Fate T. Harlaown and the Case of the Murderous Murder

A Tale of Intrigue, Treachery, and DOOM

Part the Second

(*)

Fate sighed and waved her hand, closing the holographic screen of the data terminal. "So, now that Teana is done hitting her head on things..."

"For the moment," Tia muttered.

"... we need to consider how best to pursue the case from here," Fate finished, choosing to ignore her partner's attempts to be unhelpful. "First, we do need to complete our interrogation of the family and staff. Second, we need someone to look into the possibility of the Treachario connection..."

"Can we please call it something else?" Teana begged.

"Oh, oh! Like, 'The Treachery Mandate'!" Susanoo suggested. "Or, 'the Doom Imperative'!"

"... Doom Imperative?" Fate asked, more out of morbid fascination than anything else.

"It just sounded good to me."

"... Sure. Well, in any event, it's a possible source of motive, however unlikely, and we really do need to look into it. And we need to conduct our crime scene analysis and compare it to the local authorities, and we need to finish the interviews of the suspects in the manor during the crime," Fate finished. "I recommend we divide things up."

"Oh! Oh oh oh!" Susa said, raising his hand, apparently still under the impression that investigating a murder and going to school were the same thing. "I can do that last thing. I'm a people person. And? We should probably also tell the local police about what we found about Dr. Von Murder."

"... You mean that he's got one of the more airtight alibis of anyone in the house?" Teana asked.

"Eh? No, that they should just go ahead they preemptively arrest him. He's probably guilty of something," Susa said. "Didn't you hear his name? Maybe he's too old now, but I bet if we go like, dig up his backyard? BOOM! Skeleton city."

"... Right then! Teana, please examine the scene of the murder," Fate said with a tad too much enthusiasm. "I will handle the witness interviews. Susanoo, please dig through city records for any hints he might actually be related to the late Mr. Treachario. All the needed records should be freely available from this terminal, let me know if for some reason you can't access the needed databases."

Susanoo pouted. "How come I have to do the research? That sounds tedious."

"Because as the most junior officer, I'm afraid you get stuck with the simplest and often most boring duty," Fate said cheerfully. "This is a long-standing tradition of the investigation/enforcement corps., and I see no reason to change it now."

"... … I liked you better when you were a kid and afraid to talk to me," Susanoo muttered.

Leaving Susanoo in front of a computer where he probably couldn't hurt himself or others, Teana and Fate headed through back through the governor's mansion. As they prepared to split up, Fate to the hall they were using for interviews, and Teana to the scene of the crime, they stopped to talk one last time.

"Fate," Teana said softly, "Do you think this will stop it?"

"Eh? What do you..."

"Do you think that leaving him behind to crunch data will stop it?" Teana asked. "Stop the names."

"... Huh?"

"We've both been doing this for years, Fate. You and I both know that isn't how murder works. There aren't conveniently located mad scientists named 'von Murder' on the estate, or long-lost sons of old rivals named 'Treachario'. The local towns are not overrun with KillBots... and I don't know what the local language is, but I know what KillBot means when I hear it, dammit all. It's him, don't you see? He's making it like this," Teana said. "Through sheer force of stupid, he's making the case go the way he thinks it should be. Reality is warping, and slowly but surely conforming to his twisted, kindergarten-level view of how crime actually works. It's only a matter of time before we start seeing femme fatales trying to seduce us, and strange figures in black masks carrying bloody knives skittering around the edge of our vision when we turn around. And that is not the job I signed up for, Fate. If I wanted to live in a bad movie, I would have become an actress."

Fate sighed, and laid a hand on her partner and apprentice's shoulder. "Look. I know that maybe the circumstances are not quite what we're used to. Things have gone a bit wonky so far. But someone did still die. And no matter how confused or annoyed we might get, it's still our duty to figure out who killed him, no matter what. So just keep peeling away the layers. There has to be a normal murder somewhere under there."

Teana took a deep breath. "I... I can try. But... but Fate?"

"Yes?"

