Disclaimer: Nope, I checked. My name isn't in the production credits so I guess I don't own Supernatural.
"Hello sir, I'm Detective Morgan, Oklahoma State Police." Dean introduced himself to the desk man after walking into the sheriff's office and flashed his badge.
"I'm here about the murders." Dean explained at the officer's curious expression.
"Oh, of course. They said they were sending someone I just didn't know it would be so soon." The officer said standing up to shake Dean's hand.
"Right, well, given the circumstances we thought it best to expedite things." Dean said with a charming smile.
"I'm Officer Bradley by the way." He introduced himself and sat back down.
"Pleased to meet ya," Dean said. "Now if I could just ask you a few questions about where the bodies were discovered…"
"That's all in the files we sent." Officer Bradley told him.
"I know but I'd like to hear it again, you know sometimes the paper work can't cover everything." Dean said in his most official voice. Of course he hadn't seen any files but this guy didn't need to know that.
"Alright. Like it said in the files we faxed to you guys, some hikers found the first corpse about three months ago," Bradley started. Dean had struck gold with how cooperative the man was being. Hopefully they'd be done with the job before the real state police made their way to town and his cover was blown. He had a pocket full of paper clips handy just in case though.
"At first we thought it was an animal attack." Bradley continued.
"Why's that?" Dean asked.
"Well the first body wasn't as clean as the last two." Bradley said and winced at his own words. "I mean the dismemberment was less proficient, dirtier."
Dean nodded in understanding and took out the little notebook he'd brought along to jot down the notes, alongside a little doodle of a UFO.
"The hikers who found the first body, are they locals?" Dean asked.
"No they were visiting from Tulsa I believe." Officer Bradley said.
"And the other two bodies?" Dean asked.
"The second was just the torso, found by a couple of teenagers having a party in the woods." Officer Bradley said, "And the third was found by a local man, a hunter."
"And it was just a pair of legs found from the last, right?" Dean asked.
"Yes sir." He told him. "Like I said the severing became cleaner as each body was discovered."
"And you ran DNA to make sure the parts didn't come from the same body." Dean made it a statement. No need to irritate the law just yet.
"Yeah." The cop said. Dean nodded and wrote some more, then decided to take his chances with his next statement.
"You know we had some problems with the crime scene photos. Didn't travel well. I need to have a look at the originals." Dean said.
"We didn't send any photo's yet." Bradley said frowning.
"Oh right," Dean agree after an awkward pause, "Sorry, must've been thinking about another case."
The man looked at Dean for a second before nodding slowly. He got up from his chair and went to another room, not inviting the visiting "Detective" to join him. He came back a few minutes later with a thick file folder and put it in front of Dean.
"Those are some copies we were going to send you boys." Bradley said indicating at the file.
"Thanks. I'm gonna look over these with some colleagues I brought with me." Dean said gathering up the file. He nodded a goodbye to the officer, who was looking at him warily now and hurried out the door. Dean shook his head, that was close, he'd have to be more careful, step lighter from then on.
'On the bright side, I got crime scene photos.' Dean thought smirking triumphantly at the file in his hands.
Sam and Jack waited for him at the local library doing research. They commandeered two computers checking the town historical records to see if there was a pattern to the murders that went back farther than the last few months.
"I think I deserve a promotion." Dean said slapping the file down on the table between them. The librarian looked over at them irritably. Sam gave her an apologetic smile slightly ruined by the bruise still showing on his chin.
"What's that?" Jack asked eyeing the folder.
"Seriously, after this pull I think I deserve it. How does 'Captain Morgan' sound to you guys?" Dean laughed at his own joke.
"What's in the file 'Captain'?" Sam asked.
"Crime scene photos." Dean answered sitting down and propping his feet up on the table.
"How'd you get those?" Sam asked grabbing the file.
"My charming personality." Dean replied.
"No seriously." Sam said. Dean gave him a sour look and flipped him off.
"They already sent for the big boys and were more than happy to cooperate with me." Dean said. "We need to get this done before the real cops come sniffing."
