The day I played detective at Little Quarry (part II)

The bus took a long time to arrive because it was almost out of town, but that's fine. It's not like I was exactly in a hurry.

It was a typical cottage, small and with a triangular roof, raised on the grass more crudely than a rotten wooden cart. Also, I wouldn't say that it inspired a lot of security since anyone could get to the door or the window at any time. Where did they think we were? Holland?

It was afternoon and there was no one there, or at least that's what I thought when I arrived.

I was told the ET had been seen on the roof, so the first thing I did was jump from the entrance to the roof. With a single one. Just apply a little force on my toes and I'm there. Easy like jumping rope.

It was easy too because the lower part of the roof is just above the entrance, so choosing that point in particular used up less of my energy.

As soon as I landed, the impact left a mark on the tile. Predictable. I was using indarra after all. Landing under that pressure wouldn't damage the roof too much, but it made enough impact to leave such a mark.

I noticed that right next to mine was another mark that looked as though it had been made with a shoe, too. Either some human climbed onto the roof and slapped the tile really hard for no reason with a shoe, or it was the work of somebody else's indarra. You guess which option was most likely.

How did I know so much about footprint mark shapes? That's because... During childhood I always wanted to become a detective.

Yes. You heard it correctly. Detective.

My childhood hobby was looking for clues in various places and deducing things from them. I wanted to be an expert forensics cop or something. That's why the part I liked most about my current work was when I was analyzing a scene, just like I was doing there.

Unfortunately life did not allow me to follow my dream because of some unfortunate choices I made. In the end I turned... You know... The opposite of a police detective.

As I analyzed that shoe mark my anti-ductu beeped. There was somebody around. Was it the ET? I hid behind the chimney as fast as I could. That is, 'behind' the angled view of someone standing in front of the house. I chose that place because it felt like the ductu I felt came from... You know... The front of the house.

They were two paranormal beings: a man and a woman. The woman was a well-groomed young redhead. The man was middle-aged, bearded, tall and burly. He was smoking a cigarette.

Thank the human God I had learned secrecy, a technique that was based on balancing ductu and anti-ductu so that I couldn't be detected by any paranormal being or anything. There is usually a reaction time between anti-ductu and secrecy, if somebody knowledgeable feels ductu in one place and a moment later it suddenly disappears, he knows immediately that someone is hiding nearby and using secrecy. And revealing the use of secrecy in this way sorta kills the usefulness of the technique.

Luckily for me, it seemed like they didn't notice anything, which indicates my reaction time was fast enough.

Instead, the couple seemed to be laughing, busy with something else.

"That show is awesome. What about Ketlyn?"

"Oh Ketlyn is definitely my favorite character."

"I always remember that part where she..."

The two of them entered the Johnson's house and I heard nothing else. I thought to myself:

(What the...? Do policemen do their job while talking about random things like that?)

I wondered that because the way the middle-aged gentleman was dressed he must be a cop. By the amount of ductu I assumed he should be from SAD. Were they doing the forensics? But if I already knew the news is because they'd done it before. And the yellow line of transgression was already there when I arrived... It was more likely they must've come here once before and were coming back a second one now.

Looking back at that footprint, I wondered if it belonged to one of them that climbed on the roof the first time they came... Would they jump on the roof again today? They would see me there!

I started sweating slightly.

I quickly searched with my head for some spare spot if they ever wanted to jump on the roof and spotted a third footprint in the middle of it. It was the only one it had besides the ones above the entrance. This one was farther than the others. It meant that someone jumped in the middle of the roof instead of at the edge... That must be why they discovered it was an ET. They have greater jumping range.

Behind the house of the dead was the neighbor's house, which was of the same picturesque kind, and behind this one was sort of a maze of trees. I don't mean forest because it had too few trees for that. It was more like a lawn with trees. I decided to jump on the grass and run there, so if they found me it wouldn't be strange. I'd just be a little girl playing in the trees, as long as I kept using secrecy.

And so I did. With kicks thrusting I reached that lawn with a pinch of trees and climbed one of them that was a little tall. From there I watched the movement inside the house. I saw the couple inside talking. I checked the details of the burly man's shoes. They were large, rounded and iron-tipped; SAD's police uniform boots. As I had imagined it matched the first mark I saw on the roof.

I started playing detective.

