Looking at a Puzzle with One Key Piece Missing

I make it back to my apartment before the work-shift ends. Everyone knows better than to bother me when that happens. It always means I’m on a toughie, or on a time crunch, or both. Today may well be both. Coming into the apartment, I shut the door behind me and almost immediately take off my pants as I find my augmented reality sunglasses. They are in the most sensible place they could be, the fitters of the lamp behind the TV. Before putting them on, I press the button to close our shutters with a series of clunks. Putting on my glasses, I head back to the filing cabinets in my room. That’s where I keep all my personnel files, mostly to avoid any of Davina’s guests snooping. As I walk, I slip out of the rest of my uniform as well, leaving a trail of clothes leading into my room.

With a series of gestures, I open up my notes. A notification pops up from my phone. A reminder, from myself. Officer Brun. It takes me a moment to remember that was the man eavesdropping on my conversation with Marty. I check him out. No criminal connections, but just as I suspected, on a payroll somewhere. Expenses exceeding income of a standard officer by around seventy percent. Mostly from payments by Extior Shipping and Warehousing. Great, a future mall-cop still working for us. I hate that type, more than the corrupt ones. After the Morana debacle, his bosses probably want to keep eyes on me.

I furrow my brow. Or maybe the dockyard. After all, there was no way they could know I would be assigned this case. I am technically still on desk duty after the arrest. They could certainly guess if it was the highest profile one I’d be involved, but that would mean assuming the Sergeant would be worried enough to pull me off the bench. Which means there’s a chance that his eavesdropping wasn’t actually about me, but about something to do with the Bloodken. Once I’ve solved this case and am presenting it to Jessica, I’ll ask about their relationship with Extior. I might file that under suspicious and kidnapping related, except I know damn well Extior prefers leaving bodies to taking them. Allegedly.

Dismissing the notification, I pull out my notepad and, one by one, I read the name, find my file in the air of my room, and note down whether they have any business in the archives, and any business related to West Bay. Quite frankly, as I go through the process, I’m glad the guy who did this stuck so close to the script. Because of the four day time crunch, I can’t afford to have the Sergeant or Marty looking into any leads that I know are dead ends. Which would mean, if she didn’t know it was a copycat, I’d have had to reveal that I did know it. And therefore, after we solved the case, she would make me reveal why and how I knew it was a copycat. And knowing the sergeant, she’d go arrest the one who got away, and destabilize the region anyways. No, it’s much better that she recognized instantly that it was someone trying to mimic those West Bay Cartel’s Thorn kidnappings.

Unfortunately, it seems looking through the files amounted to very little of value. Sure, of the few people who swiped into the archives, there were some who are corrupt. But that isn’t saying much around the City. No, the issue is, none of their corruption is exactly related to the 31st Road Cruisers, nor the Bloodken, nor West Bay. And only one person swiped in there that didn’t have at least tangentially valid reason for doing so. A retired detective, O’Loughlan, been out of the game for a year or so, and I don’t have any evidence that he’s corrupt, but I don’t see why else he’d be snooping about in ancient casefiles. Which means he’s either good at covering his tracks, working for someone or some organization that I don’t know nor track, or dead and having his badge used by someone else entirely. None of those are particularly appealing to me, someone who really likes knowing what’s going on.

Which means this isn’t anyone currently on the force making a move towards war. Probably a good thing. Either a retired cop finally got tired of the problems, or more likely someone got to a retired cop and is using his access to start some problems. But it’s not like the Cruisers and the Bloodken are bigtime problems on their own. They are fairly evenly matched and middle of the road, as far as gangs in the City are concerned. The only reason them going to war will cause so many problems is it’ll break the Handshake Deal of Twenty-One-Seventeen. Which will put several other such Deals of the late Twenty-One-Teens in jeopardy. And there’s no real way to tell who would win, which means it’s someone who doesn’t care about that. Either, it’s someone who wants to break their own Deal, risky but possible. I try to think about such a scenario, but in all cases, the only groups powerful enough and bold enough aren’t stupid enough to do it themselves. They’d encourage, maybe even fund, someone else to come up with a plan like this. Which just leaves it being someone who doesn’t care about the specifics of the wars at all.

Not caring about the war leaves three options. Personal, Political, and Partitional. Personal: someone who is doing this with no greater goal than the kidnapping. No declared ransom means it’s probably not for cash, but it might be related to the actual actions of Keighlee or Mitchell. Some sort of revenge-y thing. Political: gang wars are good for more anti-crime platforms and for expanding mall-cop budgets. Or regular cop budgets for that matter, though I doubt any of us would do it directly because we’re mostly too worried about getting shot during the gang war ourselves to think longterm. If this is the case, why would they use Detective O’Loughlan to get the information, then? There are plenty of cops on politician and mallcop payrolls that wouldn’t be nearly as suspect as a retiree coming back to visit the archives of cases he never worked. Which leaves Partitional: this is all about the territory around West Bay. Someone looking to move in on the territory of both the Cruisers and the Bloodken after the two weaken each other by going to war. Probably not anyone in the City, as like those looking to break their own deal, they would likely just encourage someone to cause some problems. Which means a larger organization trying to move in. But why West Bay? It wouldn’t be the most valuable of the three docks in the city. It’s not the easiest to hold by any stretch of the imagination.

