Chapter 15 Déjà vu

"Why do I feel like I've been here before?" Lucky asked Candace as they walked through the police station doors and onward to the information desk.

"I already told you. Last night was only a few hours ago. Look.  Some of those jerks are still here processing the same offenders." Candace said.

"I meant in a past life." Lucky said waiting to be informed without having given any information.

"This place wasn't a police station but it was still here." He said.

"I don't know.  It's the eighties. A past life experience is the money maker these days. Write a book." Candace giggled, looking around the station, eyeing the strange looking and the innocent.

Her stares gathered puckered lips from toothless assailants and crotch grabs from a teen or two.  Really, the old men and boys were quiet. Subdued by the endless line of pornless females trying to catch a look, at the last minute, was eye catching.

"Couldn't you have had déjà vu on the phone? It's a good thing the kitchen phone is on a separate line. Had I remembered, I could've used it." Candace said, strong, closer to her big brother, trying to get away from the apprehended.

"Yeah. My business line, out front.  Whomever severed the others made sure to stay in the back." He said.

"To keep from being seen." Candace said.

"Werewolves are smart, Candace.  They know how to hide too."

"Yeah, I can see the station isn't as alive with canine as it was last night."

"Shhhh," Lucky said. "Don't let them hear you say that."

"Too late." An officer said at the door of an office, catching the siblings off guard.  "Have you checked at work, Mr. Rival?" The officer said, waving for them. "Come on back." He said aloud. Lucky looked around the station.  No one seemed to care, now.

The office door shut with a solid thud.

"I have some bad news for you Lucky." The cop said, not waiting. "Jan.  Your secretary, Jan?"

"What about Jan?" Lucky asked.

"Have a seat, the two of you."

"She's dead." The officer said without remorse. 

"We got the call last night. Your photographer, Damien, was supposed to go on a date with her.  He left early to run some errands—" the cop stated.

"Yeah. That's right." Lucky said, he and Candace both shocked at the news.

"He went back to pick her up and found her in a back room.  Mutilated." The officer said, standing at the corner of his desk, ready to be seated.

"Mutilated?" Candace asked.

"In the back room? No. Everything was locked. Everything is always locked.  There's no way something could have escaped." Lucky said.

"We checked the whole place and found nothing unusual."

"Jan." Lucky said, shocked in disbelief.  His eyes watered.

"Well what was it?" Lucky asked.

"We think the it's the same thing that severed your phone line." The cop said, dropping an evidence bag of fur on the desk.

"We picked this up around your place.  No one on that street owns a dog." The officer said.

"Yeah, that's true." Lucky said.

"And we found this on what was left of Jan."

The fur in the second evidence bag matched the first bag indentically.

"My life is one big circle.  All I do is chase these things like a dog chasing its tail." Lucky said.

"Don't say that, Lucky." Candace said softly.

"It isn't worth it." Lucky confessed to the cop.

"Lucky, you do what we won't do.   You catch the bad guys that become things only God knows what to do with. I think it's worth it.  You're job if that's what you mean." The officer said. "Now who is this Damien fellow you got taking snapshots of everything around there?"

"Just another somebody looking for a job." Lucky answered.

"Well I'd keep my eyes on the photographer.  He's a clean piece of work.  Don't got nothing to charge him with but I bet you he belongs in one of your cages.  Even they were quiet from what I was told."

"Yeah, the dungeon is quiet especially if it's full of werewolves.  Most change on the full moon." Lucky said.

"And the others?" The officer asked leaning forward, into the conversation.  His elbow smashed against the wood desk.

"The law says that if they change before the full moon, then they have to be held in a federal enclosure."

"So that's why it's empty." The cop smiles, happy that the law is at work.

"That's why it is empty." Lucky states. "Except for what's in there now."

The officer lowers his hands to the desk, tapping it with his fingers.

"What's in there now?" He asked.

"The quiet ones." Lucky said, looking at Candace, who was quiet herself.

"Soooo, it isn't empty.  They're just quiet?"

"Even trolls sleep Officer Chandler."

Tapping the desk a moment more without saying anything, Officer Chandler stares at Lucky briefly.

"Do you have any hostiles in there?"

"I have a major." Lucky answered.

"The one from earlier this week?"

"Yes." Lucky answered, adjusting his body in the old hardwood chair.

"The feds gonna pick him up?"

"After I talk to him. Yes."

"What about his receptionist?" Candace asked.

"I already spilled the beans.  The photographer did it." Officer Chandler chided seriously. "We just don't have nothing on him to arrest him.  Hell, he might not even be one of those things but bet your life that your photographer killed Jan Barnes." Officer Chandler said, getting comfortable with the conversation.

"It couldn't have been Damien. We had dinner just the other night.  I told him how much I like his work." Said Lucky, clearing his throat of remorse.

"Well Mr. Rival, I suggest you wrangle up what's left of your crew because from what I was told. Jan Barnes was something's dinner." The cop said, in complete control of the conversation now. "Lucky, don't you hate your job?" Officer Chandler asked with care. "It's like mine.  We've been here before.  Like dogs chasing their tails."

"Let me know what you find out about Jan. I'll be working with my crew from home." Lucky said, brushing off the cops strange choice of words all of a sudden.

"Oh. Be careful at the house too.  Those things seem to be everywhere." Officer Chandler said. "And I will." He promised Lucky.  "Take care.  Good-bye, for now." Ended the cop as the siblings got up and left.