Chapter Text
"So he's on... break. And he's now been on break for.." he checked his watch, "an hour." Sergeant Wu smiled sarcastically. "Great."
"I don't think he was feeling well. He was acting kind of strange." I stood up, feeding a paper I'd just digitized into the shredder. The sergeant tried to respond, but the deafeningly loud sound of the shredder cut him off. I raised my hands apologetically.
"Acting kind of strange?" He winced. "Now that is something I don't want to hear. Especially after what happened with the last guy. You did hear about that, right?"
I coughed. "Yeah.. we heard all about that, trust me." We'd watched that unfold in real time, the barrage of news coverage had made it impossible to miss. At least Ryan Smulson had attended a different criminology program.
The sergeant put his hands to his head, clearly overwhelmed. "Why is it that I always get the best jobs in this precinct?"
I opened my mouth to answer.
"That was a rhetorical question."
I closed it again.
"So, you have no idea why he left, where he went, or what set him off?" The sergeant was holding his head, which I'd taken to recognizing as a sign his caffeine reserves were low.
"Well, yes and no. He seemed freaked out by one of the people who was at the captain's meeting. A blonde lady. Curly hair."
"You texted him earlier. Did he say anything else afterwards?"
"He just said he was leaving the precinct for a bit. Nothing after that. I'm..." I hesitated. "I'm kind of worried about him. I've never seen him like that before."
The sergeant's expression turned serious. "Well, if he's somewhere nearby, Nick and Hank will probably spot him. I texted them, gave them a heads up to keep an eye out. They're at the park right now, investigating a homicide."
"There was a homicide at the park? Like, the nearby-"
"Yep."
"Oh. That's not good."
The sergeant looked vaguely amused, then shook his head "No, it is not."
"I'm done digitizing. What should I do now?"
"There's not really much.." He thought for a moment. "Actually, why don't you shred the files marked for shredding on Nick and Hank's desks. They always forget to do it." On his way out of the room, he turned around. "I'm going to make some coffee. And whatever you do, please don't leave the precinct. I do not need the headache of two missing interns."
I headed to the bullpen, towards Nick and Hank's desks, mind still preoccupied with Ben.
On my way through, I saw the captain sitting at his desk again, his meeting evidently over. He looked almost.. happy. At least one of us was.
As I grabbed the piles of papers to shred off of Nick and Hank's desks, Detective Sullivan walked by. He was carrying a box of what looked to be personal items. I pretended not to see him, making a beeline for the shredder in the corner of the room.
I didn't read any of the files as I robotically fed them into the shredder. I was still thinking about Ben. It wasn't like him to act like this. He was normally so calm, measured. Then the paper I was holding in my hand jolted me out of my reverie.
It was unlike the other documents in the pile. Instead of a wall of text or some gruesome photos, it was a sketch. A very strange and disturbing, but admittedly well-drawn sketch. The only way I could describe it was if a man and a snake had been fused. And I hated snakes. It made my skin crawl.
It was roughly drawn, in black pencil, with only one word written below the image. Skalengek.