If that gentleman's shoe mark was there it was because he had already jumped on the roof once. But he had just arrived and I didn't see him climb on the roof, which means he was there now for the second time. The two marks were deeper than mine, which indicates that they did not hold back when they climbed up, therefore at the time they must've been in a hurry. There's no point in leaving a hint of supernatural abilities on purpose if you're not in a hurry.

Hence the first conclusion I came to was they must have spotted the ET on the other day and chased it.

If they chased ET on the day of the investigation, that means ET was on the whereabouts also twice: once when he was reported to the police and once when the police came to check on that house the first time. However, the ET only missed the invitation the second time it came, because from what I was informed the invitation paper was now in SAD's possession

If the ET had been a mercenary willing to hand the paper over to a trafficking boss, he would have done it the first time when he was spotted nearby. He wouldn't need to carry such valuable paper in his pocket the second time, when the police were already after him.

Hence, considering all the points, I got the second likely conclusion:

The 'casual' loss of the document was on purpose.

The ET came back exactly to deliver the invitation to the police.

Interesting... What kind of people would want the document to fall into the hands of the police? If he were someone related to the police he'd have delivered it right into their hands, therefore he was someone on the opposite side. Would any hired mercenary gain anything from that? If so, what?

How was I supposed to know?

Anyway ... Since I had nothing else to do there, I thought I'd go back and see what Craig was doing. Since the house of the dead was more than half a city away from his, just the time for me to come and go would be enough for him to return. So I went back to his house.

Unfortunately Craig hadn't finished speaking to the Dragon.

"Sit. Make yourself at home. It may not be much, but I'll keep you company." Marcelle said. She was sitting in her wheelchair by the couch in the living room. I approached and sat on the couch as recommended.

"Did you go to work?"

"Er... Kinda..."

"You are Craig's co-worker right? He never talks about his work... What's it like?"

"Er..."

(And you shouldn't, Craig)

"He said he earned his muscles from carrying the boxes around so much."

Box carrying? Was that the lie you made up? No box loader works so little during the week, Craig...

"Yep. It must've been."

Marcelle touched my arms inconveniently.

"But you didn't gain any muscle... How old are you? You look so young to be already working."

(Please come back home, Craig.)

"Me too. I never gained any muscles. I am my father's daughter... He was a businessman. Then I stayed at home."

(It's obvious that you're your father's daughter, Marcelle...)

"Hey. I have an idea! Let's arm wrestle!"

"I just hope I don't use indarra by mistake," I thought, "let me see… If a person of my physique disputed with her, should I win or lose? How am I supposed to know?"

I took her arm and she counted to three. I decided to let her win because it seemed like the right thing to do. But she put too much strength and her body almost fell off the chair, in which she let a little scream.

"Calm there. Let me put you back."

"Ah! Excuse me. Haha ha! I almost fell." She was all laughing. I wondered if I had a sudden excuse to leave and come back later.

But it was not necessary. The front door swung open as Craig drifted in from the drizzle.

"Did you forget something, brutes?" I asked. He was without the coat he had taken with him.

"Tomorrow I'll go back there. And I see you're still here. Did you two eat anything?"

"I was going to prepare something for her..." Marcelle replied.

(No, Marcelle. We don't need any more disasters.)

"It's already late. I'll order something instead. What do you two want?"

"Anything." I shrugged "So? How did it go?"

Craig looked at me coldly. He didn't speak of those things in front of Marcelle.

"Same old…" There was no 'same old thing' when it came to our line of work. I would have to wait until Marcelle decided to go back to her room before Craig could actually answer me. And that was going to be dull... Dull like Dullahan.

It was almost eleven o'clock at night when we had eaten some oily pieces of chicken Craig ordered on the phone and after that Marcelle finally went to sleep. Ironic that it was Craig who brought back my question, this time directing it to me:

"So? How was it there?"

"Hmm... A couple of SAD cops showed up. They were doing a second investigation for some reason."

"Second investigation? How do you know it's second?"

"Because if we already know the news it's because there already was a first one, Craig."

"The preliminary could have been done by the civil police... And only after they did pass the case on to SAD, which was now analyzing the scene."

Could be... But I had evidence that wasn't how it happened.

I told him about the rooftop footprint, as well as how I concluded by obvious facts that the ET had dropped the invitation into the hands of the police on purpose.

