Poison City

According to the deck of personnel information provided to Marcus by the S&S Corp, out of the six members of the emergency reparations team sent by the company, five of them were born and raised in the South-Western District, and only one of them had a South-Eastern District address, which was not that uncommon for employees of a department located near the border area between two districts. But it would be quite some trouble for any law enforcement officer to actually go and interview the relatives, friends and neighbors of this particular victim. And additionally, the team was supposed to be one of seven employees, just that one additional member, who had an South-Western District address on file.

So, with this information at hand, Marcus made a quick decision: he asked other officers to go on death notification and interview duty and try to interview those associated with the five victims who lived in the South-Western District, and he would go to interview the one who lived in the South-Eastern District. This was because although he was no longer living there, he still had many connections in the area, and he was quite familiar with how people in the district were generally like.

After a short bus ride and walking through some winding and narrow alleyways, Marcus finally reached the address and knocked on the door gently. Like many single-storey residential places in the area, there were two doors to this home, the other one was made of welded-together metal bars with room one could see through, and the inner one was made of wood with the tarnished copper room number on it. The roof was covered with old and moldy clay tiles, with a few metal antennas pointing in different directions, one of which had a talisman made of thin bronze hanging on it.

“Can I help you?” A 30-something woman with a tired look on her face and uncombed hair opened the inner door just enough to show her face: “I don’t want to buy anything. And I have no money to donate.”

“Are you the family of Mr. Doug Evans?” Marcus pulled out his badge and spoke with a softer tone: “My name is Marcus Cai, a detective of the PCPD, may I come in?”

“You’re police? What happened?” The woman’s eyes widened and responded with a shaking voice: “We always abide by the law, we stay out of trouble, what happened?”

“It’s about Mr. Doug Evans. Are you his wife?” Marcus left his badge out for a few seconds so that the woman could look more closely.

“What happened to Doug? Did he get drunk on the job again?” The woman shook her head and asked.

“No, it’s not that.” Macus sighed: “May I come in? Please, this is really important.”

The woman hesitated for a short while, then nodded and opened the door. Before he entered, Marcus noticed that his presence had already attracted the attention of some of the neighbors and locals.

This was but a simple place to live for a simple employee of one of the biggest, wealthiest and most powerful corporations operating in Poison City. “Probably good that they didn’t have a child.” Marcus thought to himself as he looked around the room and found no signs of children or elderly.

“Can you - can you tell me now?” The woman took a deep breath, looked Marcus directly in the eyes and asked: “What - what happened?”

“You might wanna sit down.” Marcus pulled a chair at the corner of the living room to the woman’s side.

Being the death notifier officer was never fun - even as a pretty seasoned detective himself. Mrs. Emma Evans responded just like so many who were struck with the news of their husband’s passing before - almost collapsing at the news. There were many differences between the people of the South-Eastern and South-Western Districts, but their immediate reactions could all be grouped into the same set - in this case, she was stunned for a short moment, before becoming absolutely inconsolable and deep in sorrow and despair. 

Marcus left his contact information and the instructions on how to get to the precinct to identify and claim the body before he left. Though he had asked if Mrs. Emma Evans would like him to escort her to the precinct, she did not respond and just laid on the couch, sobbing with her head buried in a pillow and asking to be alone.

Right after properly closing the doors, Marcus notified the precinct and told them to send officers to check back the next day. If circumstances permit, he would have a social worker follow up with her and take care of her - but sadly in the South-Eastern District there were not many of them. To find someone to help take care of her, he would need to contact some local community leaders, who happened to not like cops very much. Even he could barely get any more than a cold and distant greeting should he go for a visit and ask for assistance.

Lucky for Marcus, maybe the woman’s letting Marcus into her house had sent a signal that he was not one of those cops that were unfriendly to the local community or their lifestyles, the neighbors were more willing to share with him what they knew about Doug Evans, the quiet, kept to himself engineer who occasionally fought with his wife, liked to drink and tipped generously when eating out. But none of these neighbors could tell him anything useful - his other objective here was to know about who would want to hurt him, and who would possess such a grudge as to murder him in such a brutal fashion. It seemed like he might have to rely on other officers who went to the South-Western District for possible leads on the murderer, or the murderers.

After spending almost a whole day interviewing the neighbors, before he could hop on a taxi and go back, a woman rushed towards Marcus and dropped down on her knees before him without a hint of hesitation. She was wearing a cheap looking gray blouse with flower patterns, which was covered with dirt and had ragged sleeves, and her face covered with marks left by tears and snot.

“Please, officer - you’ve - you’ve gotta help me.” This woman cried, barely able to utter a whole sentence: “I can’t find my baby! I can’t find my boy! I was just in the market, and - and I was just looking at some groceries and my baby’s gone! Please help me! He’s only 7 years old… my son…”

“Calm down, calm down, what happened?” Marcus knelt down and tried to lift the woman up, but she tried to shake his hands off and remain on the ground, seemingly waiting for him to make a promise to her.

“I was - I was just in the market! I was just in the market! I took my eyes off him for one second, and he was gone!” The woman cried with her fingers clenching the bottoms of Marcus’ trousers: “I can’t find him anywhere! Please, you’ve gotta help me! I don’t know what to do now! No one’s helping me! No one helped me at all!”

“When did he go missing?” Marcus took out his notepad: “What’s he wearing? Anything we can identify him with?”

“It’s just earlier! It’s just earlier!” The woman even tried to kowtow to Marcus in an attempt to beg for his assistance: “Just earlier! He was with me just a short while ago! He - he was wearing a red hoodie, and - and - and he has a scar on his left face! Yes! A scar on his left face! And he has a shorter pinky - he broke it while he was very very young, and - ”

“It’s actually been almost two days.” A man’s annoyed voice came from the side: “And no one’s seen his boy.”