Being A Better Mousetrap (Closed, Attn Hostilia)

[Allamunnic States]

Office District, Haensley, Staalmark
7:18 PM, March 3rd, 2015

"Bastard couldn'a got killed on a clearer day, could'e?" the detective grumbled as she stepped through a growing puddle on the cobblestone street. "Seriously, though, why th' fuck does it always seem to be raining when we go to crime scenes?" she muttered again, splashing through another small lake in the street. She did not even bother trying to avoid the puddles; in the lowlands by the coast, they appeared everywhere (the whole place was one giant low-spot, he thought irritably), and anyway, why buy waterproof boots if you were not going to use that capability.

She walked for about two blocks, weaving through alleyways and little, seldom-used side-streets woven around a number of large buildings. Haensley was not a huge city, but as the single largest port on the Federation's northern coast, there were still a number of corporate offices for organizing shipping and the like. She actually sort of liked it; it was not as bustling as some of the southern ports, like Vaalhulmspurt (she remembered her time in Vaalhulmspurt with a shudder; it was much too large for her taste), but nor was it as sleepy as some of the steel cities in the valleys felt at times.

Finally, a few feet away, visible through the persistent drizzle, she saw flashing blue lights and what looked like yellow cordoning tape. She had found her destination. She approached the roped-off tableau without trepidation. An eight-year veteran on the force, she had seen more than her fair share of dead bodies, and it took a gruesome scene to make her waver.

This was not such a scene. It was hardly tidy; gunshot wounds never were. A small creek of blood flowed lazily toward a storm drain, propelled by the water pattering onto the stones of the street. She could not see the body itself, covered as it was by a waterproof tarp, but there were enough spatters on the walls for her to know roughly which way the victim had been oriented when they had been shot, and there were chunks out of the wall. Big gun, then, and the killer had evidently decided overkill was underrated.

She heard footsteps behind her, and a quick glance over her shoulder told her that her partner had arrived. Detective Junn Muenstyr was still a newly-minted detective, and she had spent the last several months showing the young man the ropes. His instincts actually were not bad, once she had managed to get him to stop jumping to premature conclusions.

"Sorry 'm late, Mia," Junn said, stepping through the rain, pulling his coat in close around him. A cold wind blew out of the north, and while Junn still had not adjusted to that constant wind off the sea, Mia had long ago gotten used to it. "There were track delays. 'Parently a drunk fella on the tracks and they had to wake him up and pull him off," he said, shaking his head. "What do we got? I heard it was a cop?" uncertainty crept into his voice as he addressed the rumor he had heard on the way in.

"Try nut ta make a habit uh it, Junn," Mia said, voice level. "We got a shoting. 'T's a fed, but nut a cop." Mia was a smallish woman, only a couple inches over five feet, and built like a gymnast, all sinewy muscle and twitchy, nervous energy. She pulled out a folded up paper, unfolding it and leaning into the cover provided by a canopy. "A Mister Joerg Baarunn," she read from the brief. "He was with the Inspection & Investigation branch of the Department of Food & Drug. He's from Fulvhulm, and it looks like he was in town on business," she said. "I just got here, thuh, so I dunno 'f this 's just a muggin' gone bad, or 'f there's a connection to 'is job or what." She shook her head. "'M gonna go talk to the crime scene guys, see what they've got. Can ya talk ta th' FoS?"

Junn nodded. "Yeah, which one was first on scene?" he asked. Mia pointed a small finger to the beat cop, a guy who looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, probably a recent academy graduate. Muenstyr nodded back. "Gotcha. I'll get his statement," he said, trudging off into the wetness. Mia glanced around before sighting the head crime scene tech.

"Aheya there!" Mia called as she stepped toward him. She rather liked Izaak Kaaringur. He was in early middle age, and a very sweet man, very dedicated to his work. He was actually one of the people Mia saw most outside of work, since he and his wife lived two doors down from her. As he saw her, Izaak gave her a small smile while he looked up.

