A Second Chance

A Different Ending

Teddy grimaced and rubbed his eyes. He'd been doing paperwork for hours now. He'd busted some kid selling cocaine at the high school and found out that it had been a whole minor run drug ring. The whole thing had been draining. Telling the parents was always the worst. The despairing cries, the screams of denial, hell, the sheer apathy of some parents stung worse.

He clenched his hands fiercely. He hated apathy. He couldn't stand it. Any lack of feeling made him physically sick to his stomach.

He feels a finger poke his shoulder and he reels to his right. He inwardly thanks God that it's just Bugsy.

"Bugsy, you don't have to tiptoe around me ya know? If you need something, you can just ask." He exhaled slowly.

The large eyed man trembled slightly and avoided eye contact: "I know Ted, but I didn't want to upset you further."

"Upset me?"

"Yeah, you seemed pretty angry while writing your report."

"Mmm, is that all?"

"Well, no. I got some news from the chief."

"What's the news?"

"He isn't happy that you haven't gotten any evidence on that Henry Miller guy. He wants you in his office, right away."

Teddy shakes his head and gets up from his desk, plodding past Bugsy. This isn't good.

Teddy walked apprehensively to the north side of the building. He dragged his feet as he approached his bosses' door and felt his arm get heavier as he knocked on it.

He was greeted by the lead detective, a parrot like man, not in looks, but rather in his sheer chattiness and his lack of originality in conversation. Past him, sat his boss at his cluttered desk. A nice enough guy, if only he'd been more gentle with his detectives and officers.

"Ah, Ted. Glad you came in." Greeted the man kindly.

"It's nice to come in." He replied awkwardly.

"Indeed, indeed. How's that report coming along? With the drug ring"?

"Oh, alright. You know me, writing isn't my best skill. It's taking me a while to write everything down".

"At least it's not as long as your "serial killer" case".

Teddy winced at that. He knew that his boss was gonna be as underhanded as possible with this.

"Teddy, let's be honest. You have no leads on this guy".

"I know sir".

"You have no pieces of evidence. You have only one picture of this man, all the way from New England, as a 20 year old man from the 40's".

"I know sir".

"You claim that there is a man in town that travelled with him for awhile..".

"A year, sir".

"I think you know what you need to do...".

"Sir, that man knows nothing about-"

"Bullshit, officer. I don't know why you protect that thing, that demon from hell-"

"He's not a demon, he has a skin defect"!

"That's what he wants you to believe. I'm sure Brigham Young and the rest of us Mormons would disagree".

Teddy slouched into his seat, avoiding the chief's eyes. He hated when he got like this. All religious and shit. Made no sense.

"Ted, I'm warning you. If you don't find any evidence about this man being a supposed serial killer, I will release a warrant for this creature's arrest".