Detective Dan Espinoza has heard a lot of bullshit in his life.
He once arrested an off-meds schizophrenic on Santa Monica Pier who claimed to be Jesus himself (highly unlikely, considering that the miraculous bearded man his mother periodically worshipped wouldn't be caught dead — or was it alive? He never understood that whole resurrection thing — wearing mismatched crocs and a Black Sabbath t-shirt. Nor would he be caught pissing all over the boardwalk, for that matter).
There was also that unfortunate incident involving a box of Thin Mints his friend sent over from Massachusetts once. They were supposed to be the best girl scout cookies of his life — or so his old Academy buddy said (what the hell was that son of a bitch Tom Keller doing these days, anyway? He still owed that guy a drink) — but all they did was give him chickenpox. Him. A 26-year-old police officer. Now, he would've found the whole thing knee-slapping hilarious, really (35-year-old Dan would've killed with a scenario like that at improv night), if only a very pregnant Chloe hadn't spent the entire week laughing at his blister-covered face.
(The doctor was pretty sure all that hysterical giggling caused Trixie's early delivery.)
Point is, he's heard a lot of things, seen a lot of things — fallen for a lot of things, too, but that was more wide-eyed naivete than anything else; "I told you so," all the women of his life had said at some point or another — yet none of them even came close to whatever Stephen-King-Twilight-Zone-Sleepy-Hollow horsecrap the Greendale sheriff was desperately trying to pull on him right now.
"-so you're telling me that you found a high school principal's corpse, a handless body hanging upside down in the woods, and also a mile-long list of kids who mysteriously went missing in the middle of Christmas…" Dan shut his eyes, exasperated, telephone still pressed tight against his cheek. "And the only lead you can give me is satanic witches?"
Whatever the hell his ex-wife was up to, he hoped to God (the miraculous, bearded, non-crocs-wearing kind) that this case of hers was actually going somewhere. You know, besides a Massachusetts mental institution.
"You're a hundred percent sure? Wow...Okay...Uh-huh." Dan nodded a few times as he scribbled something down on his notepad. He checked the words over once, twice, before capping back the glittery pink pen Trixie got him for his birthday ("But Lucifer said this was your favorite color!") and shutting his novelty Weaponizer booklet to a close. "Alright, alright. I think I got it. Thanks."
He hung up the phone with blessed relief as soon as the other end of the line went dead.
When the homicide detective first made the call to the Greendale precinct a little over 30 minutes ago, he had no idea what to expect. All he knew was that they were some rinky-dink puritan town made famous by a recent mining accident (he saw it on the news once; tragic but not Shakespearean enough to make the morning headline, apparently), and that was it. No tourist spots, no local celebrities, no sports teams, nothing. It was like the whole place was hell-bent on attracting as little attention as possible — not an easy feat, considering that the serial killer hovel right next to them (Riverdale, he thinks Tom called it) seemed to be doing the exact opposite.
(Man, and everyone said L.A. was weird.)
To be honest, when Chloe first told him about the case, he was convinced that the whole thing would be another dead-end fluke. It was nothing new. Some leads panned out to absolutely nothing all the time. It didn't mean they were bad detectives, it just meant they hadn't found their right footing yet.
As soon as he received the emailed police reports from Massachusetts, though, he knew footing wouldn't be the problem.
Dan sighed and pushed his sneakers up on the table.
The whole Greendale police force had already lost both their goddamn feet.
"Pudding for your thoughts?"
Dan looked up to see Chloe standing in front of his desk. She was eyeing his mud-caked shoes with thinly-veiled distaste ("I'm just saying, we spend all day walking on crime scenes, and your first instinct is to put your feet up on the furniture. Our daughter eats on these places, Dan"), but thankfully said nothing more as she tossed him a chocolate Snack Pack and pulled out one of the empty chairs.
(He swung his legs off the table, anyway).
"So," she cleared her throat, absently straightening his crooked desk calendar before glancing back up at him. "What did Greendale have to say?"
"Well, you know, the town didn't really do much talking. It was actually the sheriff who-"
She rolled her eyes in a way that lost all heat after more than 10 years. "You know what I meant."