"To summarize, we now have two possibilities: first; The alien returned on the day of the first forensic time and abandoned the invitation on purpose, which tells us that he is working 'for' an underworld leader with a certainty of about sixty percent, and also tells us that he is working 'against' an underworld leader with a 100 percent certainty. And second; he could not escape the room overnight and / or did not remember to take the invitation out of his pocket and lost, which tells us that he is clumsy.

"Judging by the ET's level of skill reported by the informants... It can only be the first option."

I took my phone out of my pocket and automatically opened the Cinder Clash app

"How about a third option? These two cops did sense your presence and pretended not to, in fact they felt before you, it's you who did not notice them. They left a footprint on the roof, then ran back and waited for you to get on the roof and only then revealed themselves. As soon as they did, they entered Miss. Johnson's house and waited for you to leave so that you could conclude the clue was dropped by the alien on purpose."

I whistled slightly

"Seems complicated. They could not be sure I would conclude something so specific from such a simple sequence of actions. Most people wouldn't even know which mark on the roof was whose. A human wouldn't even be able to tell there was a mark on the roof! They have the IQ equal to the ambient temperature."

Craig waved a finger at me.

"But it's still a third possibility. We can never be too confident, Bubble. Surely they would have done that had they known who they were dealing with."

"If the police knew they were dealing with Bubble Tots, they would have sent the FBI, Craig."

"Stuck up kid..."

Craig just hated to admit I had found an interesting clue from such a little amount of info. Well ... "I" was proud of my work. It's enough for me.

"Anyway..." I said getting up in a gesture of farewell. "We'll just know everything for sure tomorrow, therefore..."

"Tomorrow? Why?"

"Why 'why'? Didn't the Dragon tell you to find out a way to get the hands on the invitation?"

"No! He mentioned that, but he wants me to handle the business with Spencer. The police cannot suspect anything. And Spencer is famous and comes from another city."

"Woah, and who is gonna take care of the ET and the paper? Me? Sub? I don't wanna work with Sub-Snow."

"Sub-Zero, Bubble."

"Yep! That!"

What a silly code name. Usually after a long time in anonymity in the underworld we ended up gaining nicknames, but those newcomers often invented their own. Sub told me that his came from a little game because he had a character that had a power similar to his finesse. The game is called Fatal something. I don't know much about games. The only game I play is Cinder Clash.

Although I can't really say much. My code name is Bubble.

"Unexpectedly, the Dragon said he doesn't want anyone after the invitation. He actually wants you to help me with that Spencer's deal."

"What a shame... Just because I wanted to chase after some aliens. All this effort for nothing."

Tomorrow would be a day of entertaining a fat, arrogant politician, just because he was going to buy a big lot. The Dragon was quite weird. Disappointed, I turned off my game and took a deep breath.

"And what about the Dragon? How was talking to him?"

"He only said that..." Craig answered as he pulled the chair from the table to sit down.

"I mean... How was the experience of going there to talk to him? Was it like the other times?"

"Yes. Still the same. Didn't let me see his face the whole time."

I let out a silly laugh. The Dragon is really a case apart. Of all his subordinates, the only one he talks to in person is Craig. I never saw his face myself. And when I say that, I mean that I was never in his presence. Because even Craig who talks to him in person has never seen his face, since he doesn't show his face at all.

"Today he was on his back and with the light off."

"Wasn't he wearing a weird mask this time?"

"Not today, no."

How haphazard. Looks like a random villain taken from a cartoon or something.

"He is afraid that you will read his mind. That's it."

"Uh? I don't think so. Even without seeing the expressions on the face, I can catch a nuance or another in the tone of the voice. If he knew how my finesse works and wanted to avoid me using it during the meetings, he'd call you in isntead when he wanted to communicate something, so I guess he just doesn't want to be seen at all.

"That way if one of us happens to be a double agent or something, he keeps his identity hidden, doesn't he?"

Craig got up and took water from the fridge. It was late, so I got up from the couch and, while stretching, I finally said goodbye:

"Anyway... Tomorrow is a new day, so... I'll get going."

"Indeed. Better sleep to move to tomorrow's world quickly. Wanna a ride to your house?"

"No need to. I will walk myself."

After all, it's not like the night is any dangerous for people like us

Craig opened the door and the night hit cold against my body. Although the whole ET thing was interesting the Dragon decided to put me on a mediocre job instead of letting me continue on the track. What was I supposed to do about it? Not always everything went as I wanted...