Day 2
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Once the car is where it should be, I leave it to rest as I push the doors of the station open and mindlessly work my way inside until reaching the stairs down to Astero's lab; on the way, I can see the other officers talking among themselves about the body we found in the mill. As most of the officers on the station are old farts nearing their so-waited retirement, the fear they have is clearly palpable in their frightened, perturbed expressions, showing itself without a shadow anywhere to hide in; hands shaking, legs can't stay still, and their eyes, fast as a bolt, watch me excruciatingly as I step away.
Their pity, comforts and disgusts me at the same time; most of those in this room never acknowledged my existence before, not even a word spoken while making coffee, nothing, but now I'm the target of their thoughts; I'm sure that in their heads, they are thankful that all has fallen on my fragile hands instead of theirs.
Forgetting about them, I descend the stairs slowly, feeling their gazes ungluing from me—no more stabbing my back with its force, no more strangling me with the unspoken words they carry. I pause in front of the lab's door and let it open at its own speed before quickly entering the room and hitting the button on the wall beside it to close right behind me, keeping me safely away from the outside world as I lean against its cold, glass surface.
Taking in a deep breath, I notice how shaky my lips became, and too, how my hands instinctively curled into a fist. When I raise my eyes to look for Astero in the lab, I see him in the middle of sighing tiredly as he pulls one metal chair from the other side of the room to near his desk, dragging it painfully against the carefully placed, spotlessly clean tiles that I dirt with remains of my travels.
"I... was expecting to see you making that face... that is-" He speaks in turns as he multitasks, dragging the chair and talking to me, but once he finally manages to reallocate the chair to where he wishes, the ability to speak plainly returns to him. "That is why I got you some coffee as a thank you for yesterday." I watch as he takes in the breaths necessary to regain his energy as he sits back down, gesturing for me to do the same; it doesn't take me much more than the invitation to gladly do so, gravitating first towards the chair before dropping myself on it with a groan. "I apologize I didn't manage to warn you beforehand about the situation; my phone is out of battery, and I only stopped to notice an hour ago when I returned; I tried to get a charger with someone upstairs, but no one had a spare."
"Don't worry, that's fine; it was just a shock to see everyone in the office; by the way, why is everyone here? Shouldn't they be on patrol instead of Mel?" My questions crawl out of me as my hands, out of practice, fall atop the warm coffee cup, expertly twisting the top open as I bring it to my lips for a sip so I'm able to start working the knot in my stomach.
Astero adjusts his browline glasses and rests his back further into his ergonomic chair, crossing his arms underneath his chest as he closes his eyes.
"The Sergeant called them here for a meeting; I mean, this was expected, no? After what we discovered in the mill, we pretty much can't go on without changing tactics. I heard that he plans to increase the number of officers on patrol, especially at night; and to why is Melissa on the streets now; she asked to take the day patrol schedule for today so the meeting could happen. In truth, I have no doubt that she was thinking of going out tonight and therefore so willingly took the chance."
"That is something she would definitively do, alright." His words drag a lighthearted laugh out of me, and a rare scene happens; he laughs as well; it is somewhat rare to see this man laugh or smile; usually, he is a very closed person; that is why when we became friends, it was such a surprise to, well, everyone. The love he carries for his work is on another level; he breathes science and drinks from its tears; there isn't anyone more trustworthy than him when it comes to this world we live in, of solving crimes and drinking coffee.
I remember it was hard to get him and Mel to work together as they are polar opposites when it comes to personalities, but a little incentive was all I needed to use for it to work. Now, it is difficult to imagine any of us three separated. I wouldn't wish anything more than to keep these fleeting seconds of peace, but sadly, the moment I catch the lack of a dismembered body on the metal table in the lab, the words leave before I can do anything about it.
"Where is the body? Did you finish analyzing it already, cause if you did, that will be record time, I think."
"Oh, yes; the moment caught me and almost managed to make me forget about it." Pushing himself on the chair, I watch as he slides with it to the metal table, grabs a file, and gets back to me; he hands me the file as soon as he does, leaving me to read it as he talks. "I'll talk first about the things you might find useful that I managed to extract from the gathered evidence. To begin, I'll follow what we got from the first victim to the last; with Melinda Kolesov, I was able to extract two pieces of information: The first is related to the dirt underneath her fingernails; on a quick look at the sample under the microscope, I was able to find traces of those small white flowers that grow around the less visited areas of the city."
