He had not been able to identify it for her.
For most of the morning, Kate went around local jewelry stores and eventually found it had been reserved by an 'Luis Rodriguez', and her source with residential records had given her his address with no questions. While she drove over, her hair grabbed the wheel as she texted Samuel, letting him know where she was & would be next.
(Samuel) "You need any help?"
(Kate) "Not yet."
This was typical repertoire between the two; if they were on a contract that involved lulls of investigation like this, she would search by herself, and if there were no trail they would hunt together. Not that Samuel couldn't solve cases himself, nor never gave input to Kate, but he recognized her talent as a student and had mentored her in such a way.
She could remember the time they had gone out drinking sometime around Christmas and played 3-bank billiards together, which required the cue ball to bounce three times before pocketing. (Due to their super-dexterity, students had passed down numerous variants of games like this.) This had attracted a small crowd of spectators, in which there was a typical drunk who, whenever Samuel would fail to sink, would grumble about how he could have done it better or offer unsolicited advice to him. He had even followed the two out afterwards and harassed Samuel about his intelligence in losing to Kate, his masculinity, & other assorted inane topics.
Kate had watched as Samuel simply took it for a good minute, and as the drunk tried to strike him, grabbed his hand with Outcast's gauntlet and gently set it aside. Afterwards he had stumbled back in to the bar, and Kate asked Samuel why he had just stood there the entire time.
"Well, Outcast automatically summons if I get hit in the back." he said. "He's a civilian. It would've broken half of his fingers on his shooting hand and then he'd have twice as much advice to give." (Samuel was often like this.)
"Yeah, but why not let him? Alcohol's no excuse to attack a student."
"Kate, what would be the point of it? If some drunk wants to insult me and try to rile me up, it doesn't bother me none. I know who I am. There's plenty of men around campus who don't, and they would have done something like that, because they'd rather prove they're a man rather than be one."
Five minutes out on her drive, Kate stopped for gas. Before she got back in her car, she heard some shouting a few stores over, and went over to see a female cop roughly shoving a handcuffed woman in to the back of her squad car. Kate normally cared little about this type of brutality, but the woman seemed not to resist, and innately she sympathized with her.
As the officer slammed the door, she glanced over to Kate. "Get moving."
"You got a reason to be treating her like that? Because I didn't see one from over here."
"I don't see how that's any of your business, so if I were you, I'd keep your questions to yourself and keep moving. And if you don't, then I can put you back there with her for obstructing an arrest. That sound nice?"
Kate showed her Urasaria badge; this did not deter her, and in fact only intensed her annoyance.
"Oh, I see what it is, now. God damnit, I'm so sick of you dykes coming in where you don't live, where you'll be going back after a week, coming here and giving us all sorts of guff to us whenever we try to do our jobs." She started walking back. "But if you've got such a bleeding heart about it, we picked her up because somebody tipped us off to a place hiring illegals around here. That enough to satisfy you?"
Any other time being called *dyke* amused Kate. "I don't see whether I live ten minutes away or ten states away's got to do with it. Morality doesn't have a zip code. And if you wanna talk laws, there's also one about beating on an unarmed woman, and it's older than any one written around here."
"I'm not gonna stick here with some goddamn student who's got the luxury of arguing over morality. I don't make the laws, I just carry them out."
Kate frowned as she watched them drive away, and the immigrant's head glare at her in the rear window: she was not grateful for this outburst. She sighed, then went back to her car and continued driving.
She was five minutes away from the address when she felt her tablet vibrate underneath the passenger's seat, and checked it; these tablets both operated as a distress receiver for Revenants, as you have seen, and a form of intragovernment communication. "Yes?"
"I've just been told you've had a run in with one of our officers."
*'Goddamn bitch.'*
"About twenty minutes ago, correct."
"…Kate. Can I call you Kate?"
"Anagen is fine."
"Well, Anagen, I don't get why you're still here, but if it has something to do with that apartment, I can tell you you're wasting your time. I don't much appreciate you having nothing better to do than harassing my officers and demeaning them."