"Ah, Mia. I thought you might be the one working this case," he said, cheerful in spite of the weather and the circumstances. "I suppose you're going to ask what we've found, what we know so far?" he asked, taking off a pair of wire-rimmed glasses to wipe off the wet lenses. As he replaced them on his nose, he beckoned Mia under one of the work canopies they had set up, to keep evidence and files from getting too wet. He pulled out three capsules with small metal objects rattling around inside each of them.

"First things first. We pulled three slugs out of the brick wall behind the victim," he said, indicating the near alley wall. "All three of them are pretty mangled, so it'll be a surprise if we can get a whole lot of information out of them," he explained. "That said, the victim presented with three significant wounds, so these should more or less match-up." He set those back into an evidence bag. "What was more interesting was what we found in the victim's pockets." Here, Izaak started fishing for small plastic zip bags from a larger canvas bag.

"Some of it is the usual stuff you would expect," Kaaringur explained. "His wallet and his I.D., a cellphone, the card-key to his hotel room. But," he said, "then it gets interesting." He held up one clear bag, offering it to Mia. She took the bag, examining its contents, a slip of soaked paper that had blurry words written on it. After a bit of squinting and holding the paper under one of the orange lights illuminating the alley, she was able to discern a few words.

"Heche, 1500," Mia announced to Izaak, handing the bag back to him. "Doesn't mean anything to me. How about you?" Izaak shook his head. "Didn't think so. The only thing I can think of is Heche Park, but..." she glanced back at the paper. "Maybe military time? An appointment for a meeting?" Izaak shrugged. "I guess it could be," she mused aloud.

At this point, Junn returned. Once again, Mia was struck by how narrow and hawkish Junn's face was, contrasted with intense dark eyes. Also, his unusually large, prominent ears. That was sort of weird, she mused. However, she did not for long, because he started speaking almost immediately. "So the first officer on the scene didn't just find the body," he said, "he actually saw the shooting go down."

Damn, she had not been told that. "Really? So did you get a description of the killer?" Muenstyr nodded.

"Yeah. Officer Kristiansunn said that it was dark, but the shooter's facial features looked Hostilian," he said. "Or Adiran. I took that to mean Han, since that's really the only ethnic group common to both countries." Mia nodded.

"I would say that's a solid guess. Well, I guess that makes our job slightly easier. There aren't exactly loads of Han in the States to begin with, particularly here. She noticed that Izaak had brought forward another bag. This one had a generic-looking pharmaceutical bottle, with what looked to be pills inside. "What am I seeing here, Izaak?" Mia asked, slightly confused. She saw a brand name on the pills, but it was not one that was readily recognizable to her.

"I had one of my experts look at the pills," he explained. "These are sold by a pharmaceutical chain that is Hostilian-owned," he said. Mia looked confused.

"But I was under the impression that that was a very isolationist country," Mia said, confused. "Except for... wait, isn't there an organized crime ring out of Hostilia that's operating around the region?" Izaak and Junn both nodded. "And..." she looked at the pills again.

"Well, shit," Mia said. "This just got very interesting."

[Hostillia]

Kyrntunn Pub,
Residential District, Haensley, Staalmark
11:45 PM, March 3rd, 2015

“I’ll have another shot,” the man demanded, bringing out wadded up bills and slamming them down on the bar table- just enough to cover the drink, he’d been a poor tipper and he’d been here going on five hours now, downing whisky like tonight was his last night on earth. He was wearing a simple dark grey t-shirt and very dark blue jeans. The shirt was too tight, and an even halfway observant eye would notice the vague outline of a switchblade tucked into his pants, just under the shirt’s fabric. He grabbed the small glass and downed the fiery liquid in a single gulp, grimacing as he placed the glass firmly on the bar, he was drinking the cheap stuff. “And a beer too,” he ordered, thumping more currency to the bar.

He grabbed the bottle and walked back to booth, there was a small man in it- a young man celebrating his birthday, though it seemed all his friends had gone off to talk to some of the girls. Timid, tiny little creature. A glare and a growl was enough to get the little man to move and the man, though not especially tall due to… racial challenges, he was very clearly strong- working out was a hobby of his. He lowered himself into the seat and took a drink from the bottle. Over his shirt he wore a simple jacket of brown leather, he’d been in the deserts of Jedoria too long and had grown unaccustomed to weather this far north, especially given the waterfront not too far away.