Small white flowers? I think I know what kind he is speaking of; that is one more thing I find amusing about him: he knows so much about so many things related to the job, but when it comes to more basic things, he can't bring himself to care enough to learn; in particular, he knows nothing about flowers or anything related to space. He knows not one name of a constellation, nor even the most common name of flowers.
"You mean poppies? You know, the small white flowers that grow near the tracks and the junkyard."
"Precisely. From what I could tell, the victim most probably, while trying to fight against the killer, scratched some dirt and managed to accidentally gather pieces of a petal from it among the soil; that brings me to an interesting fact: these flowers, as I came to learn today, not only grow on the locations you mentioned but as well on the vegetation around the mill, hidden by the bushes; when my phone is charged, I can show you the picture I took of it."
"Wait? You're saying that because you think the location is not a coincidence, isn't it?" I question as I fail to catch how that can be assumed with only that piece of evidence.
"Yes, and there isn't just that piece of evidence that tells us this same story; just look at the file, the third page."
I do as asked, browsing the few pages of the file before stopping on the one he asked me to check; on it is a detailed description of what the body of the first victim tells us: the dirt, the petal he mentioned, and, to my surprise, the lingering presence of gunpowder.
Seeing that, the picture becomes clearer; the bullets we found probably belonged to Melinda. I didn't look much, but the lack of bullet holes anywhere on the stairs, walls, or ceiling is worrisome; no one would carry empty shells in their pocket, and connecting the gunpowder to the little I learned about how she behaved, I can say almost certainly that she tried to defend herself.
"There was no sign of a gun anywhere on the mill—no bullet holes decorating the wood—but there is gunpowder in her fingers and empty cases on the ground clearly indicating she shot the killer, or at least something. How does this make any sense?"
Involuntarily, I do something that is common for me; I freeze my time and enter a state of deep thinking, that is, until Astero keeps going, pulling me out of it.
"Aside from that, there was nothing much that I could gather from her; I could talk about the elevated alcohol in her blood, but I believe that you knew about that already." He waits for a reaction from me, and seeing that I don't contest his claim, he takes it as confirmation and continues onward. "Now to the second one, Sergey Kolesov; I wanted to see how much alcohol he had in his blood, but there is where I have strange bad news for you; his body was dried of blood, and I mean that he didn't bleed it all out. Page seven."
Catching up to his words, my fingers dance around and lead the pages to be turned until my eyes can see the one in question; on it, pictures from the arms of the victim were taken and placed, not only from the first victim, as I spot that some of them have the broken nails of the first victim. On the wrists of both, a hole can be seen, small enough to resemble a needle mark, but on a more thorough look, I can see that it isn't as small as it appears.
So this was the cause of the lack of blood on the man? He was dried out by the killer, but for what reason? Blood is useless, especially if we're talking about practical uses. His cause of death is marked as blood loss. "Wait, you're saying that the first victim had the same marks as her father, but she wasn't dried."
"That is another thing I think you will find interesting; her blood was taken away, but not fully; it was mixed with blood from a different someone, a... dead someone; I contacted the hospital and sent them a sample so they can run in their database."
A dead person's blood transfused inside a living person—what kind of monster would do that? Hearing that makes me sick to my stomach, making that sandwich I craved before stops sounding so delicious after all.
Flipping through the pages on the file, I reach the first victim's page, and at the bottom, just like the other, is the probable cause of death: 'Through a meticulous analysis, I can say the most probable cause is that the victim's body didn't fair well with the strange intrusion on her bloodstream, and on the fight, the mind didn't manage to win against the intruder and didn't resist the procedure.'
A shaky breath leaves me as the quantity of information I received finally gets to me; my legs spring me back up to my feet and, in the process, leave the file to slide out of my lap onto the ground, away from me. "I... God, I'll need some time to gulp that down. I'll go to my office and start the report for Ed; I believe he wants one as soon as he can today with everything that has happened."
Not stopping to chat some more, my body moves across the room to the heavy sliding door; except that before I can reach my escape route, Astero speaks. "I'm sorry to ask now, but do you have a charger I can borrow? It will be hard to get back home if I can't call Lenvela to pick me up after I'm done."
"Uhm, I think I have one in my office; but would you mind if I finished things up first? I promise I'll let you borrow it before the sun sets; you just need to knock on my door in some time."
"Thank you, I'm not in a hurry; like you, I have some stuff that I need to get back to, so when I'm done, I'll go upstairs to your office." Grateful, the man turns on his chair to get up so he can grab the file in the ground. "And Olivia, I'm not that best when it comes to this, but stay well; if it all becomes too much, I'll let you hide in the lab for an hour; we can even talk if you prefer."
