This choice: the wounds on the bodies. They match all of your friends hands." WHAT?! • Go Back...Chapter #6Police Cooperation by: Benjamin   “...the wounds on the bodies.” Madison says with a slight pause, “They match all your friends hands.”
Your heart just about stops and lands in your stomach with a thud. “...what?” You manage to whimper in response.
Madison doesn’t answer you at first, instead guiding you to a park bench and sitting you down. It’s only then that the golden retriever clarifies, “Technically just their claws. We have talon lacerations from two very large furs, with the patterns falling in line with both Max and Justin’s species. The small large mammal lacerations are appropriate for a marsupial of Terry’s size.”
If you thought your heart had hit rock bottom before, it surprises you with another cliff edge to roll over. Max, Justin, and Terry were all suspects for murder. Alongside you, but at least you know you didn’t do it. Justine is going into the air force, so you can’t imagine him risking it all committing murder. Terry has crazy ideas sometimes, but you can’t even see the beginning for motivation in something so macabre. And Max...
Whoops. There goes your heart again. You might want to get a doctor to look at that.
Madison, during your retrospective has been trying to talk to you reassuringly. You haven’t really heard a word of it, and honestly given what you’re about to say, you don’t think even she’ll remember. “Max had my phone last night.”
You look at her expectantly, and sure enough her entire face just blanks at the bomb you just dropped. The silence of the empty campus fills the air for a bit, with the nearest students a courtyard away and not even batting an eye at the police tape over the auditorium doors. Eventually Madison recovers enough to reach into her police jacket to take out a tape recorder and notebook. After hitting record, she looks at you expectantly.
Sighing, you take a deep breath and begin. “Max has been borrowing my phone without permission for the past two months. He claims it’s because mine takes better pictures. The photo’s I’ve had to delete from that thing...” You pause for a moment in recollection of dick pics of all three of your friends, alongside numerous selfies of them mid-coitus with furs of both genders. Max was only true bisexual. Justin claimed to be straight while Terry was openly gay, but either one would nail anything with a hole after the eighth beer.
While most of it was disgusting amateur hour, some of it... well thankfully anything you shamefully kept is off your phone and secure someplace not even Madison could find with the help of the entire cyber division.
Speaking of which your pause is extending a bit beyond disgust, so you quickly finish up with a shudder and continue, “But that’s neither here nor there. Point is, he’s never lost it before. I don’t see why he’d do so on tonight of all nights. Particularly if he...” And there you trail off, allowing the unthinkable remain unspoken.
Madison waits for a moment for you continue before eventually speaking up, “So do you think he’d actually be capable of doing it?” You make eye contact with her in a very slight exaggeration of shock, making note that the tape recorder was still recording. “Max,” she reiterations, “Do you think he’d be capable of murder, Mister Matthews?”
“No,” you say without hesitation. To elaborate you continue. “Max couldn’t have done this, neither mentally nor physically.” She raises an eyebrow. “...I mean literal physics. I left my apartment at 1am to go pick them up, and left the party with them at 2:30am. I don’t know how promptly that caller called in the sound of a struggle, but he’d have to be dragging his feet to have given them time to get back to the party, bath in alcohol, and then pass out on top of each other.”
She tilts her head to the side in the manner only canines can do, before breaking eye contact to write something down on her pad. “Bathed in alcohol? Is that literally or figurative?”
I roll my eyes. Madison knows exactly how literal I’m being, but I also know the tape recorder is oblivious to everything. “I don’t know. I’ve never stuck around till last call to watch. All I know is first time I let them crash at my place to sleep off a hangover, the school got the police involved over the smell. Should be on record from about two years ago. It’s why I both moved off campus and make sure to wash them thoroughly before tucking them to bed.”
That caused Madison to look up at full attention. “You wash them... thoroughly?”
Heh. OK, you needed that levity. Guess even Madison didn’t know all your woes with your three best friends. “Down to the bait and tackle,” is your only response.
The golden retriever mouths a silent OK before making another note. “And you didn’t find any blood on them during this mornings... cleaning?”
“No,” you answer with a firm shake of the head. As much as you’d like to think you could wash them blind, unfortunately every single inch of their envious perfect bodies gets burned into your brain once a STOPIT. Think of something else. People have died here. People you know. Carol, Rachel, and Kevin are up there chopped up into sirloin STOPIT!
You do your best to keep your breathing steady so you can finish up your impromptu statement, but your brain is caught in a feedback loop between two images. One of three perfect bodies you hate yourself for being envious over, and the other of your classmates hanged and quartered like beef roasts. Eventually the two start to merge in ways you... really don’t want to be visualizing.
Eventually even your superb acting can’t hold back your discomfort and Madison makes note of it when she next looks up from her notebook. “Leonard? Are you OK?”
Remembering the tape recorder is still running, you choose your words carefully. “Honestly... no. Madison... Officer Trainer. Max, Justin, and Terry are back at my apartment right now. As much as I’m sure they’re innocent... do you think it would be best if I find somewhere else to stay until it’s proven?”
Madison hmms, “Well, as long as the police can find you. Can you think of someplace right now you’re certain you’ll be safe?” Without waiting for an answer, she flips her notepad over to a blank page and hands it over to you.
Musing it over for a moment, you write down the name, phone number, and address of the one person you’re sure would be home on a Saturday morning. It might seem strange to remember such things in an age where people can’t remember phone numbers anymore without their phone, but Terry isn’t the only one with a near eidetic memory. There’s a reason you have a year's worth of classes crammed into one semester and are still passing them.
Before handing the pad back to Madison, you make a grid of dots on the paper and then connect them in a well practiced manner before handing it back to her. “What’s this,” she asks, pointing to the iconography you just added.
“It’s the pattern to unlock my phone,” you respond. “You know, just in case it is actually my phone and not an elaborate forgery.”
Madison smiles back at you before responding, “Thank you Mister Matthews. That will be all.” Then, and only then, does she hit stop on her recorder. You try not to visibly sigh in relief. You turn to walk away, but she calls back “Oh, and Leonard?”
The golden retriever has a worried look on her face as she respond, “Do be careful. I know you're innocent, and the hyperactive trio are probably clean too... but if the evidence against you isn’t a coincidence but intentionally...” She leaves the final words unsaid as she turns away.
...great. Now your brain needs to balance your best friends with the envious bodies going butcher block on your classmates, OR you being framed for it by someone who for some reason... honestly even your hyper depressive imagination can’t think of a reason someone would want to frame you for all this, but give it time.
Not wanting to give it any more time than necessary, you turn around and start heading towards the one friend you know would be up and at home on a Saturday morning. A friend who, like all your friends, is bigger than you.
That friend is...
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