It did not take long for Professor Peterson to find his target.
"Good morning, Albrecht," he said to Professor Albrecht Mulligan, who taught Divination.
"Mark," Professor Mulligan said in reply, quickly dipping his head in Peterson's direction.
"Mind if I join you?"
"No—please, do." Professor Mulligan looked positively delighted to have company for once.
Mulligan was a stout and stone-faced character who had been teaching at the school for thirteen years. He was extremely unpopular among his students, not in the least because Mulligan had the tendency to make his students sweep up the classroom floor instead of teach. His older sister, however, was a wealthy and particularly influential member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, which many suspected was the reason why Mulligan had never gotten the sack.
Peterson did not blame anyone for wanting to smash Mulligan's skull in.
They made amiable conversation as they headed down Hogsmeade's main street, though Peterson's mind was elsewhere. With a bit of strategic manoeuvring, he was leading the pair of them towards a rather more isolated stretch of the village that Peterson recalled from his own school days. Meanwhile, his eyes wandered from side to side, casually scanning the reflections on the windowpanes they passed for any sign of a suspicious figure—a hunter stalking prey.
It takes one to know one, Peterson reflected with some amusement.
"Your students adore you," Professor Mulligan suddenly remarked, palpably envious. "And you've only just started. How do you do it?"
It was true. Professor Peterson did have something of a knack for teaching.
"You get to know your students," Peterson mused. "You treat them like adults. You show your passion for the subject and they will learn by example."
"Nonsense," Professor Mulligan said, dismissing Professor Peterson's advice with a wave of his hand.
Professor Peterson simply smiled, concealing any offence he had taken. Instead he satisfied himself by imagining the various ways in which the Skull Smasher could slaughter Albrecht Mulligan.
They turned down a side alley, empty. Peterson turned around, fully aware of what was to come.
"Imperio!"
Leave, a voice echoed in his head. Leave and forget that you've seen me. Go buy yourself a drink, then return to the castle.
But Peterson was ready. He also happened to be an extremely stubborn man.
No.
Peterson slashed his wand sharply through the air; the Smasher leapt to the side, narrowly dodging the jinx.
Professor Mulligan looked between the two of them, dazed and unhelpfully rooted to the spot. Then the Smasher grabbed Mulligan by the throat and shoved him forcibly against the wall, jabbing a wand against the underside of Mulligan's chin.
"Imper—"
"Avada Kedavra."
The Smasher's hold on Mulligan's neck went slack. Professor Mulligan slid to the floor.
Peterson's wand was pointed at the Smasher. The Smasher's wand was pointed at Peterson.
Between them lay Albrecht Mulligan. He was dead.
"Why did you do that?" the Smasher demanded.
Peterson took the time to give the serial killer a good, hard look. Dressed in plain black robes, the Smasher wore a hood obscuring the face, with only the eyes visible.
"Well, I'm sure he would have died either way," Peterson said with a warm smile. "I do apologise for depriving you of the pleasure."
The Smasher let out a furious shriek and sent a curse flying in Peterson's direction; the professor flicked his wand lazily and sent the jet of green light veering off course.
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Peterson said. "I did use to be an Auror, you know."
"I know."
Peterson raised his eyebrows; the Smasher took an uncertain step back.
"We've met, haven't we?" Peterson said, thoughtfully raising his chin.
The Smasher did not reply.
"We have," Peterson said, answering his own question. "Tell you what—you scram, I won't tell a soul."
"No." The Smasher's head shook vigorously. "You're coming with me."
"You're not exactly in a position to negotiate," Peterson pointed out.
"You're the one who killed him," the Smasher growled.
"It's my word against yours," said Peterson.
The Smasher's head tilted to the left, pondering this. "If your old friends come after me, I'll tell them what you did."
"Very well." Peterson kept smiling. "You can trust me."
The Smasher looked hesitant, wand arm twitching. Then, with a swish of robes, the killer bolted out of the alley.
