Mirage

Chapter 2

It was an ungodly hour of the night yet the cameras flashing outside the headquarters could easily compensate for the Pudswany Sun. As if intent on treating those camera flashes as sunlight, the people in the police headquarters were going about their tasks with the same fervor as they would on a Tuesday morning.

It had only been a couple of hours since the macabre remains of an unidentified woman turned up outside the headquarters, creating panic amongst the police and people alike. The need to come up with an official statement was growing much like Detective Harrison's frustration. While he understood his hesitation in believing Meredith's Sight wouldn't have stopped the inevitable but the brief delay probably denied him a chance at catching a glimpse of a possible accomplice.

He pushed his rickety chair away from the desk and got up, surveying the augmenting bustle around him. A few new recruits or 'younglings' as he called them were trying their best to keep overenthusiastic reporters from breaching the headquarters. Dottie was running around with a thermos full of strong, hot coffee; an unnecessary activity in his opinion for sleep would be the last thing on anybody's mind that night.

Chief Kiefer, a burly mustachioed man of 60 was perusing through the reports provided by the autopsy lab, making a note of details he would reveal during the mid-night official statement. Dan Kiefer was appointed as the chief the same year Harrison joined the Pudswany force. As a hardened officer who spent his life putting the worse of humanity behind bars, Harrison wasn't surprised by his move to retire as Chief of a small town police force. While his tenure had been marked by repeated cases of robberies and drug deals gone awry, a few gruesome murders did manage to stain this otherwise peaceful fabric of his stay.

Harrison started outside the window gazing at the dull moon. It was a gloomy sky, just like that night.

'It takes a second for things to change, you know. A small aberration and the future is not the same.' Harrison wrapped his arms around her as she said this. He rested his head against her shoulder and leaned in. It was normal for her to talk about profound things aloud, she said it was the voices in her head that made her think differently but he never gave it much thought.

' You talk weird sometimes, but maybe that's why I like listening to you.'

She spun around in his arms and stared at him, letting out a sigh. They stayed like that for probably an eternity. He could see her eyes getting droopy as the moon cast a halo around her brown hair. He pulled the blanket over them, tucking her in comfortably, smiling as she instantly fell asleep.

'Goodnight, Casey.'

Somehow managing to draw his eyes away from the skies, Harrison broke out of his reverie and made his way across. Standing outside the interrogation room, he quietly observed a fellow officer trying to pacify Ms. Schule. Ms. Schule was the town gossip monger. She lived a few houses down the road from the headquarters in a house with tiny windows, heavy drapes and a scrawny orange cat. It was her life's constant mission to gather scandalous nibbles of information and spread disproportionate rumors. Needless to say, she was disliked by everybody. Yet despite her unlikable character, Harrison couldn't help but feel a tiny tinge of pity. Nobody deserves to see mangled remains while on an evening jaunt.

Her catatonic state left no room for coherent talk; the officer had spent a good half an hour in a fruitless attempt to get her to converse. The officer was confident that Ms. Schule would have caught a glimpse of the person who threw the body unceremoniously outside the station. Harrison however, did not mirror his confidence. Even in her disturbed state, he was certain, Ms. Schule was capable of belting out a series of lies thereby tarnishing any statement by her as unreliable. Lucid or not, she wasn't going to be of much help.

A wave of hushed whispers made its way to Harrison's ears as he drew his eyes away from an unresponsive Ms. Schule and the now slightly flustered officer. The whispers grew louder as he walked towards the reception, pushing aside the scattered chairs from his path.

With a gallon of coffee in his system and lack of sleep, Harrison almost dismissed the sight in front of him as a hallucination.

It was only when the tattooed, black-haired man walked towards him and attempted to shake his hand that he broke out of his trance.

'Been a while, mate'

'Too long Kevin. Way too long.' Harrison rejected the handshake and went for a manly version of a bear hug. 

Kevin Wallis, his partner on the force was back.

A/N:  A slightly short chapter but we have a new character with us. An important one if I may add

A big shout out to Psycho_King for the amazing cover!

As always, thank you for stopping by.

Your fellow Ravenclaw, Fall:)