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"I'll be fine, but thank you for the offer. I will hold you to that; best luck with work."
After saying my goodbyes, I breathe deeply before rushing upstairs, dashing across the busy room until my hands push open with all it has the door to my office and close it shut; my fingers work to turn the coin slot lock on the round knob as my other hand closes the blinds of the window, giving me the little peace and privacy that I can get.
Having a lot to digest and a report to start, I skip the part where I would nap on the sofa and go straight to my desk.
Five hours go by and I have a door filled with sticky notes that, at this point, I lost count of how many truly fill every missing space it has. The words I wrote stare back at me like a past foe, mocking my every thought as my attempts to make sense of all fail to reach a singular conclusion.
I look from the edge of my vision to the wall clock, noticing that in the midst of work, I lost almost a whole five hours; it is almost time to wrap up things for today and go home to have dinner; even my stomach grumbles furiously as I remember of eating as I didn't the whole day; my hand instinctively goes to my belly as I sigh tiredly, but, as I lazily move to grab my hoodie from the ground, the door of my office is pushed open violently, managing to almost knock me off my chair with the scare.
"Hehe, here I am, bringing you the best thing humanity's ever created: food."
Mel enters the office without regard for my poor heart, holding dearly in her hand a bag with Bella's diner logo clearly stamped on it. She keeps a big grin on her face all the time, almost big enough to crack the soft skin of her cheek; beside her, holding a hand to his face like he was not on par with the idea of almost busting my office's door, is none other than Astero.
Mel is fast on her walk, aiming to reach my table, and once doing so, she drops the good-smelling bag atop my table before leaning against it in a cool pose, or so she thinks, but I won't be the one to spoil her fun.
For a single moment, her smile turns to a more preoccupied frown; she places her hand atop mine, which rests near the complete report. "I heard from the big mouth over there that you're having a bad day, so I—" Interrupting her is Astero, who coughs to grab her attention as she proudly talks, seemingly to remind her of something that she catches on quickly before returning her attention to continuing. "Okay, WE thought that it would be a good idea if we were to dine together, but mostly, it was my idea; so I accept cash or pats as a reward, preferably the second option."
"Christ, this was supposed to be a nice surprise, not a test to see how Olivia's heart can handle stress; that, I believe she has on excess right now, so let's try not to add to the pile." Astero comments with a sigh, approaching my table as well; not so stealthy, he disappears with his hand inside the food bag like a magician before pulling out what I suppose is his meal, and to what I can see and smell, he got the same thing he always does: chicken salad with the side of fries, and to drink, a rather cute pink lemonade. "I'll be taking the sofa if you don't mind; my back could use something that doesn't move around so much."
"Sure, you can take it; and before I forget, the charger is plugged in the wall right there; you can use it now if you still need it." I point to the cable resting on the floor with its base occupying the outlet, just waiting to be used; the convenience that it is having it beside the sofa is something for which I'm very grateful considering that I'm one to forget to charge my phone with more frequency than I would like to admit.
"I was about to ask you for it; thank you once more." He pulls the cable from the floor and up to the arm of the sofa, where he places his cell phone and lets it rest there, charging as he composedly takes the plastic fork and knife resting atop the bowl of food and starts to prepare himself for the meal.
While my focus diverges from him and back, I see that Mel is the next one to secure her food and a place to sit, her choice being the chair in front of my table, in which she makes herself very comfortable, even placing her feet up on the edge of the table and using her thighs to hold the single, double meat cheeseburger with onion rings and extra cheese, and as for her drink of choice, she takes it out of the bag and places it away from the papers atop the table; a very cold beer can, to the point that there's a thin layer of ice coating its body.
Its rest lasts so little that when I blink, the beer is already on her hands and open; as for her mouth, it gets occupied with swallowing all the beer as she tilts the can almost fully upwards to gulp as much as possible of the content in one second; a satisfied breath leaves her chest as she makes a high pitch, happy sound, slapping her leg as her grin grows once more on her face.
"Nothing like a cold one after driving all day; seriously, if Eddie asks me to do double time in my patrol, I'll start to park the patrol car in the parking lot of Brutus's."
"You say that as if it isn't a common practice of yours, Miss Officer." Astero comments in a monotone tone, but on the edge of his lips I can see a small, almost invisible smile; Mel seems to catch on to it as well by the way she proudly adjusts her posture.
"Well, what can I say? It is a privileged spot for a serious and successful patrol." Mel laughs childishly, almost innocently if it weren't for the clear intentions behind her decisions; when she gets back to herself, her eyes fall on me as I curiously move to grab the surprise that is what they bought for me. "I got you your favorite; just start eating, and you'll feel better in no time; and I need you to, because I want to hear all, and I mean ALL, about those sweet, hot angels you walked with the whole day long. If you didn't get it, I'm very jealous, by the way."