The professor turned around and set to work.
Howard's eyes swept over the crowd of Hogwarts students. Shouting. Laughing. Running. Crinkling the dried up leaves beneath their feet.
And entirely oblivious to the fallen bodies of their professors.
Professor Albrecht Mulligan was lying in the middle of the alley. He looked as if he was staring up at something truly horrific, forced to watch something he could hardly endure, sentenced to remain frozen in place for all eternity. He looked shocked and afraid.
But Professor Mulligan was not actually any of those things. He was just dead.
Beside him sat Professor Mark Peterson, looking battered and broken with a couple of Healers huddled around him. A large section of stone wall had caved in behind him, and he lay amongst the rubble with his head bleeding and a slab of rock embedded in his left thigh.
Howard watched as Tristan walked over to Mark, who smiled wanly up at them both.
"I'm getting old," said Mark.
"No you're not," said Tristan. "I'm still two years older than you."
"Guess I'm out of practice, then." Mark let out a soft sigh. "Smasher got away."
"Not your fault," Tristan said briskly, though his face was lined with trepidation as he gave Howard a look. It reflected Howard's own concern: if the legendary Mark Peterson could not stop the Skull Smasher, who could? "What can you tell us about the Smasher?"
"Not much, I'm afraid," Mark said, attempting to sit up straight. "Thin, couple inches shorter than me, but that's about it."
"Good at duelling?"
"No, just…caught me by surprise, you see," Mark shook his head, then looked Howard in the eye. "I'm sorry."
"You saved Professor Mulligan from unnecessary pain," Tristan pointed out. "Your presence meant the Smasher couldn't carry out the full ritual and had to make do with just the Killing Curse."
Just the Killing Curse. Somehow Howard did not find that very comforting.
"Well, it's up to you, now," Mark said, who was still looking at Howard. "I trust you'll find the Smasher and put an end to this."
Howard caught the intent look in Mark's eyes and swallowed; he finally got a hint of why Mark might have seemed so formidable as an Auror.
"Hey, Howard?"
Howard turned. Scarlett was beckoning him over.
It had taken Tresillian—at Howard's fervent urging—several hours and cashed in favours to get a special Exemption Charm for Scarlett that would let her into Hogsmeade. Howard had a feeling she was about to prove that their efforts had not been in vain.
"It's beautiful," Scarlett said as he gazed at the castle.
"Normally all that Muggles would see would be a hazardous wreck with a big red 'KEEP OUT' sign at the front," Howard remarked.
"As if that would stop me," Scarlett said with a smirk.
"Safest place on Earth," Howard said with a shrug.
"Is it, though?" Scarlett glanced over her shoulder, just as one of the Healers Disapparated with Mulligan's body.
Howard sighed. "The parents will be in an uproar when they get wind of this," he said. "They'll all be rescinding their children's Hogsmeade permissions."
"Poor kids."
"There'll be widespread panic. All because we couldn't protect their teacher."
"Don't beat yourself up over it," Scarlett said, placing a hand on Howard's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "You did what you could. Not your fault your boss wouldn't let you leave."
The Auror Department had received an anonymous threat to its members by owl a few days prior. Fusman, no doubt still resentful of Nellie for going over his head, had assigned the entire Homicide Division to protective detail for the past week; only this morning had Howard, Tristan, and Freda finally gotten out of guard duty and returned to field work. Howard and Scarlett were certain that the threat had been merely a diversion, but there had been nothing they had been able to do but wait—until a body had turned up.
"Okay, walk me through this," Scarlett said, taking Howard's arm and steering him out of the alley, away from the rubble. "Can anyone just teleport here on cue, or is there some sort of restriction on that?"
"Well, you can't Apparate to or Disapparate from Hogwarts," Howard explained as they walked alongside each other down High Street, "and when Hogsmeade is open to the students, that extends to here as well."
"And can you just, I don't know, walk in and out?" Scarlett said, glaring at a couple of teenagers who were gawking at her particularly Muggle-looking checkered red skirt.