As I stare at my thoughts written out ahead of me, I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. Hopefully either Marty or the Sarge figures out what that piece is before we meet back up tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll be stuck trying to solve three different kidnappings at the same time, which will undoubtedly lead to Mitchell dying which will in turn have BK starting the war and we all get to die fiery deaths.

As though to pull me out of my spiral, I hear vague sounds of confusion and Davina yells at me, “God damn it, Chance, can’t you wait the extra three seconds to get back to your bedroom before you throw your clothes on the ground?”

I poke my head out of my door, glasses still on, and reply, “No can do.” My roommate got back with a guest. Someone I don’t recognize. Thank goodness. “And who is this, Davina?”

“None of your damned business, Chance.”

The woman chimes in. “Is he naked?”

Davina shakes her head. “That’s my roommate, Chance. And no, he’s just in his underwear. You can mostly ignore him.” Then, to me, she adds, “Did you actually make food, or are you too cop-y today?”

“Time crunch,” I say, then confusion hits me. Davina doesn’t eat with her dates, they just go straight to her room. “Wait a second,” I say with a shit-eating grin creeping across my face, “Did you make a friend at work? Aw, so good of you.”

As a response, my pants hit my face at high speed. “Go back to hell where you belong.”

Back to hell where I belong. Why does that feel significant? Probably some part of the puzzle I still can’t see. Without taking the pants off of my head, I give a slight nod. “Well, it was lovely meeting you, person I’m not supposed to know.” Then, to Davina, I add, “And make enough for me, too please.”

Heading back into my room, I frown. It’s been a while since Davina had a friend friend. Good for her. I’ll try my best not to screw it up too badly. As I am sitting there, musing on my roommate’s life, a call comes in. Not on my phone, not on my burner, but on my official cell. A phone that only three people ever call. Payroll, my HR person, and the Union Rep. It’s none of those. I pick it up, curiously, and wait silently.

“Hello, is this a Detective Bonheur?” a voice I don’t recognize on the other end asks.

“Might I ask why you are calling?” I reply without answering.

There is a pause, clearly them trying to determine whether or not that counts as a yes. Then the voice continues, “This is Santa Domingo State Hospital, one Sergeant McMichaels has you as the third person we had to call about her shooting and surgery.”

My face goes cold. “Give me an address, I’ll be there in no time. Keep her alive at least that long, got it?”

They give me an address up north, and I’m on the move. I pick up my clothes as I rush in my underwear out the door. Over my shoulder, I add, “Never mind about the food,” to Davina, who nods. I get to the stairwell and am pulling on my uniform shirt as I rush down them, still in my underwear. Given how cold it is outside, I do stop for a second to pull on my pants before leaving the building. I rush to the parking garage and run up it, ignoring the elevator because it saves seconds to just run the ramps up to the twelfth floor if there is anyone else using the elevator at all. In no time, I’m on the BlackBullette and am speeding through the skies. I don’t worry about speed limits or safety. Three conversations before me. That means, if they were all as fast and direct as mine, a minute. More likely, five or ten. Can’t afford to waste time.

I don’t stop to park, taking the bullet to the roof and through the rooftop doors. Riding my bike hovering through the halls at far too fast a speed, I head down to the emergency area. Only then do I stop and get off the bike, though it’s still hovering beside me, to ask the nurses about McMichaels’s location. She notes that she was moved to the ICU. I walk the Bullette over to the isolated elevator to the ICU floor and head up. They give me some looks, but seeing the uniform generally gets people to clam up and not question things like a man dragging a hoverbike along with him. As I get to her room, I see I won’t be alone. Sitting beside her in a chair is the lookalike. Her daughter, Vic, if I remember correctly. The one I’m not supposed to be an ass around, if I remember correctly. As I walk in, the pair of McMichaels turn to face me. Vic looks confused. The Sergeant tries her best to sigh before saying in a pained, raspy voice, “How many times do I have to tell you to park that outside of buildings.”

I force a smile. “I’m sure one more will do it. What happened?”

She looks up at her daughter, who insists, “I’m a cop, too, you don’t need to coddle me.”

The Sergeant turns back to me and says simply, “WBC is back and moving in force.” She’s clearly speaking in terms that I will but her daughter won’t understand. Shit, I think. I sent those devils back to hell, and here they come crawling back.