The halls of C-Sec were always busy and loud but Garrus had no trouble making his voice heard.
"Johnson? Get over here, I got something!"
"You're gonna have to wait just like everybody else, birdy." Johnsons voice had no trouble either to rise above the noise of C-Sec. Humans had only one set of vocal cords and their upper body seemed to be too small to act like a good resonating sound box but Garrus had learned that humans could still raise their voices to impressive levels.
Garrus started to move towards Johnson's office, loud music spilled out from it and Garrus knew that Johnson was busily darting around his office right now, probably working on three or ten things at once. Johnson was one of the few humans working at C-Sec and proved once again that humans were the most diverse and adaptable species on the Citadel. He could be slow and phlegmatic, falling asleep during a meeting with Pallin and suddenly something would grab his attention and he would talk faster than a Salarian, thinking up ideas a mile a minute. That's when Garrus started calling him a salarian pyjack hopped up on stims.
"What's my salarian pyjak working on now?"
"Monkey, Garrus, not pyjak, monkey. If you want to insult me at least do it right."
Garrus clicked his mandibles at that, the remark reminding him very much of something his father would say.
"Fine, Salarian monkey on stims, what do you have?"
"Oh Garrus, you won't believe it, remember the stash of weapons we busted two weeks ago, remember the volus, we couldn't keep him, his lawyer got him out and we couldn't pin him to the weapons cause there was no proof that he had rented the warehouse and you weren't exactly gentle with the guy that didn't help our case either I have to say you might want to rethink your methods cause if we could have kept that guy a little longer he might have told us about this guy Verringer, a human by the way and -"
Even Johnson couldn't defy basic biology and he actually had to take a breath, giving Garrus the chance to interrupt his ramblings and take a look at the datapad Johnson was holding.
"Breathe man, breathe! Let me catch up with you." Garrus switched the display to citadel common and skimmed the notes and pictures that Johnson had collected.
"So you found that this volus, what was his name, Kata Lon?" "Kata Lem"
"Kata Lem, alright, so you found a connection to Verringer and he rented the warehouse?"
"Ah Garrus, my impatient friend, that would be too easy, wouldn't it? Of course they hid it better, no obvious connections. But Lem has a little company beside his main trading between Palaven and the Citadel, he also has a bunch of bodyguards he is renting out and one of them is called 'Mad-Ver' who just happens to be the brother of one Karl Verringer who is just this friendly guy you call when you need a discrete job done and he is partner in a storage business owned by Belethia Gars'ada who just happened to rent a warehouse but strangely enough never used it."
Again, Johnson needed to take a breath and Garrus managed to add get another word in.
"So Belethia Gars'ada, she's asari, right? Why do you ignore her involvement, what makes you suspect this guy Verringer? And don't tell me it's because he's human, you know you don't have to prove to me that you don't favor your own species over others."
Garrus knew Johnson for almost a year and they had been teamed up together for about seven month now and he knew that Johnson was the most unprejudiced person out there. He basically considered every person to be a treacherous bastard until proven otherwise and he made absolutely no distinction for different species.
"Belethia Gars'ada hasn't been on the Citadel for over a year, I'm sure that Karl Verringer is running the business in her name, using it to cover up his own dealings. Gars'ada's company had no problem with C-Sec, nothing even remotely shady going on until ten months ago. Shortly after Gars'ada had left the Citadel things started coming up, suspicions of slave trading, Red Sand trafficking, nothing that could be proven but the business is definitely not clean anymore. There is some big shit going on, birdman!"
Johnson's eyes darted around the office until he found his coffee cup and went to a little coffee maker on a shelf to pour himself a fresh cup of the vile beverage. Garrus used the quiet to look over the information Johnson had gathered. It wasn't much but better than nothing. They needed some real stuff to actually arrest this guy but usually a bit of digging turned things up once you knew where to look.
Garrus had become a skilled investigator, he had a talent for digging into a case and find the connections, something that his father had also done very well. Garrus had to reluctantly admit that his father had been right in pushing him to C-Sec even though he missed shooting his sniper rifle more often and his tech skills weren't as useful as he would have wished. But he was a good investigator and together with Johnson he had busted some really bad guys and closed some big cases. His only problem was that he kept busting criminals only to see them walk away because of some regulation. Not to mention the desk work was killing him.
Garrus realized that Johnson was looking at him, waiting for his input.
"I see the connection, monkeyman." He spread his mandibles in a wide grin, giving the insult right back. "But it's not enough yet and you know it. We can bust neither Gars'ada nor Verringer with this, we need some solid proof."
"I know Garrus, I know. But there is something big going on, I can feel it in my gut!"
"Your gut? Are you hurt? No, wait, that's another one of those expressions again, it means that you have a feeling about this. Johnson, we can't arrest anybody based on your feeling." Garrus shook his head, disappointed.
"Yes I know but if we look around this warehouse and another one that Gars'ada's company has rented maybe we can find something to bring Verringer in for some questions. I ask him and you stare at him and do your polygraph thing that you're so good at and we find out how he is involved."
