Chapter One
Detective Yang Xiao Long pulled up to the once sleepy little apartment building in her police cruiser and parked not far from the taped off entryway, amidst the other police vehicles on the front lawn. She locked the doors behind her and made her way to the officer at the front.
"Detective Xiao Long," she declared as she flashed her badge at the officer.
"Give me a minute so I can pencil you in, please."
"No hurry. It's not like the dead get any deader."
Yang waited a moment as the officer put her name down and lifted the yellow police tape for her. She ducked her head under and continued into the hallway. Analysts were dusting the staircase handrails and there was a bustling of personal down the hallway. Yang followed the flashing of the cameras while keeping a sharp eye out for anything that seemed out of place. She spotted one of her lieutenants just outside the back room.
"Trying to show up a higher ranking officer?"
Her lieutenant- Lie Ren- turned to face her in surprise.
"I happened to be in the area when they radioed in."
"I'm just teasing you!" Yang's grim fell. "How's it look in there?"
"Pretty bad. The family is distraught."
"And the victim?"
"Don't know yet. We'll have to wait for the autopsy to find out the cause of death. Apparently, he was living in the back apartment alone. Didn't go out much. Didn't have people over often. He just went to work and came back and no one get saw him any other time."
"Where did he work?"
"He worked at PC World as a technician. You know, that seedy store off of 8th avenue?"
"Yeah, my sister wanted to stop there once. Is there any family is here?"
"The mother and sister lived not too far from here. They were the ones that found him. They're back there now."
Yang followed the lieutenant's line of sight and saw two obviously distressed women in a side room. Yang shook her head with a sigh. She glanced over at the victim's body and pulled out her case notebook. Ren nodded once before turning to ask the medical examiners some questions.
Yang took a few notes on the position of the body, his bowl of soggy cereal, a shattered mug of coffee, and the fact that the man's body looked almost entirely untouched. There was no blood, no visible stab wounds, and no weapons nearby. The guy just seemed to drop dead.
Yang crouched down to closer inspect the victims face when someone blocked the light and cast a shadow over the body. Yang sighed and twisted her body to face the person behind her. A sharply dressed woman with long black hair stared down at Yang blankly with a pen poised over a pad of paper. Yang raised an eyebrow.
"Can I help you?"
"Are you the lead detective?"
"I'm asking the questions here," Yang said as she stood up. "Who are you and why are you on my crime scene?"
"Blake Belladonna. Private Detective. I got a call to work this case."
Yang glared at Ren who shrugged her an apologetic look.
"It was Goodwitch."
Yang sighed and turned back towards the private eye.
"Detective Yang Xiao Long. As long as we can agree to work together, things'll work out smoothly."
The private detective nodded sharply before sidestepping Yang to get to the body. Yang took the hint and walked over to the two women to ask them some questions. She flipped to the next page in her notebook and scribbled the date and case number at the top.
"Excuse me, I know you've been through a lot today, but could you answer some questions for me?"
The older woman looked up at Yang over her tissue with blood shot eyes. The daughter laid a hand on her mother's shoulder to steady her. The older woman closed her eyes and cleared her throat.
"Tukson didn't deserve this. He lived a simple life. Every week, he would invite my daughter and I over for dinner. He always loved fiddling with electronics. Wires and cables would be strewn all over his floor when he was a child." Mrs. Kovach pulled another tissue from the box closest to her and blew her nose loudly. "Today was- today was his birthday. Kana and I decided to surprise him with a visit. But when I opened the door, we-"
The woman began to cry again and her daughter rubbed her mother's back soothingly. Yang watched them in silence for a moment before turning to the daughter to resume her questioning.
"Kana right?"
The young woman glanced at Yang for a moment before handing her mother the box of tissues and pushing the trash can closer to her.
"Yeah, that's me."
"Can you tell me anything specific about what you may have seen or heard when you walked into the building?"
"Well, the door was locked and I didn't see anyone in the entryway or outside by the street."
"Was your brother acting strangely in the days or weeks before his death?"
"You know what? He was. He's been extra jumpy these few last weeks. I guess it started about a week before that senator was found with kiddie porn on his computer."
Yang raised her eyebrows in interest as she scrawled the information down. Mrs. Kovach loudly blew her nose again.
"Did he tell you anything strange in that time?"
"Hm… not really. Other than being fidgety, he didn't seem off."
"I'm sorry but I have to ask this: did Tukson have any enemies? Anyone that might try to harm him, threaten him, or anything like that?"
"No!" Mrs. Kovach gripped the tissue box in her hand tightly. "Tukson was my sweet innocent child! He must have died of a heart attack!"
"Mother please calm down! This officer is only asking general questions she's required to ask!"
Yang took a step back from the two women, closed her notebook, and slid it back into her coat pocket. Someone cleared their throat behind her. Yang looked over her shoulder and saw Ren motioning to get into the room. She slid out of the way and let her lieutenant attempt to calm the Kovachs down.
Yang stood off to the side of the room as the medical examiners began carrying Tukson's body out to the truck in the front. The evidence retrieval team had already cleaned up their things and documented all their findings and whatever else they did with those huge black cases. Yang wasn't really interested in their methods of spreading black powder everywhere. She waited for the door to close behind the examiners before making one last sweep of the apartment. She noticed the private detective out of the corner of her eye shadowing her and jotting down something in her notepad every so often. Yang shrugged it off and finished her sweep.
Once Yang was done, she caught Ren's attention to wave goodbye and headed towards the entryway where reporters were still hanging around outside. None of them bothered her as she walked to her cruiser (she had threatened to charge reporters with obstruction of justice many times before) but they still took countless pictures. She clicked the doors unlocked and slid into the front seat, closing the door behind her.
"Now off to the station to write up that report," she mumbled to herself.
"You may use my notes if you'd like."
Yang whirled her head around to face her unexpected passenger.
"What the hell are you doing in my car?"
Blake shrugged and pulled a folded paper from her front coat pocket and handed it to Yang. Yang immediately recognized the neat, curly handwriting as Goodwitch's. She sighed as she unfolded it and skimmed the contents.
"I love how she doesn't ask if I wanted to be your chauffeur. This won't be a problem for the majority of the time but I'd have still liked to be asked or something. Whatever, I'll guess we'll just head over to the precinct now."
Yang turned the key and started the engine; she put the car into gear and pulled out of the apartment parking lot. After a few minutes of silence, she glanced over at her new -temporary- partner and grinned.
"I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other."