"What if it really was Dr. von Murder?"

Fate considered this.

"I'll pay for the post-mission alcohol we need to forget it."

Tia entered the governor's office, and slipped on a pair of thin rubber gloves with expert ease. "Okay, Cross Mirage. Began a standard sensor sweep, look for any signs of forced entry, particularly signs the physical locks on the windows were picked or the electronic locks hacked, any sign the alarm system was disabled during the night of the murder. Run an environment scan for any trace of toxin residue or weapons fire, anything the naked eye might have missed. Also, tap into the door control and determine who has opened it, and when, between now and... let's say two hours before the estimated time of death. Log all findings for me to look over after I conduct the physical sweep," she said, taking comfort from the clinical tone of the command, one she had given many times in the past.

"Yes, ma'am." her device said obediently, the built-in sensory equipment humming slightly as it began to work.

She had read the case file, of course, and she knew the local authorities had run all these test and more. In her mind, it was a poor investigator who relied on the eyes of others without ever looking with her own. And so, while the scan was running, she ran her own analysis the old fashioned way.

Unfortunately, it was largely useless. Looking at the windows, she found each one locked from the inside, with no obvious way to pick them from outside the office and obviously no sign any had been broken. Stepping outside onto a Floating Step showed no scratches on the outer wall to indicate a ladder had been used or a window had been forced. The door had likewise clearly not been forced by physical means; she would need to wait for Cross Mirage's scan to complete before she could be certain it wasn't hacked, but locals hadn't found any evidence of such.

Going to the actual scene of the murder, she likewise found no indication that the governor's body had been moved. The carpeting was of course going to be upset by inspectors moving through the room, but more tellingly she found almost no blood in the room, and all of it in a small, dried pool on the governor's desk, cordoned off with a warning beacon to prevent tampering, just as the report had suggested.

All told, after spending the better part of an hour hunting through the place while her device studied every molecule of the room, all she found that didn't match the report they had gotten prior to arriving was a single local nut (salted), matching the kind found in the snack bowl on the victim's desk, lodged underneath a cupboard near the door. This struck her as probably not linked to the killing, though she still made a note of it.

Tia was a thorough girl.

Still, she stood up, stretched her back out a bit, and took off her gloves, sealing them up in a plastic baggie for disposal. "All right, you've had plenty of time. Give me the results."

"Yes, ma'am," her device said. "Atmosphere scan suggests no anomalies. No signs of deployment of bacterial, viral, or toxic weapons. No signs of forced entry or computer intrusion to any home security systems. Household alarms report no malfunction."

Teana winced. "So it really is a locked-room mystery? I hate those. Okay... then at least give me the list of people who came in and out in the time frame I asked, if you can, if you can?"

"First entry in requested timeframe: 1800 hours, two days prior, household Security ID Card 0001, Governor Ronaldo Chryslus. 2350 hours, Governor Chryslus. Yesterday's Entries: 0150 hours, Governor Chryslus. 0802 hours, Household Security ID Card 0004, Evan Ferrio."

Teana blinked. "Wait, what? The governor's card was used to enter this room three times during the night of the murder... one of them just ten minutes before estimated time of death, and one of them almost two hours after he died?! Cross Mirage, could someone have made a copy of the governor's ID card, or fooled the system somehow?"

"Further analysis required. Theoretically possible."

Teana smiled. "Finally. A piece of real, solid evidence. Let's go check on Fate, Cross Mirage. Anything else?"

"One non-card entry made by automaton under control of household security, at 0000 hours."

Teana's joy vanished, her blood going cold. That was basically exactly at the most likely time of death. And she had a very, very bad feeling about which automaton it might have been, given her luck...

"Elaborate, please?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"Entry to room requested and granted by household security KillBot model Murderator 2000, special KillDeath edition with gold plating."

"... … … Son of a—"

"Oooooh, research is dumb and I hate it, and this is the 'I Hate Research' sooooooong!" Susanoo sang as he scrolled down the long, long, long list of Joseph Treachario's assorted scandals.

