“M Detective Cai.” The m, close to noon, after Marcus’ dropping off his simple report oolen files on the captain's desk and having an earful of Captain Ko’s scolding and warnings, a uniformed officer holding a folder came to him: “We have an update on Mr. Bai Gu.”
“Who?”
“Bai Gu, the perp yht back from the raid?” This officer shrugged: “We have a quick update for you.”
“Oh, oh, yeah! What’s up?” Marcus smacked himself on his forehead, then asked: “Sorry, it’s just been quite busy a couple of days.”
“Yeah, yeah, I uand. Everyoalking about the case with the missing rich kid and the emergency reparations team. So the update is this: Bai Gu has been cooperating with the iigation and provided some useful information. And Captain Ko has approved of either putting him into protective custody or providing him with some limited police prote. ”
“Okay, what’d he choose? Protective custody?” Marcus sighed and asked.
“No, he chose to go to some temple, and accepted the terms that he will have officers visit him regurly.” The officer shrugged: “He’s set to be released soon, maybe just ter today. So we were w if you wanna talk with him, since he asked about you a few times - he seemed… a little ed about you.”
“About me?” Marcus scratched his jaw: “I’ll see if I have time, I have to head back to the South-Eastern Distrid do some more interviews. Thank you for keeping me updated. Could you also loop me in on where he ends up?”
“No problem, detective.” This offiodded with a smile. And just when she was about to head back, something came to her mind and she pulled out a few pages of files stapled together and hahem to Marcus: “Oh, I almost fot - Kevin asked me to hand this to you - it’s the test results of Mr. Bai Gu’s blood, saliva and stomach fluid.”
“Oh, what’d he find?”
“Not muo traces of halluogens, but apparently he ied a lot of different mushrooms that could be somewhat toxic to the human body. Keviiohat acc to some local superstitions, they allow people to hide from spirits and evil.”
“That - was ued but also made sehank you.” Marcus frowned and took a look at the report filled with a bunch of words he could barely pronounce, let alone read: “Thanks.”
Marcus was not lying about having to go back to the South-Eastern District, as the hing he did was hop on a bus heading there. Even officers or detectives who owned cars would not drive there at this hour, for very simple reasons: the unities just did not wele police vehicles in their neighborhood, and there would be hardly any witnesses if their vehicles got vandalized.
Luckily for him, there were many public transportations that could take him there directly, albeit slowly. He told Bulu Wang that he would e back today to che the woman who was looking for her son, and he would like to chers. Emma Evans and see how she was doing. After the meeting with Bulu Wang, he was informed by the local unity watd patrol team about where the woman would be staying, and the first thing for him to dht now was to visit her a an update on the search for her son.
The pce where the woman should be staying was not far from the bus stop. After getting off the bus, he turned from the main road and proceeded to a side street that was barely wide enough for two small cars to pass through. There were people selling all kinds of things on the side of the road, making it even narrower. Maybe it was because it was already halfway through the afternoon, or it was because of the gloomy weather, or it was because this being a not so well off and well run part of the South-Eastern District, everything seemed to be slightly more depressing than Marcus remembered the district to be.
“You want some homemade jerkies, sir?” An old woman with a hunched back asked Marcus with a trembling voice: “I have some chi, some duck, and even beef if you’d like …”
“No, thank you.” Marcus refused without turning his head, per his experiehese street jerkies were rarely made from meat of quality, sometimes not even proper meat. He actually knew someone who found out that they had a rat hair allergy through them.
“Good m sir, would you like some breakfast?” Just a moment ter, a man standing over some mobile bamboo steamers asked Marcus: “We have some fresh steamed dumplings and baos!”
“No, thanks.” Marcus shrugged this man off again, due to the same kind of caution he practiced with the old woman’s jerkies.
Walking past these street merts and two beggars, Maroticed something strange up front - the pce at which the woman should be staying halfway dowreet from him, but there seemed to be an abnormal amount of people gathered around the location.
“What’s happening?” Marcus pushed through some of the people standing to the side and got into the inner pce.
The door en, and there were three people with the unity watch armbands walking in and out of the room, clearing things out. On the floor was the woman he saw yesterday, the one who was looking for her son, now no longer breathing. There was a bruise line on her neck, her face urple and her eyes were bulging out, indig that she died of asphyxiation. But even though this seemed like a painful way to go, the ers of her mouth were raised, as if she died smiling.
