Gluskin & Ichor Family Funeral Home

Part 6 (A new lead)

The group piled out of Sasha's stuffy car and into the parking lot of the police station, breathing in the fresh air was like inhaling seawater. The entire surrounding area reeked of cigarette smoke and weed.

"Ugh, Matt smoked a bowl in the parking lot again," Sasha whispered to himself, rolling his eyes "This is what, the second time this week?"

"Who's Matt?" When asked, looking over at Sasha, "We aren't here for a "Matt" we're here for Tammy."

"Yes yes I know, Matt's one of my coworkers, he, well, knows Tammy quite well and she came to him before me." he sounded jealous. Of what? Was he jealous that Tammy was giving all the attention to this Matt guy and not him?

"Where do we go in?" Hestia pointed to the front doors, "Through there?"

"Nah, there's a side door that will take you straight to the detective department, follow me."

Sasha led the girls through the weed-smelling parking lot and to a small white door on the side of the police station, the door swung open almost immediately, Tammy's head poking out from the door frame startling both the Girls and Sasha, jumping.

"Oh, thank god!" she threw her arms around Wren and Hestia, bringing them into a close embrace. "I thought you two were a goner!" she hugged them tightly, squeezing their arms in the process.

"Yeah-gh! We're alive!" Wren choked out through Tammy's strong arms. 

"Oh, Sasha, you're back!" Tammy realized, "I hope the girls didn't cause you too much trouble!" she sighed with relief.

"Well surprisingly, Hestia was a lot more stubb- AUGH-" Sasha was swiftly kicked in the shin by Hestia, shutting him up. 

The outer storm door flew open and slammed shut with a hollow thud, another officer exited the building to greet them. Another man, short in stature, short red unkempt hair, freckles dotting his cheeks, and a pair of aviator-framed glasses.  He wore a moss green sweater tucked into a pair of loose blue jeans with worn-out knees underneath a police jacket,  the words "HOMICIDE DETECTIVE" scripted on the sleeves.

"Oh, uh, hey." he greeted nervously and suddenly. "Didn't realize you guys were back already..." he seemed very out of it. Tired and exhausted of sorts, as if he'd hasn't gotten sleep in several days.

"Matt, goodness, you look like a zombie, please for the love of god get some rest dude." Sasha sighed, pinching his nose bridge. 

Seemed to Wren like Matt having a nonexistent sleep schedule was a common occurrence.

"So your this Matt we're supposed to meet," Wren managed to wriggle herself free from Tammy's tight hug. "You're gonna help with the case, right?" she said seriously.

"Yep, that's me," he yawned, rubbing his eyes tiredly as he managed to stay awake long enough to finish the conversation. "Let's go inside please, I have everything set up, we just need to go over the details." he ushered the group back inside.

The police station was a professional building, or so it tried to be, but it still managed to look ramshackle and shabby. The detective quarters were rather clean, a small number of computers and files littering every surface. A large bulletin board was covered head to toe in newspaper articles, wanted posters, printed out pdf's that quite obviously contained classified information, considering how blotted out the text was.

"Wow, you guys are going headfirst into this case," Hestia commented, pointing to the cluttered bulletin board. "That's quite a bit of stuff you have up on there."

"Well, this case goes way back, this isn't the first time we've had a homicide under these circumstances." Matt sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in exhaustion, "Apparently, according to lead your father left Tammy before he went missing, and got in contact with Sash, we might already have our culprit." he paused. "BUT. we don't have enough to throw our suspect in the slammer just yet...unfortunately..."

"So, what else do we need?" Wren asked. "Put a pause on that real quick, WHO is this person." 

"Do you remember your mother's nurse in the mental hospital she was in?"

"No." Wren threw her hand over her mouth in shock. "No, it can't be her, she said she was new-how-SHE COULDN'T HAVE!

Matt threw his hands up into his face in annoyance, he groaned loudly, the noise echoing through the room, reverberating in all of their ears. Everybody who was previously preoccupied with the investigation turned to face him.

"What is it now?" Sasha rolled his eyes.

"Sash, I'm going to shank you if you don't zip your stupid Russian mouth." he threatened, head still in hands, he lifted his head, "Sasha and I never checked, the employment records of the employees, we never interviewed Ryeo, and we just got back an INCORRECT AUTOPSY!!!" he yelled.

"Hey is everything okay in here?" another officer poked their head into the investigation room.

"SCREW OFF." both Sasha and Matt yelled simultaneously, scaring the poor officer back into the main office.

"Alright, boys..." Tammy soothed, "Let's take a break from all of this, I'm sure Wren and Hestia need some time to process all of this in a calm and collected manner." she stared down both of the boys.

About fifteen minutes had passed, of which both Matt and Sasha tried their best to explain the case in its entirety to the victim's close friends and family. Although they still appeared to be very confused and distraught with the whole situation.

"Aaaannndd, by the looks on your faces I can tell that none of this is reaching your brain..." Sasha pinched his nose bridge only to be smacked in the back of the head by Tammy's hand.

"What he's TRYING to say is, this case goes way back to when I was your age, and there's no way you're going to be able to understand it right away." she sighed.

She handed a small sheet of paper to the girls, a missing poster for her father.

"Before I last saw him he handed me the incorrect autopsy report with notes pointing out what was wrong with it." she calmly explained. "That was over forty-eight hours ago, it's the minimum time we need to wait before we begin a search for him. I know he told me not to look for him, but I'm not going to listen."

"I want to help you, he's my own Father for god's sake, I'm going to help you if it's the last thing I do." Wren insisted.

"Me too!" Hestia hardly hesitated in joining Wren. "I'm coming too, my father was killed by this maniac, I'm taking them out too!" she also insisted.

A phone ring interrupted all of the encouraged volunteers, turning his head, Sasha picked up his phone, a quick conversation was passed back and forth as the phone call ended.

"Well guess what gang, we got another mystery on our hands." he sighed, "Pack your shit, we're going for a quick ride to the middle of nowhere."