A Mysterious Circumstance.

The smell of copper assaulted my nose, it was something of which I have become accustomed too. Another day for me as a detective but today was different I had a rooky with me she just got promoted nice woman. Young outgoing today was mt second day working with her and she was wearing a perfume that smelled of lavender man did I hate that scent. And old lady in a nice house on the southside of town was sprawled out on the kitchen floor throat slit. Not the way I wanted to start my day with a murder that’s part of my job investigate what happened and solve the case.

This case though was unusual no signs of struggle or fear in the lady’s face. I ask my temporary partner for the details about her. Her name was Henrietta and she was the owner of a little shop downtown that specialized in fortune telling and magic potions. Or at least that what I was told I don’t believe in that stuff like anything occult is hogwash. Enough about that stuff for now we continued our inspection of the rest of the house. Now the house was interesting it was completely trashed items thrown everywhere completely ransacked and searched through. That didn’t make sense nothing obvious or valuable was stollen just messed up. Old paintings were off their nails couches with their cushions removed drawers and cabinets opened.

No fingerprints on anything so far this case wasn’t going to be solved in a day. The oddities did not stop there as we headed up stairs the mess got worse the house that looked so nice on the outside was destroyed. What was our perp looking for and why. Why kill a little lady with a business and trash her house she had no family in the area lived alone in this huge house and was discovered this morning by a healthcare aid who checks in on her once a week. The one room in the house that was the worst was the bedroom nothing was anyplace where it belonged and it looked like a tornado hit that room. I have seen them before and this mess was far worst. That’s where I discovered something that did not seem to belong to this lady at all. A metal tag about an inch long half and inch thick shaped like a bone almost like a dog tag.

There was no sign or indication anywhere in this house that it belonged here plus it was odd. As I examined its sides it had bumps like a button that could be pressed or activated. Being the curious guy, I was I pressed the buttons on both sides than I got the strangest sensation like a sharp poke and a pain coursed through my body then all the sudden I stated to not feel well.  I just ignored the pain and continued my search of the house after I put the tag in and evidence bag in my pocket. We spent another good hour or two coming the scene talking to neighbors looking for houses with surveillance cameras or those doorbell ones and nothing came up no one hew our victim.

After we finished up with her house it was late but we had one more place we had to check her shop. The building was a plain brick building with a large window near the front door. On the window was a large eye painted staring at you. The building had a sign saying Madam Mystique and in smaller words below that fortune teller and provider of holistic remedies for all that ail you.  As you opened the door and annoying sharp clatter of bells as a I approached the desk someone approached saying that the provider of the shop wasn’t in today and all appointments and consultations have been cancelled.  I asked about who did this type of work normally and the employee pointed to an old  painting of our victim on the wall it was large and crude but it had a resemblance to our victim.

It was time to get into the hard part of this job explaining who I was, why I was here and well explaining that her boss was well dead. That went horrible it always does she was all broken up about it saying the Madam was wonderful to work with had no enemies and was set to retire and close down the businesses a few months.  I asked why were they closing so soon and the employee explained her daughter just had a baby and the owner wanted to be closer to her granddaughter that made sense. I asked if any new clients had come in recently or if they had any disgruntled customers and the answer was no. I asked any change in habits unexplained absences or behavior changes. Again, no why target her who was she I asked the employee gave me some spiel about how she was special blessed by some spirit or something and was brilliant at solving problems. I asked about any travel recently or unusual purchases made seeing some quote relics and other oddities for sale.

Finally, this sparked a response from the employee that she had traveled out of stat recently and picked up a few new things for the store. The employee started going through the records and said she tracked down a strange relic from a little town in a country that was being looked for by a client. The strange thing was she was not able to find it she reported to the customer who asked her to track it down which was unusual. I asked why is that strange, the employee said the Madam always found what she was looking for and on her return to the store she said tell the customer I didn’t find it and that I wont look for it again

I pulled the strange tag from my pocket and asked did the owner like dogs or have dogs. She said not that I can recall I remember her being afraid of dogs and look at that tag it has some strange symbols on it. I looked at the tag again and there were indeed symbols on it I swear they were not there before and I didn’t recognize them either not that I would. Ancient cultures and that stuff was not my field of experience. I decided after we finished our conversation with the employee to call a local university in the area and see if I could talk to and expert in ancient cultures. I got and appointment at five and well went back to the office to type up a preliminary report with my rooky.

The meeting with the history teacher was a wash no new details or information the symbols didn’t make sense and were not part of any language this professor knew. I said let’s call it a day we will follow up with the daughter tomorrow morning see you back at the office tomorrow. The one nice thing about this town besides its low crime rate was you could get anyplace you wanted to just by walking. I walked towards my house noticed one of the posts form my fence was broken well that would need to get fixed later. I checked the door in my house before I went to sleep including the backdoor which had a doggy door installed I always meant to get a dog I just never got around to it and I was busy moving up the ranks of the force so it never seemed like a good time.

The next day the alarm blared on my clock in my bedroom I got up out of bed and it was strange I had and increased distance to the floor. I ignored that ran downstairs out my back door like normal through the fence and walked to the office like normal. I got in to the office through the automatic doors and sat down at my desk like normal. Waited a few minutes and finally my training partner walked into the station five minutes late. I would have to talk to her about that later the normal staff came in and got to work then everyone started to stare at my desk and me for some reason. They kept staring blankly and whispering to each other and asked my partner whose dog is sitting at Mikes desk I was like hah ha guys funny. That’s when I caught it my own reflection on the steel side of the desk a long eared brown wrinkly long thick body and the face of a bloodhound, I was a dog.