Watching Gracewell land on the partially destroyed landing deck, with a few officers following behind her, I pushed myself to stand up as did Anneliese.
The two of us had stayed mostly silent, with Anneliese perhaps contemplating if she should take the job or just quit if her occasional glances my way carried any weight, while I immersed myself in solving this case in front of me.
Anything to take off my mind away from a case that involved, rape, revenge, and gangs, along with the untimely death of a friend used to warn me about my position and power was much welcome.
"Good morning, Sergeant Dave." Gracewell spoke with a smirk.
'Surely a great morning for her. After all, I was so close to death. Perhaps she was involved in this accident to gain her position in different more not-so-legal ways.'
"Greetings Lieutenant Gracewell. I hope you've brought along Elixer Syringes?"
"Yes."
"Then what are you waiting for? Please administer them to the driver in the car."
'I still hadn't checked if he was alive or dead. I didn't want to know. I don't think I could handle another person dying for me again if this had something to do with me.'
'Are they watching me? Taking a note to see how I react and respond? How scared I am? Having fun while placing bets about who's going to die next?'
Gracewell scoffed at my order but complied anyway as she moved toward the still-blaring PTV that the middle-aged driver had been driving and pulled a syringe from her HoverSteeds saddle bag.
She quickly stabbed the Elixer syringe into the driver's neck, pumped everything into his blood, and pulled out the syringe.
Everyone on the roof waited for any reaction from the driver, but I could tell my heart was beating the fastest.
It felt like the propulsion system of a bad race car was thumping in my chest.
It felt, tight, heavy, and clogged up like it was about to crash and burn.
But the second I saw the driver's fingers twitch. the feeling vanished, as they were no longer needed, for now.
'PTSD? Not like there's an Elixer for that.'
I stood around, waiting, for the driver to wake up, which he slowly did.
"Oh!!!!" His first reaction was to be startled by his situation, as any person would be after losing consciousness while driving only to find everything about their vehicle absolutely totaled.
"Relax, calm down." I said, patting the older man's shoulder and dragging him out of the PTV with the dented roof.
"I've sent you a few numbers, and addresses, contact those to get in touch with the police department's lawyers, they'll help you get your insurance."
"Yes sir." The man nodded like a child with some tears in his eyes.
"And, for now, I'll set aside some funds for your day-to-day business based on the average pay so that you can cover up any running losses until you get your new vehicle back."
The man's eyes widened and then he thankfully nodded and held my hands and began to shake them vigorously, speaking in a language mixed unintelligibly with sobs and snot being sucked back up, so I thanked him once again for lending us the PTV today, promised the police department would help and slipped away to Gracewell's side.
"Give me the keys." I asked, in as polite a way I could speak to her.
Gracewell smirked at me and just took her place on the front seat of the Hoversteed while turning around to say, "You can ride behind me, I know the location of the landing pad that is being coordinated with the rescue operators."
'Annoying.'
I sat down behind her while Anneliese walked to stand beside the two of us.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Wait a second." I spoke, holding up my hand as I opened Gracewell's saddle bag, to bring out a foldable sidecar, and hung it on the side.
"There, you can use that."
"Oh! I've always wanted to sit in one!"
"Glad you can finally."
When I noticed the state of our clothing, an idea of how to turn this situation in my favor struck me as I spoke in a slightly authoritative tone, "Lieutenant Gracewell, drive to my home. I'm sending you the address in case you don't remember."
Gracewell's head instantly snapped back as she looked at me with a fierce glint in her eyes at which I just smirked, forcing her to turn around and grumble before continuing on her way to my ordered destination.
'Ha! Now she's going to be late at the crime scene.'
'Well not by much anyway, since they'll take time stopping the fire and cleaning everything up.'
The officers had stayed behind to handle the 'crime scene' of the body that had collapsed on the PTV so none of us were needed here too.
In other situations, Anneliese would be, but since she was with me, it counted her out of the list of suspects.
It all just seemed like one freak accident, for now.
The ride had shifted into a bizarre silence, filled in only by the hums of nearby HoverSteeds, and the latent sound of traffic that traveled up the rungs to us, and given how immersed into the sidecar ride Annelise was it forced me to look into my mind. Not a place I wanted to be in.
My eyes closed on their own as I thought back to Larkin's death.
'Why did you have to die?'
'Vera?'
'Did Vera kill you out of a sense of revenge towards me?'
'Or was her revenge motivated by someone else?'
'Let us assume she was self-motivated to do this.'
'If she did, how did I miss it?'
'None of my senses felt anything wrong about her the entire time she was standing in the same room as me.'
'It truly did seem like an accident when Larkin waved himself.'
'...'
'Let's analyze the case details for a bit.'
'A banker was killed.'
'Initial reports said he was killed by two thugs part of BloodSHA.'
'Turns out a guy named Revanche had tricked everyone into believing the thugs had killed him by pretending to be them. His motive? The banker had assaulted his wife after mindwiping her, leading her to take her own life after she learned the truth that she was married.'
'Vera. Where does Vera come into play in all this?'
'Vera lost her son when the banker landed a HoverSteed on his head and delayed medical treatment caused him to die, and the police reports worked to cover it all up.'
'This led to her holding resentment against the police?'
'But I didn't feel any while she spoke to me.'
'A great actor?'
'Not likely.'
'Then she hated only the people who worked on her case?'
'She did say she remembered watching a video of me promising to solve her case.'
'But I don't. I never make promises.'
'A deep fake then?'
'Hmm…I'll have to issue a warrant for the video. It should be easy to come by since she's killed a cop. Only after a thorough investigation about her intention will she not be charged with manslaughter.'