“Fuck me,” he grumbled under his breath looked into the wallet he had just pulled out of his jacket, he had been thinking of ordering another drink but he didn’t have much money left. He figured he would probably still need enough money to book a motel room somewhere off the beaten path. He didn’t like this plan, it wasn’t a bad plan but he didn’t like it. “How the mighty have fallen,” he mumbled to himself, thinking back to the days when he ran the Consortium’s actions out of Jedoria. Those had been the day, all the power and a hefty paycheck too, of course it had fucked him over in the end- damn horse woman going rogue. He had let that child of an officer see him, he needed to be certain there would be no question on the part of the Police that the Consortium, or rather Gaoshuo Pharmaceutical, was to blame. He’d planted enough evidence- and besides, he knew how these white folk thought- they’d see slanted eyes and automatically assume Gaoshuo. Simple as that. The Consortium was smart though, he’d worked with them in a position of leadership long enough to know that. If they could, they’d sweep everything under the rug, but the States weren’t like the Confederacy, didn’t take too well to feds being killed and certainly they were not going to be as easy to fight against if the Brotherhood did elect on that route. He smiled, remembering the time they’d stormed a Jedorian Internal Security station, kidnapping the Chief and dictating terms to him before releasing him. He smiled. Those had been damned fine days… though his smile quickly faded. “And now here I am acting like a common thug. Fuck me.”

13th Floor, Gaoshuo Tower
Office District, Haensley, Staalmark
10:20 AM, March 4th, 2015

“Earnings from the last quarter,” the voice continued as the slide being projected in front of the long table changed, the last slide had been fairly simple, containing only a picture of an experimental cancer treatment and several bullet points highlighting issues the Allamunnic regulatory agencies might have with human trials, the new slide showed the Allamunnic Division of the company alongside branches from other nations by revenue- they certainly weren’t in the lead, but the chart also implied they had less waste than other divisions, “would seem to suggest that we need something to more firmly plant our foot in this market, especially in the next few years. As I’m sure you’re very much aware our advantages on the…” the man paused as he searched for the proper term, a Han man he had jet black hair and dark eyes, but his skin was darker than most of his people due to his jogging habit. His voice sounded confident enough in English, though in moments like these he was forced to search for words, it didn’t help that this was his fourth tongue. “Erectile dis-function, that’s it. Our advantages on the erectile dis-function market will be falling off substantially by 2018 when our patent will expire. No doubt the competition will start to flood the market with generic alternatives, we can only rely on name recognition for so long.”

“Which brings us back to the matter of cancer treatment,” another voice answered, this man was likewise Han, though none would think he had a fondness for jogging, his size was nearly gargantuan, and his round gasses seemed to press too far into the puffy fat of his cheeks. His first language was not Mandarin which gave him an even odder sounding accent, ironically, as if he was perpetually speaking with a mouth full of muffin, and though he was little to look at, he did have a small army of pretty and petite brunettes with him, one of whom handed him a small sheet of paper, “we need something to hook the people with, get them good. Now, there’s nothing a man would value more than his cock, but we’ve already exhausted that which means putting off imminent death is our next best solution.” He sighed as he glanced at the brief in his hand, “we need to push this thing through. Get it approved of here, or somewhere else, so other nations will be more willing to hear our case.” Casting his eyes on the Vice President of Development, “who do we have to jerk to get this thing passed?”

“If it was that simple we’d have a million whores on standby and never deal with all this red tape bullshit,” the man responded with a laugh. He was a stylish man, a several thousand dollar watch boasting from his wrist, a very impressive silk blue tie, and a name brand pair of glasses on his nose which shaded themselves naturally in the sun and thus, in the half sunlight coming through the heavily tinted windows were partially dim. He ran his hand through his slicked back hair, heavily gelled to encourage obedience. “Look, we could bribe this through with minimal government oversight back in Novitera, but that’s the trouble. Nations everywhere know that all it takes to get a drug through in Novitera is a hefty pocketbook which means other states are less likely to consider the drug’s legality in Novitera as sufficient cause to legalize it themselves, if anything they’ll likely look at it more closely than they might otherwise.” He sighed, “that’s why HQ has put this on our plate and here in the States, folks are too scared of the Generalissimo’s shadow to be too corrupt. We’ll just have to make it very apparent that we are very willing to bend over backwards to get this pill out of development and into the pharmacies. It’ll be a struggle, but I think we can handle it.” The man at the end of the long table, an older gentlemen with graying hair and square glasses, but a very, very expensive suit that was obviously very traditional in designed met his junior’s eyes with a cool gaze for a moment, prompting the younger man to bow deeply, “I will speak with my Department at once and accelerate the matter.”