"Out, but not in," Howard said. "They're not too concerned about students running away, that pretty much never happens and they're easy to track down again if they do. But if you're not a student and you're not a villager you wouldn't be able to visit on a weekend when the students are here unless you have some sort of Ministry security clearance, like we do."
Scarlett nodded. "So the only way an intruder could've gotten in," she said, "would be if they were already here, before the weekend."
"Let's check that theory out." Howard pointed at the sign above their heads that read The Three Broomsticks.
They stepped into the inn. Howard smiled a little as he passed an eager bunch of students, evidently third years, sampling butterbeer for the first time; meanwhile Scarlett was staring with interest at a glass of smoking red fluid clutched between the fingers of a wizened old man.
"Howard Kruse, is that you?" Though in her sixties, the barmaid of the Three Broomsticks looked as lively as ever as she set down a tray before squeezing between two chairs and coming over.
"Hello, Madam Rosmerta," Howard said, smiling faintly. "It's, er, been a while."
The performance of the Auror Office has, of late, been of an entirely unacceptable standard. If this is not remedied within a week, one of your members will die. You have been warned.
The letter had arrived by owl on Wednesday. Duplicates had been made and distributed to every Division. Nellie had read and reread her own copy three times before drawing a thin line beneath the word "members" with her wand.
Not "Aurors," no—"members." Whoever had composed the threat was not specifically targeting Aurors, who would, naturally, be able to defend themselves; rather, the target was more likely to be a non-Auror "member" of the Office.
That was why Nellie was at St. Mungo's, sifting through paperwork at a makeshift desk (actually a couple of particularly tall chairs) just outside Tobias's ward. Office administration had insisted that he take some time off to recover from the Ward & Waterford incident; Nellie was supportive of the idea, as that made it much easier for her to watch over him. Kenzie, though she had been discharged on Tuesday, accompanied them both, having converted the empty ward next door into a temporary morgue so that she could remain close by.
Kenzie now took a seat beside Nellie. "Professor Mulligan just came in," she said. "Cause of death was a Killing Curse, just like Mark said. There's not really much else for me to do with him."
Nellie glanced over at her. "Did you know Professor Mulligan?"
"He taught me," Kenzie reflected. "I think he was very smart, but he wasn't very kind. I don't think the students will take it very hard."
Nellie smiled in spite of herself; she could always count on Kenzie for an honest opinion. To that end, Nellie pulled out the copy of the threatening letter that she kept in the inside pocket of her robes.
Both Howard and Scarlett had scorned the note as an empty threat—at best, a prank; at worst, a diversion from the intentions of some potentially dangerous villain. Nellie, however, took any threat to the safety of her colleagues very seriously.
Still, she had to admit that Howard and Scarlett had a point. After all, if the letter was really intended to improve the performance of the Auror Office, then it had been an utter failure—the letter had instead slowed down the productivity of the Office considerably, as its members were too busy guarding and protecting each other to do any proper investigative work.
"What do you think, Kenzie?" Nellie said, turning to her. "Are we wasting our time here?"
Kenzie tilted her head to one side, apparently pondering for a moment before plucking the letter from Nellie's fingers and scanning the writing. "It's not much to go on," Kenzie said.
"See how the writer uses the word 'members'? That's why I thought—"
"The handwriting's very neat," Kenzie noted. "Somebody took the time to write this."
Nellie frowned. She had not really thought much about the handwriting, having been much more focused on the text itself. "Now that you mention it—you're right. So it wasn't just a prank."
"Some people spend a lot of time on very elaborate pranks," Kenzie said. "I just mean that whoever wrote this letter did so very deliberately. They must have had a good reason."
"I haven't seen you since you left school!" said Rosmerta, beaming at Howard before raising her eyebrows at Scarlett. "And who might this lovely young lady be?"
"I'm Scarlett," she said, beaming as she offered her hand; Rosmerta shook it firmly. "Mind if we ask you a few questions?"
