“Why the long face Kim?”
“It’s nothing teacher. I’m fine.”
Professor Stone didn’t know which to worry more. The traffic jam blocking him from reaching the crime scene in time, or the mopey looking person righting shotgun. As much as he wanted to multitask, he had to keep one eye on the cars in front of him to keep close to their trunks – while his other eye kept glancing at the constant flow of texts racing up across his phone mounted on the dashboard.
Sponsored by Detective Fraulein.
image [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/e5d49d01-e685-46aa-8d92-b07d57dc33fb/dixk5eu-407a9589-9c0f-44fd-a62c-9e3b51f0717e.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2U1ZDQ5ZDAxLWU2ODUtNDZhYS04ZDkyLWIwN2Q1N2RjMzNmYlwvZGl4azVldS00MDdhOTU4OS05YzBmLTQ0ZmQtYTYyYy05ZTNiNTFmMDcxN2UucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.4W2wxI11qYltOCTtDNqpn0CAgUnrvL8OcM7qsTA98aQ]
The forensic chemist gave a double sigh. “As much as we are in a hurry, seems like we got a bit of time. You wanna talk about it Kim?”
“It’s not me, that needs talking to.”
“Who? Come on Kim, staring out the window with that sad puppy expression is not an answer.”
--- Miss Keekee. Even now I can’t fathom what turmoil she is going through. Maybe, I shouldn’t have left her alone, especially when she looked so vulnerable. And in saying that, I don’t know if I have any right to talk about her troubles to Teacher. Even if we all know each other, Miss Keekee has right to her privacy... Confucius once said: ‘a gentlemen should be ashamed to let his words outrun his deeds’ and avoid gossip at all times.
“Kiiiim. Earth to Kiiiiim. Come in Kim.”
“...I’m...already in your wagon—Er car.”
“I mean...Never mind.” Prof. Stone wanted to face palm, but it seems the road congestion was clearing up so he had to press harder on the gas pedal to keep up. Moving at the opposite of light speed. “I figured it out. You miss Keekee already.”
“W-wait what?”
“Come on, Kim, you both can’t play coy with me. It’s typical, for two people in love wanting to spent 24/7 with each other. If not holding hands, kissing, or even going out on dates, there’s that urge wanting to keep in touch with them through text and whatever.”
“T-Teacher. Th-this sounds most absurd. This is a misunderstanding, from the beginning!”
“Misunderstanding my foot. I see the way you look at her. She is a pretty girl after all.”
“Teacher! Please!”
“Fine, fine! And consider yourself lucky, the crime scene is right up ahe—Ooooh...that don’t look good.”
“What? What happened?”
Prof. Stone wiped a hand over his eyes, but he put his professional game face back, “We’re gonna need to mask up for this.”
“Ah.” Martial Kim nodded. “Another suicide by coal victim?”
“Worse.”
image [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/e5d49d01-e685-46aa-8d92-b07d57dc33fb/didaiyy-7cc70b06-faf9-4771-a24f-b7127efe7b76.png/v1/fill/w_1280,h_207/moon_tavern_page_break_by_suimaifiles_didaiyy-fullview.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MjA3IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZTVkNDlkMDEtZTY4NS00NmFhLThkOTItYjA3ZDU3ZGMzM2ZiXC9kaWRhaXl5LTdjYzcwYjA2LWZhZjktNDc3MS1hMjRmLWI3MTI3ZWZlN2I3Ni5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.V__LDKPGxPLEElJXKGgxKvmlMcRIG9Nv3hgCGY_VlEE]
The garage of the house was completely trashed. The officers wished it was attacked by rotten eggs, trash, or even a raging pizza stuck on the rooftop. No, the damages they were dealing with made the all other troubles nothing more than scratching an itch.
Why? Well it wasn’t the fact the garage was darker than the belly of a chimney. It wasn’t even the fact the garage door was completely incinerated and dripping with slag. And don’t worry about that expensive looking car all torched up.
Whoever occupied that torched car was glued to everything. THAT BAD.
Today, of all days, Officer Roland wished he called sick.
“Officer,” Prof. Stone came up from behind, making sure he had a THICK N95 mask cupped to his face, “First burn victim I take it?”