“Good,” the man responded briskly in Mandarin, while his knowledge of English and Allamunnic was impeccable, doubtlessly the most fluent of the men in the room. He glanced down at the agenda, thick glasses magnifying the ink, “that will be the conclusion of this morning’s meeting, the Senior Executives will stay and enjoy a glass of brandy with me,” with those words all of the aids, the junior staff, the assistants, the ass-kissers, and the pretty escorts posing as secretaries left the room and the Executive Secretary stopped taking the minutes. There was a few moments of silence as three men dressed in fine black suits swept odd looking wands over the room, and then over the men seated at the table.

“We’re clear Sir,” one of the three young men announced after his wand informed him it had detected no listening devices in the vicinity and the other two men indicated their tools agreed. He walked briskly over to a panel on the wall and pressed a few buttons on the touchscreen which dimmed the windows completely and brought down shades, as well as simultaneously activating the emergency lights in the room. After a few moments the touchscreen informed him that all signals, including wifi and cellular were being blocked from the room and all of the Executives voluntarily laid their cellphones on the table which were collected and placed into a sound-muffling container. “The room is secure, Sir.”

“Fei Chung Hao,” the older man responded, again in Mandarin. He pressed a few buttons on his tablet which changed the image projected to a picture of a middle aged man, an investigator from the Federal Government. “This man is dead,” he said simply, “he was with the State’s federal government and was investigating our company for potential wrongdoing. He was killed yesterday evening.” The men gathered around the table nodded their understanding. “Our informant tells us that he had one of our pills in his pocket and this report claims that the shooter’s identity was a Han man,” those words changed the environment in the room. Confused eyes shifted from one Vice President to another, none of them saying anything for a moment.

“I don’t understand,” said Ronald, his words marred by his bread-mouth, leaning forward to press his stomach into the table, “who did we assign to do this? How could we have been so sloppy?” He sighed and shook his head, “we’ll just kill the operative, and wash our hands of this whole affair.”

“Does the cricket now tell Kongzi, ‘bow before me for I am wise,’ Ronald,” the older man asked him critically, “we would not have been so sloppy. In all my years of service to the Brotherhood I have never once pushed even my little toe across the line. I will not have this company be plagued with suspicion and investigations.”

“We can distance ourselves from this,” Chan, Vice President Consul offered, “I’ll put the whole Department on it, we’ll bring up all kinds of proof that this was nothing that we did, nor any of our employees. The fact that we’re simply proving the truth will be a change of pace but it should make matters easier.” He laughed casually at his own joke, hoping to break the mood- surely they weren’t going to go mad over the death of one fed, no matter how suspicious the circumstances. “With your blessing?”

“Make it so, I want this case handled and over before their Prosecutors get wind of it. I’ll not tolerate any mistakes that damages this company or our integrity as a pillar of the model community. Finances,” he said looking over to another one of the men assembled, “pick a charity, any charity as long as it does something kind for puppies or babies or cancer children, and donate to them a large sum of money, we’re nearly in a new tax season anyways.” The Vice President nodded and made a note of it on his tablet. “Also, with this much evidence it seems only logical that someone is attempting to string us up, I want a private investigation launched and I want those responsible for this man’s death to come to justice. Am I understood?”

“Ay Sir,” the men all responded, standing and bowing to their Senior. The older man gazed at them for a moment, nodded, and left the room to his private office. The lights came off, the blinds came up, sunlight was allowed to stream in. At the same time aids were offering coffee, and newspapers, informing them how many calls they had waiting or appointments for the day. Suddenly, it was all a normal corporate office once again.