"If they acted right, there wouldn't be anything there to demean." Kate rolled her eyes as her hair took the wheel. "And far as the apartment goes, you gave up rights to that investigation when you didn't do a thing about it for two or three days. It's a Revenant-related crime: this isn't outside of my work."
His sigh scratched the speaker. "Well, suit yourself, but I better not hear about any more run-ins. We're separate for a reason."
Kate decided against arguing. "Uh-huh. Bye."
While marveling at the audacity of this little prick, readers, note how the sheriff did not ask once why Kate *actually* acted this way towards the female officer from earlier, but merely assumes the (presumed) testimonial of the douchebag is correct because they are of the same profession. Logic works by beginning from facts and ending at conclusions: here he has inverted it. This is how many of these donut-munchers work, and even were they to witness such abuse themselves, and *perhaps* whistleblow, there are no warm endings for such people, who often later will not have their calls for backup answered if they dare to speak out against one of these little tyrants. The human capacity for disproportionate spite & pettiness amazes.
Though this is not only limited to police: think of the constant outting of Hollywood sexual predators, or your local domestic abuser, and how many times will news articles say that it was *'an open secret'* for years? People would rather slide off a cliff as a group than stand and be exiled. In this way cowardice, reviled as it may be, serves to keep stitched many of society's ill-fastened relations.
As this conversation lodged itself into Kate's brain, even as she further tried to ignore it (and thus only succeeded in pressing it more deeply), she took her parking spot a few blocks away from the man she was searching for's home. When she came up to it, she grabbed the door knocker and used it for what it was made for. No response. On the side of the house, there was a window with a latch inside, which Kate leaned against and let her hair down until it pulled it up for her; she vaulted inside and heard no other noise when she shut it, though something familiar was starting to smell.
It essentially appeared as a suicide, yet Kate knew to test something. She took pictures of how the corpse currently appeared, and pried the gun from his fingers: with no effort. On the nightstand, there was a framed photo of him with a long black-haired woman, which she swiped, then went back to her car and parked closer so she could bring his hair-cocooned corpse to the coroner's with less suspicion.
"It's less violent than the last one you brought here, at least." he said to her, as she placed it within one of the morgue's drawers. "I hope you aren't slacking."
Kate shook her head. "Isn't my work, this time. Somebody whose home I was investigating. I found him like that." She explained how he looked before. "Guy was holding on to a gun. I'm assuming it was set to look like a suicide."
"Something to do with a Revenant?"
"On this count, I doubt it. Sorry: I'll see if the next one has a better story go with it." (Kate had told him of the prior host's death.) "You know, I haven't had a coroner ask me for that before, either."
"Well, I like to hear students' stories. It used to be that I'd, occasionally, talk to a Vietnam veteran or two on the police -- one was even in the Forgotten War -- and their stories were usually the most... interesting, at least. I enjoyed hearing about some murderer being burnt alive, or his body being ripped in to sheets of skin and blood."
"Just as desensitized, too."
"Well, partially: but your view of humanity also changes after you start autopsying infants." he said. "So, you're assuming this was a murder, then, not a suicide?"
"The context has me leaning towards it. I took a few photos beforehand, too." She showed them to him. "You see how loose his fingers are around that weapon?"
"He must have been hesi-..." A puzzled frown tugged at his brow. "…hm. You're correct. Normally, with suicides, the fingers seize -- a cadaveric spasm."
"Or if somebody forced him to fire it. Don't think they had time for that, though. If you check, here, the casings didn't land where they should have, either."
"It's certainly suspicious. I'll see what tests I can run for it -- if I can determine time of death and a few other factors, then I mightagree with your assessment. Can you send the photos over?"
"By email?"
"No, I have a printer in my office. I don't like to deal with technology past that."
"I'd rather deal with email than a printer, but I'll send it over."
This stop finished, he said he would call her tomorrow morning with more information: Kate's next destination was the small model agency the prior host had, in-part, managed. It was located on the fifth floor of an office building, and when she arrived disguised and talked her way past the receptionist, she came in to the dressing room. Most of the women were off to the side getting ready: most weren't dressed in much. A few were busy talking with one woman in particular, who Kate figured by her face was a hand model. She decided to try one of the lonelier ones, who jolted a bit when she tapped on the shoulder.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you." Kate sat down beside her. She seemed concerned as she looked to Kate.
