright blue-green eyes that lit up the room. A smile that was contagious. You could just get lost in her beauty.

Why was she working in such a place like this? Where she could get hurt or even worse die?

As she picked up the phone l, I felt my stomach ache. I knew what it was about, so why do I feel this way?

“Sir!” She yelled. “Officer Lin has been shot and abducted!”

“Where was he at?” The lanky man questioned.

It all became silent I couldn’t hear anything, yet I knew what hey were saying. This is what was destined to happen, I agreed to it. So why have guilt about it?

“I’m heading there right now sir!” Yelled the girl, as she left.

“You did this!” The guy yelled, “You set him up, you knew this would happen!” He so attached to officer Lin, I wonder what their connection is. Family, friends, or could they be lovers? Well I guess I’ll never know.

“Look at me while I’m talking to you, you hear me!?” He yelled once again. “You don’t get to feel sad and regret everything now, you did this to yourself!”

Blah blah blah, does he really think I’ll listen to him?

“ Look at me!”

“Hahahahha” I chuckled as I slowly lifted my head. It became quieter. You could only hear the laughs that left my mouth. “I’m looking at you just like you asked, why do you seem so startled?” I asked with a smirk.

“You.” He glared back. “You won’t get away with this!”

“Oh but I already have, and this is only the beginning.”

As expected that cops came the next morning. His job most likely called when he hadn’t showed up to work this morning, 5 days in a row was odd.

“Sir, we just need to ask you a few questions regarding your husband” the policeman said.

Thinking to myself, I want to say ‘he was tasty, what about him’ but instead I hid my chuckle.

“Sure, come on in. Is everything ok” I responded

“It looks like his office is worried that he hasn’t been in in five days and we were wondering if you heard from him, it’s odd that you had not called in him missing, are you aware of anything?” he went on and on, this was obviously his first day. It took everything in me to not laugh.

“No officer, I thought he was on a work trip” I replied, trying to get him out of my house. The second I responded he heard a noise in the back room. He tries to walk around the house in search of the noise.

Grabbing the hammer behind the closet door, I follow him quietly “I was just going to make dinner, please let me have you for dinner”.

The police came round today. There was a murder. It was just my best friends. I pushed her down the stairs. I killed her. Just kidding! she farted. But in a way, I killed her for it. But it wasn’t murder. Instead, we snorted our brains out like preschoolers over it. I guess even age doesn't change our sense of humour. Or how much our relationship really means to me. Or how much it annoys me when she polices me because she's a police officer. But I still love her. And I guess you could say she’s worth killing for. Love you bestie x

:)

“Trust me! Just shave it off!” Detective Black was determined.

“Liam this is highly unorthodox.” Protested the medical examiner.

“I have a hunch this John Doe wasn’t just another vagrant Dean.”

“Unorthodox or not, he’s dead. Let’s just indulge him.” detective Krane chimed in, “Liam here got me curious as fuck now.”

“Whatever you say.” The medical examiner reached for the shaver, shaking his head in protest as he shaved the cadaver’s left eye brow.

“There!” Detective Black exclaimed, vindicated, “I knew it!”

The detective pointed to the tattoo of a numbered code that was hidden under the dead man’s brow.

“Peculiar…” sighed the medical examiner, “This is the second body with a similar tattoo you boys bring here.”

“I don’t know how you do it Liam.” Kramer laughed in disbelief, “What do you make of it all?”

Detective Black stared into space, concentrating on the wall behind his partner and the medical examiner.

“Detective Black?” The medical examiner attempted to catch the detective’s attention, but the man seemed to be in a trance.

“Liam!” the younger detective shook his partner, “Snap out of it!”

“Sorry, I…” the man shook his head, as if losing his train of thought, “What were we taking about?”

“The tattoos, you think it’s some sort of code? Cult? Intelligence?” Kramer asked.

“I…I’m not sure.”

“How did you know he’d have a tattoo as well?” asked the medical examiner.

“I have to go.” the older detective ran out.

“What’s with your partner Kramer?”

“I have no clue.”

“Leave me alone!” Detective Black sat in his car, gun drawn, eyes bloodshot from crying. He kept whispering for the voices to leave him be.

“You know this is bigger than you!” said the voice of his president ex-wife Melody.

“You’re not real! You’re not real! You died! You died…” Liam Black’s voice trailed away into his tears.

“But I’m right here.” Melody tapped Liam’s shoulder.

Frightened, Liam pointed his gun at the apparition of his deceased wife.

“Go away! You’re not real!” Liam felt as though he was going mad! First the voices, now the visions.

“There’s only one way out!” Liam wrapped his mouth around the barrel of his gun, determined to stop his insanity from progressing. Was he insane though, his doubts kept reverberating underneath his fears. After all, these voices have given him many breaks to some of the departments cold cases. Blessing and a curse, Liam thought.

He bit hard on the barrel and began to count in his mind. That’s it! On three!

There was a sharp knock on his car window, followed by the muffled voice of his partner.

