It was one of the few times Murphy was actually sorry the culprits hadn't given her a reason to open fire. Standing next to Kirmani, guns drawn and taking in the evidence in front of them that said they were too late, Murphy had silently begged for the two, bloodstained murderers to come at them. To attack so that she and Kirmani would have no choice but to shoot.
No such luck.
After the body of 9 year old victim had been taken away, along with his still bloodstained parents who'd been the instigators of his death, Murphy allowed for Harry to take a look at the various symbols and markings that had been made on the warehouse floor with what had to be the boy's blood. While all of the wizard's efforts still hadn't allowed them to find the place 10 minutes faster, there might be some loose supernatural threads left to tie up as the boy's parents had been successful in sacrificing their child. Or so Harry said along with a few other things. Murphy hadn't paid too much attention, but it gave the wizard something to do while she took a moment to mentally calm her fingers down. They were still itching to shoot something.
Sticking her hands deep into the pockets of her coat, Murphy tried to wrap her mind around the idea of two people who would produce a child, a life of their own flesh and blood, just for the sole purpose of killing him for some sort of ritual. She tried to imagine how a parent could be so frighteningly cold hearted. And then she realized she didn't want to imagine how and instead refocused her mind on the paperwork she'd have to fill out when she got back.
By the time Harry walked up to her, the lieutenant was pretty sure she could drive without getting into an accident. The look on the wizard's face, however, brought her up short. If it was possible, the already haunted expression on Harry's face from earlier appeared even more profound.
"What?" she asked, dreading the answer she might receive. "Did they do something else? Is there more?"
The wizard shook his head, swallowing. "No," he answered, darkly. "They didn't do anything. The symbols don't mean anything," he stated. "It's just nonsense. They're not wizards. They're just crazy."
Not that a reason would have made the situation any less horrifying, but Murphy felt the lead in her bones grow that much heavier. The little boy really had died for absolutely nothing.
Murphy wasn't too surprised when she found Harry waiting for her outside the station. It was over an hour since they'd gotten back, but the wizard had declined to join her inside. Even when Harry's help resulted in cases solved, he still got flack for his supposed profession by a bulk of her coworkers. The fact that his help hadn't done anything to prevent the death of a kid at the hands of two maniacs who claimed to the wizards themselves, wasn't going to earn him anything beyond toxic glares. Not that Harry wasn't already used to that kind of treatment, but Murphy had a feeling the wizard's own nerves were stretched to the limit at the moment.
Walking out with Kirmani, the lieutenant spotted the familiar, lanky figure sitting on the bench across the street. The wizard was hunched over, staring blankly at the ground by his feet as he absently twisted the battered hockey stick between his hands. Reading the body language, Murphy turned to her partner.
"I'm going for a drink with Harry," she stated. "Want to tag along?"
Kirmani glanced over at the fidgeting wizard and shook his head. "I'll pass."
"It wasn't his fault," said Murphy before she could stop herself. "If it hadn't been for him we wouldn't have even located the warehouse."
"I know that," the detective nodded, looking tired. He rubbed a hand over his face as if to scrub off the last 45 hours of hell. "Look, it's nothing personal against him. But work's over. Finally," he added with a faded version of his usual acerbic tone. "And I kinda want to be some place with some people that aren't a part of work."
Murphy nodded, her defensiveness draining out of her. "Okay. See you in the morning then." She offered a small smile and pressed a quick hand to the detective's shoulder. "Night, Sid."
"Night, Connie," Kirmani returned in a rare moment of addressing her by her first name. She watched him swiftly make his way to his own parked car as he pulled out his cell phone. While she wasn't sure who he was calling, already she could spot some of the tension bleed out from his body as he continued to talk while climbing into the car. Seeing him off, Murphy walked over to the seated figure on the bench. By the time she was standing over him, Harry had stopped his rhythmical twisting motion that had resembled a man trying to start a fire. He looked up at her, his gaze expectant.
"Koschey's?" Murphy suggested.
"Lead the way."
"Just one drink."
Harry sighed. "Maybe for you."
"Murph, key's not workin' " Harry slurred. He gave it another try, stabbing at the door with the brass key.
"That's because that's your key. And this is my door," Murphy informed patiently, juggling her own set of keys, while holding onto Harry's hockey stick. "Now stop leaning on it so I can open it."
Obediently, the wizard pushed himself off the aforementioned door and sharply collided with hanging mailbox to the side of it with a loud bang. It said something about the level of alcohol inside of the wizard that he only grunted mildly, hardly feeling any pain. They'd gone for drinks enough times before for Murphy to know at this point the difference between Harry drinking to unwind and Harry drinking to try and stop his brain from excavating memories and thoughts he'd rather leave buried. And it seemed tonight was the latter. Still, the lieutenant boggled a little when Harry pulled a small bottle from the inner pocket of his jacket and took a pull.
"Where did that come from?" she demanded.
Harry gave a sloppy grin. "Ma-"
"So help me if you say magic, I'll clock you with your own stick."
The threat seemed to seep into the wizard through the alcoholic haze. "Ma….n gave it to me?" he tried instead.
Shaking her head, Murphy pushed the door open before pushing the wizard through. After accidentally knocking over a lamp and nearly tripping over the coffee table as she maneuvered Harry to the sofa, Murphy was almost glad Anna was at her father's for the weekend. But her heart ached nonetheless for her daughter's presence. Nothing calmed her faster than watching her child sleep.