Women claiming to have had long-term affairs with the man numbered over a dozen, and they paled in comparison to the frankly ludicrous amounts of money that he had spent, both his own and 'borrowed' from campaign coffers, frequenting a variety of prostitutes in a stunning variety of settings. Ammy would think this guy was a lot of fun, he thought cheerfully of his demonic whorebag of a sister. He was the sort of person who could be bored and happy at the same time. It was all a matter of turning your boredom inside-out and staring at it until it went away.

At least, it made sense to him.

The fact remained, though, that the one thing that nobody had ever caught him at, despite all of the many, many, many affairs, was having an illegitimate child. Mrs. Treachario, or at this point the ex-Mrs. Treachario, was apparently completely barren (More likely she just wasn't seeing Mr. Treachario in her bed very often, which was more likely but much meaner to her, so Susa didn't say it out loud), and while a few of the young politician's liaison partners had come forth with claims that the former-governor had fathered a bastard child on them, DNA tests had proven each one a fraud.

"Come on, you jerk," he muttered, letting the smug smile of the man in all the campaign photos in the file drive him on to new heights of Justice Rage. "It just doesn't make a very good story if it's your evil nephew coming back for treacherous revenge. It has to be your kid. I don't care if it's a son, a daughter, or a son cleverly pretending to be a daughter by utilizing his naturally slender frame and girlish features, but you have to have a kid in here somewhere."

"You're an idiot," his device, Raijin, said helpfully.

"You know, I bet real investigators have devices that help them," he muttered. "But no, I have to sift all this data by myself because you suck at everything but hitting stuff."

"Jerk!"

"Bitch," he replied fondly, still looking through old photos and starting to wonder if he would have to throw something out a window to fight off this particular bout of boredom. All the mystery books he'd read told him that he really ought to have found a crucial piece of evidence by now, but all he was seeing was a lot of reports on a lot of childless women, and a lot of photos of ex-governor Treachario waving at crowds, back before everyone had found out he was a big whore and voted Chryslus into office over h-

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait," he said, his eyes lighting up. "Scroll back up a page. Something about that last rally photo, just before the scandals broke..."

At first glance, it was nothing special. Newsfeed still photo, taken by a reporter after one of the last campaign speeches Governor Manslut had ever gotten to make. It all looked pretty normal... Treachario, treacherous as ever, walking to his car with that seemingly eternal smug smirk on his face, police on either side of him as he waved to his adoring voters.

Well, most of his adoring voters. In the back, almost invisible past the crowds...

"Um, crime computer? Can you please zoom in on this image? In sector... ummm... the one I'm pointing at," he said, poking his finger at the piece he needed a closer image of on the holographic screen. "As much zoom as you can get without degrading the quality too much."

Crime computer, being a useful sort of computer, obliged, and Susanoo smiled in triumph. Just barely visible through the crowd, a young woman with long, dark hair could be seen, a desperate, hopeless expression on her face as she was dragged away by two uniformed officers.

And, while he couldn't see the child's face or body through the wall of people, he could make out a small hand clamped onto the woman's for dear life as the police dragged her away. Desperately clinging to mommy.

Susanoo was not (despite the claims of Fate and Teana) stupid, exactly. His mind was like a missile; very powerful, but once it locked on to a target, pretty much impossible to steer or stop without a big explosion (generally one applied directly to his forehead). Other people might have stopped to think that this one, low-quality photograph, did not actually prove anything. That this woman with this child might have been being removed from the premises for any number of reasons.

Susanoo, however, had already decided he was totally correct about his theory, and had further decided that anyone who thought he might be wrong was just jealous. As a result, when he should have been saying something like, 'Okay, time to look into this further' or at the most extreme, 'Okay, time to test the people in the house against the DNA of Mr. Treachario's from the medical records', what he actually said was, "Fantastic! Now, I'll need a crime kit, an appropriate hat, and a sidekick. Time to arrest the butler!"

Fate took a sip of water, and smiled softly. "Thank you for meeting with me at such short notice. I know this must be a very difficult time for your family..."

