Poison City

 

“Suicide?” Marcus frowned: “This was - too easy, don’t you think?”

 

“It is not your place to judge the findings of the community collective.” The younger detective said: “We’re here for your information - ”

 

“What we mean is - ” Pai Nguyen cut his younger colleague off: “We’re still looking into it, that’s why we would like to hear from you. There’s certainly something not right going on. We haven’t ruled out the possibility of foul play. But I’d be lying if I told you there’s any credible lead or evidence supporting this theory.”

 

“Okay.” Marcus sighed. Such was the common affair of the entire city most of the time, unfortunately.

 

“We’re also here to learn about what happened at the docks.” Pai Nguyen put the picture back into his pocket and asked with a smile: “We issued a query into your official report. But it was - please forgive me when I say this, not very detailed.”

 

“That’s because I didn’t really know much about the gangs that ambushed us at the docks. Still don’t.” Marcus scratched his nose and said: “And the community collective was already aware of our narcotics investigation involving Mr. Bai Gu.”

 

“Yeah, and thank you very much for the detailed intelligence report, we really appreciate that.” Pai Nguyen smiled: “One can see why Mr. Bulu Wang trusts you that much, even for someone who has lived for an extended period of time in our district. How’s your father, by the way?”

 

“He’s getting better now, thanks for the concern.” Marcus nodded: “But - what else do you wanna know? I already wrote everything I can recall in the report. So unless there’s other things I missed.”

 

“This is why we came here in person instead of putting down an official query.” Pai Nguyen stared at Marcus with a curious and inquiring look: “When our team cleaned up the bodies at the docks, we found the bodies of one very famous, or infamous member of a local gang. It was one of the Jiao brothers, have you heard of them, detective?”

 

“I believe I have, but I am not super familiar with them.” Marcus shook his head.

 

“They are infamous because they are, get this - ” Pai Nguyen smiled and nodded: “They are martial, they practice a mystic martial art nicknamed the Serpent Style, it’s ferocious, cunning, even to the point of vicious. Not many have survived encounters with them. Not to mention, you know, injuring the man to the point of incapacitated.”

 

“I don’t know what you meant.” Marcus narrowed his eyes for a quick moment, then shrugged: “You know, as police officers we receive regular combat training, so - ”

 

“Combat training, huh?” Pai Nguyen looked around the room, his smile grew wilder: “I gotta say, detective, of all the unregistered martial persons, I’d figure someone that could take care of the Jiao brothers would best be someone that’s friendly, or at least not hostile to our district. But all things considered, I would be lying if I were to say that I am not worried, if such a person is under the employment of the city. Because, as you and I both know - the humble and down to earth people from our district fought long and hard, with blood and tears to be where we are today. And I can’t allow anyone from the city to jeopardize that. Should I be worried?”

 

“... no.” Marcus thought for a while, then answered after a long sigh: “You wouldn’t need to worry about that.”

 

“Great.” Pai Nguyen nodded: “And you know, the community collective is always a welcoming place. Unlike the city, run by the greed driven, ruthless barons and those always smiling but forever hateful technology socialites. We are a place of love, shared struggle and faith. So, should the city fail you, the community collective would happily catch those down on their luck, just like we’ve always been.”

 

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

The moment Marcus walked out of the room with the two investigators, he was hit with a strange sour, slightly rotten smell. Though it was a big building with not so bad ventilation, the smell was still quite disturbing, especially to Marcus.

 

“Who puked?” The younger investigator, Tak Le, asked with a heavy frown.

 

“I’m sorry, that was me.” Mick emerged behind them holding a mop and a bucket, obviously embarrassed: “My apologies - I’ll clean everything up right away.”

 

“No matter, we’ll be on our way.” Pai Nguyen took a look at Mick, then nodded and smiled with only his mouth but not his eyes: “We’ll be in touch, detective. Thank you for being a friend to our people.”

 

“Just doing my job. Thank you gentlemen.” Marcus’ eyes followed Mick as he ran over to his desk and cleaned up the floor with a mop and some paper towels. There was an open folder on his desk, one that Kevin Loo liked to use.

 

“Ha, detective, that phrase meant very different things coming from different people.” Pai Nguyen waved his hand at Tak Le, signaling him to leave the precinct: “Have a good night.”

 

“Thank you, we’ll be in touch.” Tak Le nodded at Marcus before he left with Pai Nguyen.

 

“What happened there?” Marcus walked over to Mick. Then he noticed a picture sitting on the opened folder. It was one of a body - a terribly mangled one, covered in red, brown and black marks and tar, stuffed inside of a tight space among some pipes and machine parts and under a hood.

 

“Kevin, uh, Mr. Loo.” Mick wretched one more time before continuing with his cleaning: “I asked him for some more files so that I can help you - and he gave me this. He said it was related to a very strange case, so - ”

 

“Let me guess, Carl Benson?” Marcus picked that picture up and examined it closely. This was the body of someone with short hair, and a pair of blue-green eyes, one could barely see that it was a male body due to it being almost crushed into a small cube with one of his hands protruding upward with almost all of its fingers broken. “He’s right, this dude’s really into his car.” Marcus shook his head: “And you - you vomited because of this?”

 

“... yes.” Mick appeared to be more embarrassed and slightly ashamed, “Sorry…”

 

“... it’s okay.” Marcus thought for a short while, then said: “I didn’t handle it as well the first time I saw something like this either.”

 

“Is this - is it a typical case here?”

 

“No, thankfully. This one’s quite the gruesome one, even by South-Eastern District standards.” Marcus put the picture aside and picked up the entire folder to look at the files, which mentioned some details about several bars Carl Benson went to before this happened. And there was an additional note: “this information was not released to the public yet”.

 

Checking on other pages of files in the folder, Marcus found more pictures of this poor rich kid, and the further ruined luxury sports car. It was indeed the engine room, right under its rear hood. His body was somehow stuffed into a small gap among the engine parts, obviously with many parts of the body completely broken or crushed.

 

According to the preliminary forensic report, judging from the conditions of his skin, it was theorized that his body went through horrendous physical trauma and heat, so much so that all the flesh became thoroughly cooked and there was almost no bodily fluids leaked out. It was only because of the smell did the examiners of evidence realize that there was a body packed into the engine room. A sign of negligence from the evidence handling department, one could argue, but sadly, according to Marcus’ experience, it was not that uncommon, even for semi high profile cases.

 

Also, the identity of the dead young woman was found: Lydia Mu, waitress and drink promoter of a nightclub named Emerald Starlight.

 

“Okay. Good to hear.” Mick sighed and continued with his clean up.

 

“Kevin you tricky dude.” Marcus thought to himself and shook his head and took a peek at Mick, if this information made it out somehow, then he would need to re-evaluate how much he could trust this young detective-to-be. “Mick, just go home when you’re done. We need to go for some field interviews tomorrow.”