"Hester, are you under the influence of anything?" Elena's tone was calm, but the skepticism in her voice stung.
She looked across the table to see Jack all bandaged up. He was less injured than they initially thought.
His hands and arms were scratched up; there were shards of glass inside his skin that needed to be removed before they could disinfect and bandage them up. But overall he wasn't injured much. His scratches would heal up within a few days without leaving behind scars.
A normal person who was sober would never think about shattering a window before crawling through it.
Not unless they were in mortal danger.
"Of course not." Jack said calmly.
Elena sighed, leaning back in her chair. "It's not that we don't believe you. But stress does funny things to the mind. Losing your job, your apartment—"
"Millions in debt," Jack added dryly, rubbing his temples. "Yeah, I get it. I'm a textbook case for a mental breakdown. But this wasn't in my head. It happened."
Jack silently sighed to himself disappointed that he was getting asked these questions. Was it so hard to believe that there were ghosts and supernatural activities in this world?
But he was also relieved that they bothered to hear him out. From their tone, it seemed that he wasn't going to be locked up in a cell or be tested that he was infected.
It might have been because like Elena said, there were plenty of reasonable explanations why he saw what he did.
Honestly, his ghost problem might have removed some suspicion from him from the System's actions.
"There's always a silver lining in every storm cloud." Jack thought as he fell silent.
Seeing that Jack was remaining quiet, she nodded her head towards her partner who wheeled out an old TV monitor.
"We asked for the security tapes from your apartment and this is what we found. No one had entered your room at any point or left."
"There could be blindspots that we don't know that the culprit has escaped from but with no clues on what they look like we won't be able to identify them." Elena said as the TV turned on and quickly played the recording.
Slowing down when Jack's window was shattered with a hammer and he crawled out looking terrified.
Before the recording sped up again until two police officers dressed in black arrived at his apartment with his landlord who at that point had a resentful expression on his face.
Before once again speeding up until it stopped at three in the afternoon which was when the officer asked for the security camera feed.
"I know what the culprit looked like. If you give me a paper and pen I can draw her for you." Jack said with shimmering green eyes.
Since the police weren't going to help him he might as well get them to do something useful. If they could tell him who the little girl he saw was maybe he could get a better sense of what kind of ghost she was.
"Please," Elena said with a smile as she gave him a piece of paper and pen she had already prepared beforehand.
Jack quickly drew the TV show as well as the little girl in detail before handing it to Elena who had a surprised look on her face.
"Isn't this from the canceled kids show Felicia and Friends?" She muttered which perked Jack's interest.
"Canceled? When was it canceled?" Jack asked with curiosity.
"A few years ago. The producers were all arrested for covering up a murder. Well a series of murders all relating to kids." Elena said calmly as she handled the drawing to Lucas who left the room.
"Murders," Jack gulped as he felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
"What about the little girl? Who is she? And what happened to her?" Jack asked carefully.
"She's Felicia," Elena said calmly.
"You know what I meant. Who's the actress?"
"I don't know. I was in the police academy when I found out the news." Elena said plainly.
Lucas returned with a few more papers. He handed it over to her and she read it in silence.
"Her name is Rebecca Jones," Elena said softly, her tone grim. "She went missing years ago. They never found her body."
Jack's stomach dropped. A vengeful spirit. Of course. He clenched his fists under the table, suppressing a shudder.
"Why can't I catch a break?" He thought to himself.
"What are the solutions to getting rid of vengeful ghosts? I would need to figure out what exactly is still tying her to this world."
"Or not. It's better to just escape from her if that's an option." Jack's eyes glowed before he nodded his head.
"Thank you for telling me all this. Is there anything else you would like to know?" Jack asked.
"No, you're free to go. By the way, you're going to have to pay for the broken window."
"Uh, you don't think you could cover for me. I'm kinda strapped for cash right now." Jack said with a depressed smile.
"No, sorry." Elena shook her head with an apologetic smile.
Jack was about to leave when he suddenly thought of something.
"Do you want to take the TV as evidence? It might lead to a breakthrough if it's in the government's care."
"We have enough evidence collected. Thank you for your cooperation." Elena said as she tried to restrain her eye roll.
Jack silently cursed in his head.
There was no way he was keeping this TV that was cursed by a vengeful ghost. He immediately planned to sell it off at a low price to try and get it off his hands as soon as possible.
Out of sight out of mind.
If that ghost showed up again then there was only one solution. It was time for him to move.