Dan bit back a laugh and turned over the pudding cup in his hands. She actually got him the non-diet version this time. She even stuck it in the fridge. Either his ex-wife changed her mind about Snack Packs being Type 2 Diabetes in a cup, or she was just in a really good mood after closing the Brenner case.
(But then again, who wouldn't be? That thing kept Chloe up for days, and in the end, maybe it was a blessing in disguise that Sabrina decided to lock herself in that room and do whatever it is that Morningstars do. Aside from raising his blood pressure to dangerous levels, of course. He didn't find that blessing-y at all.)
"Look, I'm gonna be honest with you," Dan sighed, tapping a finger against the growing stack of Manila folders on his desk. "I wouldn't touch this case with a ten foot pole."
Chloe frowned. "What? Why not? What did you find?"
"A lot of bull, that's for sure."
"For goodness' sake, Dan-"
"I found witches," he said point-blank. Chloe closed her mouth and shot him the same look he used to give Boardwalk Jesus. It wasn't entirely pleasant.
(Maybe he owed Boardwalk Jesus an apology).
Dan cleared his throat and tried again. "When I opened the police reports, every major crime in Greendale, from murders to missing persons, they pinned on witches. And what they couldn't pin on witches, they pinned on devil-worshippers and some ridiculous satanic church-"
"What church?" Chloe suddenly cut in. Her eyes were slightly widened, flickering with a vague sort of recognition that made Dan feel like all of this was some sort of weird inside joke he wasn't let in on. (And he was supposed to be the funny one.)
"Really? I just told you about modern-day witches from Massachusetts, and the first thing you latch onto is the probably fake church?" Dan asked. "Didn't we already go over this with the whole Church of the Dark Prince thing a few years ago?"
Chloe pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, I know, I know. Just...tell me, alright?"
Dan gave her a long, hard look, but in the end, didn't pry. They weren't rookie beat cops in their early-20s anymore. As a detective (and a good one, at that), she wouldn't ask unless it was absolutely important. And as a partner (ex-partner; a rather bad one, admittedly), the least he could do was try to believe her.
"Fine," he huffed. "It was something out of a cheap horror movie. Church of something. Church of…" The detective twisted his mouth in thought. He really shouldn't be having a hard time remembering this. He literally had to stifle his laughter when the Greendale sheriff first told him the name half an hour ago. "Church of Fright. No. Church of Night! Yeah, yeah, the Church of Night."
"And let me guess, the Church of Night just had a mass murder?"
"Well, not so much a murder. The police seem to think it's a Jonestown group suicide thing—" Dan paused mid-sentence and whipped his head up to look at her. "Wait a second, how did you know about that?"
Chloe waved him off breezily. "I think Maze might have mentioned it once. You know how she likes to talk about gory massacres during breakfast."
"She likes to talk about gory massacres in L.A. , not weird little mining towns that hardly even show up on the map."
"Your point is?"
Dan crossed his arms and nudged his chin out at her. "My point is, I think there's something you're not telling me."
Despite Lucifer's incessant (and very vocal) claims, at the end of the day, Dan wasn't actually stupid. He might wear the metaphorical dunce cap on his head every now and then, especially when it came to the trickier parts of life like finding a good woman (been there, done that, failed that) and making the best choices (the Palmetto case, no matter how hard he tried, would always be fresh on his mind), but when it came to his job, that was one thing he was sure he did better than most.
That's why even without this long-winded investigation, he knew exactly what was going on in Greendale.
(Old puritan town that used to burn people at the stake. It was obvious to anyone with two eyes that the place never made a rational arrest ever since witch hunts became a pivotal part of their history, and the Greendale police force very much liked it to stay that way. After all, it was easier to blame witches and satanists and other scary things that fed into the citizens' paranoia, rather than actually solve murders and do their damn jobs.)
Question was, why the hell was Chloe — one of the few detectives he would gladly admit could turn him on his head — acting like she didn't know it, too?
Dan sighed and picked up the glittery pink pen on his desk.
(Of course.)
"This is about Lucifer again, isn't it?"
Chloe raised her brows in surprise. He had caught her off-guard. More than a decade of playing the same game over and over again, of course they already knew each other like the back of their hands. (Though he'd appreciate it better if she just told him things outright instead of making him guess like their whole relationship was one big Trebek-less version of Jeopardy.)
