January 6, 1:02 AM

Prosecutor's Office

Floor 15, Room 17

He didn't know what was going through his head at the time. When asked about it, he would probably say that it had something to do with the atmosphere of the room…

Detective Dick Gumshoe was seated in a chair patiently awaiting the arrival of 0one Franziska von Karma. He had pulled it up to one side of the prosecutor's desk and was leaning back on it, with his feet on the desk, slightly crossed. He wore his usual attire: dark green trench coat, light brown shirt which probably used to be white at one point, light brown tie and black pants. To complete the ensemble, he wore a dark blue fedora on his head, a piece of clothing usually not seen on the man. The hat was tipped forward on his head ever so slightly, obscuring his eyes. In his left hand he had a tall glass of milk that he would occasionally sip from time to time. He was as calm as calm could be, which was strange, considering the circumstances he currently found himself in.

Earlier that day, Franziska had taken on a new case, the murder of twenty-one year old Thomas Briersteen. All she knew about it was that the man was stabbed in the stomach, shot in the left eye, and that he died from excessive blood loss. This had happened in a dark alley in the depths of the city limits. As per usual, she had assigned Gumshoe to the task of finding any information about the killing and to track down any leads: murder weapon(s), fingerprints, key witnesses or anything like that. He was to find out any and all of this and to submit it as a report to the whip-happy prodigy by five o'clock sharp.

Unfortunately, this time poor, luckless Gumshoe wasn't able to find out anything at all. He could find no murder weapons on the scene, could not find any fingerprints in the alley or the surrounding area and there was no on the scene that could be flagged down as a potential witness. It was the first time in a long time that he could say he really messed up badly. Oh sure, there had been many times before where he had screwed things up for himself one way or another, but never like this. By four-thirty that afternoon, he was at a complete loss. He didn't know what to do. And any searching after his deadline yielded the exact same results: nothing.

It was around half past midnight when he had finally worked up the courage to go to the Prosecutor's Office and face his superior, armed with nothing but a messily scrawled letter of apology. He knew what was waiting for him, but he couldn't avoid it. That would only make the prosecutor even angrier, and that certainly wouldn't do him any favours. It was rather cold that night, so he had decided to wear an old fedora that he had kept lying around in his apartment. If anything, it would boost his tough-guy image, protecting him from any lowlife that would try to go for his wallet. Not, of course, that his image actually needed boosting. He looked tough enough without the hat. That, and he was a detective, which meant he had connections with the local police force.

Eventually, he reached the Prosecutor's Office and made his way to Franziska's office. However, once he got there, he could see that the lights were off. He knocked on the door three times. No answer. He tried the door handle, finding it unlocked. Feeling curious, he opened the door and stuck his head in.

"…Hello?" he whispered. No answer. Nervously, he crept into the office and shut the door behind him. He felt like he was willingly entering a lion's den. "Hello? Ms. Von Karma? Are you here, pa…uh, I mean, sir?"

Still no answer. The office was as silent as a library at closing time. The detective checked around the room: looking around and under furniture, out the single window and behind shelves. He stood in the middle of the room after his little search ended and sighed. Franziska von Karma was not in her office, a fact that was actually pretty obvious once he thought about it. The lights were off, after all. But, if she wasn't here, then why was the door unlocked? He looked at the door, feeling puzzled.

Suddenly, at that moment, he was hit by a feeling he couldn't describe. He looked around the room, taking in everything about his present location: the fact that it was dark and that everything seemed to have an aura of mystery surrounding it, the fact that the light from the hallway was present, making a dim square of fluorescent light on the floor, the fact that it was almost one o-clock in the morning, the fact that there was a thin layer of light emanating from the window thanks to the almost full moon outside, and the fact that he was alone, and in someone's office. He also realized he was still wearing his fedora and hadn't bothered to take it off when he came inside.

All of this led to him getting into a certain mood which he could not, for the life of him, even begin to explain how it got there.

This is what led him to the position he found himself in currently: leaning on his chair with his feet propped up on the prosecutor's desk. He had found a glass used for drinking in a cabinet nearest to the window and found a milk carton in the small fridge hidden behind the desk, an item he never expected to see Franziska's office, of all places. According to the young German teenager, she had it installed in her room quite recently. It had to do with something that happened on New Year's Day. …Whatever. Gumshoe couldn't care less why it was there. All he knew was that it sure was convenient and that it helped with the scenario he had playing around in his head.

He sat there, fedora slightly tilted on his head, eyes faced forward, focussed on nothing, taking a sip from his glass from time to time. When he was finished, he would lazily pour himself another one. He had an unreadable expression on his face. He seemed like he was either bored, tired, angry, calm or…cool? Could that trait even be used to describe Gumshoe, of all people?

The detective stared ahead, lost in his thoughts, lost in the mood he was currently feeling.

It was the end of a long day, and all I wanted to do was sit back, have a drink, and think about love's fury. He took another sip of his milk glass.

All of a sudden, the door opened and a woman stood in the doorway. She leaned on the entranceway, her right hand grabbing the doorframe, her left hand on her hips. Her hips, themselves, were bent slightly to the left. The light from the hallway shined on her back, obscuring the front of her body and face from view. This, obviously, was because the lights in her office were still turned off. All of this gave her a somewhat sexy appearance. Her presence seemed to compliment the mood the detective was feeling.

Gumshoe made no head movements, but slightly tilted his eyes in the woman's direction. To him, it was obvious. The woman was Franziska von Karma. Surprisingly, his expression did not change. He just looked ahead once more, setting his glass on the desk, undaunted by her presence.

I knew the dame was trouble the minute the minute she walked in the door…

Franziska made a couple of head movements, then:

"There you are, Detective! I gave explicit instructions for you to turn in your report of your findings on the murder of Thomas Briersteen at five o'clock sharp! That I should see you here eight hours late without even a pencil in your possession means that you are a fool of monumental proportions, you fool. I hope you're ready for the consequences that come from defying me!" She sounded quite peeved. At that moment, the prosecutor's head cocked to the side, as if just realizing what the detective was doing. "Wait a moment…what exactly are you doing, anyway?" She sounded puzzled.

Gumshoe still did not react to her musings. He still faced forward silently, staying calm and cool, trying to keep his emotions in check. He seemed to have heard her however, as the next thought on his mind was:

My gut told me things were about to go from bad to worse.

Then, before he could react, he felt an excruciating pain run down the side of his head. The shock made him fall out of his chair and onto the floor. His fedora also flew off his head as he fell. Franziska had her whip in her hands and obviously just whipped him. She was breathing heavily, greatly angered by the detective's behaviour and ignorance to her presence. Then, before he could do anything else, Franziska ran over to where he lay and, in a fit of strength not usually seen in the woman, grabbed the detective by the scruff of the neck, pulled him to his feet and shoved him out of her office, where he fell to the ground in the middle of the hallway a good distance away from the door. Franziska walked out the doorway after him, and in the next moment, sounds of whip hitting leather and painful shouts were being heard throughout the quiet floor.

I hate it when I'm right…

He didn't know what was going through his head at the time. When asked about it, he would probably say that it had something to do with the atmosphere of the room… Perhaps it had something to do with his past, and how cool it had always felt to him as a kid, watching all of those detective shows on TV. Perhaps he felt he just wasn't cool enough as a detective and wanted to try something new. Perhaps it was his way of getting his mind off of the situation he had found himself in at the time. Or perhaps he had been reading just a little too many detective novels for his own good. One thing was for certain: if he had thought it over more carefully then, maybe he wouldn't be in such unbearable pain, now. It's funny what his mind made him do, sometimes. Ah, well.