“Liam! What the fuck!” Detective Kramer opened the car door, “Give me the gun Liam!”

The older man hesitated, but ultimately gave in as he burst into tears.

“You need to talk to a professional man. What’s going on with you?”

Det. Debra Worthington opened the door of her unmarked, grabbing the gun from the passenger’s seat and holstering it as she got out of the car. She had gotten the call on her work phone to go talk to Slim Teason because he said he had some information for her about the murder and needed to see her right away.

“Where are you?” Debra asked, inwardly groaning. Slim was one of the street informants that she had nurtured over the years, but he could be a real pain in the behind.

“Regular spot. You know. On Third.” Slim was already slurring his words, and Debra knew that “regular spot” was Buddy’s Bar and that most likely Slim had been there most of the afternoon and Buddy had plied him with a good many PBR’s by now.

Despite her misgivings that Slim had anything to report, she knew she ought to follow up on his call, so here she was. This was the tedium of police work; the bits and pieces of information that had to be investigated and duly noted in her notes when she got back to the station. It didn’t matter if Slim mostly just blathered on, once in a while he actually had heard some street talk that had proved useful, and Debra needed all the help she could get on this case. The victim was a prominent attorney, the daughter of a state legislator, and had been found shot to death in her office a week ago. There was nothing in her office besides her and the bullet in her forehead that had given them even a clue as to why someone had taken her out. On the surface, she was a good tax attorney but had never had any clients connected to any criminal activity. She had been married, no kids, and she and her husband were known philanthropists who donated to several arts groups in the city. The husband was a surgeon and well respected by his colleagues and the staff at Mercy Hospital.

But the victim was dead and usually people didn’t get shot in the head unless the killer had a motive. Debra just had to figure out who had that motive.

“Hey there, you.” Slim waved to her from his corner bar stool when Debra walked in. Buddy, working the bar, nodded at her and then went back to wiping glasses. “I got some news for ya!” Slim was, as she had suspected, pretty far gone into Pabst Blue Ribbon lalaland, his eyelids halfway down his eyes, and his elbows propped on the bar which most likely because he was having problems not sliding off the stool.

Debra walked over and sat on the stool next to him, and Buddy raised his eyebrows at her and then brought her a glass of soda water with a slice of lime and set it down in front of her.

“Thanks, Buddy,” she said and took a long sip before turning to Slim. “So what’s up, Slim.”

“Told ya. I got info. You want it, you buy.” He gestured to the lineup of beer cans in front of him. Debra counted seven, but for Slim, that was taking it easy on the drinking.

“Put two on me,” Debra said to Buddy and then turned back to Slim. “Okay, so what did you drag me down here to tell me? It better be good, Slim, because I am up to my ears in work and pressure to figure out why Alexa DuMont is in the morgue.”

“Heard her husband had a tootie on the side.” Slim grinned at her, showing the few teeth he still had in his head, and taking another drink from his beer. “I got a cousin who cleans at Mercy, and she says it was a known fact the good doctor was stepping out with one of the nurses.”

“Uh-huh. And this cousin actually saw them together?”

“You know it’s not like that.”

“So what’s it like?”

“Hospital gossip. But my cousin says everyone says it.”

“What’s your cousin’s name? I’ll need to talk to her, find out what she thinks she knows.”

“Her name?”

Debra stared at Slim and shook her head. “Do you actually have a cousin who works at Mercy, Slim?”

Slim stared back. She could see his besotted brain trying to figure out what to say, but he finally just put his head down on the bar and Debra could hear him snoring. She looked at Buddy who was grinning, and Debra had the urge to smack them both, but she stood and threw a couple of tens on the counter. What a colossal waste of time, was what she was thinking as she stood up and began to walk to the door. She almost got there when Buddy called out to her

“Hey! Deb! If it is any consolation and if you want to check it out, Slim really does have some type of cousin three times removed on his mother’s side and she does have a job at Mercy. Her name is Letitia Jameson.”

“Thanks, Buddy. Why do I think this is another go-nowhere tip?”

Buddy just laughed. “You never know. You just never know.”

“True that.”

She pulled open the door and headed to her car, knowing in spite of her gut instincts she would go to Mercy and do some discreet asking around about both this Cousin Letitia and the good doctor. One never knew. Just never knew.

When the police came I led them into the woods, where the person was lay half submerged in the lake.

They began putting tape up immediately, taking photographs and calling other officers, leaving me by a tree as I really let the situation sink in.

I had been on a morning walk when I suddenly needed to pee, so, feeling urgent, I dashed into the bushes and did what I had to do.

Then I noticed a smell… It wasn’t like skunk, or bear scat, it was worse!

Reluctantly, I followed my nose and found the poor victim!

I alerted another walker in panic and he called the police. The other guy had been talking to the investigator for some time, and I wondered, when they would talk to me? The walker came over and sat beside me. I looked at him worriedly. “It’ll be okay.” He said.

Eventually, a few hours later, they took the body away and an officer came over. He gave me a long look. “Good girl. We’d better start looking for your owners, huh?”

I wagged my tail.