"Of course, why didn't I imagine that one coming?" I don't manage to contain my smile as I grab the chicken sandwich and the iced tea from the back, with the tea really being the surprise, as the diner is not the place where she brought it, but instead, she must have driven to the bakery a street away from it; 'she got all the trouble to do so for me, huh?', it passes on my mind, comforting me and lessening the crushing weight on my shoulders.
To begin my feast, I place the tea on the table and open the wrapper around the sandwich with all intentions to devour it. "Thanks you two for stopping to do this for me; it means a lot, especially today, considering everything; and go ahead, ask away whatever is on your minds about them. The only thing I can't promise is that I have anything interesting to share."
"I want to know two things; one is how it was walking with them around town? Did anything interesting, like a conversation, a touch of hands, or whatever happen? And the second thing is, did any of them, by any chance, manage to catch your eye? I mean, as your sister, it is something I must know so I can help you, mainly because your dating experience is, well, let's just say that when I compare yours to the rest, you are at the bottom of the list."
"That wasn't even a single bit subtle; good job," Astero says languidly, already adjusting his pose to correct the words from my sister. "What I believe she means is that she fears you can be dragged into circumstances where your feelings can be explored by someone with more knowledge on the matter than you, so she wishes to know beforehand so she can be of help, or maybe she just wishes to offend you greatly; that would be an option too."
"Hey!" Mel, offended, crosses her arms tightly and almost manages to spill some of the cheese onto her clothes from the hamburger as she moves suddenly; with a puff, she turns her head to me and shakes her head. "He is right on the first thing he said; I just want you to know I'm here, and if anything, I can help set you up."
"A terrible idea when we stop to think of your past dates, and that is talking only this month; like that long bearded guy you were talking to in the bar and almost managed to throw up on his-"
"OKAY! Wow, we don't need to remember that scene; I don't need to remember, please. I'm still afraid to enter the bar and see him there."
Both parts laugh, with one clearly a lot more happily as the other embarrassedly tries to put the story away from the mind; but there's a moment where they stop in silence, turning their expectant eyes and waiting for me to answer the questions, and without an escape button nearby, I sigh and decide to talk.
"Look, it is what I said, okay? They are... more normal than I thought they would be? Yeah, I guess. But when it comes to professionalism, they don't have that morbid stare of someone from the corp, which is strange, but I feel relieved to see they are like us in a way. And, to satiate your curiosity, I'll answer with this: you both know I'm not a date person; I don't like to go out to eat, share my life, and then never hear from that person again. These things don't come easily to me as they do to you, Mel, so I guess that all I have to say is to not worry your head; I'll be fine, and if anything happens, I'll consult the best wing woman in the city."
"See, even she knows I'm the best; you really should be more grateful to have me around; I'm awesome." She makes sure to turn to Astero with all her pride tucked into a single, bright smile.
In return, Astero only nods his head in defeat and focuses back on his food. "Yeah, sure; Olivia would say anything to make you feel like you are right now. Anyway, if you don't mind, I'll keep quiet and finish my salad."
"Oh yeah, I'll do the same; I don't want to be around for much. I need to walk with Pirate, and then I'll watch that series with the hot adventures fighting that family of vampires, you know, the one with that hot white-haired man that has a demonic pistol." She looks around from Astero to me in search of recognition, and once she doesn't find it, she only nods her head in acceptance and shrugs. "You guys are losing a hell of a show; by the way, tomorrow's your day to walk Pirate around while I'm occupied with patrolling. And to finish talking for now, I have only one more thing to ask: You can drive me home today, right?"
Halfway through my sandwich, I nod my head, swallowing as fast as I can to respond properly. "Yes, I'll drive us home; I'll actually go after eating this."
"Nice, then I'll start preparing my stuff to leave; you can find it outside once you're done." Her words come quick as she opens her mouth widely and bites deeply into her hamburger to secure it in her mouth, and then she rises to her feet and leaves the office, only stopping to wave her byes to Astero, who replies with the same gesture.
It is a nice moment; Astero eats quietly and so do I, spending what must have been three minutes or so before he rushedly left the office to take a call from Lenvela, his wife, who the moment his phone comes to life, starts to call desperately.
I finish my food, put the wrapper and the empty tea cup in the trash can beside my table, and put on my hoodie, ready and willing to go home, finally finishing this day once and for all.
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