"S'nice place," Harry approved.
"Thanks, I'd like to keep it that way." Taking the open bottle from Harry, she quickly put a stop on any protest building up in him, by shoving him down onto the sofa.
The wizard blearily looked at his surroundings again from his newly decreased height and Murphy realized that it was the first time he'd actually seen her place. Not exactly the way she imagined his first visit to go, but being flexible about one's expectations was pretty much mandatory when it came to Harry. Spotting, a framed photo sitting on the side table of Anna and Murphy, Harry reached for it and miraculously got a good enough hold to drag it closer.
"This Anna in a dress?" he asked.
"Her 4th birthday party," Murphy supplied, leaning against the back of the couch to look at the photo herself over Harry's shoulder. "I think that's the last time I was able to convince her to wear a dress."
Squinting a little, Harry brought the photo closer to his face. "This you in a dress?" he asked.
"The only way she'd wear hers," Murphy said. Reaching forward, she took the photo from him. "How about you get some sleep?" she suggested.
"Five years 'go, were you chasin' bad guys then?" Harry asked instead, even as he let the photo be plucked away from him.
"I was five years less experienced at it, but yeah," Murphy replied.
She saw more than heard the chuckle from Harry as his body jerked a little on the sofa. "Five years ago I was the bad guy," he murmured. Still leaning behind the wizard, Murphy frowned, the gesture unseen by Harry. "I hate people sometimes. Who does that…to their own family?" Harry muttered, leaning back against the soft cushions. A puff of air that smelled of alcohol and ash rose up at the gesture, lightly hitting Murphy in the face. "Tha' kid…he was just a normal kid. He spent his whole life thinkin' he was being protected by those bastards. S'a joke."
"They're sick," said Murphy, the explanation sounding feeble to her own ears. "Having said that, I was hoping for a reason to shoot them."
"Me too," Harry agreed in a tone so cold that for a moment, he sounded completely sober. "I might've. Did it once before. N'tha' was m'uncle. These were strangers. I wouldn've cared," he stated, though his tone suggested otherwise.
The silence that followed all but screamed at Murphy. For a few breaths, the lieutenant remained still, finding she could only stare down at the top of Harry's head as the wizard only sat there, acting like he hadn't just confessed to something. "Your uncle died of a heart attack, Harry," she said, calmly. "You didn't kill him."
"No, I did," Harry insisted. Twisting around in his seat, the wizard looked up at Murphy's carefully neutral face, his expression nearly pleading her to believe him. "It was n'accident but it was my fault."
"You were in Peru."
"I was angry," Harry snapped sharply. "He murdered my dad."
"With black magic?" Murphy asked. She attempted to throw some scorn into her tone to suggest the idea was ludicrous. But for some reason the question sounded tentative, apprehensive.
Harry nodded. Or rather his head dropped once in the affirmative and lay next to Murphy's hand that was pressed against the back of the sofa. "S'I used it on him too," he murmured into the dark fabric of the furniture. "I didn' mean…but I did too," he said, hoarsely. "I killed him, Murph. It's because of me he's dead. An' some days I'm happy about it. S'not good."
"Harry…"
"Told you I was the bad guy," he whispered.
It seemed all the alcohol consumed in the evening hadn't been able to keep the memories the wizard had been trying so hard to forget, at bay. If anything, the drinking had only allowed them to slip through from his own mind, past his lips. Looking down at her friend, Murphy saw that Harry's eyes were now closed and he was breathing heavily but rhythmically against her hand.
Her mind automatically listed off in clear black and white the protocol to be followed when someone confessed to a crime. A murder no less. Harry wasn't carrying any typical weapons and he wasn't in any state to be much of a danger to anyone. She'd just need to make a simple call and have someone come pick him up. Paperwork would have to be filed in order to recall back the file on Morningway's death that had been returned from her previous look into the case.
But all the items on her mental checklist soon got swallowed up by the gray haze of her own memories. She saw Munzer's face and heard Harry's voice whispering frantically, but firmly in her ear not to do something she'd regret. She could taste the sweet tartness of key lime pie, soon to be washed away by a gulp of hot chocolate from the midnight snack delivered to her. And she felt a pair of arms wrapped around her, warming her against the chill leftover from the nightmare that had invaded her, taken her and had finally released her on the cold floor of an antique shop.
Blinking once, she cleared her crowded mind and stared back down at her friend's head by her fingers. Raising her hand, she lightly ran it across his dark hair.
Walking silently into her bedroom, Murphy opened the safe she kept in her closet. While Anna was not in the house, she automatically unclipped her gun and badge to place them both behind the strong lock door. Shutting the safe with a snap, she spun the lock once. When she returned to the living room with a spare blanket and pillow in hand, she found Harry had slipped down further into the sofa until he was lying more or less horizontally across it, his feet dangling just over the edge.
Crouching down, she tugged at the wizard's shoelaces until the battered trainers fell from his feet. She glanced at his quietly snoring form and decided trying to wrestle him out of his jacket would be too difficult at the moment. So instead, she carefully pushed the pillow under his head and draped the blanket over him. Smoothing down the blanket of its nonexistent wrinkles, Murphy let her hands linger a little on her friend's shoulders.
"We can't be all good all the time, Harry," she said, quietly. "But you're not the bad guy," she added.
Giving him a last, gentle pat, Murphy rose to her feet to get some sleep.
THE END