AN: What happened so far...Vela acting on Kala's request resurfaced from whereabouts unknown and built an identity while in Arus. Two mysterious open case files for the constabulary people to solve and while on a routine recon mission, Vela witnessed an ambush in the secret tunnel. This was also her first look of the "The Cleaner."
All disclaimers found in Chapter One.
On with the story...
Chapter Three
A scream tore the early morning air when Farmer Kellan's wife found a body on a ditch at the edge of their grey corn plantation. From a distance, three men on backs of their beasts of burden known as Stinging Howlers, came to full stop before the ditch. The Howlers as Kellan called them were as big but leaner than Earth's polar bears. He jumped down from his mount as was at his wife's side in no time.
"It's Zanir," she trembled like a leaf inside her husband's embrace when he had reached her. "Who could have done this?" Kellan quickly pulled her away from the horrific sight.
"We'll let Chief Andros deal with this." He signaled one of his farmhands to contact the constabulary. Kellan directed his wife to sit with him at a nearby bench under a tree while they waited for the chief constable to arrive.
Elsewhere, inside a bedroom, a body uncoiled from the bed sheets, still refusing to acknowledge the incoming video call. The body continued to squirm and sought refuge under the mountain of pillows. The chime persisted that a hand slipped under the pillows holding out a compact blaster gun aimed straight at the communication wall console across the room. The beep ended as if sensing the presence of the threatening weapon.
Peace flowed once again in the threshold. The weapon withdrew and a soft sigh muffled by pillows and sheets signaled a contented sleeper. The bedroom was furnished with several off-world ornaments. There were three Drule knickknacks in cartoonish poses bought from Planet Agalian now losing their garish expressions against the morning light. Sweeping forward, a mirror cradled between wooden hands and in front of the mirror was a table, were more fine handcrafted knickknacks stood, ranging from bird creatures to miniaturize alien plants, and strange gelatin pebbles.
The incessant chime returned, nudging Vela to wakefulness still dressed in her spy gear. "Audio only."
"Trell?"
"Good morning, Chief. I'm actually on my way." She jumped out of bed to start her morning routine.
"Good morning. You're usually the first one to clock in and last to clock out, Jazia."
"Sorry, Chief… I… overslept." She reached inside her closet blindly and took out one of her Drule outfits instead. She stumbled and hastily went back to grab her constable station uniform.
"I'm heading out to Kellan's farm. We have another dead body."
"Got it, Chief." She snapped the final button of her constable uniform and peered at her reflection. She could easily pass as a Terran or even an Arusian if not for her Drule eye color, red amber. She carefully inserted the hazel-colored contact lenses and blinked. Satisfied with her disguise, she grabbed her bag and left for the constabulary.
A couple of hours since their arrival, Chief Andros had the body loaded up to the landspeeder after he was satisfied he had gathered all the pertinent details from Kellan, his wife, the two farmhands and from Kellan's nearest neighbor. The officers soon headed back to the town.
"Sir, there were signs the fence was cut along the north section boundary," said Deputy Eli Parr. He logged his findings on the computer that was also linked to the station's database. He highlighted the map, marking the area.
"Yet, Kellan said all his fences were intact last night. Did we get any signs of discharge? This material Kellan used for his fences are high grade and not easily cut by a sonic pliers." Andros magnified the end of the piece of line in the monitor.
The tiny pebble-like crystals sprinkled across Eli's cheeks shimmered, reflecting his disappointment. "It was all degraded and, Chief, this was what the medscanner projected as the time of expiration."
"Five hours ago." He lurched gently in his seat as if landspeeder's engine swallowed a couple of dust balls before resuming its course.
At Eli's prompt, waiting for the computer to process his query, he continued, "There wasn't even a leaky oil trail that might lead us to where the culprit went after the body dump." The computer flashed ground pictures which Wyx had scanned earlier.
Another prompt from the computer gave a negative beep when no matches were found.
"Radlan said he didn't see any vehicles coming up his way," he added. "There wasn't anything suspicious from the past week, not since seeing some offworlders hanging around their area two months ago because of Kellan's Howlers."