Irina Chryslus, the governor's widow, giggled, a musical sound that made her body jiggle in ways that a casual observer might have found distracting and which Fate found mildly creepy. "Well, it isn't that hard. It's not like dear Ronaldo was part of the family these days anyway. Al-ways work-king," she said in a sing-song tone.

The woman was, less than two days after the death of her husband, apparently dressed to seduce; the dress she chose was bright red, and a cut that Fate would have called brazen in a nightclub, much less for lounging around the house. She had the body to pull it off, despite being closer to fifty than forty, which Fate did not have a particular problem with. She also had the attitude to pull it off, despite being a person of interest in the assassination of a government figure, which Fate found very disturbing indeed.

"Mother! For God's sake, you could at least pretend to be sad that your husband was just murdered!" snapped a younger woman, probably in her early 20's, though considering how well her mother hid her years, Fate hesitated to guess at Scarlet Chryslus's age. The woman had inherited much from her mother; green eyes, honey-colored hair, and a body suited for a champion swimmer, but on her it didn't look near as off-putting, simply due to the fact that girl had clearly been crying heavily. She clung to the young, black-haired man in the expensive suit who sat next to her like he was the only thing in the world keeping her sane.

Irina chuckled. "He wasn't my husband. We had barely spoken to each other in the last year, much less anything more intimate. We'd both moved on, it was only for the sake of his career and my comforts that we didn't outright divorce," she stopped, fixing her gaze on Fate, and something in her smile reminded the Enforcer of a shark. "Which is not to say, in any way, that I hated the man enough to kill him. In point of fact, I had nothing against him particularly; we had just drifted apart and both knew it. I was free to pursue my own activities on his dime, so long as I kept it discreet and didn't endanger his public image, and we were both content with this."

Fate smiled, but she let a little ice into it. "I understand, and thank you very kindly for answering the most obvious questions."

Irina smiled. "Well, a charming young lady like yourself, I can't help but be... helpful. Anything you want to know, I'd be more than happy to illuminate you on. A-ny-thing."

Fate felt her skin crawling, but at the very least she was able to keep it from showing. This woman was loathsome. Pretty and horrible, like some kind of poisonous serpent. She had been an Enforcer for a long time, though, and she knew better than to show any obvious contempt for a suspect... at least until she had enough evidence to justify slapping on the cuffs and reading them their rights.

Scarlet sighed. "I'm really sorry, ma'am. My mother and father haven't...h-hadn't, I guess... been close for a long time before... before he..." she stopped, falling into sob.

The man beside her laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as she clung to him. "I'm sorry as well, Enforcer. My fiancee was very close to her father. This has been devastating to her."

"Ah. Then you are..."

"Darius Cole. I run an import/export business that transports good both on an intercontinental and interplanetary scale. Inherited it from my mother when she passed two years ago," the man said, his tone solid and strong. "Scarlet and I are engaged to be married this summer."

Fate nodded. "And what do you feel about the events that took place here last night, Mr. Cole?"

He sighed. "The old man and I were not close. He never made any secret of the fact that he didn't think I was good enough for his daughter, and I never made any secret of the fact that I thought that was a load of..." he stopped, glancing at the woman on his arm. "... well, we disagreed. I admit it even got to fighting at times. But he loved Scarlet, and I love Scarlet. We at least agreed on that much. I'd never do anything to hurt her."

Fate nodded. He seemed sincere, but of course they all seemed sincere when they had time to rehearse the lie. And depending on how long the murder had been planned in advance, someone might have had a lot of time to plan a lie.

Fate smiled, and stood. "Thank you all for your time. This was really just to touch base-" And give Teana time to analyze the crime scene and home computer networks, since I know home security marks all three of you as never leaving your rooms the night of the killing, but I can't fully trust home security until she tells me I can, "-and I may have more in-depth questions for you later. For now, though, I need to keep interviewing the others who were on the estate, until I have everyone's alibi. As you know, please don't try to leave the building."

