A Hound's Crime

Cadet Mathews waved an evidence bag in their hands. “They’ve got a positive print.” He said as he jogged over to the detective.

Detective Gibson stared at the silver goblet. Why anyone would try to steal something as tacky as that was beyond her. She noticed gauze wrapping on Mathews’ arm. “How bad is it?” she asked, motioning towards it.

“Dog bite. But look, I got the Goblet!” He said enthusiastically, pulling his shirtsleeve down. “Lighter than I expected though.”

“Doesn’t make it any less of a crime.” Gibson said. “Especially considering all the goblets and knives and polished pins that aren’t here.”

The two walked over to a room with a large one-way mirror. On the opposite side of the glass, lined three disheveled men.

“So, which one of these chimps who escaped their cell, stole all the silver in the entire station over the weekend?” Gibson said as she leaned on arm on the mirror.

Mathews scanned his eyes over the name on the evidence bag. “One, Mr. Walker.”

“Walker, please step forward.” The detective spoke into the mic.

“Isn’t this a little unnecessary? We’ve got the evidence; shouldn’t we just prep him for jail already?” Mathews asked.

“Listen, I know you’re new here. But everyone around here knows I’ve got a certain way of doing things. I don’t send ‘em off until I’ve got a confession.” Gibson said proudly.

“What if you don’t get a confession?”

The detective smirked at Mathews, “Looks like you could use some breaking in. Get in there and don’t come out ‘till you break him!” she said as she pushed Mathews into the line-up room.

“Um…” Mathews groaned. “Walker, follow me to interrogation room C.”

Mathews immediately got to work. He began with soft questions to ease the suspect into answering. Then started beating around the bush before hitting him with the facts. It was impressive, Gibson watched from the other side of the one-way mirror. This was why she stuck around. She loved watching the cadets grow into proper officers. She watched them grow into protectors. A strange maternal sense almost came over her. Almost.

Mathews collected the evidence and came back outside. “He’s refusing to admit to any involvement. Now should we use the evidence we already have?”

Gibson rolled her eyes, “One step ahead of you.” She said as another woman in blue walked by and handed her a folder of documents. “I figured I’d see what you were made of while we waited in the CCTV reports.” She chuckled.

Mathews went quiet. The detective opened the folder and scowled.

“What’s this?” She asked, raising her voice.

Mathews gulped, “What…. What is it?”

“The footage.”

“the footage…”

“It’s gone!” She yelled.

Mathews sighed, “That is a shame. How are we going to build a case now?”

“Man, I need a joe” She said pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I can get it for you!” Mathews chirped. “I’ll be right back.” He ran off before the detective could reply.

As Gibson watched the Mathews-shaped dust cloud settle, her face started to grow hot.

“That gutter rat,” She began to grumble to herself. “I’m getting answers.”

She marched into interrogation room C.

“Parker!” She said cheerily as she walked in.

“It’s actually Walker.” He said.

The detective slammed her fists on the table, “Well, I’ll to be damned to let you walk from this.”

She walked around the table a few times like sark, reading the case file but looking up every so often to give him a menacing look.

“So, says here you and your buddies broke out of your cells sometime after eight o’ clock this last Saturday. Care to explain how you got out?” She stopped on the opposite side of the table and folded her arms.

“Like I told the fella, someone just sprung us. I swear we didn’t do nothing.” He said.

“Then how come you were caught by the night crew out in the impound lot trying to hotwire a ’98 Mercedes Benz with an impeccable flame decal?”

“Well, when freedom comes around, opening my cell door, I ‘aint gonna just sit around and watch the opportunity pass me by. You know, life moves pretty fast. If ya don’t stop and look around once in a while-”

“Don’t even finish that line.”

“Listen.”

“No, you listen” She replied threateningly.

“Whoever let us out, used a key.”

“How do you know?”

