I don't know if this will help, but... I've written 3,561 words

 

Today was a much better day. The following excerpt needs no introduction.

~~~

“Listen, Officer, I don’t know if this will help, but…” I pause here, not sure if I should proceed.

“Any little piece of information could help us find who committed this heinous crime,” Officer Reed assures me, gently prodding me to continue. His notepad was now out and he was holding what appears to be an antique lead pencil.

“Well, I was out with my dogs around that time, Officer,” I start. 

“Mm-hmm,” he says, writing something down.

“It was starting to get dark, so I could not see very well. And we were just down the road there,” I pointed to the three tall oak trees just down the road on the corner.

There was a glimmer of interest in Officer Reed’s eyes.

“Ok, and what did you see?” He asked.

“Well, like I said, it was dark. I couldn’t really see anything. But my dogs looked at those trees overlong. I thought I might have heard a rustle of leaves,” I stated proudly.

“Let me make sure I have this down right,” he said, barely suppressing a laugh. “Your dogs..."

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Hall and Oates. Make sure you get that down."

"Your dogs. Hall. And Oates. Looked at the trees. For ‘a long time’. You didn’t see anything. Leaves on the trees might have made a sound.”

“Well, I described is as 'overlong', but otherwise: Yes!”

“Ma’am, do you think it could have been a squirrel?” He asked as my bubble burst. Thinking the story over, this was a less-than-helpful eyewitness statement.

“Just so,” I answered him, lifting my chin haughtily in the hopes of keeping at least some of my dignity intact.

“Ok, then,” Officer Reed said, backing away slowly, passing me his card. “I have that all down. Don’t forget to take a look for that video and send everything my way. Thanks so much for all of your…help… this morning.”

The sound of the closing door was still echoing through my house as I ran to my laptop and tracked down the video from the doorbell camera. I exported the video file from the date and time in question, and promptly sent it to the email address on the card. I then watched the video at double speed to see if there was anything on it of interest.

To my surprise, at the exact time that Officer Reed had let me know that the crime had occurred, a figure in the dark skulked across the sidewalk in front of my home. They were holding what appeared to be two large jugs. But even with the night vision view, I could not make out who it was, or any other details.

As I picked up Officer Reed’s card off the desk to file it away, I felt some indentations on the back of the card. I turned it over to see what was on the other side.

Written on the back, in what appeared to be lead pencil, in Officer Reed’s handwriting was: “Mason Winfield, paranormal consultant”. Thinking back, the officer must have been jotting this down on the back of the card when I thought he had been taking detailed notes on my eyewitness statement. 

Feeling unexpectedly intrigued, I powered my laptop back up and fired off an email to Mr Winfield without thinking overlong about it.