Garrus had never told anybody why he had gotten so interested in humans and their expressions or why he kept looking for bright red hair when he saw a bunch of humans. After that special night in the Choras Den alcove he had begun to read up on humans, their faces, their anatomy. He read and watched vids about human history and customs and at some point he came across vids about human forensics and crime fighting. He found instructions about interrogation techniques and learned about facial expressions and micro-expressions.
Garrus found it fascinating how much happened in a human face, flexible as it was and while they could control most of their expressions, it was impossible to hide those micro-expressions. Tiny facial movements that only appeared for a fraction of time could tell an attentive watcher whether the person was telling the truth or not.
That knowledge became essential at C-Sec because as it turned out the famous adaptive capabilities of humans could also be applied very successfully to a life of crime. Most C-Sec officers were turians and used to dealing with turians. Turians were bad liars, most of them would eventually reveal any truth if pressured enough, their subharmonics usually betraying them quickly. But even the most skillful turian liars, who could clamp down any revealing trill were still like toddlers caught with the hand in the cookie jar compared to humans.
Humans could lie. Really lie.
Garrus had seen humans tell him the most amazing stories straight to his face and without anything in their faces negating that story. Only after watching the recording later could he find subtle signs that betrayed them. He had gotten so good at spotting those expressions that he hardly interrogated suspects himself anymore, he just watched and rewatched while his partner asked the questions. The had a good routine going with that.
Garrus looked at the evidence again and at a picture of Karl Verringer, showing a man with light skin, his fur - no, hair - cropped short and hard eyes that looked aggressively at the camera. Yes, he would like to hear what that guy had to say, he probably had some "interesting" stories to tell.
"Alright Johnson, how do you always say? Let's find a big stick and poke around with it until the rats run out!"
"Yes man! I like that plan!" Johnson grabbed some his weapons and was about to run out the door when Garrus stopped him.
"Hang on, first you have to take a look at the stuff I found" he said and Johnson looked confused at him for a second and Garrus grabbed him by his arm, dragging him with him, "I happen to be a good investigator too and I have something, so come on."
There was no loud music in Garrus office but other than that it looked just as chaotic as Johnsons, data pads strewn around and at least five half-empty cups of cava balancing on top of them. The only area that looked clean and organized was the weapons bench next to the weapons locker. A disassembled sniper rifle was lying on top of the bench, all of it's parts spread around it in neat piles, three different cleaning solvents and gun oils arranged in a row on top of it.
They both ignored the weapons bench, stepping into the room. Garrus handed two old cava cups to Johnson to put away and he almost wanted to set them on the weapons bench but thought better of it after a fierce look from Garrus and put them on the floor, the only empty surface to be found. Garrus then handed him two data pads and gave his partner some time to look the information over before he started to talk.
"So far we found three victims in the lower wards who were missing most of their body parts, so we did assume that there is some black market trading with organs going on, right? But here's what's strange, I had the pathologist check the victims and he found some inconsistencies. Some kind of residue in the nervous system resulting from extreme stress and like the bodies were overtaxed almost till breaking point."
Johnson scrunched up his face, deep in thought. "None of these guys looked athletic or anything, I mean what could they have even done that was so taxing to their bodies?"
"I don't know. Another thing: I put out some feelers, asked around in the clinics about transplants and I got some disturbing information. There seems to be an increase with available organs but they seem to be ... kind of low quality, one of doctors called it." Garrus shuddered slightly, thinking back to that conversation. 'Scrap meat' the doctor had called the organs, 'causing more problems than solving'.
Johnson looked up. "If someone is taking out organs to sell them then there has to be place on the Citadel where that is done", he said. "Something like a lab, an operating table, they need equipment, coolant to preserve the organs. Maybe we can find a lead if we look at the suppliers."
"Yeah, that's a good idea." Garrus nodded, already typing out orders on his Omni-tool for a search algorithms to see who had bought coolant agents recently.
"Let's run some searches on that but while we wait for results we do our poking around in the warehouse. We need to get a warrant for that -" Garrus growled out his annoyance at that and he saw Johnson flinch at the sound. Yes, humans can hear subharmonics. "- and while we're at it let's see what other real estate Gars'ada has recently acquired."
Johnson grinned at Garrus, "I'm pretty sure it is your turn now for the warrant-asking-walk-of-shame!" He didn't even try to hide his amusement as Garrus clamped his mandibles tight against his face in annoyance. He hated having to ask Pallin for warrants, Pallin always wanted to know every little detail about a case, he never trusted his judgement. Sometimes he wished he could just skip a getting a warrant, just act on his own perception like a Spectre.
Garrus scratched his fringe and sang a sigh. "Yes, alright, I take it to Pallin and how about we get some lunch then while we wait for the warrant?"
Johnson grinned at him. "I like the way you think, birdy. And I won't even complain when your food tries to run away from your plate before you can eat it."
Garrus sighed. "It's not like I could even get living kalkenda on the Citadel. Anyway, I'll see you outside."
Johnson laughed and walked away and Garrus went to Pallins office.
Yes, I know nothing much happening and there isn't even sex! I'm sorry, I wanted to set up how Garrus lived and worked before the craziness starts. So please, just bear with me, action scenes are coming up soon.
Thanks to TheLadyKellet for beta-reading, go read her stories cause they're awesome.