Brian answered the door the next morning, and immediately stiffened up. He was expecting something like this, yes, but his father's training kicked in all the same.
"Hello, we're looking for Susan O'Connor," one of the two cops declared.
"Do you have a warrant?" Brian's father asked from behind him. Brian relaxed slightly; he had just been saved from having to block the cops.
"Do we need a warrant?"
"If you want to arrest her, or anybody else here, then yes, you do."
"What are you hiding that you're so defensive?"
"The bill of rights states that I don't have to answer your questions. Do I need to contact my lawyer?"
"Where in the bill of rights does it say that?"
"The fifth amendment. Do I need to contact my lawyer?"
"We are investigating an incident that happened this morning. We need to question Susan O'Connor."
"Do you have a warrant?"
"Do we need a warrant?"
"Either you can give me your card and I'll have my lawyer contact you, or yes, you will need a warrant."
"What are you hiding?"
Brian's father remained silent, only cocking his head sideways and raising an eyebrow as if to ask if the cop if he was an idiot.
"Fine. Here's my card. You have 24 hours or we will return with a warrant."
Brian didn't have to ask what that was about. His father was a criminal defense attorney. People like Brtian's father knew, and had drilled it into both his wife's and son's heads, that the cops are not your friends, and thus to always have a lawyer at the ready whenever possible for any interactions with them. The only part of it all that surprised Brian was that his dad didn't identify himself as Susan's lawyer.
In fact, the moment the door was closed, he was on his smartphone, contacting one of his lawyer buddies instead. Brian shrugged it off and went to Susan.
"The cops showed up."
"They want to talk to me like they did the Furey triplets."
"Probably. But we're waiting until dad has a lawyer with you."
"Why can't he be that?"
"He didn't say, but I've seen this behavior before. I think it's probably some arcane lawyer rule that prohibits him from being the lawyer to his son's girlfriend."
"I want to go..."
"Home?"
"I think this is my home now. I mean my old home."
"Your mother left you here for a reason. Dad's a lawyer and he can protect you. You and our babies. Don't take chances until we know what's going on. He's working on it."
"You..." she huffed at him. "You pull the 'baby' card on me?"
"If it keeps the three of you safe, then yes. Until we know the cops don't have it in for you, you're safe here."
"I haven't done anything wrong."
"I know that, but this is dad's actual job. He's told us enough about how cops think. Running home would give them an excuse to detain you. On top of that, who knows what control the Fureys have over the cops? Stay here, where it's safe."
Susan huffed but acquiesced.
She was quite distracted, though, while his dad did his thing. Brian got her settled down, but she couldn't concentrate on anything. Fortunately, Brian's father knew how to get results quickly.
"I don't know how to say this," he started after he sat down with the two teenagers, "so I'm just going to blurt out the facts."
Susan started to whimper, so Brian hugged her a bit closer.
"After school started yesterday, a witness saw Jenny entering the Furey residence. A few minutes later, it was blown apart in a giant fireball. The police have taken four bodies to the coroner, three older bodies and one young adult. They think your mother is one of the older bodies, but there's not much left of what they think is her body so they're having to wait on dental records. They already know that two older adults lived there, plus a boy who went to the community college, and the triplets.
"The Furey triplets were at school at the time, so the bodies account for the rest of that family plus your mother. It was Friday; a great many college classes skip Fridays so it's no surprise the younger boy was there. The triplets claim to know nothing other than you and your mother hating them. They're claiming that you will kill them, and the police believe it. There is now a warrant for your arrest, but my lawyer friend intercepted it. This lets you turn yourself in. It makes things look better for us.
"There was also this one cop, not one of those that came here earlier, but from the way he's been asking questions, he's aware of witchcraft."
Brian and Susan stared at each other for a moment.
"Magical police?" Brian said. The secret was out now; there was no reason to try to keep it quiet anymore, at least from his father.
"Can't be."
"A cop who just happens to be magical, then?"
Susan shrugged.
"So it's true. And you know about magic. When were you going to tell us?"
"Ideally, never," Susan replied. "Our secrecy keeps us safe. Brian knows because they tried to 'whammy' him into knocking me up. When that failed, that's when they resorted to guns."
"Oh dear lord. So this is like Harry Potter?"
"To an extent."
"Mix it with something like the Hatfields and McCoys," Brian added.