"Are you one of the new girls?"
"No, I don't work here. I'm looking for somebody who might've - a friend of mine."
"Oh, are you looking for Santana? Cuz, like, he hasn't been here lately for some reason."
"That isn't… You don't watch the news much, do you?"
"No, why?"
"That's good. But, no, it's a female friend of mine. She's been missing for a couple of days, and I thought someone here might know about her."
Kate showed the picture, and the woman's expression intensed with fear. "I-I -- oh."
Kate glanced back. One of them was now talking to the only male in the room, and she reached over to the woman's hand & squeezed it; hard enough she would recognize she was a student. "What happened to her?"
She rapidly shook her head. "I-I don't know who that is." She started busying herself with her makeup and repeated it a few times. Kate leaned closer, muttering it to her again until she felt the manager come up behind them and ask: "Excuse me, is there a problem here?"
Kate frowned as she turned her seat to him. "I was explaining to her that I'm a private investigator, looking in to the recent disappearance of somebody who might've worked here." Digging in her pocket, she pulled out her PI license and showed it to him. This, along with her concealed carry permit & handgun she wore around, were useful methods of deception for Kate.
He showed no concern. "Well, there's no reason to harass my girls over this. I'm not aware of any recent 'disappearance'."
"Seen either of these people around lately?" She showed the photo: similarly no response. "Family member asked me to check up on the male, here, and I found him dead. Seemed to be set up like it was a suicide, but I've got my doubts. I figure once I get back to the police later today they'll want to investigate it, check the murder weapon for prints, and eventually they might end up barging in here."
He looked over at the ugly woman, then back to Kate. "I thought you were investigating someone who worked here. We don't employ men."
Slackjawed, Kate made an impression of staring at him for a good five to seven seconds. "Well, I just thought the woman could've been a model. I've been running around town all day checking agencies, you know."
"Then I suppose you'll need to check one more. I don't recognize the woman, or man, in that photo."
Kate knew there was something more here, but to torture it out of him would reveal she was a student. Things would ripen as they needed to. Once, twice she tried to put her license back in to her pocket, then nodded to him, said she would 'get out of his hair', and left. That as she had left,she glanced back and saw the woman look at her like she was a fucking retard, told her she had performed precisely as needed.
She thought back to what Matoi had said about the incompetence of many students, and her aura made her hard to disagree with on any subject. But there was one benefit: criminals assumed students were as incompetent as they were and could not fathom the existence of a manipulator like Kate. They believed story after story that were easily seen through, and any contrary evidence only strengthened their initial convictions. In this way, they were human to Kate.
She got back in her car and made three blocks before parking. Whoever he would call now that they knew she was notifying police, she needed to be faster than: she swing back to the house with Split, and waited attached to the ceiling of the entranceway.
Ten or so minutes later, the front door was unlocking and two men entered in to her line of drop. Split released her and one face looked up in time to catch a knee & a sickening crunch that threw him to the floor; a hairhammer smashed the other's tibias out and he crumpled to the floor, rolling & screaming like a man in mortal agony; a hairband stifled both of them as she stood up & away.
"Mind telling me what you two dipshits are doing here?" said Kate. "Actually, don't bother, because I already know. Somebody told you the cops were coming here, and that you needed to make sure they wouldn't find anything. That correct?"
Her hairbands unstifled with some blood on each.
"M-Man, how the fuck did you know that?" said the less-wounded. "Y-You student types are fucking freaky."
"F-FUCK!"
"It's called planning ahead." said Kate. "Thugs like you don't understand that, because every time you see an opportunity you rush right in to fuck it up." She glanced to the wounded, and her hairband unstifled. "Now, if either one of you tries to skimp me on information then I'm leaving you here with a hole in your skull. First question: who's Juno Claus?"
"I-I know who that is!"
