I wished him and his team the best of luck. “Anything else I should know before I head back to my office?”
“Wear gloves when you go through his possessions.”
“I always wear gloves. I don’t want my fingerprints on the evidence.”
“Double them up, or you will regret everything.”
As the ChiefQuinns preferred the evidence remaining pristine, always under lock and key, and consistently under video surveillance, the precinct’s detectives shared a floor with the evidence vault. To access the evidence, I needed to punch in a code at the vault’s entry, which would identify the location of the evidence I wished to handle. At the same time, I received a room announcement, a reminder of basic protocols for evidence handling, and a stern order to wear gloves. Depending on the evidence I was handling and if it was deemed potentially dangerous, it would instruct me on other safety gear as needed.
According to the evidence log, the goldfish victim was named Mr. Thomas Hardy, he had been thirty-seven at the time of death, and worked as an upper manager at an advertising firm. The three pages of known associates, potential suspects the initial responding officers had tossed together, and a flag warning me the gentleman had a history of playing women warned me I had one hell of a case on my hands.
Oof.
The last thing I needed was a murder case including a page and a half of jilted women with motive.
To complicate my day, the evidence machine warned me to wear a mask and scrubs to go with my gloves.
The scrubs worried me. Unlike in hospitals, our version of scrubs came courtesy of the CDC and used practitioner magic to make sure we didn’t come into contact with potentially dangerous evidence. Once I made certain the system understood there were two unfortunate bastards stuck on the job, I began running Alec through the safety regulations.
“Why would his possessions be contaminated?” Alec asked, observing as I dug out all the required safety gear so we wouldn’t have the wrath of our bosses raining down on our heads the instant they found out about a single cut corner. “He was killed with goldfish. And sturgeon.”
“I don’t know, but we are about to find out. The scrubs suck. They emit magic in pulses, and for most people, those pulses tend to tingle or itch. In my case, it tickles, and I hate them more than anything else I’ve encountered at this job yet. If someone had warned me about the tickling scrubs, I would have refused the promotion and dealt with my former jackass boss. Without fail, every two weeks, I have a date with these damned things. The life of a detective is not full of prestige. It is full of tickling misery.”
“I will hope for a tingle,” Alec stated, and he went to work ditching his personal items from his pocket and putting them in the holding bin, which would be held in the vault until we finished with the evidence. Considering that we needed the scrubs, I was grateful my phone would be safe until I finished going through the items that couldn’t leave the vault and its hive of sterile offices.
Unfortunately for us, the system notified me there were six boxes already checked out and likely waiting in my office, and we had four more to pick up when we finished going over the evidence.
As expected, every thirty seconds, the scrubs pulsed, and the pulse translated to a nefarious tickle destined to put me in a crabby mood for the rest of the day. Retrieving one of the carts, I headed for the section of the vault holding the registered evidence.
Instead of being on one of the countless racks with a tag, ours was in a CDC safe, one of twenty we had, meant to hold dangerous evidence or something we needed to keep particularly secure.
“Fuck,” I announced, eyeballing the safe. Every safe had a pair of phones next to it. One allowed for calls out. One contacted the CDC for help if we needed it opening the damned thing.
I had been registered for each of the sets, which meant I could place my hand on the panel while staring into a retina reader. The panel would jab for a blood sample, chew through my DNA, and then confirm a match with my magical signature and my retina scan. So far, nobody had been able to crack the safe without having the living body of a person registered in the system.
Somehow, the device could detect the difference between live bodies and corpses.
I picked up the phone for the internal system and stabbed the extension for Mr. Chief Samuel Quinn.
“What’s the problem, McMarin?”
“I would like to take the rest of the day off to recover from this terrible idea of joke, sir,” I complained. “Why is the death by goldfish case locked in the secure safe? Your answer is going to determine how much effort I put into trying to go home. I have incubi on speed dial. I could get one of them to come in and help me out.”
Alec snickered.
Damn. I hadn’t realized the accountant-turned-cadet possessed a sense of humor capable of withstanding me at my worst—and the safe plus death by goldfish would put me at my worst within an hour, guaranteed.
“Ah, the glorious sound of my detective finally locating the end of her rope. What got to you?”
“It tickles,” I groused.
“Ah, the scrubs. Sorry. I forgot you had that reaction. I will see if the CDC can adjust the magic on it while still being safe. I shouldn’t have forgotten that. I’ll tell Bailey to make you coffee as soon as you’re done, and I’ll have her up your grade of pixie dust before sending you home for the day. I’ll get your cadet to take you to your place. He lives next door.”
Wait. I’d gotten a place in one of the complexes landlords worked with the city on to provide affordable housing for cops. I’d expected a tiny studio with the bare necessities and had gotten a four bedroom suite I could afford on my budget. While I hadn’t gotten any pets yet, I’d joined the queue to get a working dog to help with investigations and protection.
The last I’d checked, I was scheduled for evaluations within the next month to see if I could be trained to handle one of the police pups.
Unfortunately, as I worked with Bailey often, I needed a special pup, one who could deal with the cindercorn at her worst.
