Still Waters

[Double A]

It was a rough day for Henry. His favorite celebrity had been kidnapped, for starters. It was probably those damn Miku fans. They're just so jealous of Lin Lin's popularity. The worst part was, he couldn't get back at them in the same way. What good is it being a triad enforcer if you can't even kidnap someone in retaliation? Stupid sexy hologram. And speaking (thinking? expositioning?) of the triad, his grandpa was still a class-A dickweasel. "I don't get no respect, no respect I tells ya," Henry might say if he were born 50 years ago and white. Fortunately for the exactly zero other people around, he was born in the 90s.

Wait. There aren't exactly zero other people. There are approximately zero other people. Which is to say, there is exactly one. Where the hell did he come from? Why the crap is he in Henry's bed? And why in the name of all-loving Lin Lin is he a cop? Henry, his criminal instincts honed to a point that has been honed into multiple points (so you can twist the barbs around in the wound), took the most logical course of action.

He poked the cop's sternum with his index finger and politely inquired, "Just who in the hell do you think you are?!"

 

[Seon]

It had been raining all night. It was still raining when the body was found. The victim was strangled—this much was obvious due to the bruises on her neck. The victim’s red raincoat lay abandoned on the road near the ditch where the body was hidden—something that led to this particular body being discovered much earlier than perhaps the murderer intended. Her socks were stuffed into her mouth. By the time Inspector Komar Gan and Jenguang arrived, the first responders had already cleared the scene and were waiting for the detectives to arrive. Nobody made a sound except for a radio that somebody had turned on—to brighten the mood as it seemed.

“I have tried so, not to give in…” cried out the female voice from the radio. “I've said to myself this affair it never would go so well”

Inspector Komar Gan cursed his luck. The scene that laid out before him was pretty much as Inspector Jenguang had warned. Inspector Jenguang, for his part, simply were taking pictures of the crime scene quickly using his cell phone. “Could you remind me,” Inspector Jenguang said. “To request a photographer from the main branch immediately? I didn’t think that you wouldn’t hire them out here.”

“There was no point. At least, there didn’t seem to be a point until now,” Inspector Komar Gan conceded. “So, you really think there’s some kind of serial killer? Out there? I thought they only happened in cities or, well, not here.”

“There isn’t a law that says that serial killers only occur in cities, you know,” responded Inspector Jenguang.

“Use your mentality, wake up to reality
For each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop before I begin” cried out a female voice in the radio.

“Very funny,” said Inspector Komar Gan.

“So, from the patterns observed so far, I think it’s safe to make some conclusions.”

“You know who the murderer is already? You just got here.”

“What? No, nothing like that,” Inspector Jenguang said. He stroked his chin. “Okay, maybe not conclusions. More like observations. It appears from the autopsy reports and crime scene descriptions that the murderer only goes after woman.”

“That much is obvious.”

“I’m not done yet, jesus,” said Inspector Jenguang. “He only also ever targets woman in red—every woman attacked so far has been wearing red.”

“Maybe we should release a bulletin advising women to not wear red?”

“No, I don’t think that’ll be a good idea,” Inspector Jenguang said. “The killer may change his tactics then… and it may also lead to copycat crimes.”

“Copycat crimes?”

“When people commit murder in a similar manner as the serial killer or a known murderer does in order to shift the blame onto that figure.”

“Ahh yes,” Inspector Komar Gan said. “I don’t think that’ll be too much of an issue, if I may say so. There aren’t that many…weirdos… in this part of the world.”

Inspector Jenguang raised an eyebrow and stole a glance at the dead body. “Right,” he said. “Furthermore all the murders so far appear to have been conducted when there’s rain. Maybe he hopes it’ll wash away some of the evidence or something. Unfortunately for him, it also means that there’s gonna be footprints. Have a team sweep the area for footprints, please,” said inspector Jenguang. “I’ll try to see if I can get any sample of our perp’s DNA off the body. I should have really brought a full forensics team from the central branch. Maybe I still can.”

“Yes sir,” said inspector Komar Gan.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“It’s that song again, you know,” said a policeman as Inspector Jenguang knelt beside the corpse. The inspector shot him an annoyed glance. Couldn’t he see that he was busy?

“They always play that song—the radio station I mean. Around the time when victims are estimated to die or discovered.” Inspector Jenguang raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, could you tell me that in more detail?”

“That song. I’ve got you under my skin or something like that. Somebody’s been requesting it an awful lot of times for the local DJ. It’s always done in rainy days like this when a body is found.”

Inspector Jenguang blinked. “That is…. Good to know… thank you, officer.”

He went back to work

 

[Robert Can't]

"How is the investigation taking this long?"