"Who is it?"
"I... I, uh..."
"Goddamnit, y-you stupid fuck." winced the other, pressing himself up. "…he don't know w-who that is."
"Right." Kate shook her head. "You two aren't anybody important. You're two-bit thugs who get called to clean up after somebody else, which is why they didn't trust you to kill him in the first place. You get treated like two glorified janitors with gold chains around your necks, and you put up with it because you think, eventually, you'll be giving orders to the people you were five years earlier."
"H-Hey, f-fuck you, lad-"
- a hairhand grabbed his face and slammed it against the floor. Kate scraped it into the wood for a few seconds longer, and when she let him up he didn't make another noise.
She held the picture up. "Who's the woman?"
"…J-Jade?"
"You actually know that?"
"H-Hey, I-I dunno if that was her real name, I-I just met her a few times. The bitch b-barely spoke English. She was Chinese o-or something."
The first man, still wincing, sat up a bit. "N-Nah she wasn't. She was Asian."
"Ain't Asia in China?"
"A-Asia's in Russia, ya dumb fuck. She works as an escort, o-or something like that. P-Probably over on Evermont."
"She isn't working anymore." said Kate. "She's dead."
The first man, still clutching his head: "Y-Yeah, that's right, s-she was a prostitute or something. Man, I wouldn't w-want to date any chick who did that nasty shit. When a chick'll spread her pussy for just anybody, it ends up stretching all the shit down there. It ends up wide as a subway tunnel."
"Yeah, like that whore mother of your's?"
"Ah, fuck you, Mel, you lay off of her. Yeah, she's a whore, but she's still my ma. It ain't her fault. It's dad's fault for the way he used to treat her, even if me and my brother..."
This continued for ten more lines, which are not relayed here so as not to induce suicidal ideation in you through inanity. What shall be relayed is that after Kate wrung them dry of information, Split's hairhands pulled them both off the floor and wrung them dry of blood. She checked their dessicated corpses for any communication devices: nothing. Most likely they had been ordered by an intermediary, who would not expect them back for another ten to fifteen minutes.
Her hunger starting, she decided to leave them there while she went to a local diner and thought over these dead developments. She notified Samuel of her progress, along with the address to the modeling agency she would soon revisit, and of her run-in with civilian police. This recollection boiled in her consciousness, which was soon interrupted by someone asking: "Excuse me, miss. Are you a Urasaria student?"
Kate glanced up and saw a well-dressed man. "That's correct."
"Could I have a few minutes of your time? I'm with the Berwick Tribune. My boss heard that students were in town, and he was interested in..."
Normally Kate despised journalists: she considered most of them to be a group of liberals who made their living manufacturing rages and falsehoods. She realized their usefulness here, however. "If it's anonymous, yes."
"Of course." he nodded, setting up his laptop. "Full anonymity. I'll… still have to mention you're a student, however, unless..."
"No, say I'm a student."
"Perfect. So, should I assume you're from out of town, or are you one of the students who tends to stay in a particular location?"
"No, I go back to Urasaria after every investigation -- or rather, my mentor does, and subsequently, so do I."
"Ah, you're here on investigation. There was a Revenant fight, recently, I believe -- would you be involved in that?"
"Not in writing." She glanced off as he began typing. "And actually, my investigation now was slowed down because I've been having to deal with people who don't belong in their positions but no one ever saw fit to kick out. Ran in to one such person earlier."
"Ah. I assume you mean the local police? They're hindering your investigation?"
"At the beginning of it, yes. They've been doing more harm than help, far as I'm concerned. I don't know what their reasoning behind it is, but I damn sure know something's there."
"You may not know this, but the local police often get accused of being too hair-trigger when it comes to suspects. Have you encountered anything like this?"
"I have, a few times. Mostly through my father -- he was a police detective for thirty years. I used to understand it, somewhat -- I'm not liberal when it comes to the death penalty, obviously, and I think most of the time when you hear somebody's a victim of police brutality, it's just the media trying to make a martyr out of a nut job. They might tell you they shot somebody who wasn't armed, but they forget that when somebody goes through the police academy, they watch the same types of videos we do at Urasaria in our first week.
