Great Detective Soo
"Per ECPD guideline Article 35, this floor is currently under full control for a murder investigation. Unauthorized personnel must immediately return to the first floor."
Doesn't it feel like everyone I go to meet ends up dead? Enoch sighed, thinking that.
To carry out Salvador's request, he needed to check the scene, but with ECPD and Neonic agents controlling it, things were already getting messy.
No helping it. Forcing his way in with brute strength was impossible. They'd already been caught on CCTV, so the smart move here was to back off quietly. He'd have to infiltrate at night for the site inspection.
Enoch pressed the button without hesitation. Wasting more time might lead to who-knows-what from Soo.
Thud—the doors closed, there was a brief lurch, and the elevator began descending to the first floor.
"Now I need to figure out where to start the investigation and how."
"I'll sneak in."
"Absolutely not. I've told you a hundred times—your 'sneaking' isn't sneaking."
"As long as I don't get caught, it counts."
"Who the hell came up with that bullshit? Anyway, no. It wouldn't mean anything...?"
Enoch cut himself off and looked at Angela. She was holding out two cables pulled from her forearm—one for him, one for Soo.
"I've hacked the building cameras. Want to cherry-pick what those guys are investigating?"
"...Hah."
Enoch let out a hollow laugh and plugged the cable into his neck port. The corridor view from moments ago unfolded before him.
"I'll adjust it so you see with one eye only. Right or left—which is better?"
"Right... for me."
"Left."
The moment Soo—headset cable plugged in—spoke, the screen switched, displaying video in their chosen directions. And not just that. Voices from the investigators in the corridor came through crystal clear.
Normal CCTV should only show video. Eden law forbade audio transmission. But right now? It sounded like they were right beside them.
Enoch stared at Angela in shock. She shyly shook her head with a smile.
"It's nothing much. Oh, and I tapped into the lead investigator's comms while I was at it."
If that was nothing, what the hell counted as something?
"Impressive..."
Even as he said it, Enoch shivered. This was getting dangerous. At this rate, he wouldn't even be needed—the team could run just fine with Soo and Angela.
While Enoch felt that pang of crisis, Angela sent a few photos to both of them.
"Photos of everyone who came and went on the 41st floor from last night until we arrived. I can pull full profiles if you want, but that'd need a cooling suit—too risky right now."
Angela's efficiency was off the charts. Before the elevator even hit the first floor, she'd hacked the cameras, set up audio taps, and dug through the footage for visitor snapshots.
'Gotta layer on some outer shell implants.'
At least that way, he'd be useful as a shield. Enoch meant it sincerely as he pored over the photos she'd sent.
"Hmm...?"
Soo, scrolling backward through them, tilted her head. Something had bugged her earlier, and seeing the photo of the ECPD rushing into the elevator clicked it.
'They're too proactive.'
Neonic agents made sense—this was their building, and even the security were Neonic staff. But ECPD? That didn't add up. To them, it was just one dead guy.
Per Salvador's info, Martin Etmuller wasn't some thorn in their side or wanted criminal. He was a good citizen—a spotless real estate broker with zero record, not even a scam rap.
Yet here was ECPD, swarming the scene, controlling it aggressively.
"Angela, any suspected serial killings in Westtown lately?"
"Hmm, nothing in the last three months, at least."
Serial killings only get labeled after the perp's caught. Even if similar victims get stabbed similarly in the same spots, you can't call it serial without proof. With so many murders, copycats are rampant.
So without hard evidence, no serial designation. And since Angela had filtered the data herself, it was solid. Not serial. Just a run-of-the-mill murder—one ECPD had no reason to prioritize.
Soo popped a candy in her mouth and listened to the chatter in one ear.
"Are these the clowns I pay taxes for?"
As Enoch grumbled, the ECPD talk was tax-dollar waste. They'd controlled the scene, postured like pros, then turned it into playtime the second we left.
Neonic agents seemed somewhat productive, but not exactly hustling. Except one. The apparent ECPD team lead—a woman overflowing with zeal, eyes bulging as she clawed at the floor like a dog after something.
"Doesn't seem like it's about this case. Looks more like the team lead chased a personal lead here."
"Yeah, I think so too."
It was weird—her ignoring her team to investigate solo. To solve the case, you'd want evidence and suspect ID ASAP. But ECPD hadn't even secured CCTV or visitor logs properly, from what we overheard.
That was just from eavesdropping, so reality could be worse... or maybe they'd wrapped it neatly. But that team lead's frenzy said otherwise. No real intent to investigate properly.
So Soo agreed with Enoch. She wasn't here to solve this—she'd just ended up here chasing something else.
"Ah."
With Soo's startled voice, the elevator doors opened. Enoch and Angela turned to her. No need to ask why.
A familiar face in the photos she'd forwarded.
"The guy who stole your car, right?"
*****
They didn't jump straight into interrogation. All three knew direct questions would get bullshit answers.
So they prepped. Some suitably filthy sludge, a decent stun gun, and so on—then into a suitably rundown abandoned factory in a quiet spot.
All from Enoch's car, so no time wasted, no purchase trail.
Enoch even snagged a decent chair, hauled the petty thief from the trunk, and sat him down.
"Hnggh... hng... hnggh...!"
"Okay, we're gonna ask a few questions now. Lie even a little—"
Enoch cut Angela off, grabbed the thief's grimy dreads, and dunked his head in the sludge. Not enough—he zapped the guy's neck with the stun gun.
Angela gave a wry smile at how seamlessly Enoch flowed into it.
"You're pretty tough, Enoch..."
"No need to sweet-talk scum like this."
The aphrodisiacs, syringes, and eye-watering photos from his pockets said it all. Trash you could kill post-interrogation, no issue. If Enoch were still in the cleanup biz, he'd have dumped him soon enough.
"What's that sludge, anyway?"
"Water from soaking a body."
"Ugh...!"
Why the hell keep that in your car? Soo gagged and backed away. If it splashed her clothes...
Angela, meanwhile, just wryly smiled, unfazed.
Once the bubbles slowed, Enoch paused the fun. Time to talk. Another neck zap, then a growl.
"What were you doing on the 41st floor of Cal Building at 1:38 a.m. today?"
"Grrgh... cough, kgh... u-ugh... J-just... r-running an... errand..."
"What kind?"
"Th-that's..."
"Right, memory fuzzy? Have some water and think."
"A package!!"
Right before round two, the thief screamed.
"A package... earrings! I was delivering earrings...!"
"Earrings? To who."
"D-don't know the name. Just that the recipient was a real estate broker..."
"Was the broker alive when you got there?"
The thief's eyes shook hard. Enoch's phrasing made it sound like the guy was dead now. But he couldn't ask. Wrong answer meant face in corpse water.
"Y-yeah! Alive... Handed off the package proper, got paid too!"
"Whose connector job?"
"...N-not a connector. Even so, I'm a merc... Aaaah! I get it! I'll talk! N-no, here's my card!"
Spit flying, the thief tremblingly pulled a business card from his inner pocket and handed it over.
Enoch nearly dunked his face again. It was too cruddy for a business card.
"Huh."
But he stopped. Soo's word halted him.
"I know that name."
"...A real person?"
"Yeah."
Miki Ebner. Topher's little sister, as he'd described.