“No.” The Officer Roland groaned with a twisted look on his face, “But the smell is never a pleasant experience, if you get me.”
“Fair enough. Mind giving us a sit rep?”
Boy was Officer Roland gladly obliged. He took the forensic chemist and his protege a few steps out of the messed up garage, to grab himself some breathing space.
“Phew. Firefighters were called to put out the flames around 7:10 in the morning. After a few hours, they found the car had someone inside. We identified the Burn Victim to be the owner of this house, his garage – so definitely not some random person trying to hot wire a car.”
Prof. Stone nodded, “Any idea how the fire started?”
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Preliminary fire report suggests a faulty wiring, one of the heaters inside. As the garage had a lot of flammables, the sparks may have touched something it shouldn’t and then POP, up it went.”
“Where’s Detective Fraulein? She’s been blowing up my phone for a bit.”
“Ah about that.” Officer Roland cleared his throat. “She told me to let you know – you’re late.”
“...Pffff. Sounds like her.” Prof. Stone snorted.
The officer bowed his head in apology, despite being the messenger. “Otherwise, she’s on her way to the airport.”
“Airport? Was she that mad, to up and leave town?”
“Hah. Good one sir. She’s gone to pick up a relative of the Burn Victim. His brother, and lived with him. She was contacting next of kin and found out he was on his way back from a business trip. So she took a couple of officers to go and pick up the brother and get some information.”
“Right.” Prof. Stone then finished putting on his gloves and tightened his mask, “I guess this is where we come in. By the way, where’s the coroner? I half expected they be here earlier than us.”
“My guess stuck in traffic, heard some a DUI (drunk under influence) crashed into a fire hydrant and caused a big mess.” Officer Roland shrugged, “I’ll let you know when the coroner arrives.”
The forensic chemist thanked the officer and started to get to work. Fortunately his forensic team already had a head start, so he took his protege to focus on the more out of the ordinary things inside of this torched garage.
Martial Kim, meanwhile, was having a small flashback.
--- Why am I reminded of Fae Fae’s case...Oh yes, her former lover was afraid her ‘death’ would connect back to him, so he tasked the Fire Monkey Gang to steal the palanquin she last rode on and set it aflame. Judging by the colour, the smell, and thickness of the smoke, a sort of powerful fuel to turn the wooden palanquin to complete ashes within minutes... I wonder.
Perhaps Martial Kim was having too hard of a flashback, he lost sight of where he was going and he bumped into his mentor.
“Ah. Forgive me Teacher.”
“Kim. Don’t tell me, you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“Foul play?”
Prof. Stone snapped his fingers – only it got muted due to his rubber gloves, “I thought this felt fishy.”
“You mean smelled fishy, but given the circumstances it’s the smell of a terrible roast.”
“Yeah. No one can ever forget that stench of a smoked human.”
Prof. Stone would crouched up and down to inspect the melted car car. Although not his first time, seeing the corpse ‘welded’ into their driver’s seat – all black and charred like a crisp log – was still an uncanny visage.
Martial Kim would lean over his mentor’s shoulder to get a better look, all too familiar with these types of victims – especially in the chaotic and lawless Martial Arts World.
“By the way, Teacher. Officer Roland mentioned something caught fire in this room. Clearly this garage have very little wood, nor cloth, and I don’t see anything like vats of oil to trigger a flame.”
“Huh?” Prof. Stone got back up to his feet and showed the young master around the garage, pointing at anything half dead or BARELY survived in the fire. “Almost everything you see in this place is flammable. Look at this: oil-based paint cans; compressed gas canisters; tanks of air to refill tires; of course spare bottles of lighter fluid, oil, and etc.”
“Seriously!?” Martial Kim gasped. “What are these people in this era trying to do? Blow themselves up? Why store all these menacing items in a single space? Are they asking to turn into ashes?”
“Not unless people follow proper precautions, Kim! And almost everyone follows a certain level of safety. Besides, these products are used to repaint the house, lubricate equipment, very common in the household. So long as you don’t like light a match or even smoke in the garage, they’re perfectly harmless.”
“I beg to differ! Even I keep a supply of wine in an isolated cellar to prevent fire from every going in there in case of an accident.”
Prof. Stone wanted to rectify this detail...but he let the young master live in his ‘dream world’ a bit longer. “In saying that, something definitely triggered a series of reaction. That one flick and cause the chain of dominoes to tumble into each other...Questions is what?”