It's scenes of cops getting shot, cops dying in accident, and other cops coming in to talk about their partners dying. You put all of that into somebody who doesn't resist trauma like we do and it's no wonder they think every hand's got a gun in it. That doesn't mean I haven't seen some of them abuse their authority, but it doesn't make me one of those liberals who thinks the police are a bunch of mobsters, either. My mentor's like that. But I'm sure as shit starting to see why he thinks he's right from the outside."
"It all seems very personal, Ms. Anagen."
"Well, you wouldn't be writing it down if it only meant anything to me. But I've also seen some good, honest, dedicated men. Not all of them, and not even most of them; but the biggest problem in any organization is when competence isn't put somewhere where they can make some difference. Eventually, they start wondering what the point of excellence is without recognition, and they slim down in to everybody else. There's students like that, too, who hit three-star and go down to #50 by next semester. But that doesn't mean there's not still President Rain-On-A-Wedding."
He was typing rapidly. "This is... all very interesting, Ms. Anagen. Can you share any more details of your investigation?"
She shook her head and stood up. "No, I can't. I've got somewhere I should be, too, so if you'll excuse me. Thanks."
After dropping off a few pounds of opinions, she went outside and ducked into her car before the rain caught up to her. Night was soon, and a gray curtain was forming against the sleepy lights of the city. When she got back to the modeling agency, she tried the door once, twice, then knocked to nothing but air for an ear. Glancing back up the hall, a hairfist formed and slammed the door in to the shape of a crescent, and she stepped inside to a floor with a few red, spreading tiles. No bodies.
"…fuck."
Split's hair separated in to several tufts, which she used to sop up the blood as she walked, seeing if there were any differences discernible to her: temperature, volume. Most seemed a similar temperature, and very recent. A door near the back led to the manager's office, and Split yanked it out of its socket. Most of the file cabinets and desk drawers had been emptied or had their contents torn through, and Kate, using the last of her hair, picked what she could out of it and read them: mostly tax forms or other miscellany.
This lack of evidence was typical for a Revenant. For a moment, there was regret, then there was not. Some receipts were still stuffed under the cabinets or chairs: mostly beauty supply stores, strippers or alcohol. She would review it later: for now she returned to her car, deposited the blood samples in different bottles, and went back to their hotel.
The following morning, she received a call from the coroner.
"I'm letting you know I revised my autopsy. I checked him again after our conversation: the time of death was after you mentioned dealing with the host you brought in, previously. The powder burns aren't consistent with the photos you sent, either -- I would assume he was shot while he was sleeping, and then posed after they realized how easily identifiable it would be. Given you were already investigating it, I didn't imagine it to be urgent, but I finished my report and notified the police earlier."
"See if they do anything with it." muttered Kate. "Never had this much trouble with one department..."
"If you're talking politics, it wouldn't be professional for me to discuss it. Do you have anything else?"
"You know anybody who can run blood tests? Labs?"
"I do. Why, do you have some samples to donate? Wring some host dry lately?"
"Ha ha. I might, I just don't know how many people they're from."
"You students really are messy."
"That one was better. I'd like to see if I can get them separated by sex and see whether I'm dealing with a male host or a female host here."
"Let me see if I can refer you to... oh, somebody's pulled up." Pause. "Sorry, I'll have to call you back. He doesn't look very pleased with me."
"Who?"
"The sheriff. I'll call you back after."
"Alright."
Kate waited around for ten, twenty, thirty minutes to no return call. She checked her tablet to see if any Revenant had been reported: none. She left her tablet with the other three, asking them to call her if anything came up, while she went out to her car and checked the samples of blood she had taken yesterday. Halfway through the files, she found the name Anton Lipsvek (the only one she did) and tried to call her source in residential records. No response, either.
*'Seems everybody's going to be rude today.'*
She was five minutes out from driving to him herself when she received a call from Mia. "Hello?"
"Kate, the police called for you earlier."
"That's funny. I don't remember asking them for anything."