“What - what the fuck happened?” Marcus lunged frabbed one guy with an armband while showing his badge and yelled: “What happeo her!? I thought Bulu Wang and his men will take care of her?”
“I - ” The man grabbed by Marcus was stunned: “I - What - ”
“Detective - ” Another older man with a mustache and an armband with additional patterns on it came over and tried to get Marcus’ hand off his fellow: “Please, let go of him - I expin.”
“Okay, sorry, my apologies.” Marcus immediately let go of the man aly bowed: “I talked with Bulu Wan about her yesterday - she was looking for her son, who did this?”
“It appears - no ohis man with a mustache sighed: “One of our caretakers found her hanging in the room this m. There was no signs of forced entry or struggles, the rope was made from her own bedsheet, she used the chair in her own room - everything we found so far points to suicide. I’m sorry, detective.”
“But, why?” Marcus frowned: “Her son is still not found, is he? Is there any update on that?”
“Sorry Detective, but I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.” The man with a mustache shook his head: “I direct you to our operatier - ”
“No need, I’ll find Bulu Wang myself.” Marcus shook his head, then tried to walk away.
“This is your doing, pig!” Just this moment, a hoarse shout came from the crowd surrounding the room.
“What?” Marcus was stunned for a brief moment, then turo the dire of the voice.
The man who just shouted, wearing a slightly worn and tarnished gray and blue T-shirt and with a rough beard on his face, stepped forward and pointed his fi Marcus: “It must be you! You interrogated her yesterday! While she was grieving and begging you for help!”
“I did not interrogate her, I offered to help.” Marcus responded with a calm tone, while slowly getting ready to turn on his police cam.
“You interrogated her! You asked her all kinds of questions as if she’s a bad mother!” This man looked around with an angry look in his eyes, his tone was indignant, his other hand was waving in the air. And this attitude turned quite iious, as many among the crowd surrounding the se started murmuring and looking at Marcus with simirly unfriendly looks. “That’s what you did! You were shaming her and attag her!”
“You killed her!” Another man yelled: “How you ask a woman who lost her soions like that?”
“Yeah!” “Heartless monster!!” “You disgusting Pig!” More members of the crowd became agitated along with the man who hurled the accusation at Marcus and joined in oack.
Marcus turo the three members of the local unity watd patrol team, and found that they had already left the se without looking back, leaving him to deal with the riled up crowd alone.
“You must pay, cop!” Someohrew a dirty and half-rotten bok choy at Marcus, which just bounced off his shoulder.
“Outta my way.” Marcus sighed, and said to the locals standing in his way. He started pushing forward, and though many of them tried to push back, he was able to make it halfway through.
“Die, you swine!” Just this moment, a man with a higher pitched voice growled behind Marcus, and in his right hand was a make-shift fil, made of a wooden chair g, a short metal and a heavy metal lock as the head. With his teeth ched and his eyes open wide to an almost bulgient, he swung the fil at the baarcus’ head.
“k!” The sound of metal g together erupted from the impact betweeal lod Marcus’ hand - who turned bad grabbed the head of the fil just moments before it could ect with its target.
“Have you thought this through?” Marcus stared right into this man’s eyes and asked with a calm voice, his right hand and arm unwavering evehe man ulling the fil with all his power: “If you assault a police officer from the city, the city will have an excuse to send their forces in without sulting of your unity collective. And if you gravely injure ohings would be even messier.”
“I don’t care! I don’t fug care, you PIG!” This man’s eyes were still wide open, but his fervor and craze was not enough to cover the fact that his body twitched to a slight extent at Marcus’ words.
Before Marcus could say anything else, another man lu Marcus from his back with a long wooden stick with exposed nails. Marcus immediately turned bad put his left forearm up. The wooden stick cracked and broke upon impact, the end of the stick with exposed nails embedded inside dropped down and hit him on his left shoulder.
“Once again, back off!” Marcus turned on his police camera, and uttered his order in a stern tone: “Back off! You’ve been warned! I am a detective of the PCPD and I am you, back off!”
“Fuck you, Pig! ” “Yeah! Fuck you!” More angry yells and curses started ing from the crowd.