Amy, notebook in hand, was directing hapless interns in assisting the transition from unused building to offices of the MP. Boxes were everywhere and a couple of dilapidated posters from the campaign had been half heartedly pinned to the walls. "I don't know, you were the policeman - you tell me." She leaned on one of the stacks of boxes taking a break to talk to Anand.

"It was moreso a rhetorical question." Anand shook his head "That's one case, I have to be responsible for the whole district now."

"Everyone wants closure though. Haven't you read the reports? Drug use, depression and all sorts else. You should do something, say something."

"About what?" Anand retorted "I can't help speed up the investigation process just as I can't help speed up people grieving. Why does everyone want me to solve everyone's problems. I don't know what I'm meant to be doing here, it should be Leow doing all this not me."

Amy placed her notebook on the box-stack and walked over and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I know how you feel. I miss him so much and I can only imagine how much worse it was for you lot who grew up with him. I'm running the services in the Chapel until we find a replacement but we haven't had anyone really suitable yet. I feel like I'm meant to be a ballet dancer and here I am waddling around in shoes the size of houses."

"Are you considering staying on? You could do good work here, it would be a continuation for the people."

Amy shook her head and signed "I think we'll be needing someone more local. There's a lot of Ethnic tensions nationally at the moment, I wouldn't want to help provoke disruption here. That and I'm not half the man that Leow was."

"Don't say that, you're amazing. And right now we should be showing solidarity with all the cosmopolitan factions. With the issues we're facing at the moment I'm sure the community would be grateful for some sense of continuity."

Anand's phone began to ring he pulled it out of the pocket and brought it to his ear. "Hello, Its Srinivasa Anand."

He paused for a moment a look coming across his face of excitement and trepidation. "I'll be there right away!" he said and hung up the phone.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"I'm about to become a father!"

--------------

Insects and the evening birds provided a simple soundtrack to the darkened sky pricked by millions of stars shining out through the darkness. Anand sat on the veranda, a glass of Bowmore in one hand his tape recorder sitting on the heavy wooden table. He smiled into the darkness of the evening. It was an idyllic scene from the valley. Exactly what he had promised to protect in the election. This was what he was fighting for. The day had given him much food for thought, he hit the play button.

"The Christening was this afternoon, Amy was the one to do it. It struck a tone with all of us. What was meant to be this event of birth and joy became something all the more powerful and moving. Leow had been quite excited to christen the baby. He'd been talking about it for weeks. Now that the election is over and I've got a bit more time to thinks its finally sinking in with me that I've lost one of my oldest friends. Its sad and I'm sad and there isn't much that can be said but sadness.

"I didn't really know how to deal with it before, I just pushed it out of my mind but now I'm coming to accept it is sad and that it is alright to be sad about it. Now is the time to remember him and to keep moving, he would have been pleased to see me building my little family and now I just need to do good in parliament and he will rest easy. The christening felt like a symbol of that all, new life in death and all that and with Easter not too far away the symbolism was slightly obvious.

"Amy is doing her best though, she really is holding everything together both working as Leow's replacement for the time being and also organising my movement into new offices and setting me up as a member of parliament. It struck me in the service today how unique a position I am in as an MP. Despite the not insignificant French speaking population in Còengdóu I think I'm one of the first politicians to come from that particular group. Amy was talking policy with me this afternoon and we discussed playing up this aspect she mentioned Belgium has parties split on linguistic boundaries.

"In this first stage I should be thinking about trying to set up a review of our police system - we really need to root out the violent secessionists who have infiltrated the system.

"I haven't heard from internal investigations yet, I imagine someone was paid off and the world will never find out what happened to d'Herbinville. Not unless we conduct a throughout review. Half of me thinks I should mention it in parliament, but the sensible part of me knows that nothing good can come of that.

"After next week I'll be spending even more time in the capital. I'm sure Amy will be eager to get operation up and running."

A newborn's wail came from the house Anand grinned. "Meanwhile, we have a beautiful little daughter to look after."

He finished off his glass of Bowmore, the same choice drink of Francis Urquart - Would Anand ever find himself as Prime Minister? He doubted it. He turned off the recorder and took a good long look into the darkness. He'd left this valley too soon for his police job and now he would once again be taking up a job based on another island. His heart would always be here though, looking out across the valley at night.

----------------

Ehimay Pillai, orphan son of the late police officer sat in the front room of his friend's house. The news was on, something about some independent politician from Diemsaranya. Apparently he had been a police officer, the news station was reporting he was intending to campaign for a review of the entirety of the police force. Ehimay had only been half listening until the man quoted some statistic about police suicides over the last five years.