Mia laughed. "Whatever it was, it sounded urgent."
Something with the coroner, Kate figured. "Alright. Thank you, Swarm. Bye."
Slightly annoyed, she broke a few traffic laws on her way back over. When she came in to the sheriff's office, he was holding the day's paper.
"Read today's tribune yet?"
He shoved a copy towards her. The headline read: URASARIA STUDENT CLASHES WITH LOCAL POLICE: "THEY DO MORE HARM THAN HELP".
Kate scanned the article and snorted. "He quoted me exactly how I said it. That's a surprise, for once."
"I'm glad you think this is so amusing, because I've been-"
"I didn't say I found it funny. I wouldn't have let him write anything I didn't think was true. I might be a professional, but if you act like a moron then I'm not going to tell you a gentle lie around it. I understand that's a controversial trait for some people."
Frowning, he underlined one of the quotes with his finger. "I see you've still kept at your own investigation. What's your progress on that?"
"Why would I tell you? I was about to go get some blood tested so I know whether I'm dealing with a male or female host. Given the last time I left something to you, your detectives would try to shove themselves in the test tube and leave the blood in the car. My father was a detective for thirty years, and I've been a student for two. I know how to run an investigation."
"You think this is about your competence? I don't give a damn about whether you know what to do, I care about when you come out here and start telling people we don't know how to do our jobs. I already had to field enough calls asking us for comment. We've got a system, here, between us and the community and our sources -- but when you go around, waving your badge and getting tests like that run, autopsies, the coroner -- all of it starts to break down when you're slicing right through half of it. I won't allow it."
Kate placed her phone on the desk. "Go ahead and call President Matoi, then. You'll find she's very understanding when it comes to my legal immunity."
"No, I already know how you've been operating. You go overhead us and use our sources, and you think you can pick and choose which parts you'll work with and scold the rest. I'll just remind you that while you might have legal immunity, they don't."
Kate could feel the heat rising in her face. Her hair tightened, and she knew her face was going red. She saw this as confirmation something her father had once said to her, that while criminals simply did what their natures impelled them to, an apathetic cop was almost as evil: it was only under them could crime persist. "Now I see what this is about. You don't give a damn if any more killers get their hides nailed to the fence. You're a goddamn fraud, and the reason you were so offended by what I said is because you knew I removed all doubt of it."
He said nothing for a while. "If you have evidence of multiple murderers, then I suggest you turn over the blood samples you have, as you mentioned to the coroner."
Kate stood up, and wanted to break his face until it was ugly. She restrained, even as in her mind she had just painted the wall with his skull. "I've still got three people to investigate with, and they're better than any goddamn detective you've got working underneath you. And for all you and that frigid bitch complained about me being a student, too, you were lucky not go land on one of them."
She left, and as she came out to her car, she sat inside, placed her hand on the wheel, released it, then inhaled. For a moment she thought of returning to Urasaria: she had no method of knowing if she were dealing with a male or female host, her disguise was becoming known, and even could she, she would not stomach the idea of threatening her sources to working for her. She began to nourish a secret hope that if her investigation would fail, so would their own.
Then, she thought. She cogitated, and reasoned that even if the manager had left town (as he likely had), he wouldn't have bothered sending people to clean up if there was no one left to be caught for it. She remembered that the previous night, she had been too tired to fully go over the files from his office. She jammed her car into gear back to the hotel, sat in her room alone, and started to go through them.
Eventually she landed on a loose sheet of paper filled with symbols, and what letters they corresponded to, and grinned to herself.
"Guy had a bad memory." she muttered. A hairhand pulled the journal she had recovered from the initial host's apartment, and she began to translate through the names listed; most were girls' names corresponding to each month, usually foreign. As she grew closer to the current month, she had found no mention of Juno Claus or Jade: the only one that seemed recent was 'Brandi'. To Kate's mind, that it was spelled with an -i instead of a -y made it sexier, and that it had no last name told her enough of the woman's likely profession, & why a modeling agency would be interested.
Closing it back up, she left the files with Mia & Serena and drove out for Evermont Street.