'But, if she's working with someone else, this route of investigation will go down the drain, since anyone with power will be able to suppress the warrant by asking Gracewell to cooperate and issue a statement that it was all an accident.'
'Which I don't doubt she'll claim is the case.'
'...why did you have to die so young Larkin?'
Noticing the familiar silence surrounding my ears, I opened my eyes and found us landing on the deck attached to my home.
Anneliese jumped out of the side car as we did as did I.
"Lieutenant Gracewell, please wait here until I return. We will go to the accident sight together."
"With all due respect Sergeant, this is my case. And given your status as a victim in this one, I will not allow you to take this away from me. And didn't you say you already have more than a hundred solved cases under your belt? I'm sure I can solve this one just as well, thank you."
With that, Gracewell, left with a smirk, not bothering to fold back the sidecar as she did.
"Well, that was a bummer." I sighed, trying to think of a way I could get there.
"Don't worry Dave, we can just pick up a public PTV once again when we have to leave."
"....By the way, I've been meaning to ask, how did you pay for the ride to the station?"
"Oh, I asked Vanessa to pay for it since it was for you not just me."
Clever.
I walked back into my house and opened it, only to fall into a fit of coughs after taking a deep breath of fragrance.
*cough* *cough* *cough* *cough*
"What the hell! Why did you empty a bucket of freshener in there!?"
"It smelled really bad, so I did what I could to make it half decent." Anneliese exclaimed as she jumped around the now spotlessly cleaned house and collapsed into the beanbag sofa.
Braving myself I entered the house, but my nose immediately clogged up because of the scent in the air.
"It was tiring wasn't it." Anneliese spoke in an unexpectedly solemn tone.
"It was." I replied, collapsing beside her, but she kicked me away to another sofa pinching her nose.
"I didn't know working in a police department meant I'd be so close to death all the time. It feels almost, almost like I was still in that filthy place."
"You want to quit?"
After a full minute of silence, as she really contemplated for the entire time, Anneliese said while looking into my eyes, "No. It's alright, it's still better and I don't think I can do much else."
"You could just sta-"
"No! I don't want to freeload, I'll work." Anneliese said, but it felt more like a demand with her furious eyes and clenched hands.
"Alright. You do you. I'm going to shower, please don't disturb me." I said standing up and walking towards the shower, but paused when I heard Anneliese ask me a question.
"Are you alright Dave? You may not have noticed, but during the ride, you were crying."
I touched my face and didn't feel any tears there, perhaps the wind had carried them away so I continued to walk in silence without recompense.
In the shower, I dropped my blood-drenched shirt, slipped out of my torn and bloody trousers, and loosened the tap for a nice cold water shower.
It started as a light drizzle but soon turned into a burst as streams of cold water flowed out with full force onto my head, massaging and cooling me off at the same time.
Everything felt unfair in those few moments, people killing each other, Larkin's death, Gracewell's memory being wiped, our divorce, and my childhood after the death of my parents. Everything.
It was almost as if the world was out against me.
Like I was some unnatural amalgamation of just the right amount of forbidden knowledge that everyone wanted but no one could touch. Something unnatural that shouldn't exist, but was being forced to by an entity beyond my control.
Several times over the last week, I'd heard people say to me, 'Larkin was fated to die. It's alright. Things like this are to be expected in this line of work.'
But none of them knew, that I was responsible for his death in the end.
Pouring some body wash and using a loaf to lather myself up, I cleaned as best I could to get rid of the awful scent, as strong as the fragrance outside.
Relaxing to let the shower clean everything away once again, I shouted over the running water at the home automation system.
"Vanessa, could you get me a fresh pair of clothes?"
"What style would you like sir?"
"Formals for now."
"Alright, executing command code 652038."
I heard the panels across the door flip around, startling Anneliese who jumped in fright with an 'Eek' as the door I was standing behind opened a little to allow a clothing set to fall into the bathroom.
After drying my hair and setting it as I liked it, a Pompadour, I shaved my uneven beard to place emphasis on my thick cleanly cut mustache.
'Hmm…that looks good.' I thought to myself running my wet fingers over my mustache to flatten it a little.
Stepping out of the bathroom, into the living room, I saw Anneliese look at me in mild surprise.
"I was wondering why Gracewell actually married you, but turns out you actually looked descent behind all that drunkenness."
I glared at her to shut her up, but that seemed to have only emboldened her as she gave an explanation.
"No one would marry you with the shitty work ethic you have."
Gracewell did tell me that.
Well, nothing I can do now.
"Let's leave, I want to get to the scene of the crime."
"Huh? How? Didn't Gracewell say, she was going to handle the case?"
"True, but I can supervise her. After all, I was supervised on my cases too." I smirked.
"Then wait! I need to take a shower and get dressed too!" Anneliese shouted, showing me her dress that had gotten torn and stained with blood recently. "And I'd only just bought these things too."
"Huh? How did you pay for that?"
Anneliese froze as if she'd been caught stealing a cookie and looked at me with a small wry smile as Vanessa answered in her stead.
"Because the owner has given Madam Anneliese administrator access, Vanessa used the owner's funds to pay for her clothes."
"..." The two of us stared at each other for a moment which I broke with a *sigh* seeing how she at least was apologetic about it.
"Hey! I didn't really know that would happen! I thought I'd be asked to pay, but Vanessa already did it for me!"
To which Vanessa responded with, "She did it five times." making me dumbfounded when Anneliese responded with, "It was by mistake all the five times! I was just trying to check and see where the money was actually going from! Hmpf."
I just shook my head and collapsed into my sofa.
'Why do I feel so tired immediately after taking a cold shower!?'
"Clean yourself quick, we need to leave as soon as possible."
"In an atom!!"