The Sheriff gave him a tense smile. “It was cremated.”
Severo rubbed his face and eyed the two again. Looking at them now, he decided he didn’t like the look of either of them. Detective Liane seemed way too arrogant, and the Sheriff, for all his smiles and supposed concern, it felt like he was hiding something.
Either they were extremely incompetent or corrupt. Severo was leaning towards both. He’d started the day tired. And after the hour he’d taken to get there, not to mention cooling his heels for thirty minutes, he was less than enthused by this bullshit.
“While I didn’t get most of the information, according to what I did receive, you only found the body a week ago. By the void, why would you cremate it?”
“Well, we believed the murder happened five months ago,” Detective Liane pointed out.
“And that matters, how?! You just found the body LAST WEEK! The case is not closed, and you involved the CEB. Why would you cremate the body? Surely you know protocol in this podunk little county of yours?” he snarled.
Yeah, he was not one for getting along with the locals. Severo was not a diplomat. He hated red tape, and he hated dealing with posturing assholes. His approach, which Cyrus often complained about, was more of instant mockery and aggression towards incompetency. And these two humans’ actions screamed incompetence.
Sheriff Tormd blustered. “Now see here?—”
He straightened in the chair. “No. You see here, Sheriff Tormd. You ignored the rules and now you are going to sit there, or stand like this fool next to you, and get your ass handed to you by me. After which, you should probably pray to whatever God, Goddess, or nothingness you believe in, that you still have a job tomorrow. Because even a brainless newbie knows that when you involve the CEB, we will make our own thorough inspection of the evidence that you have against the accused Cryptid. In this case, the main evidence is the corpse, and anything found on the body. But what happens after I drive my ass down here…no corpse. So not only is the validity of your case in question, so is your job. Along with anyone who had anything to do with the decision to destroy that body.”
Sheriff Tormd paled a bit. “It was a system error.”
“Yeah, I don’t care what it was. Give me the missing documents, and a copy of the autopsy, and every available picture you have.” Severo quickly added, “A paper copy. If your system is ancient enough to glitch a corpse into ash, I don’t need it near mine. To be clear, I need you to bring everything you have. Since, you all failed to upload most of it to the proper channels.”
Detective Liane rushed out of the room, muttering something about having to make copies.
Severo eyed the Sheriff who seemed to be struggling between anger and some sort of fake calm. Tormdshouldbe worried. Severo already had suspicions about this case to begin with. This just confirmed it was warranted.
Detective Liane rushed back in about five minutes later. Huffing a bit, the human handed him a packet of paper. Grabbing it, Severo flipped through. He found many new pictures of Seri, yet… “Why are there so few pictures of the body? Surely your coroner is not inept as well?”
The two humans both started to stutter, and he shut them up with a glare before continuing to read. He stared blankly at the species listed for Leal Craft. They had to be fucking kidding him. A Cerberus…killed by a Water Nymph? Shaking his head, he flipped to the autopsy notes.
It honestly was probably the briefest notes he’d ever seen on a murder victim. Were they just that bad at making shit up, or really this incompetent at their jobs? Because all he had here was a list of stomach contents, and a note that Leal died by possible strangulation and a broken neck.
Severo flipped through the photos again, getting more pissed off by the second. In the pictures, he could see that hands had left marks on the neck so deep that there were grooves in the skin, yet no fingernail indents. Not to mention, the man’s neck was wrenched, like someone had twisted Leal’s head all the way to the back before bringing it forward again. Oddly, there was also a mix of lighter and then deep uninterrupted scratch marks running over the grooves and bruises.
Something about the scratches were bugging him. It was like he was looking at a puzzle, but was missing the most important pieces. The handprints were bothering him too. They were obviously too big to be Seri North’s. The head having been twisted around, the grooves, the scratches. None of it was noted in the autopsy—what in the fuck was going on?
Severo eyed the photos. One glaring issue that was hitting him in the face was.... Well, the thing about Cryptid corpses was that they didn’t decay fast. Which meant, even after months, Leal’s body was pretty intact.
It meant any idiot could see how big Leal Craft was. Were they really suggesting a Water Nymph did this?
Sure, if Leal had died by drowning, it was slightly believable. But strangulation and a broken neck? Had the detective done any research on either of the species?
He quickly read through the rest of the report…and it was also scarce.
“What exactly led you to believing that this was done by Seri North?”
Detective Liane cleared his throat. “She disappeared at the same time, and we had some reports of Seri stalking Leal and getting violent. Maybe romance gone wrong.”
They could not be serious right now.
Severo eyed the man over the top of the paper. “Is that so? None of that was mentioned in this report.” He gave a fake ass smile. “Where is the rest of the info on Leal Craft? Not to mention the investigation notes and said report of violence?”
Laine shifted on his feet, clearly stressed about what he was about to say. “The system glitched and deleted a lot of our files. The copy we had printed has been misplaced, unfortunately. And there’s not much on Leal. He was a loner, working as a bodyguard at a local protection agency called PT Protection. No red flags.”
Fucking convenient all the way around. With how advanced computer technology was, it was hard to believe human agencies had such shit systems that they’d glitch badly enough to delete entire files—let alone approve a body for cremation.
As for the lack of red flags on Leal—yeah, that was more of a red flag than anything. The man was a Cerberus—a volatile species. Even the sweetest of their kind had a few hiccups. He wanted to call the two out on this shitty investigation, but he’d figured he'd do it later after he made sure they lost their jobs.
“Well, boys, I’ll catch our Cryptid, worry not. As for whether she is guilty, that remains to be seen. But it sure is going to be hard to prove without a body.”