"I mean, it's okay if it is-"
"Woah, woah, woah. Slow down," she laughed, shaking her head. "Who said that it is?"
"You did," he pointed out. "That's not a denial."
She quickly dropped the smile and narrowed her eyes ("Glower," Penelope Decker used to say. "Good Lord, Daniel, when my daughter looks at you like that, she's not thinking, she's glowering. Get your head straight."), and at that moment, he knew he hit the jackpot.
(Double. Freaking. Jeopardy.)
"Look," he said, rubbing a hand down his face. "You're not the only one who read Sabrina's file. I know she was born in Greendale. That's what all this is about, right? Unravelling the truth about Lucifer's secret daughter?"
"Dan, no. It's not that-"
"Chloe," he said evenly. She hesitated, just a fraction of a breath of a second, but eventually, pressed her lips tight and looked up at him. "There's no case here. Nothing that involves us, anyway. If those Greendale cops want to run around, using their same old excuses from the 19th century, then that's their business, not ours. But if you're really that curious about Sabina — and I know you are 'cos who the hell in this precinct isn't? — just do us all a favor and ask Lucifer about it. Please."
Chloe, and Lucifer, and Chloe and Lucifer (whatever they were; Partners? Almost lovers? Wouldn't he like to know) was something that mystified Dan to no end. Just when he thought those two were on the verge of something, anything, a bombshell like this always seemed to drop at the worst possible time and send them flying back to square one. Not that he was complaining.
From the start, he always told Chloe that the myth of Lucifer Morningstar was too good to be true. Single bachelor with a shit ton of money and every attractive woman (and man; Heaven forbid he forget the whole skillet thing) at his disposal? It was like the guy just picked up a comic book one day and suddenly decided to become Tony Stark — you know, minus the robots and intelligence and overall impulse to be a good person.
(He would've said Batman, really, but let's face it. A guy masquerading as the Devil had no place in the DCEU. Dan had it on good authority as a former comic book geek).
The minute Sabrina came bursting into the precinct, though, it was like the illusion was suddenly shattered. Lucifer wasn't this smooth, untouchable jerkface living a dream life. He was...human, almost. Someone with a (hopefully ex) wife and a kid and a white picket fence somewhere just like the rest of them.
Someone like him.
And Dan wasn't one for ironic twists of the universe, but damn if this wasn't a welcome surprise.
(Now, he wished he could say the same for Chloe, that all this was treating her well and good, but he knew better than most that she was taking this harder than she let on. Finding out your partner had another significant woman in his life — two of them, actually, since daughters often came part and parcel with their mothers — could drive a person to extreme lengths. Like, say for example, launching a completely unrelated murder investigation and dragging her ex-husband along for the ride.)
Whatever this was, he just hoped it would be over soon 'cos he was far too old and far too divorced to be dealing with Chloe's relationship drama with the most insufferable man on earth. Well, that and the fact that his chocolate pudding was starting to melt into room temperature goop.
(Would she notice if he got up for a few seconds to stick it back in the fridge?)
"Are you done?" Chloe asked flatly.
"Done with what?"
"Reading too much into this. I swear to God, you've been bingeing those pop psychology things on youtube again."
He dropped his gaze and looked casually off to the side.
"Dan!"
"So what? They're entertaining!" He said, tossing both hands in the air. "Honestly, why are you even grilling me on this? What does it matter? You know I've got your back either way."
The woman blinked. Honest-to-God blinked like a skeptic, cynical deer in the headlights. "You...you do?"
"Please. If I didn't, I would've slammed the phone down the second I heard 'satanic witch rituals in the woods.'"
Honestly, it was a miracle he was still even here in the precinct. Any lesser man would've walked out after the Polanski-Morningstar clusterfuck he had to endure all morning. No, scratch that. Any lesser man would've rolled over and died after doing everything he's had to do the past two years.
(He deserved a freaking medal.)
"Those Greendale cops really said that to you?" Chloe asked in disbelief.
"Among other crazy things, yeah."
"Care to elaborate on those crazy things?"
"That depends," Dan said, raising a brow at her. "Care to elaborate on why we're actually doing this?"
"Dan, again? Why-"
"Look me in the eye and tell me this investigation won't end with us hopping on a plane to Halloweentown, Massachusetts. Go on. Just try it."
