Incline 26: A Pair of Detectives

"Certainly no gods down here in Agadton." my rough partner remarks as he puffs on one of them new age things of his. I withhold my gag and emphasise my stagger to tease him for a certain years old mistake. He growls at me and I throw back a quick smirk as I put my full attention on the restaurant's remains. Diamond in the Rough.

"Certainly Rough now, aren't ya?" I quip at the smoking wreck as all manner of short-staffed emergency services get to it. I feel for them, I really do. If only for the fact I'm supposed to be back in my home, drinking myself to sleep. I was lucky enough to get away with a standby notice when the earthquakes hit. Then we get two mass homicides in the span of days.

This latest one being particularly worrisome... 

"So, Synnyet, any guesses or your age catching ya?" Myarty asks as he nudges one booted foot against the black splinters. Good thing the commissioner is so lax on the uniform standards right now. Detectives or not, we still got to stick to them with some adherence. 

"Not right now. Still can't quite wrap my head around it." I say in all seriousness, hobbling into the ruined building as a paw rubs my aged chin. I pull on the lengthy grey hairs, plucking a few loose ones and not feeling a thing.

"Word is they already checked the reservation book." Myarty reminds me, and I nod, shoving my hands into the pockets of my trench coat.

"That's the thing. Who makes an improvised explosive for... What... College-age dolls out on a dancing prowl?" I ask, although I know I will find no soothing answer for my bafflement. It really is something peculiar. This is the kind of stuff you hear about happening to politicians or major gang members. Not what the records aren't even covered in red tape to hide... 

It genuinely was just some girls out on a party. Normal girls. No sketchy history, nothing. No one in their neighbourhoods has any idea at all.

"You think the two incidents are related?" Myarty suggests, and I nod along.

"Has to be. Both jobs clearly had someone who knew what they were doing. The barbershop burnt to the ground had its backdoor locked, for crying out loud! Whoever did it had a plan to get out, as we have no witnesses at all. No one here caught anything either, and how could they?" I let out, chuntering away at the details as they cross my mind and get caught up in there. 

"Forensics were quite spooked when they came by earlier. The big lab coat ones, anyway. Might be worth a trip back to the station." Myarty says, his shoulders throwing themselves up into the air as he tosses away that damn scent stick. I wave a paw across my nose, keeping its smoke away from an already smoked out pair of nostrils. Might as well be borderline edible with this much choking fog.

"Unless you have a magic ball that can see the future, then no. Roads are shut tight as tight can be because of what happened. Everyone's more on edge than ever because of these two attacks. The earthquake is one thing, freaky as it was. This is something vile and people know it." I say, minding the tape they have wrapped around the point of detonation. Forensics only beyond the line.

"Mmm." Myarty hm's, his tweezers getting a little too curious with their pinching. I follow his actions carefully, looking around the crime scene to make sure he doesn't screw himself over. He lucks out and comes back to me with something, a corpse now all that bit more mangled for it. Our eyes meet and I focus on the object so his temper doesn't get the better of him. No need for him to be touchy right now.

"Brown glass?" I ask, not too sure what I am seeing. Whatever it is he pulled from that girl's corpse, it's a shard. Like glass in the way it focuses the light around us, but not like it at all. It's way too soft. Too much pressure and the tweezers are actually able to flatten it.

"Guess we know it's not glass." Myarty remarks, his tweezers suddenly cracking, frightening the grip out of him. The metal falls to the ground and I knock his arm, gesturing for him to get it back up. We'll both be digging ourselves holes if forensics finds us tampering again. Annoying bunch of amateurs.

We need to dig around crime scenes to get our job done. Can't leave everything nice and pretty for them when we do that. Still, more than enough reason to head back to the station. Whatever this stuff is, it's certainly easy to figure out why everyone's so bothered.

"Alright, drive youngster." I bark, patting my partner's back until he pulls out the keys.

"Finally. I've seen the files. These girls used to be right fine dolls. Hate seeing the mangled up limbs of them." Myarty comments and I roll my eyes at the libidinous motivation. Though, I got to hand it to him. He ain't wrong. The example pictures did paint the girls as lookers. Shame the reality has me needing to look all over the place now rather than up some nice slender legs.

"Just drive already." I complain, putting more strain than I need to on this gun shot leg of mine. We hop on in and the keys click, poking the engine into roaring its distaste. The wheels grind and spin, taking us out onto the road as silence otherwise overtakes us. I put a paw to my chin again and get to thinking while I still have the silence to do so.

A barbershop and a restaurant in quick succession. One through pyromania and the other a bomb. More to both stories, obviously, but... Both locales are not clearly connected.

A relationship between the victims? Seems like the only likely thing. Never heard of no criminal group doing dealings in barbershops. Not public ones like the one that is now ash on the tunnel wind. Big fancy crime bosses always go private with how intimate a barber is. Diamond in the Rough is certainly no shady establishment either. Well, wasn't shady.

I might be seeing something that's not there, but I heard rumours from the officers. Forensics is very spooked right now. Perhaps that glassy stuff was also present at the barbershop? We've both heard it was quite the brutal locale compared to here. Far more on-hand with its destruction and brutality.