"We can't defend against what we don't know about."
"Actually, you can. Your Christian True Faith protects you."
"It does?"
"Well, it protects Brian. Now that I think of it, I was assuming it'd protect you too. I'd have to try something on you, that you'd not like, to test it on you. I don't know if I can make myself do that." Susan sighed. "I like you too much to willingly try to hurt you, and I'm not supposed to try to hurt anybody anyway."
"Okay, I still think you two should have told us, but we'll table that discussion for later. They're publicly blaming this on a gas line break, but I've already checked -- that neighborhood has no gas lines. This cop, however, was asking other questions. I think he suspects magic destroyed that house. He thought I knew about magic; otherwise why would we harbor you? So in the end, he's the one that slipped up, not you."
"Mom killed them," Susan whimpered. "She killed them, and killed herself in the process."
"I need you to eat something, Susan. I know it's hard, but it could be midnight before we can come back. We will brief my lawyer about your powers, and I think he will agree we should insist on talking to that one cop. As for the lawyer finding out about magic, he's bound by a confidentiality agreement. All you need to do is prove magic exists."
"I'm still learning, but I can cast simple spells without assistance. Why can't you defend me?"
"I'm too close to this, Susan. Your mother is gone, but you're my son's girlfriend and you have his child inside of you, so Lily and I will do our best to care for you. That means my role now is as your father. So, I can't be a lawyer for you, so my friend will do that instead."
Brian wasn't allowed to go, of course, but he did sit with Susan to convince her to eat despite being so upset. Once she left, though, he began to plan.
It actually was past midnight before they returned. Susan had been arrested, but was then released on lack of evidence with no charges filed; having a lawyer for a father got wheels turning. Susan, however, was being monitored by court order, ordered to maintain her distance from the Furey sisters, and was forbidden from returning to school, where the triplets would still be attending after they were resettled (not a totally bad result; Brian knew Susan was fretting about the school bullying her for being pregnant). The following Monday, Brian's mother would withdraw him from school so they could homeschool together. And that would became the new normal.
It was like a tornado had torn through the house they had just stepped foot in. Susan, already on the edge, broke down at the sight of it. Brian, unsure of what to do save hold Susan, looked to his father. His father only shook his head sadly.
"The cops are never kind to the places they search. To them, nothing is sacred."
Of course the cops did this. After all, the woman who owned and lived in the house was the chief suspect in the murder of the three eldest Fureys. It doesn't require a leap of logic to go from that to the cops getting a warrant to search the place, nor does it matter that much that said chief suspect died in the attack.
The adults moved further in, each going through the carnage, collecting anything that looked particularly valuable in terms of money or emotional attachment, and placing them in cardboard office boxes they brought for this purpose. Brian stayed with Susan. By the time she recovered from the new shock of seeing her home decimated, there were two boxes for her to sort through, and the adults were filling more. They moved to a couch that his father had turned back upright; the cops had ruined the back, slicing into it looking for who-knows-what, but it was still serviceable.
"I still don't think we should have come here so quickly," he heard his mother complain.
But his father was ready for it, like they've already had the argument, he won that time, but his mother couldn't let it go. "Once the triplets are resettled, this could be the first place they come to for revenge. Time is running out to safely get Susan's keepsakes."
So they focused on what they came to do, or to be more precise, Brian did his best to keep Susan focused on what they came to do. An hour later, they had not just keepsakes, but her clothes and nicknacks packed up in his father's truck. All that was left was the basement.
"I was never allowed down here alone," Susan admitted. "This was her sanctum. It was where she taught me magic."
A pentagram dominated the center of the room, with a dais placed next to it, and a bookstand next to that. Storage cabinets lined the first wall, underneath the stairs that led back up to the living room. Bookshelves lined the second wall wall, a desk dominated a third, and the final wall in the square room had a workstation that wouldn't have been out of place in a chemistry lab. Some wall shelves took up more space next to the desk, but were empty, the items that were supposed to be there scattered about the floor. The cops had been down here, too, it seemed.
"How did you say the 'crime scene' was, where mom died?" Susan asked.
His father answered. "The police report said it was like a giant bomb went off inside. The house was almost leveled in the one blast." Then he sighed, and whispered, "there was an actual crater that took the place of most of your mother's body." He didn't want to say that last part.
"A giant bomb," Susan sighed, "or, a belt of grenades."