As Jack opened the door he suddenly noticed a donation crate that filled to the brim with random objects. He even saw a few cracked TVs neatly packaged up.
Jack's heart skipped a beat as a shiver crawled down his spine. He almost screamed for help.
Just as he calmed down since he knew he was in a safe location his eyes sparkled as he turned back inside.
"Actually, can you tell me how to donate a TV to the police station?" Jack said with a slight smirk.
Elena's face fell as Lucas's eyes twitched. They were smart enough to know where he was going with this train of thought.
He didn't even bother to hide it.
"If you are planning on donating your TV it's fine. But the process is that it will be sent to a different building and then auctioned if no one picks it up after a few days." Lucas said calmly as he didn't have a very amused look on his face.
"Auctioned? Does all the money go to the police station?" Jack asked with interest. Could he get some money from this?
"Partially. All the money goes to the district where it was sold and then you can write ten percent of it as charity on your taxes." Elena answered with a smile.
"Oh, so no money for me I guess. I mean I'm always happy to contribute to our local police." Jack said with a smile after catching himself.
"Just go ask for the donation papers at the front desk and fill it out. Someone will go and pick the TV either today or tomorrow morning." Lucas said with an impatient tone in his voice.
"Yes sir," Jack quickly answered and ran out of the room.
"Does the city have a team for ghosts or the supernatural?" Elena asked, leaning in.
Lucas scratched his chin and thought for a bit.
"I don't know about the federal or state level but at least in the City we don't have anything like that. The closest is the Creatures, Critters, and Flora Department which as you know investigates, documents, and examines any strange creatures and plants."
"They might have a team that looks at these supernatural events and tries to find ghosts but they probably haven't found much."
"Why do you think so?" Elena asked with curiosity.
"Well this year the department budget was cut by one percent. Although it isn't much, when you compare it to how their budget kept getting increased every year prior it's bad."
"If ghosts and spirits were discovered the City wouldn't spare a single dime to make sure the ghosts and spirits are kept in check if not eradicated." Lucas explained.
Realization flashed across Elena's face as she agreed. In this strange new world, the appearance of ghosts was anything but strange.
It was probably one of the many reasons why the City was extremely resistant to cutting the Creatures, Critters, and Flora Department's budget. Even when other departments were desperate for more money.
"That makes sense. So we don't have to worry about this. If anything abnormal is really found it probably has already been reported to the CCF and not us." Elena uttered before having another thought.
"By the way, what about the Brothers of Abraham and the Sisters of Abraham? Do you think they are involved in the supernatural?"
Lucas rubbed his chin, "Possibly."
"Since they are a part of the military they deal with a bunch of things. Investigating abnormalities that the police or CCF can't figure out is something they do daily. So ghost cases are not out of the question."
As Elena and Lucas chatted they didn't notice that behind the one sided window, the two officers who visited Jack's apartment yawned. With disinterested expression on their face as they tosses his file on the meta table behind them.
The first officer was a middle-aged man with scruffy beard, pale skin as if he hadn't seen the light of day in years, and mucky yellow eyes.
The second officer was a younger man, somewhere in his late twenties. He had a freshly shaved face, a baby face, and slicked back ink black hair.
"This is ridiculous," the scruffy officer grumbled, slumping in his chair. "Budget cuts and now we're cleaning up asylum cases. Do they think we're a joke?"
"I do not want to get made fun of by Jill's team again. It's better to focus our research and investigations on more concrete abnormal events." The baby faced officer said with frustration in his eyes.
"Let's end the investigation and let this police station handle this low level case. If this happens again the police station will have the records anyways."
"We are doing the right thing. With a lower budget we need to make some cuts somewhere. The police station should be able to handle it better than us anyways." The scruffy officer agreed wholeheartedly.
They were a part of the Supernatural Investigation Team of the CCF. Their team was always made fun of and disregarded. Most of the budget cut came from their team.
Due to the lack of manpower, they were temporarily moved from a case they had been investigating for months and were finally beginning to make progress in, to come here and evaluate whether Jack's case had any interest to take on as an official CCF case.
At first they compiled and did their due diligence but they found nothing. There wasn't the slightest bit of evidence nor was it related to any prior case.
In their eyes, Jack was simply having a terrible drug experience or hallucinations due to stress. Nothing that had anything to do with them.
Now that they even had to listen to two regular police officers talk poorly about the team. How could they be in the mood to take this case? They decided to immediately lower the case's classification and so it became the police station's problem.