Someone's acting on a grudge? No, too professionally done both ways for that to seem plausible. No way a professional would intentionally mess their time up like this. It's not hard to see that Agadton is a town on edge with what happened not that long ago. We don't get rain underground, but we certainly felt the downpour.

Working theory... Working theory...?

"Try not to blow your brains out." Myarty remarks, breaking the thoughtful face otherwise dominating my features. I glance his way, throwing out a random noise caught in my throat.

"Now I know what you mean, but at least I got the aim for a shot like that." I say, chuckling to myself as he blows up with annoyance.

"Shut up!" he almost screams and the car does it for him instead. I blink and readjust to my surroundings. Getting out of the car, the temperamental youngster hops ahead into the station. I keep to my thoughts a little more and move with all the grace of a deep-fried drumstick.

It really doesn't add up. This whole crime scene does not add together with the other. Not clearly and certainly not in so short a time. Guess the hours are going to be late on this one. Best head on by to the store after work officially ends for me.

"Wonderful." I sarcastically drip out my mouth as I enter the station. All manner of staff move about, some lucky to be on their arses while others work them off. I turn the way of Forensics and already run into some problems. A whole lot of needless noise.

"Come on, spill it already!" Myarty demands, his fists no doubt threatening one of our fellow men of the law. I roll my eyes and knock on the door, cutting whatever this act is short.

"Keep your partner on his leash..." one of the labbies mutters, his sneer growing. I smile at him and then at Myarty.

"Here, boy. Here, boy!" I taunt, getting him back to me as he throws only the rudest of gestures my way. An attempt to reach for his gun! Gods above, the youth have no respect these days. None at all.

"Come on, Synnyet, get them to give out, already!" Myarty whines, going quiet as I gesture for it. Need some silence to work my magic. I'm no witch, not at all. But I got quite the spell-silvered tongue.

"H-Hey!" one of the labbies complains as I snatch up his notetablet. I read through it, going over the scientific details with a thoughtful 'hm' coming out at length. 

"Well... Well." I repeat, clicking my tongue as a heavy breath sighs on out into the open.

"Don't like the sound of that at all." Myarty remarks as he tries to get a snoop at my scoop. I knock him back with a gentle tap on the snout and pace about.

"You lot are sure about this?" I question but one of the many offended labbies as I tap the data they have. To my surprise, we actually have a chemical sample on-hand for them to reference. Apparently, it's a near-enough match for some kind of honey.

Blood wasp honey.

The labby nods, his eyes going over the others as one in particular fidgets about, "Y-Yes."

I throw the notetablet back his way, "Alright, then."

Myarty chases after me as I leave Forensics to get back to it. I drown in something I can only really call nostalgia, and I have no idea what else to think of it. Blood wasp honey is such a specific calling card these days. Good few decades ago since I last ever heard about it before I transferred departments. Thought leaving the big city for a smaller town would be easier on me, apparently not. Very much not.

"Hey, Geezer, slow down!" Myarty demands, not that he needs me to.

"How caught up are you on your history?" I ask him, leading his clueless person down to the file storage. 

"Oh, boy. A lesson. Or perhaps a lecture? A performance perhaps?" Myarty asks, his tone needlessly sarcastic for the moment. My eyes roll again, coming all that bit looser with my age and weariness.

"Ever since the crime lord Gamtambo went after one of his old hitmen, he's been chasing up all leads to blood wasp honey." I remind him if he cannot actually recall. He scoffs.

"Why?" I find myself baffled to hear.

"Because he never actually got that hitman. Blood wasp honey is a well-known weapon of a particularly... Awkward reputation. Gamtambo has been going after all the leads he can to find this missing hitman. Whatever he knows or something, it clearly has Gamtambo spooked. And that vile king of the bastards does not scare easily." I say, knocking on the door to the file storage as a pointless courtesy. No one's here, like usual.

Dusty room with nothing but dust for visitors. 

We greet the empty chairs on the way in and I get to work as Myarty lingers about, cheeks on a table corner. Why, if I cared enough, I'd whip him into doing the work. Seeing as my leg is the buggered one! He certainly won't ever live down owing me favours because of it, too. However, Myarty's face couldn't be any more stern.

"You think the rumours of corrupt officers will get it to Gamtambo?" he asks and I roar with laughter. My heart growing all the stronger for the excited thumps it is now making.

"There ain't no rumours. It's the truth. Someone's leaking at every level when it comes to Gamtambo, whether they know it or not." I chuckle, a few arrests working their way through my head. I stop the thoughts and find the file I want. A closed up thing that hasn't been touched in a long time.

"Zipped up and throw away the key?" my partner asks and I nod as I mould the magic stone to where I need it to be. A name forms in the witch-afflicted piece of earth. No picture to go with it, only a reputable list of deeds and accomplishments. Gods above, I can hardly even think of them as crimes... This is one impressive list to the name. A veritable superstar, if all but one detail was changed. 

This name. This name, it's one that slows my breathing and repeats a memory to me. An awful one of officers begging for support on their radios. Each unseen end of it growing increasingly full of static and devoid of an answering officer.

"Ivahstar..." I mutter, my gut pointing me in every direction, away from Agadton. What a time to be called back to duty. What a time indeed.