Policeman and the cat

2 - Apartment no.4

***

Five days prior to the cat's and policeman's eyes meeting.

***

"Head over to Corn street 56, apartment no.4 on 7th floor, Breaking glass and shouting." A tired sounding man's voice came out from the car mic. It was half-past nine, not too late, but late enough to explain the tone.

"Gotcha. Corn street 56, Floor 7, apartment 4," a bald pro-wrestler build male in his 50s replied as his colleague set up navigation. He was well-built, apparently strong and had pleasant features to look at, on the wild, rough side.

The mic cut and the bald man started the car. "Domestic violence in the air tonight," he said. Would be their third one in one evening.

"Must be contagious," his colleague replied with a half-smile, his hand brushing over the spot where his ring used to be. Even a year of its absence hadn't been enough to rid him of the habit. It was still a mystery where the ring had gone - it had plunged into the fish tank and poof. Disappeared just like that.

It was the only item he had from the father he had never met. A plain silver ring with folk symbols on it supposedly dropped on the carpet and forgotten as the one-night-stand with his mother seemed more important. 

It wasn't a gift or keepsake, just something he had found in one of mom's drawers as a toddler and ended up dragging around since - first he put it on a chain and carried it on his neck, then he used it as a thumb ring and lastly it became a ring on his pinkie, implying that his hands were bigger than those his father had, a comforting thought.

He didn't know why the ring was precious to him. He didn't even know if he wanted to meet the man. Perhaps he saw the ring to be something similar to himself, so he felt it was his duty to take very good care of it, just to remind himself that lost and forgotten things didn't lose their value just because someone failed to appreciate them. Perhaps a silly thought.

"Ian," the bald man called out since it seemed like the blonde was spacing out.

"Oh, we're here," he turned off the navigation and put the phone in his pocket before getting out. He didn't need to look at the screen to know, he lived in an apartment on Corn Street 53 himself - right across the street.

"Let's take a break after this one, I'm also in need of a coffee to focus," the older male said with a smile, as he headed towards the right building.

Ian was grateful to be paired up with Flinn, spacing out never got him in trouble. Not that he spaced out often. 

"Thanks," Ian said and followed.

The building was a seven-floored apartment house built around forty years prior - a bit on the shabby end, the type usually rented by students or owned by old loners on a budget. He didn't dislike the air these kinds of places had, which smelled of student parties, but as soon as they walked up to the seventh floor he felt like taking that back.

Ian had watched Asian horror flicks and knew that the number '4' had a 'death' connotation, but he had never encountered an ominous 4th floor or 4th room in this country. Until now that is.

The idea of approaching the door had his heart rate jumping up and it wasn't just him.

"I hope we don't find a body," Flinn whispered. He too felt there was something terribly wrong with whatever was behind that door.

Ian shivered and stepped closer to the door, then banged on it, a bit stronger than he intended to.

Flinn pointed at the ring button and Ian made an awkward smile. Right. Normally you would ring--

This mistake eased their moods a little, but they didn't let down their guard.

The door opened, revealing it hadn't even been locked. There was a slim person on the other side. At first, Ian couldn't quite tell if it was a man or a woman, but the voice clarified it. 

"Come in," was said in a male's voice. Brown hair and eyes, frail and charming features if not for the black rings under his eyes, and an extremely tired and annoyed look.

The guy was by no means spooky or threatening-looking but the room behind him was - there was a cold oppressive and ominous atmosphere deeper within.

Neither Ian nor Flinn wanted to enter. They exchanged looks.

The guy sighed. "I ordered a porcelain set and I broke it while acting out a scene. My neighbors probably reported the noise and called you to come, so you probably won't go away till you see for yourself that no other person was involved or harmed, am I wrong?"

Was he... actually used to policemen coming for this reason? But in that case, the operator would already know, unless he had moved in very recently. Ian exchanged looks with Flinn again.

The guy looked both annoyed and impatient. "It is before eleven pm, so this level of noise shouldn't have been against any regulations." It wasn't hard to hear the implication of 'hurry the heck up, I don't have time for this'.

Ian just couldn't see the guy as a cunning serial murderer, even if - wasn't that exactly how cunning serial murderers were? You just wouldn't be able to tell. This would never end unless either he or Flinn acted, however - "I'll check," Ian volunteered. He was better at fighting than Flinn, but still, he gave Flinn a look and a small nod. 'Watch my back' was unsaid, but they both got it.

Almost as if aware of their feelings, the guy kept his distance, showed Ian around the small apartment and made sure to always show both hands to show that there were no weapons in them.

The creepy ominous atmosphere aside, the apartment was almost empty and barely lived in as it was. Easy to oversee, just one closed wardrobe, which the guy helpfully opened to reveal a stack of plastic packed clothes, when it came to food there was only coffee and there really was a box of just ordered porcelain set that had turned into a pile of shards by the wall.

There was no place to hide a body, no signs of another person being or having been here and the place was too empty and clean and not 'just cleaned up' type of clean either.

Ian looked toward the pile of shards. "Why did you do that?" He asked.

"I don't have an obligation to reply," the guy said with the same annoyed expression that was glaring daggers of 'can you leave already?' type.

Ian sighed. "Thank you for cooperating in either case," he said as he headed over to the door. The distance between them was too wide for the guy to make a surprise attack and Ian doubted it would come.

As he went to Flinn, he glanced back to see that the guy didn't even come to the door, heading deeper into the apartment. The clicks of a keyboard soon resounded, yet moments after the two started heading down the stairs, the door closed itself and locked.

Shivers run down both their backs and they practically ran downstairs and to the car.

Only when they were safely riding on a busy street and towards a donuts establishment (cliche as it was, Flinn loved donuts with his coffee), Flinn dared to speak up.

"That place is fucking haunted!"

"It is," Ian agreed, his voice nervous. Had he never been there he would laugh at anyone telling him ghost stories, but that last bit of the door closing while the guy was still typing deeper in the apartment was...

Holy shit.

Did that guy look sleep-deprived and break those dishes because he was going mad from lack of sleep? Or did he... see something?

Ian did his best to shrug it off while he poured the fifth coffee creamer into his cup. That wasn't due to nerves however, he didn't like coffee unless he added plenty of milk.

Flinn ended up teasing him about it again, about how this habit had not changed since Ian was ten. Flinn seemed to have an easier time shrugging over their supernatural experience as he ate his donut and told about a few others, similarly eerie, he had encountered in past.