"You and Jaryl took care of that." Andros carried a pensive frown as he searched for possible connections of the two events.
"That's right, and no other incidents around the area until this one."
From the pilot area, the chief's grandson, Deputy Wyx Andros, said, "If the guilty party used a landspeeder equipped with stealth mode, it wouldn't be a problem."
"I'll check vehicle registry," Eli said. His fingers danced across his console. He was being optimistic and tried to quell the sinking feeling that nothing official will turn up in the registry.
Arus had been building its intergalactic ship registry databases and its sub-directories for vehicles-for-hire for a couple of years now but it hadn't been easy for the staff in-charge. Eli might not even get an answer to his query. It had taken a lot of imagination to track clues left by marauders, bandits, and any sort of scoundrels engaged in animal black market industry, and it seemed this latest development will require the same type of perseverance. He wasn't going to start giving up.
"It doesn't make sense to dump Zanir's body at Kellan's doorstep than leaving the body somewhere in the canyons to be forgotten." Wyx from the pilot cabin, echoed the same thoughts Eli was thinking.
"We might have a witness." Andros wondered why the witness didn't call the constabulary rather than moving the body in the first place. There were times he wished they had the technology of the Galaxy Alliance at his disposal but he will have to make do with what they had at present.
Somewhere in another part of the residential section, Havran was in the middle of assisting Fellin in covering his landspeeder under the tarp just as Geldril Ifin came rushing into the garage.
"What possessed you to dump Zanir's body at Kellan's field?" He bellowed in anger, glaring at the two dumbfounded men as the garage door automatically closed behind him.
Fellin grabbed the arm of the other man. "Keep your voice down." He pressed a button on the wall to activate a dampening field to prevent anyone from listening in.
"We did leave him at the canyons!" Havran replied, now seated at the monitoring station Fellin had set up at the corner of the garage. The two men crowded behind the slighter framed man. His fingers flew across the console, bringing up the program that would enable them to listen to the constabulary's communication transmissions. He handed each an earpiece.
"What the Kellans said was true, sir."The verification came from Jaryl Marthos, one of the deputies stationed at the constabulary. "He has a jewelry shop in town called Arus Eyes and has no known relatives. We do have an open report in our database about his daughter who went missing three months ago. According to Zanir, she had called him saying that she was on the road, heading home. The vehicle was untouched and no signs of attack were found."
"Apparently, the Cleaner followed you and found where you've dumped Zanir's body and he brought him to the first plantation farm he could find." Geldril had lost all interest listening to the preliminaries. "I've never known the two of you to be this careless!"
"We're not!" Fellin stabbed a finger at Geldrin's chest. He wasn't going down for this. "When Winter and Gran were neutralized several weeks apart, you turned a blind eye! Maybe it was you all along." He narrowly evaded a punch. Soon, the two men evenly matched in heavyweight class and skills were exchanging kicks and punches. It would have gone further if it wasn't for a stun blast, sending the two men to the floor. Geldrin and Fellin both glared daggers at Havran.
"It was only a minimum setting which both of you have developed resistance to," he told them nonchalantly before returning to his seat. He worked on his console and brought up the Cleaner's timeline. It filled the screen, and the two men grudgingly nodded a truce.
"You stunned me," Fellin grumbled.
"You two weren't showing signs of stopping so I had to do something before I wasted half of my day watching you two let off steam!"
"So what's this?" Geldrin nodded at the big question mark on a man's empty profile picture on the screen. He winced as if he pulled a back muscle, no doubt sore from the stun ray.
"This Cleaner could be a spy," Havran had been pondering about the Cleaner's past actions for several weeks now while he added a colored dot on the timeline posted on the screen.
"Rogue Drule DI agent?" Fellin studied the timeline.
The Drule DI agents were the ones they answer to, and they had been given enough leeway to do their thing as long as it doesn't disrupt Maahox's operation schedule. Geldrin shook his head. "I think this man was an ex-soldier for hire if so, his backer could be anyone against the Drules."
