The daily life of monsters

Chapter M-3: Amintiri

"I want the two of you to take this case. Mari, you'll be leading the investigation. All the details are in the scroll on my desk. This is a case from a good friend of mine; he's the mayor of a small town south of here. Make sure you treat him with respect."

Facing away from the door, the detective gazed out the window absently with only the top of his head visible to the pair peeking over the top of his large leather chair. Marion quietly stepped forward, reaching towards the large piece of wrapped parchment cautiously, stepping back towards the door while facing the chair hopefully.

"You can use whatever you'd like as long as you solve the case. Good luck."

Marion paused for a few seconds, waiting to see if there was anything else the detective wanted to say but after a few seconds it became apparent that there wasn't anything more to be said. The hopeful sparkle in her eyes shifted to a grumpy glare as she dragged Cenic out of the room by his sleeve. With her spare hand, she quickly unwrapped the parchment, quickly scanning through the scrawled handwriting, doing her best to make sense of it. As they reached out of earshot, Cenic gently tugged his arm out of her grasp and jogged to catch up with her stride, a look of concern plastered on his face.

"At least he wasn't smoking this time."

Marion kept her pace up as she quickly made her way down the stairs, with Cenic trailing behind her. With her now free left hand, she wrapped the parchment once more, tying the string around it neatly and handing it to Cenic.

"Two years ago he didn't even let you into his office."

Marion shot a deadly glare towards Cenic but he ignored it, having grown immunity to any looks that she could throw his way.

"It's just that... you know... he has his reasons. The same way you and I do."

"If anyone would know that, it's me."

Marion spoke while facing away from Cenic, more focused on opening the door to the supply room. After a little bit of struggling with the key, she pushed the door open while stepping back to avoid the large amount of dust that floated out of the room. Cenic, completely ignoring the smoggy atmosphere of the storage room, headed in without any second thought and grabbed a small bag which dangled off a hook. One by one, he picked out one of each tool, placing them into their specific pockets by memory. Within a minute he had circled around the room and collected a variety of brushes, powders and other trinkets to assist them in gathering evidence, all without waving away the dust once or even muttering a cough. He calmly left the room, returning to a somewhat impatient Marion, who tapped her foot anxiously as she waited for him to return.

"How do you even manage to go in there. It's like a different ecosystem."

"I assume I got my immunity to messy rooms from my dad. It's like my own special ability, which is... better than nothing, I guess."

As they began their walk towards the basement, Marion found herself smiling for a moment at Cenic's mediocre attempt at comedy. Immediately remembering the sour mood she had been in before, she muffled her stupid grin and remembered her past interactions with the detective once more.

"I just wish that he was willing to trust people more. He doesn't let anyone clean the supply room, he doesn't let us take any big cases and he doesn't trust me enough to..."

"Marion."

"I mean, it's already been fifteen years, you think he'd..."

"Marion, we agreed that whatever you saw in his strings, we wouldn't think about. I'm sure he wouldn't want to talk about it and neither do I."