Inara smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. Feel free to drop by any time you want, my door is always open... for you, at least."

Fate fought the urge to vomit and stepped out into the hall, to find Teana waiting for her. "Well. The family is charming, I see," her partner said, a small smile on her face.

"The daughter is sad, the fiance is consoling her, the wife is a demon in human skin but doesn't appear to have a motive. Of course, who knows if they're telling the truth," Fate muttered.

"Well, someone on the estate grounds is lying," Tia said. "The door into the office and a few other rooms with privacy locks require keycards for entry... and it looks like someone copied the governors. I sent Bardiche the records while you were in there."

Fate smiled genuinely for the first time in what seemed like a million, million years as her device projected the data from the file. "Fantastic! And if I'm reading this right, it looks like... yes, two suspiciously timed entries. One before the murder, one after... so he might have been looking for something? Going back to erase evidence, or maybe the governor was killed for a particular item or piece of data. Either way, this is the first real break in the case we've had. Great work."

Teana hesitated, duty and desire warring on her face, before she sighed, lowered her head, and muttered something that sounded like, "Aso a llbt inna rm a imerder."

"... What?"

"I said... I said..." Teana began, before wincing, and saying, "Ugh, I can't say it. Cross Mirage, tell her."

"Household security KillBot accessed office at approximate time of death, Enforcer Harlaown." the device said loyally.

Fate blinked. "Well. Um. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's possible that it was doing a basic security sweep."

"And didn't notice the corpse? Or stop the murder?" Teana challenged, her voice thick with despair. "Face it, Fate. He was right after all. It was called a KillBot and it was a killer and that isn't how the world is supposed to work but it did and..."

"Tia!" Fate said, gripping the young woman's shoulders. "Calm down. We still don't know anything solid, okay? You need to stop panicking over every improbable naming problem that pops up in this case. Every so often, you get a weird one, all right? And that's okay. This is not a conspiracy against you."

Teana took a few deep breaths, fighting to keep the tears from her eyes. "Okay. Okay. I'll be fine. I'm sure the K... the K-Ki..."

"KillBot?"

Teana winced. "Yes. That thing. I'm sure that was just a... a programming glitch, and nothing else will come of it. The keycard, that's our evidence. That is the key, decisive piece we need."

"Well... we can't totally discount either option..." Fate said delicately.

"... Fate, are you trying to make me sad again?" Teana asked. "Because you are. You really are."

"I'm just being an investigator. We have to consider the fact that there are two keycards, yes. And we also have to consider that the KillBot might have... well... killed someone. Not because it is named a KillBot, but because it is a large, powerful automaton that was at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder."

"The name means something different in the local language anyway."

"... Yes, that, though I'm starting to think we should maybe get like, a dictionary for that," Fate admitted. "But for now, we need to find and examine that robot, find and examine every keycard in the house and any evidence that suggests one was destroyed..."

Fate blinked, then, cut off by the sight of something she really, really hoped was not real passing across a doorway down the hall. She blinked a few times, hoping that this would make the sight go away, hoping against hope that she was just hallucinating, but no such luck. With a resigned sigh, she finished, "... And find out why Susa and what appears to be one of the household maids are wearing funny hats and carrying what looked a lot like a person in a sack towards the front door."

"... Wait, what?" Teana asked as Fate burst past her, sprinting down the hall as fast as her uniform (stupid skirt-heels combo!) would allow.

"Susa! Susa! I know I'm going to regret asking this, but why do you have a person in a sack?" Fate asked.

Susanoo turned to her, the deerstalker hat on his hand falling a little too low around his ears to look dignified. "Oh, it's the butler. He's guilty. He tried to resist arrest, so I took him by force with my loyal sidekick, here."

"Good afternoon, mistress," the maid said amiably. She was a cheerful looking young lady, with bright red hair, green eyes, and a dusting of freckles on her nose. Oh, and she was wearing a black bowler hat, presumably for the same reason Susanoo was wearing a hat: madness. "My name is Collette DuPree, the maid in charge of maintaining the upstairs chambers and assisting in the kitchen. I was just helping the good inspector here make a citizen's arrest."