Martial Kim examined the floor, equally as crisp as the corpse in the car, “Didn’t Officer Roland say something about a faulty wiring...What IS faulty wiring, Teacher?”
“Ah. In short, almost everything we use nowadays require electricity. Some you can power with pre-made batteries, but majority of the products have a wire you plug into the wall – which is connected to a local power grid.”
“So, this wire you speak of draws energy to power itself?”
“Thank god you’re a fast learner Kim, saves me a load of information dump.” Prof. Stone would look for the source of the flame and walk around the car, “You be surprise how most fire cases are caused because the protecting wrapping of wires get worn out from friction and time, or chewed up by rats, and energy leak out. If one isn’t careful, sparks can leak out. Or straight up electrocute people to death, but that’s a whole can of worms.”
--- So essentially the vital necessities in life not only grant people luxury, but can just as easily take away their lives. What a vexing paradox? Should I be happy, the people in the Jade Empire live simpler lives? No television to spook them? No phone to distract them? And no internet to corrupt them?... Sadly the benefits supersede the shortcomings.
“Essentially,” Martial Kim tried to piece the situation together, “This faulty wiring truly did catch any of these items on fire, caused a violent chain reaction that ignited everything else that is volatile and...Teacher?’
The young master stopped pacing – because he realized the person he was supposed to be following lagged behind. He would wonder, why was his mentor stuffing his head inside of the car of all things? Wouldn’t the closer you are to the source of the terrible smell, the more pungent? Surely even with N95 Masks, there was no way it could block out 100% of the ‘cooked’ smell.
What distracted Martial Kim from addressing this, was Officer Roland coming over.
“I—cough, cough. Uugh.” Officer Roland wanted to spit the taste in his mouth, but wearing a mask inside the perimeters of a crime scene had their limits. “I asked around. No one saw anyone around the house, or neighborhood prior and during the incident of the fire. It just went KABOOM, woke everyone out of bed, and 911 was flooded with calls from this area. I double checked the fire reports, no one mentioned of a suspicious person entering or leaving the perimeter. So, looks like this was all an accident.”
“Officer Roland,” Prof. Stone finally spoke up, “Care for a wager?”
“S-sir? I-isn’t the case rather obvious? Unless, you have some part time experience as a coroner?”
“Nope. But I am willing to bet, this was no accident. This man was murdered, before he was set on fire.”
Oh? Murdered before set on fire? What proof did the forensic chemist had? What could have been the murder weapon to prove this theory? Martial Kim couldn’t help but wonder, what was this new forensic trick his mentor had yet to show him?
Or, could Prof. Stone be bluffing to try and look cool in front of the officer...Nah, it couldn’t be...could it?
image [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/e5d49d01-e685-46aa-8d92-b07d57dc33fb/didaiyy-7cc70b06-faf9-4771-a24f-b7127efe7b76.png/v1/fill/w_1280,h_207/moon_tavern_page_break_by_suimaifiles_didaiyy-fullview.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MjA3IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZTVkNDlkMDEtZTY4NS00NmFhLThkOTItYjA3ZDU3ZGMzM2ZiXC9kaWRhaXl5LTdjYzcwYjA2LWZhZjktNDc3MS1hMjRmLWI3MTI3ZWZlN2I3Ni5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.V__LDKPGxPLEElJXKGgxKvmlMcRIG9Nv3hgCGY_VlEE]
image [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/e5d49d01-e685-46aa-8d92-b07d57dc33fb/di6ht8a-6b7841a9-7268-4fab-a51a-b1367877f8d8.png/v1/fit/w_828,h_1210/moon_tavern___pavilion_arc__lightnovel_image_01__by_suimaifiles_di6ht8a-414w-2x.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY2NyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2U1ZDQ5ZDAxLWU2ODUtNDZhYS04ZDkyLWIwN2Q1N2RjMzNmYlwvZGk2aHQ4YS02Yjc4NDFhOS03MjY4LTRmYWItYTUxYS1iMTM2Nzg3N2Y4ZDgucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExNDEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.1MRXBAT-lkHjJI86BlLFW_2-DsZ2mPQmrpQnyPY-Ay8]