"That's right, I did hear, you're an Auror now, aren't you?" Rosmerta said, looking at Howard in awe before turning to Scarlett. "I always knew he'd make something of himself. Can I get you two some refreshments?"
"I'm good," Howard said, but Scarlett raised her hand.
"I'll have whatever he's having," she said, pointing to the man with the smoking red drink.
Madam Rosmerta called back to a young woman behind the counter, "A glass of Ogden's!" Howard gave Scarlett a sidelong glance, slightly amused. "So what did you want to ask me?" asked Rosmerta.
"Mind if we go over here?" Howard said once Scarlett had received her drink; he directed them over to a part of the inn where there was less of a chance that they would be overheard.
"What is it?" Rosmerta asked as Howard's expression turned grim. "Has something happened?"
"Professor Mulligan's been murdered," Howard said, and Rosmerta gasped. "We suspect the killer might have come into Hogsmeade some time before this morning and waited overnight to come out. Have you had any lodgers here recently who left some time this morning?"
"Well, there was a young man, now that you mention it," said Madam Rosmerta, who then frowned. "I mean, I'm sure he was a harmless fellow. Do you think…?"
"What was his name?" Howard asked, as Scarlett sipped at her glass of firewhisky and glanced off into the distance.
"Cal something, I think? Let me go and check." Madam Rosmerta marched off, slipping behind the bar and into a back room.
Scarlett set her glass down. "Gotta use the ladies' room," she muttered before heading off as well, leaving Howard alone with his thoughts in the corner of the inn.
"Messings?"
Freda glanced up. Tresillian stood by her cubicle, holding a file in his hands. "Sir?"
Tresillian glanced around. "Nobody's back yet?"
"They're all still at Hogsmeade," Freda said, munching on a bar of a chocolate. "What's up?"
"It's Fiscelli," said Tresillian.
"Did they find him?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking," Tresillian said with a sigh. "He's dead."
"What? When?"
"Around three in the morning last Tuesday."
"But he Disapparated Monday night," Freda said, picking thoughtfully at her chocolate bar. "So he's been dead this whole time? Why didn't anyone find him till now?"
Tresillian offered her his arm. "Come on, I'll show you."
Scarlett ran straight into the side of a blonde girl's stool.
The girl let out a loud yelp, dropping her tankard of butterbeer into her lap and spilling it all over the front of her robes.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Scarlett exclaimed, dipping her hand into the girl's bag. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," the girl said, scowling as she batted Scarlett's hand aside.
"Here, let me help—"
"No, I don't need—"
"I can clean that for you, Brooke," said one of the girl's friends, who extracted her wand.
"No—no, Raina, I can handle it—"
"Are you sure? Maybe—"
"Yes, yes of course—where's my wand—"
"Brooke—"
Scarlett took a tactful step back, blending in with a queue of students at the bar. Brooke pushed back her stool, leaping up and hurrying over to the ladies' room at the back of the inn. Scarlett dropped Brooke's wand on the floor and followed.
Scarlett slipped inside the ladies' room and locked the door behind her, standing firmly against the restroom door to keep anyone else from coming inside.
"Brooke?"
Brooke spun around, the tap of the sink still running. "What the fuck? Are you stalking me or something?"
Scarlett considered this for a moment, then shrugged as she pulled out her gun. "I guess you could put it like that."
Freda had not had the chance to meet Rudy Fiscelli personally, but she had seen a couple of photographs of him after his disappearance and figured she would recognise him on sight by his distinctive features—his wide-set eyes, his puffy nose, and his round, jutting chin. As she stared down at what she had been told was Fiscelli's body, however, she realised that there was a small problem: she could not see this man's face, for the simple reason that he had been stuffed face-first into a very large wastebasket that was sitting beside a sofa in somebody's living room.
"It's definitely him," Tresillian said, as Freda had inquired upon that point. "They took him out and checked, but I instructed them to put him back to preserve the scene, so that we could see how he was found."