Chloe opened her mouth, undoubtedly thinking up a storm in that sharp, stubborn head of hers. You'd think that after a whole decade he'd be used to it; watching her treat every conversation like a verbal tennis match, especially when she thought she was right (and oh, was she rarely ever wrong). But this wasn't one of those tennis match conversations. In fact, it wasn't even a conversation at all. Because a full 10 seconds had already passed and no sound came out of her mouth, and ever since she came to him with this case in what now seemed like an impossible few hours ago, a strange feeling in his gut already knew he'd be packing his bags before the week was done.
"That's right, you can't," Dan said. "And there's nothing wrong if you can't. I just think the least you can do is tell me what we're in for before you make us dive headfirst into the modern-day version of The Crucible."
(He absolutely hated The Crucible. He fell asleep reading the book back in high school and failed an english exam because of it.)
"Fine."
"What was that?" He asked innocently.
"I said fine," Chloe said through gritted teeth. He knew he was pushing his luck, but it wasn't everyday that you could get Chloe Decker to admit someone else was right. This was his way of Carpe-ing the Diem, or however the saying went. (Come to think of it, he was probably asleep for that part of english class, too.)
His ex-wife sighed and rubbed at one of her temples. "Look, you weren't wrong. This is about Sabrina-"
"Called it."
"-but not in the way that you think. I have reason to believe she may have been a member of that church you mentioned, the Church of Night. Maze let it slip that her previous high priest murdered their whole congregation, and you heard Sabrina say it herself; she used to be a Satanist. Put two and two together, and I don't think any of it was a Jonestown group suicide thing at all."
Dan knit his brows as he let the information sink in. "So...Sabrina somehow didn't get murdered and managed to flee to L.A.?"
"Yeah, but here's the thing," Chloe said, leaning on her elbows as she drew forward on the desk. "The priest was never caught either. So now we have a mass murderer wandering around, and a survivor of a religious massacre who absolutely knows what he did. Say he wants to hunt her down and finish what he started…"
"Then there's a chance he might follow her to Los Angeles."
"Exactly," Chloe finished, leaning back on her seat.
It all made sense, in a weird, fitting sort of way. Like jamming two random puzzle pieces together and seeing that they stuck. When Chloe first dropped the name Greendale, he could have sworn all this was a ploy to pick at Lucifer's background. Sniff around the place he raised his child in, maybe coincidentally run into the woman he gave a baby to. His ex-wife's M.O. was usually to ask her questions point-blank. If that didn't work, then she was more than capable of finding the answers herself. He was so sure that was what all this was.
But then she finally gave in and had a chance to explain, and well...turns out he'd misjudged her (Again, really bad ex-partner. He needed to work on that). She was Chloe. Of course she had a reason for everything. She never let her personal life interfere with her work. That was more Dan's thing, and at that point, it was already established that Dan's things were terrible things. She didn't deserve to be grouped in with any of that.
And so even if she didn't know it, even if he'd never tell her, Dan made a mistake and he needed to make up for it. Before they got married, he once told himself he'd follow this woman to the ends of the earth. Well, it was ten years too late, and Greendale wasn't the end of the earth, but he had a feeling it came pretty damn close.
He flipped open his Weaponizer notepad and slid it over to Chloe.
"What's this?"
"Proof," Dan answered. "The sheriff said he didn't expect me to believe everything he was saying — because, really, what sane person would — but this is apparently the one piece of evidence he can offer that their guys are telling the truth. And, you know, if we plan on working with them, looking into their only lead might be a good place to start."
Chloe stared at the name written in glittery pink script.
"And...how is this supposed to help us?"
"I don't know," he shrugged, earnest in his cluelessness. "But we're about to find out, won't we?"
A beat passed, then two, before she finally sucked in a breath and nodded at him once.
"Yeah. I guess we will."
As the two detectives headed to the lieutenant's office to inform her about their plans, the Weaponizer booklet was left forgotten beside the abandoned cup of pudding on Dan's desk. In it were mostly inconsequential things; grocery lists, reminders, little scribbles from cases that came and went.
All save for the bold, bleeding ink of the words on the last page:
Thomas Kinkle. The resurrected man.