"There's nothing in the town records of anything like this happening before." Jack said filling him in on their lack of progress. "We should go back and look this stuff over." She wanted to get inside before she got anymore looks of recollection by people.
"What's the rush?" Sam asked.
"People dieing." Jack said. "That ring a bell?"
"Smart ass. I meant we could still poke around the town. Talk to the locals." Sam said.
"We should look in woods too. Around where they found the bodies." Dean said.
"I can do that, while you guys play twenty questions." Jack suggested.
"No." Dean looked at her like she was slow. "Homicidal something dismembering people, we don't split up."
"You went to the police station by yourself." Jack reminded him.
"That was down the street. From now on we don't split up, okay?" Dean said in that voice that said not to fucking argue. He didn't take his eyes off of her till she nodded an affirmative.
"Louise, do you have t hat book I was waiting on?" A familiar voice reached Jack's ears. She sat very still so neither Sam nor Dean would take notice to the sudden tension in her form. She was glad she'd kept her hood up.
"No dear I'm sorry." The librarian said fondly.
Jack looked at the computer screen catching the reflections of the people just a few yards away from where she was sitting. Then Dean and Sam were getting to their feet, gathering the files, preparing to go. Jack couldn't think of any excuse to stay seated any longer and some small rebellious part of her wanted to look in the face of her old flame and smirk, dare him to say a word to her all this time later. However the bigger part of her remembered that he knew things and that was bad for her.
So she compromised with herself by walking beside Sam, whose height could conceal her and walking with her chin up so she didn't feel like she was hiding at all. She didn't breath until they walking towards the car, away from the library.
'You fucking coward.' She thought to herself.
"I think its getting late to start grilling the locals." She said. The sun had long ago set and the town wasn't particularly active after dark.
"Damn." She heard Sam mutter.
"Yeah, lets get something to eat and look at the pictures." Dean agreed.
The pictures of dismembered corpses shared table space with their dinner, an arrangement none of them batted an eye out, and a map of the wooded area marked where the body parts had been found.
"Definitely our kind of thing." Jack said holding up a close up of one the legs. It was a clean sever, but what she was concentrating on were the symbols carved into the leg. She didn't recognize them and that didn't happen very often. She took a bite out of her pizza and put the picture down.
"This looks a little familiar but I'm not sure where I've seen it." Sam frowned pointing at the symbol cut into the torso the teenagers discovered.
"Could call Bobby, he knows some of the more obscure symbols." Dean thought aloud looking over the macabre spread. He reached for another slice. E should go into the woods first thing. Jack, you lead the way."
"Why me?" Jack asked turning to him.
"Cause you know this place better than us." Dean said, never one for subtlety. Jack opened her mouth to argue and then closed it.
"We'll take the east trail, not many people use it." She said instead. She took the map from the table and carefully taped it to the wall. Then stood back to look at it. She knew those woods well, another precaution from when she was living there.
Sam looked at Dean, slightly annoyed that he seemed to want to thwart his attempts at tracing Jack's time in this place without her knowing, but his brother was ignoring him, instead studying the pictures. Sam took the last slice of pepperoni and tried not to think of the way Jack stiffened in the library just a couple of hours ago. He didn't know why she did, but he knew something was up with her. At least she'd admitted to knowing the area, that gave them something in their favor for the investigation, he reasoned.
That night Jack dreamed vividly of sweat soaked skin sliding together, twisting limbs and deep throated moans. She saw dark eyes, blown pupils and kiss ravaged lips beneath her. The dream started as one thing and quickly turned into another, the same as the way her dream ended in the car, with her putting her fist through the mirror, fifteen and angry at the world and most of all at herself. She saw violence and blood, the two constants in her life. She jerked awake, covered in sweat. She hopped out of bed and walked into the bathroom, turning the water as cold as it would go. They weren't dreams, they were memories.
"Fuck, get it together girl." She snarled at herself in the mirror.
TBC……..