"... Really."

"It was all very thrilling," Collette said cheerfully. "But I kept my cool, as a proper maid should, and helped Chief Detective Susanoo apprehend the suspect!"

"What?!" Teana snarled.

"She was pretty awesome," Susanoo said cheerfully, ignoring Teana as was his way. "I knew when I looked at all the maids, she was the perfect one to deputize. She seemed tough, as befits my elite law-enforcing assistant, codename: Justice Punch."

"I was all a-flutter!" Collette squealed. "I confess, I always did want to be a crime fighter. My favorite books as a child were the Lancia Drew novels. And sure enough, when Mr. Ferrio tried to escape, I was able to immobilize him with my maid training, utilizing my environment!"

"She hit him with a tray!" Susanoo said proudly.

"Oh, goodie. So you not only arrested one suspect with no evidence, but you had another suspect help you. And committed assault," Fate said, that familiar migraine making a comeback.

"I have evidence! A photo that implies Mr. Treachario did have an illegitimate child after all!" Susanoo countered.

"And you have confirmed that this child was male? And gotten DNA to confirm it was Mr. Ferrio?" Teana asked.

"... … Not as such. But he has black hair and wears suits!" Susanoo said, sounding slightly less confident.

"Susa," Fate said softly. "Let him out of the sack, and please let me try to talk him out of pressing charges for police brutality."

"... But I found this hat and..."

"Susa," Fate said, her tone never raising above that which a stern but caring mother might use. "Open. The. Sack."

Susanoo sighed sadly, and said, "Justice Punch, undo the bindings."

"But Chief Detective..." Collette began.

"I may have overstated my rank," Susanoo said, shame filling his tone. "I... I cut corners. Abandoned the path of the straight and narrow. Stepped outside the law."

"What?! Why would you do such a thing?" Collette demanded.

"It's hard, kid. It's hard to see the criminals walkin' free because some bastard attorney hit a loophole and got 'em off on a technicality, or because some schmuck too stupid to get out of jury duty couldn't spot the guilt in their eyes. Couldn't see 'em like I could," Susanoo growled. "I got tired. I got tired of bustin' perps only for 'em to be out on the street the next week, doing the same damn crimes I got 'em for the first time. So I bent the rules, I made sure the ones who belonged behind bars ended up there. Was it wrong? Maybe. But it felt right, finally getting to give these scum what they deserved. And you... all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, thinkin' you know these streets? You might look down on me now, but this job makes 'em old fast. Someday... someday you'll be just like me."

The silence was thick for several cold, cruel minutes as the darkness of the urban jungle filled the soul of a once-good cop... at least until Teana said, "This is your first case, you moron."

"... Oh. Right. Well, I guess we can let him out of the sack, then," Susanoo said, seemingly cheered by the revelation he wasn't hopelessly corrupted by long years on the force after all.

As the helpful maid helped pull Mr. Ferrio out of the sack by his shoes, Fate put on her best fake smile. "Mr. Ferrio, sir, I cannot apologize enough for this. Please understand that our cadet really did have something that was almost logic leading him to this, and..."

Mr. Ferrio's eyes were mad, full of fear and rage. With a feral snarl, he grabbed at a small, red-stoned ring on his left hand and yanked it off, screaming, "I don't know how you found me out, but you'll never take me alive!" before throwing the small jewel to the ground, where it exploded in a blinding white light that filled the room. The three investigators and maid-turned-sidekick cried out in shock and covered their eyes, blinded.

When the light cleared, Evan Ferrio was simply gone.

The silence this time was, if possible, even thicker, finally broken by Susanoo cheerfully shouting, "Called it!"

Author's Note :As always, check my profile for additional works, both fanfiction and published. Hope you enjoy! And if those of you who have the ability would be willing to, sharing the links to my publishing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like would be a tremendous help, even if you don't buy a thing. Thank you!