At some point during their partnership, Kirmani had stopped registering Murphy as a woman. Not that it meant he considered her a man. He wasn't blind, for crying out loud. He'd just come to think of her as a cop over everything else. A no-nonsense, one hundred percent cop.

Of course, he was aware that not everyone saw her that way. There had been that guy, Garrett who worked in fraud cases. He'd wanted to know when Kirmani would get a chance to do some "recreational all night stakeouts with his hot boss, if you know what I'm sayin'?" Kirmani hadn't found that amusing. But Murphy had overheard the comment and had taken down 6 foot 3 Garrett with one packed right hook. Now that, Kirmani had found very amusing.

But every once in awhile Kirmani remembered that Murphy didn't necessary eat and sleep 24/7 as a cop. She had been married at some point and was even a mom. He'd met Anna once. Being the youngest of five siblings, Kirmani never got used to talking to children younger than himself and in his world, kids were just smaller adults with equal cognitive skills unless proven otherwise. But Anna hadn't seemed to mind the detective's blunt nature and had taken the opportunity to ask if he'd ever shot anyone and if so, how many?

Strangely, the idea of Murphy being a parent was easier to process. He could easily see her threatening to blow the kneecaps off of anyone daring to lay a finger on her kid. What he couldn't picture was Murphy in a white dress getting married to some guy and then feeding him wedding cake in front of a bunch of guests. Okay, he could. But the image was disturbing on every conceivable level.

Over the years of their partnership, the detective had pieced together that Murphy was an angry ex-wife, a protective mom, and a resentful daughter. But first and foremost, she was a damn good police officer. Kirmani knew she was the kind of cop he could learn a lot from. In fact, he already had learned a lot from her. She had one of the best arrest records in the precinct and she was as good at hitting her mark in the weapons range as she was at assessing a person's character. And one thing she most definitely was not was a chump.

Which was why Kirmani had no idea how the whole Harry Dresden thing fit in.

The first time Kirmani had met him, the detective had skipped the healthy skepticism stage and gone straight to flat out hostile disbelief.

"There's no point in being polite to someone who's planning on screwing you over, Sid," his oldest sister advised him once. Lynn was an expert on emotional hostility and had a string of traumatized ex-boyfriends to prove it.

But seriously? A wizard? What sort of happy drug had he slipped Murphy to pull that much wool over her eyes? Despite what that second rate hack, (sorry, journalist) Herrick had once suggested, Kirmani refused to believe his partner had a penchant for calling Dresden in because she was interested in the guy. In the romantic sense. Because again, disturbing on every level.

"He gets us results, Kirmani," Murphy usually said to him, every time Dumbledore walked all over their crime scenes. "Or haven't you noticed?"

Yeah, he'd noticed. But he'd also noticed a guy on the L claiming he could bend spoons with his mind. Were they going to start asking him for tips on how to catch a murderer? Plus, beardless Gandalf was the biggest cause of there being holes the size of trucks in his and Murphy's case reports. They could only use the term "anonymous tip" so many times. But he supposed it beat the alternative.

How'd we know to track down a Jerry Tilden in Milwaukee? Floating words in the air, obviously. Why? How do YOU get your Intel?

His older brother had thought Kirmani was too highly strung about this for his own good. "Live and let live, dude. I mean, chill a little. He helps you out, you catch the bad guys. What's the big deal?" Kirmani hadn't been about to heed the words of a 40-year old man who still used the terms "dude" and "chill" in his everyday lexicon.

His dad had once explained to him the concept of Ockham's Razor: all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Kirmani usually referenced that when telling himself that Dresden was a fake. But as time went on…fine, maybe, just MAYBE, Dresden being a fake wasn't necessarily the simplest solution, taking into consideration that thing with Munzer last month.

But standing in the pouring rain, knee deep in dead bodies, Kirmani really didn't have that much time to give anymore deep thought into this little revelation.

Two women found dead in an alley with their wallets and all its valuable contents still in them. The IDs listed the two girls as being in their early 20's. The bodies, however, suggested otherwise. The forensics guy didn't want to make it his official statement, but to him it looked like the bodies were closer to being in their 80's. He'd think the IDs were planted, only the photos inside the wallets showed one of the women had an intricate tattoo running all along her bicep. It matched the one on the shriveled 80-year old arm, currently being protected from the downpour by a few plastic tents.

"Sir?" asked a young officer Kirmani didn't recognize. "Forensics is nearly done."

"Fine," said Kirmani. He'd caught this one and as far as he could tell, the case would be his. He organized in his mind about getting the bodies transported to the morgue and then having to contact the families. Get a DNA match to make sure the women in the driver's licenses were unbelievingly, the aged corpses in front of him. But he focused back in on his present situation. Murphy had always said to comb the area for every single thing the first time around before closing it off. A good cop almost never had to return to the scene of the crime to solve it.

"Hey," Kirmani called out to the retreating officer. "Uh…"

"DuBain, sir," he supplied, eagerly.

"DuBain. Make sure the area's locked down and call in the morgue to have them open up the place for these two."

"Yes, sir."

Kirmani stared back down at the wrinkled corpses and sighed. "Also…give Dresden a call."

"Who, sir?"

"Harry Dresden," Kirmani strangled out. Ripping a sheet from his notepad, the detective wrote the number that he disturbingly realized he knew now by heart. He handed the paper over to DuBain who stared at it, uncomprehendingly.

"Is he a forensics guy?" he asked.

"He's…" Kirmani couldn't say it. "He's helpful. Just do it."

"Of course, sir."

DuBain trotted off, leaving Kirmani to start taking some preliminary notes. He needed results so yeah, maybe for now he'd give puzzling out Dresden a rest until he was done with this case. Murphy was rubbing off on him. Because in the end, it all circled back to Murphy.

So fine, she might go down in Chicago PD history as the one who "consulted the oracles and was buddies with Mr. Crackpot Wizard." But she'd also go down in history as the one who solved and closed the unsolvable cases. And if at the end Kirmani found he'd modeled his career after hers, well….

There were far worse things he supposed.

THE END