Marion

They thought she was psychic.

She managed to find victims and suspects on pure intuition alone. It was mind boggling to the rest of the team. So, they thought she was psychic. To them, there wasn't any other explanation than that, since she never used forensic evidence. She never really had to search. She just had "visions," as she called them, that told her where the bodies were hidden. And, sure enough, there they were. She then claimed she could talk to the victims, who would tell them how they were killed, when they were killed, and a description of who killed them. She was the force's secret weapon.

So she had to be psychic.

She wasn't psychic.

She had Keith, but she wasn't psychic.

It was part of a midwayer's code of honor. They had to help people. There just wasn't anything in the code of honor that said they had to help living people, now was there? It was also a given, being that they were part angel, that midwayers could communicate with full angels the same way they could communicate with full humans. It was a nice little perk.

So, Keith and Tabitha helped bring justice to those who were now angels, in the best way they knew how. The murdered angels sought out Keith, asking them for help with punishing whoever murdered them, and Keith would then turn to Tabitha to be the liaison to the living world. Keith was the interpreter. The angel would tell him when, where, how, and who, Keith would tell Tabitha, Tabitha would tell the officers assigned to the case.

If that meant everyone thought that Tabitha was psychic, then so be it.

It was a hot summer day, and Tabitha was lounging by the pool. Her eyes were closed and she was sipping on an ice water. It was the perfect way to spend the perfect day off, she thought. She reached for her phone, opening one eye to glance at the time. 2:39pm.

She sat up quickly. It being 39 past, and her noticing it, meant that Keith was around. She headed inside and went to her laptop.

As if on cue: Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad.

"Keith! What's up?"

Tabitha nodded. "Yes, yes. Of course. We have to help this angel. Anything."

"Okay, of course," that was pretty customary. The angels usually come to Keith as soon as they've been murdered, which is usually long before it would make sense for police to find them, and many times before the police even start searching. It wasn't uncommon for them to sit on this information for weeks, months sometimes, until they went to the police with Tabitha's "visions."

And the angels were okay with that, they expect it. They expect gratification, yes, but not anything instant. They aren't impatient.

"Do you have the rest of the details?" Tabitha asked.

Tabitha felt sick to her stomach. She usually did reading these stories Keith told her, but she knew it was part of his mission to help them, so she made it part of her mission, and weathered the storm, so to speak.

The fliers went up first, looking for Marion. The reward offer from her parents (something she never took advantage of. She only ever went to the police.), the picture, the last seen details. It was heartbreaking, knowing the truth.

Then the news stories. The "if you have any information pertaining to the whereabouts..." The tearful pleas from her parents, "Please, bring our baby back to us!"

Tabitha hated watching them, but she had to, so she knew when to go.

The time came on a rainy Thursday, two weeks after Keith first told her about Marion.

The entire office looked up when Tabitha came in. "Ms. Sorkin," the lead detective on Marion's case looked up and smiled, "It's always a pleasure to see you."

She nodded. "I know. I do always wish it was under better circumstances, of course. I know where Marion is."

The people in the office listened a lot more intently after she said that, and she continued. "I have received a vision from Marion. It is with a heavy heart that I have to tell you she has been murdered. Her lifeless body will be found buried under the large oak grove in Gibson Park." She always teared up telling the police this stuff, and she always meant her tears. The concept really did break her heart. But she liked helping people.

The lead detective sighed. "I figured it would come to this. I would hope it hadn't been the case this time, but it always, always is. Alright team, let's head off to Gibson."

The police were always amazed when the bodies would turn up exactly where Tabitha said they would. They had always been a little bit on the skeptical side with her, but she was never wrong.

And she wasn't wrong this time either. Under the oaks by the soccer field in Gibson Park, about seven feet below ground, was a stuffed trash bag.

And in that trash bag was Marion Gregory's body.