[Allamunnic States]

12th Precinct, District of Doryntor, Haensley, Staalmark
7:48 AM; March 4th, 2015

"Good to see ye up all bright and springy," Mia said with a dry smile as Junn walked into the precinct office with about ten minutes to spare before their shift started. Junn muttered something unpleasant as he passed bright-eyed Mia on his way to his desk, pulling out his chair and sitting down, draping his overcoat onto the back of the chair. "I figured you'd be needing some," she said, standing up and walking to his desk, and setting a cup of coffee on it. "Can't have a grumpy partner when we go out canvassing and talking to folks," she said with a chuckle.

Junn quirked an eyebrow and picked up the go-cup of coffee. "Thanks. I owe you one," he said before taking a sip. "Damn, that's good coffee," he remarked, looking at the cup. It was a plain paper thing, with no restaurant name or logo on it. Well that was unhelpful. "Where did you find it?" he asked Mia.

"Place on my way in from home," she said, "little hole in the wall place, just called Tommy's Biscuits. I know the owner. He makes damn good biscuits and gravy, and not too expensive, neither, so I usually get my breakfast there." She nodded back at the other two cups and remains of an apple on her desk. "A cuppa sludge, an apple, and a smother only sets me back five bucks," she said, "and that shit keeps ye full 'til the mid afternoon," she said. Junn nodded.

"I like my bagels," he said, "but I'll take it under advisement," he said, smiling a little more now that he had some of the glorious caffeine-giving drink in him. "So, what's on the agenda for today?" he asked, standing back up, coffee in hand, walking over to Mia's desk.

"Well, as I said, we've got canvassing to do," she said. "We need to see if anyone else saw anything last night. I'm going to get some plainclothes over to Heche Park, see if the people who are there every day might have seen the vic there yesterday, or if anything suspicious has happened there the last couple days. And then, we are going to pay a visit to Gaoshuo Pharmaceuticals to see if we can't figure why our dead fed had their pills in his pocket."

"Uhh, couldn't they have just been pain medication or something?" Junn asked, glancing over at Mia. "Coincidences are a thing that happen," he noted.

"They are," Mia conceded, "but th' fact is, it's as good a lead as any we've got. Especially considering the fact that the lab folks had a look at it, and those pills aren't anything that's sold commercially. Not street-legal. Possibly something undergoing trials." She leaned over and pulled open a drawer on her desk, pulling out a slip of paper, reading it.

"It's called dix-- dex--- fuck, I can't pronounce it," she said, handing the paper to Junn. He read it over, making note of the name of the medication, before copying it and putting it on another slip of paper. He could not pronounce it reliably, either, and in questioning, that could be a problem. Best to have it for reference.

"Got it," he said, handing the first slip back to Mia. "So, shall we get started?" As he spoke, Junn grabbed his coat, making sure his license, his gun, and his badge were all on him.

Mia nodded back, picking up her coat and doing the same. "Damn right, let's go."

-----~~~~~=====~~~~~-----

Lobby, Gaoshuo Tower
Office District, Haensley, Staalmark
10:28 AM, March 4th, 2015

"Well, that turned up a whole lotta jack-shit," Mia muttered as they stepped out of the drizzly morning into the drier confines of the building's lobby. Mia and Junn both kind of shook themselves out in the atrium, looking around as they did.

What they saw was not unimpressive, but was relatively par for the course in a nice corporate building in the ritzier part of the Office District. Plenty of nicely-colored stone. Spit-polished and waxed stone floors, tasteful lighting fixtures that were not too bright, but did not leave the room cavernously-dim, either. There was a receptionist at a desk midway through the lobby, a pretty young thing maybe in her early twenties, wearing a blouse cut low enough to notice, but not so low as to make one draw any unfavorable conclusions about her.

As the two detectives stepped into the chamber, the woman stood up, gently pulling back a dark tress so that it rested behind her shoulder. "Welcome to Gaoshuo Tower, sir, ma'am. May I direct you anywhere in particular or assist you?" She did not have much of an accent, having the standard Allamunnic one, although the way she pronounced the name of the building had a precision that suggested she was reasonably well-educated, and had been tutored as to the proper pronunciation.