There were many types of wastebaskets in the wizarding world. Some, like those in the Auror Office, Vanished their contents immediately; others stored their garbage for a week or so before emptying themselves periodically, in case anyone had thrown away something they hadn't meant to. Some people favoured wastebaskets that compressed their garbage into neat cubes; others bought bins carrying Undetectable Extension Charms, along with some Odour-Masking Charms for good measure. This particular wastebasket, however, appeared to enlarge itself as around its contents, as it had expanded to the height of Freda's chin with the presence of a body inside of it.
"And Mr. Feldman," Freda said, referring to the plump old man who owned both the wastebasket and the house they were in, "has no idea where the body came from?"
"None at all," said Tresillian. "He claims he's never met Fiscelli before. According to him, he woke up this morning, came down from his bedroom upstairs, and found Fiscelli just like this. Called Magical Law Enforcement Patrol right away. Think he's telling the truth?"
"He seemed pretty innocently bewildered to me," said Freda. "I think he just got caught up in this mess. Besides, why would you kill someone and then stuff the victim into your own wastebasket?"
"You'd be surprised by the idiocy of some criminal minds," Tresillian said with a grim smile. "I agree with you on this point, however. But that raises another question—why would you kill someone and then stuff the victim into some random wastebasket in somebody else's house?"
"It's weird, isn't it?" Freda frowned as she gazed into the bin once more, noting the scraps of parchment, the used tissues, some empty food wrappers, a bit of yellow slime, a broken quill, and various other junk that were all scattered atop Fiscelli's back. "And then why is there all this rubbish on top of the body? It's definitely not to hide the body, a child could find it like this. Did the killer just want to sandwich him in between piles of waste or something? But why?"
"Why, indeed? Hmm. Maybe we could at least find out how many days' worth of rubbish this is?" Tresillian glanced over his shoulder and beckoned for Mr. Feldman, who was still wearing his pyjamas and slippers, to come over. Then he waved his wand over the top of the wastebasket, causing everything on top of Fiscelli's body to float up into the air. "Do you recognise all of this?" he asked Mr. Feldman.
The old man nodded and said, "It's all the rubbish I've thrown away in the last couple of days."
"Like this?" Tresillian said with some amusement as he nudged forward a purple pamphlet with a gold Ministry of Magic "M" stamped over its cover, though the "M" was split down the middle, as the front seal had been broken off. Freda peered at it—the pamphlet contained a public service announcement warning against riding broomsticks under the influence of alcohol.
Mr. Feldman crossed his arms. "You think I open all that shit the Ministry sends? No, I just chuck it in the bin where it belongs."
"No need to get testy, Mr. Feldman," Tresillian said smoothly with a calm smile. "We'll be out of your hair as soon as you answer a couple more questions for us. Do you remember when you received this pamphlet?"
"Three, four, five days ago?" said Mr. Feldman, as his arms wrapped ever more tightly around himself. Freda would have preferred a rather more specific answer; she made a mental note to check with someone at the Department of Magical Transportation about what the exact date had been.
As Tresillian moved on to more routine questions, Freda glanced back at the large wastebasket and let out a small, wistful sigh. With Fiscelli dead, that was two likely Smasher victims they had been aware of and yet had failed to save since Monday, and all because of that threatening letter. It was almost as if the Smasher was taking advantage of this threat, striking when the Aurors would be most distracted.
Or maybe—more likely—it was just a coincidence.
Right?
Cal Salis—that was the name Madam Rosmerta had provided Howard with. Not that it meant much; the lodger could easily have provided Rosmerta with a fake name. Next on his to-do list was to check at the Hog's Head.
But first, he had to find Scarlett, who for some reason still hadn't emerged from the toilet. What was in that firewhisky?
Howard wandered over to the lavatories in the back, wondering what was taking her so long. He watched aimlessly as a girl went up to the women's room, push against the door, and let out a disgruntled noise as she discovered it was apparently locked.
