“John Mitchell? THE John Mitchell missing from the reparations team?” Kevin narrowed his eyes.
“Yeah - yeah, THAT John Mitchell.” Keryn nodded, then shrugged: “But - as you can imagine, none of us really thought he’d be a guy linked to a heinous crime like that. The assumption’s always been that he’s someone who might know something about - ” She looked at Mick with a side eye: “- about things that are not natural.”
“How does he know?” Mick rubbed his nose bridge: “And - to be honest, this is one strange link to make, no? How the hell did the two names connect, even? The guy did not appear to have this much money to rent that platform?”
“Which means I am a bit skeptical of the leap Khan is making.” Shrevas frowned and scratched his jaw: “I think it’s possible that there’s either something missing, or that intel is mixed up, or plain wrong.”
“How new is this information?” Marcus thought for a short moment before asking.
“Quite new, we got it yesterday.” Keryn shrugged: “Almost thought it was a dead end. Finally got some response from the city citizen record department.”
“That’s good. That’s good. We still have time to look into it before Khan suspects anything.” Kevin nodded: “Do you know where this guy lives?”
“Wait, wait, wait. ” Mick raised his hand: “I am not quite sure we’re giving Mr. Khan enough credit and trust here. Why are we suspecting him?”
“Many reasons. One of them being that the investigators and our departments rarely got along in the past.” Marcus shrugged: “Not to be biased, but - their existence and their interference in our investigation has long been a major pain. And some may even tell you …”
“Some may even tell you their existence has contributed a lot to our low solve rate of some of our major crimes, including murder.” Keryn scoffed: “Well, to be fair, that’s more about the community collective and not - ”
“Issue is, we typically have different means and interests regarding our investigations.” Marcus interjected: “And to answer your question more directly - we need to do some verification of their intel on our part as well. We can’t just take it without due diligence. Caution is the word when dealing with them.”
“O - okay, I guess.” Mick sighed and nodded. Just this moment, someone knocked on the lab door. It was Detective Brian Sai.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Okay. Let’s get on with it then.” Shrevas nodded at Marcus and Kevin: “I say we go to check out where this Luo Zhuge guy lives. You wanna come? Might need some backup.”
“Good idea. I was just about to ask.” Marcus stretched as Mick opened the door: “Let’s get moving. Mick, let’s have a quick meeting when you’re back.”
“Sure. Thank you Detective.” Mick nodded and was ready to go with Brian Sai. Marcus stopped him midway, and handed him a small envelope.
“Talismans. Better quality than what you’d find on the market if you don’t know anyone.” Marcus explained.
“Thank you.” Mick nodded and hid the envelope in his inner jacket pocket.
“I’ll stay here. I’m not - not martial, so if a fight breaks out I’ll be less than useless.” Kevin shrugged: “Also, I have some reports to run - let me know if you need me on scene and I’ll head right over.”
“Okay.” Keryn took a deep look at Kevin, who averted his eyes the moment their sights touched: “I’ll text you the address.”
“Dude, what’s the deal with Kevin?” Shrevas chuckled as he sat in the driver’s seat in his usual squad car.
“What do you mean? He’s always shy and adverse to action.” Marcus buckled his seatbelt at the back.
“No, I mean, extra so today.” Shrevas chuckled and peeked Keryn with a side eye.
“I mean - I don’t really know.” Marcus decided to play dumb.
The residence of Luo Zhuge was somewhere close to the central area of the South-Western District. Not very far from the border to be expensive, yet not too close to be unsafe. It was a small area with several rows of townhouses that looked quite identical, with tight driveways through them and narrow parking spaces on the first floors.
The place Luo Zhuge rented was located at a deeper corner of the whole community, only two roads away from the wooden fences.
“Hey, look.” Keryn pointed at the row of flowers at the side of the building.
Marcus fixed his eyes on them - they were chrysanthemums. On each of the flower stems, tied a ribbon. Some of the ribbons were red, some of them purple, some of them white.
“What does this mean?” Shrevas asked, turning his head to Marcus. A reasonable reaction, for among all of the detectives in the precinct, if anyone could have known more about it, it would be him.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. Could be just decorations.” Marcus shrugged, still gazing at the flowers. Something about them did not appear normal to him.
“Aren’t chrysanthemums considered a kind of medium flower?” Keryn frowned: “I guess if you consider Fengshui, it’s not a good decor to have like this?”
“In certain aspects, yes - it’s considered half in half out, therefore could be used as a medium when communicating with spirits. But as for Fengshui - ” Marcus scratched his head: “I don’t really know about that.”
“Hello, officers.” Just this moment, a middle aged woman came out of the townhouse: “Are you Detective Pahaik and Lance?”
“Yes. And this is Detective Cai, he’s from our precinct and is assisting us on the case.” Keryn went over and greeted the middle aged woman, the landlady.
“Of course. Of course.” The landlady looked Marcus up and down before opening the door: “Please, come in. I was just about to have the cleaners come by to give me an estimate. There’s still time before I can throw his stuff away and rent it out, but - ”
“Please don’t do anything before notifying us.” Shrevas cut the landlady off: “The investigation is still ongoing, and we just heard - we still need some more time before we could conclude things here.”
“But what about out rent - ”
“Please understand that this is a very important investigation. And it might even be a crime scene if we find anything that could connect the person of interest to the crime.” Shrevas shrugged as he put the shoe covers on.