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Pandora's Children - Part 5

"What time is it?" The Lt. asked while the ME looked at the body.

"Six o'clock, why?"

"It's Friday night."

Realization dawned on me. "Eugh, #curry night."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it, detective. Why don't you join us? The wife keeps asking me to invite you."

***

The Lieutenant's house was nice. There were the usual family pictures & landscapes but a statue caught my eye. It was made of a green crystal.

"It's #serpentine," the lieutenant's wife told me.

"It doesn't look like a snake."

"No, that's what it's made of," she smiled.

***

We sat down at the dining room table to eat and I was initially skeptical, but the chicken curry was nice and not too spicy.

They were a couple in love. I saw that each one had framed their wedding #vow & hung it on the wall, a reminder of what they promised each other.

***

"Whass inis curry?" The Lt. asked, slurring his words and getting less #lucid by the second.

"Are you ok, sir?" I asked, reaching for him as he toppled onto the floor.

"Oh dear, wrong bowl," his wife muttered and pulled out a knife. "Guess we'll do this another way."

***

I jumped up, ran from the #pastel-colored dining room toward the front door. I had my hand on the doorknob when the knife impacted the doorframe beside me. I turned around to see her aiming another one, yanked the door open, thankful it wasn't locked, and ran for my car.

***

I was opening the car when a bullet shattered the window beside me.

"Why can't you just die?" She yelled and kept shooting.

I pulled out my gun and shot back but she ducked out of sight. "Mrs. Grand, what are you doing?"

"I'll #wring your neck if I have to. Just die!"

***

The shooting stopped and I returned to the house. She was rooting through a drawer and I thought I saw the #sliver of a knife.

I called out, "Freeze!"

She turned around with malice in her eyes, yelled out, "Numquam Mulieri Opus!" before she killed herself with a razor.

***

I called the Captain, told him what happened, then just sat in my car and cried. Lieutenant Josiah Grand was #suave, though not entirely sophisticated, and he was my mentor.

He would be missed by us all.

His killer may be dead but I needed to know why I was the target.

***

While the CSIs were going through Lieutenant Grand's house with a fine tooth comb, the Captain came and pulled me aside.

"I have to pull you off the case until Internal Affairs clears you. It's pro forma. A #virtual certainty you'll be back in a day. Go home and rest."

***

I sat at home and cried again. I had a #profound sense of loss when I thought of Josiah Grand. He was another victim in this bizarre investigation that had so many twists and turns, I didn't even know where to start.

I was going to have to interrogate Mrs. Marcus again.

***

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