Howard frowned. As far as he could remember, the toilets at the Three Broomsticks had stalls—they were not intended for single occupants. Why would the door be locked if Scarlett was still inside?
Gathering up his wits, Howard went up to the women's room and knocked, calling out, "Scarlett, you in there?"
For a few long seconds, there was silence. Then, suddenly, the door was pulled open a couple of inches and someone yanked Howard inside by the arm.
It took a moment for Howard to fully register the scene before him. Scarlett stood beside him; though her left hand was still grasping his arm, her right hand had a firm grip on her pistol, which was pointed directly at a blonde girl huddled in the corner by the sink. She looked like she was around seventeen or eighteen.
"Help me!" the girl screeched as soon as she saw Howard. "Oh god, help me, please—"
"Shut up!" Scarlett growled as she stared down at the girl.
"W-what are you doing?" Howard said, looking from Scarlett to the girl in shock.
"She's gonna kill me!" cried the blonde. "SHE'S GONNA KILL ME!"
"SHUT IT!" Scarlett bit her lip; her finger trembled on the trigger.
"What are you doing?" cried the blonde. "DO SOMETHING!"
"Scarlett," Howard said, taking a deep breath. "What is going on—?"
"HELP ME!"
"I'll explain," said Scarlett, "as soon as—"
"Oh, god help me! Don't let her kill me!"
"—this bitch—"
"She'll kill me, oh god, oh my god, do something—"
"—shuts—"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY AREN'T YOU—?"
"UP!"
"Okay, everyone just calm down, here," Howard said, laying his hand gingerly on Scarlett's shoulder. "Scarlett, you're overreacting, just—"
"I'm fine," Scarlett hissed, before jutting her chin out at the girl. "She isn't. I'll explain just as soon as—"
"I did NOTHING!"
"She's a criminal, Howard, I've been looking for her for a while now—"
"She's lying!"
"Howard," Scarlett said, her eyes flitting over to him for a split second before locking back on the girl. "Do you trust me?"
Howard pressed his lips together. He glanced at the whimpering, sobbing girl crouched in the corner of the women's room; then he glanced at the cold, hard face that was staring her down.
Then he glanced at the door, because he thought he'd heard someone knocking.
"HEEEELP!" The girl screamed; apparently she had heard the knocking, too. "HEEE—"
"Silencio."
The girl fell quiet. Howard kept his wand pointed at her as he turned to Scarlett. "Who is she?"
"Her name is Brooke Cortona," Scarlett said. "Last March, around Easter, she tortured and brutally maimed a sixteen-year-old girl by the name of Sally Tross, who'd had the misfortune of befriending Brooke's boyfriend. The police—well, my police—wouldn't believe Sally when she told them that Brooke just pointed at her with a stick, so her mother came to me. I found her just now, sitting right here in the inn."
Howard frowned. "Are you sure it's her?"
"Positive. I've seen her picture, I recognised her right away."
"So—this was in March? Why didn't we hear about this?"
"Don't ask me, I dunno why you lot weren't doing your jobs," Scarlett retorted. "I just know I have to clean up the messes afterwards."
Howard looked over at the girl again, who was now sobbing silently as she gazed up at them both. "Well, you better be right about this," Howard muttered. "Brooke Cortona, you're under arrest, for the—"
The door blasted open. Howard flattened himself against the wall, letting the door's wooden shambles fly by as a figure emerged in the smoke.
"What the hell is going on here?" said Tristan Griffith as he stepped into the women's room, scowling.
"What did I say?" Deputy Head Carter Fusman howled as he marched up and down his office, berating the four Aurors standing before him. "What did I say about letting a Muggle prance about the premises? I warned you, I warned you it would be nothing but trouble, and look what happened! Just wait till the Prophet gets wind of this…as if a murdered Hogwarts professor wasn't enough, we've got a Muggle in Hogsmeade threatening students and waving a gun around!"
