Strange Games

8: Of Detectives and Warlocks

Detective Beckett rushed up the stairs with her gun drawn when she  heard sounds coming from the apartment above. But when she arrived, it  was empty and other than the same level of destruction up here as below,  nothing seemed disturbed. She checked the broken window and the closet  and bathroom just to be sure, but the place was empty. She replaced her  weapon and turned to her two companions. Detective Kevin Ryan and  Detective Javier Esposito followed her lead, replacing their weapons.

Esposito leaned down the stairwell and called, "Clear. Come on up."

As the forensics team filtered steadily into the room, Beckett stepped out of their way, crowding close to her friends.

"What was that all about?" Ryan asked his superior curiously.

Beckett crossed her arms. "I heard something," she said. "It sounded like voices."

"It  could be from next door," Esposito suggested. "This place is old. It  wouldn't be hard to believe the whole paper-thin walls thing."

"Besides," Ryan added glancing back down the stairs, "we have gathered a bit of a crowd outside."

Beckett  shrugged but still appeared unconvinced. "Maybe." She shifted. "From  what I hear, people seemed to like Magnus Bane," she said, abruptly  changing the conversation to business. "Quiet, friendly, if a bit  eccentric."

"Eccentric, yeah just a bit," Esposito snickered. "I mean seriously, what kind of name is 'Magnus Bane' anyway?"

Ryan smiled. "Sounds magnanimous to me," he joked.

Esposito  turned to his partner with a mock impressed expression. "Well I'll be  damned," he said. "It seems our very own Kevin Ryan has read through the  dictionary."

Ryan gave his best friend a tolerant glare before  shaking his head. Esposito patted his friend's shoulder in apology.  They'd been through a lot together. They teased and poked and prodded,  but not even marriage could separate them. Beckett rolled her eyes at  the boys' antics. It brightened her day when it was usually filled with  death and depression. She wouldn't trade her two best minds and closest  friends for anything.

Her eyes returned to the apartment now  crawling with a forensics team. She was a homicide detective so normally  missing persons were not on her radar unless she was told otherwise or  it involved her investigation. She had been assigned to this case due to  her precinct being short staffed. Apparently, building the new wing of  the precinct was worth spending money on, but the policemen's paychecks  weren't.

She suspected her assignment to this case had more to do  with its vicinity to where Demonic Killer's victims had been found. Each  victim had gone missing the day before they showed up again dead,  naked, and drained of blood. Beckett was here because Captain Vargas was  sincerely hoping this had nothing to do with the Demonic Killer. By  assigning her to this case instead of Detective Luke Garroway, who was  currently in charge of the Demonic Killer case, hopefully the media  would not immediately assume the worst. Detective Kate Beckett and her  team were a diversion.

It irked her but she understood her  captain's reasoning. The media was already eating up the Demonic Killer  story. The last thing they needed was a mass hysteria situation.  Besides, she wasn't in a hurry to see another dead body.

Although,  judging from the call she'd received on the drive over from the  captain, Detective Garroway would be stopping by anyway. Apparently,  Garroway knew the victim. It raised a few flags in Beckett's mind. The  timing and style of this missing persons case hinted at it perhaps being  an attack on the Demonic Killer case's investigating detective,  Garroway. Or, and Beckett truly didn't like the thought of this  possibility, the killer attempting to cover his tracks by throwing  suspicion off of him or her. Hopefully, this would turn out to be  unrelated to the Demonic Killer case and just end up a sad coincidence  Garroway was involved.