Constable Lennox held his baton in the dark with a death grip. Dearest wife had been out with the kids, so just who stumbled about his office in the middle of the night? He hardly washed the stench of the protests when he had made his way into the home when he heard his address book thump against his carpet followed by knocks upon the door.
He inched the door open, with single creak on the hinges, the clamoring had stopped. Lennox raised his baton and yelled “Announce yourself!”
The phone wire was stretched along the back of his chair and disappeared behind the headrest, the phone itself had no current use and was relaying static rather than any message.
The chair swiveled around as a gust of wind breezed through and sent Lennox’s papers fluttering around, the detective sat in the chair with the phone to his ear.
“Hello Constable,” the detective greeted, “do you believe in ghosts?”
Lennox lowered his baton in confusion. While eccentric, the detective had never once been considered a superstitious person with outlandish theories about how death worked or considerations of the great beyond. Never once could Lennox even say that the detective was a godly man, rather, he was too distracted to ever consider picking up a bible. A knock came at the door, though the chamber was wide open.
“I should say not, there has yet to be proof of the supernatural.”
“I agree.” He looked at his phone for a moment. “Your police box isn’t working; none of them are. If it did, you would’ve heard from a first missing persons report on Wildfire Street at 12:35 by a librarian named Ewan.”
“I don’t understand.” He opened his mouth to speak once more before being cut off.
“Did you ever once consider how or why any of the other stations had received the call?” The detective set their phone back onto the receiver. “There was another call tonight.”
Lennox jolted, unable to speak before the detective could.
“You have five minutes till your phone rings. I’ve timed the intervals.”
“How?”
“A hunch. Sit, I’m curious as to what your answers will be.”
Lennox pulled up a chair and stared at the phone. In the dark, with his hands fumbling near his chin, the detective was easily one of the most disconcerting men he had come across.
Another cold wind blew through the window set ajar, and the drapes thudded dully against each other. Another knock came, hard thumps against the wood.
A curious thief, that’s what the detective was. The detective was never opposed to stealing evidence for his own, but to go as far as to breaking into Lennox’s house, Lennox had never considered him so eagerly before.
The detective maintained eye contact, then from his pocket he produced a pocket watch, ticking away. Only disrupted when five minutes after their last conversation, the phone had let out a shrill ring and Lennox had picked it up without haste.
“Hello?”
“H-llo?”
Indeed it was her. Lennox glanced up to the detective, expecting a smug grin but only met with darkened eyes.
“You’re calling again, at my home phone.”
“The p-lic- b-, they’re no- working.
“How did you find this number?”
The detective shook his head. That wasn’t the question Lennox was meant to be asking.
“Who?” He croaked. The detective hesitated, then nodded.
“McKinley.”
Lennox tilted his head. “Yes, McKinley, how did you-
The detective motioned for Lennox to move past that question. The static on the other end was starting to clear up.
“I was – the colleg- an-”
“And? Hello?”
“I was at the college.” She repeated, “and — the fliers.”
Lennox furrowed his brow when the detective had produced a pamphlet from his pocket on the ‘misinformation of supposed witches,’ then returning to his curious disposition.
“I didn’t mean- I only meant to help.”
The phone hung up and in a haze the detective retailed all the answers he was given.
“I never took you for a superstitious man, detective.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why?”
The detective tapped his finger against the phone. “The Scottish Witchcraft act of 1649 made it a capital punishment to worship false gods and the such, along with other established-”
“Damnit detective!” Lennox toppled his chair, leaning forward as a means of intimidation. “Where are you going with this?”
A whistle rang through the air, produced by the wind and with the wind came the smell of wax candles. Lennox was reminded of a church and turned his head to the window from where he could see into the street that it was not a church, but protesters.
“This early?”
The detective scrutinized Lennox silently. Then calmly asked, “Are you done with your anger?”
Bitter anger rose in Lennox’s throat, “I am.”
“It’s a student protest Lennox, it came out recently that the college was allowing women to study alternative religions, in fact, yesterday two students were caught in the act. The protests were staged, a woman went about last night with an address book just hours before the first protester went out to the street and then disappeared soon after returning it. Religion doesn’t matter, finding her accomplice who we can assume is the one calling, does.”
“And you said the phone booths were down.”
“They are.”
“So how is she calling? And how did you time the intervals?”
“How I’m not aware, but each call is the same time it takes to walk from phone to phone. Her last call was at St. Monica station, I simply timed the distance between here and there.”
There it was again. Four erratic thumps against the wood.
“I suppose there’s no use hiding it.” The detective unfolded his fingers, he leaned back in his chair to pull open the closet door. Falling out was a young man, hands tied around his back.
“What is this?!”
“He assaulted a police officer.”
“So you kidnapped him?”
“Monica station was closed. And he has some pressing information.” He turned the young man onto his back. “Or were you lying to me?”
“I was not.” He shifted himself around, his feathery brown hair hiding his eyes. “They’re hiding the second girl on campus.”
“‘They’re’?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m so tired. Can I go home?”
“No. Answer a couple more questions. What happened?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s the Lord’s hour and all of a sudden I hear a knock on my door, and they’re telling me that the ‘damned ladies are staging protests. So we have to go out and stage our own.’ I hadn’t the faintest idea what they were yammering on about. But I had heard that they protected one of the women that had started it all.”
Patiently, Lennox rose from his desk and cut the poor young boy loose. He rubbed his wrist then hesitantly bolted out of the room, supposedly disappearing into the night.
“He was a criminal,” detective said curiously.
“All of your actions tonight speak to the same.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Detective, you have… tested the law, toed that line between legal and illegal, but this- kidnapping a witness is, no matter how you frame it, against the law.”
Detective drummed his fingers against the chair in deep contemplation, when his attention was finally drawn back he had said. “Yes. I suppose it is.”
“No, you don’t suppose it is, it is. It is illegal.”
“Detective, you are meandering.”
“I am not meandering, you are trespassing on private property, you kidnapped a student, you’re lucky you’re not in jail.” Lennox kept his cool rather than let his hot head run loose. “We have history, you and I. And while it is against my code and against the law for me to do so, all I ask of you now is that you are pardoned from this case, on the court, you will do as I ask, be a good witness and nothing more.”
Detective gave an unnatural grin. “You’re joshing me, surely. “
“No.”
He nodded. The detective sank back into Lennox’ chair and laid his hand onto his fist. “It will have to be after tomorrow, we’-
“No, you leave and go home now. To your daughter, detective.”
The detective snarled and snatched his umbrella from the stand. “And I hope your daughter actually comes home, Lennox.”
Lennox was then left alone in the dark. An eerie silence had fallen upon him like the first piece of snow on a cold winter’s night, abruptly and while not unwelcome; it did sting.
The wind billowed in through the window again, the drapes flowed and reached towards him in an attempt to grasp at him. Whispers carried along that wind as well as a faint thumping against the door came again.
His senses seemed to be keener in the night…in the dark. He could hear the hinge of the door behind him and the light patters passing through. He twitched in anticipation, he was waiting, he realized. For the detective to come back. And when the creak at the door came, he swiveled around in expectation to be met with nothing but open air.
And a call.
“Hello Lovey,” he said softly into the receiver, expecting it to be his wife.
“I remember it now.”
His eyes widened. The voice that responded was clear and unbroken and decidedly, not Mrs. Lennox.
“It was Cairn. Find Cairn.”