"She wasn't 'waving it around,' she was trying to make an arrest," Howard wanted to say, but didn't. Instead he stared pointedly at the ground, sweat glistening on his brow, his face flushed with shame.
"I should sack the lot of you!" Fusman shouted, swiping his hand out at the four of them and accidentally whacking Marion, who stood demurely beside him, in the shoulder.
"But you can't," said Tresillian, who sat on a chair against the wall. "We're in the middle of a high-profile serial killer case, you can't sack our entire division."
"Perhaps not at this moment," Fusman said, fuming. "But you can sleep happy knowing that you'll all be facing proper disciplinary action in due course. And no Muggle shall set foot in this office ever again! Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir," said Tristan.
"Thank you, sir," said Nellie.
"Of course, sir," said Freda.
"Sir, I—"
"Except you, Howard," Fusman said, cutting him off. "You're suspended indefinitely due to exceedingly poor judgement. Now get out of my sight."
"I—"
"Out!" Fusman jabbed his finger at the door.
Howard opened his mouth in protest, as did Nellie and Freda. All three of them, however, seemed to think better of it; instead, swallowing his pride, Howard trudged out of the room in defeat.
After the door had swung shut behind Howard, Fusman turned to the other three Aurors, glowering at them. "Where's the Muggle?"
"She has a name," Freda muttered.
"She's gone," said Tristan. "Done a bunk."
"You're all disgraceful," said Fusman. "How in the name of Merlin could you let a Muggle elude you?"
"Her name," said Freda, who was growing steadily impatient, "is Scarlett Brewster. And she's very—"
"I'm not here to listen to your silly little excuses," said Fusman. "Go and find her!"
"With all due respect, sir, we have higher priorities at the moment," Nellie said. "We may have found a lead on the Smasher case. And also, this Cortona girl—"
"—must be released at once and given a full apology!" Fusman said. "You have shown me zero evidence of any wrongdoing on her part! We'll be lucky if she doesn't file a report against the Auror Office—"
"I'll take care of her," Tresillian said, rising from his seat. "Please let my team get back to work, Carter. The Smasher needs to be stopped."
"Fine," Fusman said, taking a seat back at his desk and sipping on the cup of tea that Marion had brought him. "Go and do your jobs."
Nellie, Tristan, and Freda stood around their adjacent cubicles in various states of dejection. Freda was pacing about restlessly; Tristan was gripping the edge of his desk so hard that his knuckles were white. Nellie, meanwhile, leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, her lips fluttering as she took deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. None of them seemed to have the heart to sit down.
"I screwed up," Tristan finally said. "I should never have let Howard go off alone with Scarlett."
"It's not your fault," Nellie said immediately. "Howard should have known better, you needn't have to babysit him."
"But—Scarlett wouldn't have just threatened a random student, you know that," Freda said. "She must have had a reason for it, she must have really thought the girl had attacked someone."
"I've contacted Halimeda Wiske in Violent Crimes and tipped them off about Brooke Cortona, they'll follow up on her," Nellie said. "But for now, we need to focus. Tristan, what did you find in Hogsmeade?"
"Nobody was staying at the Hog's Head," said Tristan, "but there was one lodger at the Three Broomsticks that Howard found—someone who called himself Cal Salis. I've checked, though, and there is no wizard alive named Cal Salis in Britain."
"Did we get a description of him, at least?" Nellie asked.
"Short man, late twenties or early thirties, broad-shouldered, mop of brown hair, freckles, hunched over a bit when he walked," Tristan replied. "I had a sketch of him made. Haven't identified him yet, though."
"All right, we'll keep looking. Freda, any leads with the Fiscelli murder?"
"There's something about the fact that he was found dumped in a wastebasket that I can't seem to get my head around," Freda said as she continued to pace about the room. "It's just such an odd place for a killer to decide to put a body."
"You think maybe he ended up there inadvertently?" Nellie asked.
"Yeah—something like that. I don't think the killer meant for him to end up there, he just sort of—appeared."