“’Cause they didn’t kneel down to pick the lock or anything. Just walked up, popped it open, and ran off like a man with a plan.”

The detective sat down in the chair opposite of Walker.

How was she going to prove his guilt? No CCTV footage… No confession… A mysterious person with a key… The goblet... The goblet!

She got up and went to the other room where Mathews was waiting, holding a steaming cup of coffee.

“Put that down. Grab the evidence.” Gibson ordered as she grabbed the fingerprinting kit.

“More interrogation tactics?” Mathews asked.

“Take it out, we’re gonna compare the fingerprint to Walker’s right here.” The detective said, opening the fingerprinting kit.

Mathews reached their hand out to give Gibson the bag.

“What’re you doing?” the detective asked.

“Here, test it.”

“Hands’re full pal.”

“Well, here.” He set the bag down and put out his hands palms up. “I’ll dust.”

“What’re you doing, I’m already holding the duster. Just grab the goblet already.”

“Something’s fishy. It’s obvious somethings fishy, isn’t it de-tec-tive?” Walker chimed in.

“I thought I already told you to can it.” Gibson gave Walker a glare, then turned on the cadet. “We’ll just have to get a professional goblet holder since Mr. Mathews doesn’t feel like holding anything today.” She grabbed her walkie from her hip and summoned an intern. “They’ll be five minutes.”

Walker leaned forward and pointed at Mathews with both of his cuffed hands. “I smell a stinkin’ fish in your pockets and it’s getting moldy.”

“What?” asked Gibson.

“’Fess up!” Walker yelled at Mathews.

“What have I done?” The cadet replies.

“You smell all kinds of fishy.”

“I smell fine” Mathews said, sniffing his uniform.

“A fish can’t smell itself”

“Well, I’m not a fish now am I?”

“Why wont you admit you’re guilty, fish?”

“Stop this!” Gibson commanded. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“He won’t touch the silver.” Walker said, like a child tattling on their brother.

“Why won’t you touch the silver?” barked Gibson.

“I’ll burn!” He screamed.

A moment of silence.

“What?” The detective and walker said in unison.

“My bite, it’s not a dog bite. Well it is, but it isn’t...” he stammered.

“Get on with it Mathews.” Gibson threatened.

“Well, it’s a... werewolf bite.” He sighed and began to unwrap the bandage on their arm.

“You see, it all started on Friday night…” he began, sucking in a large amount of air.  “I was walking in the park after dark, I know that’s not allowed but I didn’t think it would anybody, when this dog came and attacked me, so I ran and it thought I was playing chase, so it chased me, then I lost it, then it found me, then I got so scared I kicked it and it bit me!” He took a moment to catch his breath.

“So, where’s the werewolf?” the detective asked.

“I see what you did there.” Walker said.

Gibson put a hand on her gun and gazed fiercely at him, “Shut it.”

Mathews looked solemnly at the ground. “Well, I ran off after biting me and ran behind a tree. It hid back there for a moment before a man stumbled out from behind it. I’m not saying it’s definitely a werewolf, but there’s a chance.”

He finished undoing the bandage on his arm and revealed an underwhelming wound. It was barely as wide as a sticky note and about as shallow as a papercut.

Gibson felt her stomach tighten, “It doesn’t look too bad.”

Mathews blushed, “Well, you know what they say about size and how it doesn’t matter. Besides, its still a supernatural bite! Maybe.”

“So that’s why you’ll burn when you touch silver?”

“It was me who stole the silver!” he blurted out. “I knew I only had a few days to stay normal, so I took the silver out to protect myself! I swear I’m not a criminal.” He began to sob.

The detective watched as her maternal feelings sunk out of her and into the ground. This bright new cadet? Nut case. Believes he is going to turn into something that doesn’t exist.

“You have-” She started to choke up. “Cadet, you have the right to remain silent.”

“Woo-hoo, yippee!” Walker cheered.

Detective Gibson turned and politely cleaned his clock.