Mia took the lead. "Yes, actually. I'm Detective Mia Hult, and this is my partner Detective Junn Muenstyr. We're here looking for information on a case. Who would we need to speak to about that?"

The young lady looked somewhat flummoxed as she tried to figure out how best to pass this particular request up the line, trying to remember who would best be able to address this state of affairs.

[Hostillia]

Lobby, Gaoshuo Tower
Office District, Haensley, Staalmark
10:28 AM, March 4th, 2015

“Detectives,” Angela’s voice seemed startled- what could detectives possibly have to do at Gaoshuo Tower, this was a company more frequented by chunky federal agents investigating their latest round of clinical trials than actual police officers launching investigations, in fact, she couldn’t even recall the last time that she had anything to do with police while working here- and she had been working reception for four years now. Well, actually, Jenny did tell her that there had nearly been a fight a few months ago- some man who was angry at having been let go decided he didn’t want to leave quietly, they had called some police out to resolve the situation, but she hadn’t been working that day and she figured it probably didn’t count if they had called them. Suddenly, a realization dawned on her- it was detectives who always showed up in those legal dramas, generally at the places where missing persons had worked? Did she know anyone who hadn’t come into work? She couldn’t think of anyone… “I’m sorry Officers,” she said after a moment, realizing that they must have thought she was ignoring them or something- she certainly didn’t want to be arrested. Could they arrest you for ignoring them? Probably.

“Would you mind waiting a moment,” she asked sweetly, “I don’t know who to forward you to, this doesn’t happen very often,” she said, with a nervous laugh- she had always been a little on edge by officers, not that she had ever done anything illegal she reached down and picked up the phone pausing for a moment as she decided which extension to dial, finally she punched in a number and waited as the phone rang twice.

“Ninhao, Gaoshuo Tower Directory, how can I help you?”

“Nihao, Mei,” the woman responded, instantly earning a sound of recognition from the other end of the phone, they spoke fairly frequently, anytime someone came in with an odd request that didn’t have an immediate solution Angela would give Mei a call, Mei was kind of like a super secretary, she kept track of everyone’s appointments, knew the innermost workings of the entire organization, everything- however, she was far more well versed in Mandarin and had difficulty communicating in other languages, she had been living in Beihe, back in the Middle Kingdom, before being relocated to the States. Unfortunately, though Angela spoke enough Han to get by, she wasn’t entirely fluent- the tragedy of refusing to speak ‘that weird language’ any more than she had to for fear of being bullied in school. “I have a few people down here, they’re…” she paused for a moment, trying to come up with the proper Han word for ‘detective’ for a moment before she was forced to revert back to Allamunnic, “detectives here, they are requesting to speak to someone about an ongoing investigation.”

“Well, who are they wanting to speak with?”

“They didn’t request anyone by name. I think they mean just more generally.”

“Well, all of the Vice Presidents are currently in a meeting, though they’ll probably be done in another half hour at most. If it is something very important they need to ask to speak to the Chief Counsel, if it isn’t a major thing they could speak to one of the assistant Counsels. Ask them their preference.”

“I’ll do that right now,” she set the phone down on the desk, careful not to hang up on Mei, “I’m sorry detectives,” she said first, “if you need to speak to someone in particular, I’ll need their name, but if this is a general matter you’ll have to request to speak with the Chief Counsel, though he’s in a meeting right now,” she paused for a moment, “though there is almost certainly an assistant counsel available immediately if you would prefer?”

[Allamunnic States]

Muenstyr shot a glance at Mia, as if to say Great, genius, now what? Outwardly, though he held his tongue, while Mia pondered the problem very briefly. She tapped her chin for a moment, thinking, before she began speaking. "I think it was yesterday, a Mister Joerg Baarunn would have come to speak to someone. It might have been whoever was in charge of research and development, something like that," she said. "In the meantime, I suppose an assistant counsel would suffice for the moment," she added.

While they waited for Angela to relay the request, they glanced idly around the lobby, wondering if they might not have just tipped off a suspect or person of interest in the process. However, it was not like they had much else to go on, so it was hardly like they could have done much otherwise.