"How does one end up stuffed in a wastebasket inadvertently?" Tristan asked, incredulous. "I think you'd notice if you were tossing a dead body in the bin."
"Unless you didn't know it was a dead body," Nellie said, in sudden realisation. "Unless you thought it was just—rubbish."
It dawned on Freda, as well. "Are you saying—"
"He was Transfigured," Nellie said with a nod. "His body was Transfigured into a piece of rubbish and thrown out. Then the spell wore off this morning, and he returned to his usual form."
"That's why there was waste scattered on top of him, too!" Freda exclaimed; her pacing came to a sudden halt. "By then the spell hadn't worn off yet, so Mr. Feldman just kept dumping waste in. He wouldn't have suspected a thing."
"But how did the Transfigured body get into his house in the first place?" asked Tristan.
"Wait—hang on," Freda said, pressing her fingertips to her temples. "This all sounds awfully familiar. I was looking at a clipping the other day—let me see—" She hurried over to her desk and dug amongst the newspaper fragments. "Here it is," she said, extracting a yellowing sheet from the pile. "An old Finnish lady bought a bottle of perfume, only for it to shatter when its contents reverted back to the crushed body parts it once was, before it had been Transfigured. Same idea—you kill someone, and you dispose of the body by Transfiguring it into something mundane and passing it along to some unsuspecting person. By the time the spell wears off, the body's already far away from the original scene of the crime, making it much harder to trace the murder back to the killer."
"Might that be a bit of a stretch, though?" Nellie said. "I mean, it's not that original of an idea to Transfigure your victim's body into something else to hide it, is it?"
"The timing checks out," Tristan said, leaning over to read the clipping. "In this case the spell wore off and the perfume bottle broke four days after the victim's disappearance. In our case, Fiscelli died early Tuesday morning, and his body was discovered this morning. Tuesday would've been four days ago exactly. That means the ability of the spellcaster is at least consistent between these two murders."
"And this case fits other parts of the Smasher's M.O., as well," Freda said. "The victim was crushed to a pulp—and, quite literally, Transfigured into liquid. Her name was Betty Shatler, owner of Betty's Bountiful Boutique, and by all accounts she was an insufferable boss. And—ha, yes, look at that!" Freda said, jabbing her finger at a line on the newspaper clipping. "That can't be a coincidence! Look at the name of Shatler's personal assistant!"
"'Caleb Salisbury,'" Tristan read. "Blimey, that—that's Cal Salis. Son of a bitch just truncated his names."
"I think," Nellie said, beaming at her colleagues, "we've just found our kill—"
"AAAAAAAAAEEEEEEE!"
The scream had emitted from the direction they had come from just a few minutes before. Tristan, Freda, and Nellie rushed back to Fusman's office, where a small crowd had gathered upon hearing the scream.
Once more, Tristan found himself blasting a door open; once more he found an unwelcome sight behind it. Carter Fusman was sitting at his desk where they'd left him, but hardly as they'd left him—he was slumped over and inert in his seat. Meanwhile Marion stood to his left with her back to him and her arms outstretched, her mouth widened in a shriek as she attempted to fend off the third figure in the room.
Dressed in plain black robes and a hood, the figure grabbed ahold of Marion's wrist with one hand and Fusman's shoulder with the other, turning on the spot in an apparent attempt to Disapparate.
Tristan leapt forward and cast a curse in the figure's direction; the figure deflected it with a flick of a wand. In repelling Tristan's attack, however, the figure had neglected to notice the jinx that Nellie had sent in his direction.
A gust of wind blew out of Nellie's wand and shoved the figure's hood back off of his head. There stood a short man, in his late twenties or early thirties, with a mop of brown hair and a face dotted with freckles. He hunched over as he took a step back, then turned one broad shoulder forward and the other back as he turned on the spot, and Caleb Salisbury, alias Cal Salis, Disapparated with two members of the Auror Office in tow.