Missing Persons

124.

"I'm just at a loss as to why you guys were called in." The Park Ranger's tag read Simmons.

"You ever piss of your leadership Simmons?" The woman talking was dressed in a relaxed business suit, she had her badge on her hip.

"Yes? uhh a couple times?"

"He ever assign you a shit job until he likes you again?"

"Uhhh she and I guess? I still don't..."

"That's why me and Garcia are here."

"Speak for yourself Micheals, I asked for this job." Garcia was taller and wider than Micheals, his suit was also more rumpled. Both looked like extra's on an episode of law and order standing in the middle of the woods looking up at the remains of something in a tree, the blood ran all the way up the trunk.

"I just don't know why missing persons was called out."

"You called the sheriff's office with an animal attack, sheriff's called SPD and they called us."

"No one is missing?"

"Something is up that tree, most likely human, most likely reported missing, hence missing persons." Micheals tired of Simmons and his questions. Garcia instinctively knew his partners lack of patience and had Simmons moved off to ask questions that didn't matter but would leave Micheals in peace. Micheals saw the claw marks in the tree, they were deep enough only two creature she was aware of could make them, and neither were good news. She pulled out her cell and made the call.

"GD Exterminators we're currently running a special on Imps." Micheals chortled at the thought of Imps, the only time she'd seen something like that was in a video game.

"Delores this is Lisa Micheals with the SPD."

"How can we help you Detective Micheals."

"Tell Gilbert we might have a skin walker, and we're going to need him to confirm."

"Just a moment."

****

Gilbert and Clarissa showed up to the woodland trail an hour later. The coroner finally had arrived as well. Simmons the park ranger had been sent on his way. Gilbert and Clarissa were coated in some kind of green slime from a nearby job.

"Is that the remains of an Imp?" Micheals had to stifle a laugh at their appearance.

"Yeah, damn things are in season for some reason, we're running a special."

"So I heard. this your new partner? She looks a little young Gilbert."

"Lisa Micheals, Clarissa Shipley, and yeah she's my new assistant, don't let her age fool you, she's got ice water in her veins." Clarissa didn't hold out her hand to shake, they hadn't been able to wash them from the imps and felt it was impolite to spread the imp guts.

"I can't remember if I was partnered with Larry the last time we had business."

"Nah your partner was a husky fellow Dumbo something." Micheals and Garcia both laughed.

"Doobro, but yeah Dumbo sounds about right for that dumb ass."

"Big fan of your work Mr. Dunkley, though not of the smell of you two." Garcia had smelled the two coming before he'd ever seen them, the imp slime was very fragrant.

"Didn't have time to change, especially if it's a skin walker."

"It's either that or a Wendigo, I know my claws Gilbert."

"Not doubting, just you might have jumped the gun could have been a cougar, you never know." Micheals stuck her tongue out, but she lead Gilbert to where the coroner's office was attempting to get what they could of the remains from the tree. The coroners gave him a wide berth because of the smell, Gilbert kind of chuckled that people who were busy picking up body parts thought he smelled bad. The claw marks in the tree were deep, he looked there, looked up at the body parts the coroners office was collecting and then came back to Micheals.

"Skinwalker."

"You sound so sure." Micheals wasn't surprised he said skin walker, just that he seemed to say it definitively.

"Wendigo's eat people they don't distribute them up trees, cougars also would have left more of a corpse, what's weird is this is a trap that wasn't sprung, joggers found the body and then got out alive?"

"Yeah found the body and called it in, hell ranger station had people come out before we got here." Garcia chimed in looking at his notes. Gilbert shook his head.

"I don't like it, Skinwalkers are smart murderous bastards, but they usually don't play the long game, something else is fucked up here."

"So what do you want to do?"

"Lets go back to your office, Clarissa and I will get a room and clean up, we'll meet you in a couple hours, something is wrong, and we need to put it right." They all agreed, especially with the cleaning part.