“You say that like there was anything accidental about the decision to take leave of our senses in the hopes of another kid. I’ll remember that the next time you get stars in your eyes and want more kids under hoof.” Perky came back out with the bucket, which housed the hagfish. “You may as well call the CDC again, Sam. This is not a standard hagfish.”
“Well, shit,” the chief muttered, heaving a sigh and grabbing his phone. “If this damned thing is endangered, do you know what’s going to happen, Perky?”
“We will either have to agree to house it or find some poor bastard to house it for us,” the doctor dutifully arrived. “We could set up a tank in the lobby. As long as we ward it against any unexpected ruffians and rowdy criminals resisting arrest, it can be a good talking piece or something.”
“There will be no talking hagfish in my precinct,” Sam grumbled.
I raised a brow and stated, “It’s a hagfish, sir, not a nagfish.”
Bailey tossed her head and whinnied. “For that, I make you coffee. Perky, salvage the evidence you can with other bucket, then we lock box in box, then purify office. Then you get clean and get coffee, too.”
“I do like when the hazard pay comes with good coffee,” Perky stated before doing as our chief ordered. “Since you’re still kitted, see what you can salvage in the time it takes me to hand over the fish, McMarin.”
“You got it.” I waded back into the office and aimed for the pile of credit cards to discover the fluids had finished them off. Of the evidence we’d already sorted, only the box remained intact. The hagfish had also taken out the contents of the other box, leaving us with a sodden mess. “It’s all ruined,” I said, shaking my head at the lengths the perp had gone to remove evidence we’d be able to trace through the victim’s financial portfolio and identification records. “I fear we have a stupid criminal on our hands, sir.”
“I’d say we have a criminal capable of erasing evidence. Why do you feel this one is stupid? I mean, most are stupid, but what has this one done to be stupid?”
“All of the destroyed evidence, outside of this box, is data we can pull out from the financial records, sir. That’s pretty stupid.”
“Maybe they wanted to make it a little harder on us?”
Both chiefs sighed, and I recognized the moment when they realized I was right.
“Ihatestu-pid crim-i-nals,” Bailey wailed.
We all did. “I’m sure the criminal believed there was a good reason to go through all that work,” I said to appease the woman. “If we’re particularly lucky, we can close it out after a review of the financials, and you’ll have extra justification to keep your new cadet.”
The cindercorn pricked her ears forward. “Yes, yes. Good idea. McMarin, clean up, take your cadet upstairs, do fi-nan-cials. It not paper goo; we smart, not put with goo fish.”
“Time to earn your paycheck, Alec,” I said, heading for the sterile room we used to decontaminate if any of the evidence proved to be more hazardous than we preferred. “I hope you weren’t hoping to escape math with your job choice, because if so, I have bad news for you.”
ChapterThirteen
The hagfish survived.
According to a marine biologist, the hagfish belonged to some new species, and it would need to be observed and studied for more information. According to a remote scanner, the hagfish was female and pregnant, ending any discussions of dissecting her for the sake of science.
As hagfish had not been extensively studied or bred in captivity, nobody understood how they reproduced—and nobody could tell me if the hagfish normally became pregnant or were an egg-laying species.
Our specific hagfish would have at least a hundred baby hagfish to care for, assuming the marine biologists could figure out what to do with her.
Bailey wanted the hagfish to live in my office, and she was willing to fight every single government agency on the planet to make her dream of me having an aquarium happen.
As such, a war waged in my office. Alec lounged on the couch, laughing his ass off over the heated dispute between the marine biologists and the cindercorn determined to become caretaker of every odd species to cross her path.
“The lobby has space for a large aquarium, and we can put a donation jar for the costs of care, and everything over the hagfish’s cost of care would go to public services,” I suggested, hoping my commentary might put an end to the yelling destined to give me a headache. “The hagfish needs a home. Nobody is disputing that. Make the home useful. In the lobby, she can be accessible to the public. A donation box for the hagfish can make sure it doesn’t hit our budget, and anything over can be flagged for specific funds. Add it to a fund for working with schools and education or something. If the hagfish needs a specific owner, you can put my name on the paperwork, but she needs more space than my office provides. The lobby has a large chunk of space we can dedicate to the fish. Practitioner magic can protect the aquarium from the rowdy crowd, not that our lobby typically gets rowdy.”
We had a second entrance where we took the truly dangerous folks who might put up a struggle. I hadn’t known about the entry until my third week on the job, as my chiefs had gone out of their way to keep things quiet while I learned the basics of being a detective.
My former chief had neglected a lot about my post-hiring education, which I rectified through evening studies and shadowing detectives on difficult cases.
The marine biologist, a woman named Alicia, considered me with a scowl, but she nodded. “With the right protections to keep the environment pleasant, that would be an acceptable housing arrangement for the animal.”
“Make it so,” Bailey commanded her husband, pointing at the door and snapping her fingers. “Our magic hagfish must be properly housed by the end of the day.”
“We have no evidence it’s magical, Bailey,” Samuel replied.
“Hagfish don’t mass produce slime on their own. It requires water. The hagfish is creating water so it can slime everything. This is evidence of magic,” the cindercorn announced.