"And you forget, Fellin," Havran added, sending coded electronic missives to the other spies. "Geldrin was with us when Zanir was killed."
"You'll burn a hole on that cold case file sooner than later." Deputy Jaryl Marthos, an amiable young man with a ready smile, ambled back through the bullpen when he had concluded his transmission to the Chief and the rest of their field team. He glanced at the central monitor.
On screen was the topographic map of Lazar and their town. There were two pulsing blue dots denoting the two unresolved cases from Lazar then a glowing yellow dot by the Whistler's Pass which signified Frelyn, Zanir's daughter, last location.
Jazia Trell, the recent addition to the constabulary force, had been assigned to this cold case to earn her stripes and whatever information or theories she came up with, she was to notify her senior partner, Deputy Marsh Nevs, who had cases to close such as the Gran Soren and Winter Ashburn files.
She finally decided to add on her map two new yellow dots for Gran and Winter respectively to see if some pattern would present itself. "Something in Lazar started all these." She muttered, peering at the screen.
"You're noticing her too often, Jaryl." Deputy Marsh Nevs commented acidly from his workstation with his back at the two officers. He was slouching and poring over some files in front of him but it didn't prevent Marsh from listening to anyone in the room.
Jaryl shot a puzzled glance and mouthed, "What's got into him?"
"What else is there?" Jazia whispered, pointing at the other monitor showing the missing persons list. There on the top of the list with a black star beside a name, Naria Nevs, the deputy's wife. Marsh couldn't bring himself to remove his wife's name after he had finally found a break in her case.
"Just hear me out," Jazia lowered her voice so as not to disturb the older officer. "You mentioned to the Chief that Frelyn went missing on her way back home from Lazar Province."
"That's correct."
"This was what I've gotten so far." She overlaid the timeline over the topographic map with the glowing dots. "Two attacks started three months ago in Lazar. Other neighboring towns reported nothing unusual in their own jurisdiction. Frelyn goes missing two days after the last victim in Lazar. Then, Gran Soren was found dead four weeks ago while Winter Ashburn's body was found two weeks later, and now Zanir will just have to be the unfortunate."
"Those two attacks from Lazar couldn't be related to Frelyn and Zanir but we do need to rule those out first." Jaryl was trying to see where she was going with this theory as he saw she included Zanir now on her map.
"The perpetrator seems to traveling, though it looks like Frelyn is the odd piece in this puzzle or could be the break we need. Maybe I can join Eli when he leaves for Lazar." Her gaze drifting to the missing person list set on the opposite wall. "I can't help feeling as if something is staring at me in the face, but I can't place what it is."
Jaryl looked over her timeline again. "You may have something here I think the Chief would like to hear." He patted the young woman's shoulder. "Sometimes, it's hard to believe you've only with us for four months, and you're handling this as if you've had years under your belt. This is definitely your calling."
She froze inconspicuously at his observation. Jazia pretended to be elated in receiving his encouragement. "Thanks."
As Jazia watched Jaryl leave the bullpen, she caught Marsh hurtling a suspicious look her way. Hoping to cover her false zealousness," she said, "What do you think, Deputy? Do you also suppose whoever was behind this could have been after Zanir all along?"
Marsh didn't answer immediately, but she didn't imagine the dangerous glint in his eyes before swiveling back to face his computer screen. There was also something unexpected she saw on his face. Those welts on his cheek were the same spot where Zanir had clawed his assailant last night. She sized up him in a flash and noted his body frame was similar to the attacker in the tunnel.
"Leaving bodies to cover his real agenda?" She spun in her heel as she sat at the edge of her workstation. She kept her arms loose should she need to neutralize a stockier and heavyset man. "It sounds too extreme," he leveled her with a measured gaze.
Jazia held Marsh's stare with ease and regarded the older man with curiosity, in how silent he had come up from behind her. She recalled from his file that he was trained under Galaxy Alliance, a skill set not easily diminished by the years. Nevertheless, she schooled her expression to a calm veneer. The other man appeared to be trying to keep his anger down. It perplexed her why this assignment was needling him today.
"I think its worth following up on, Deputy. The cases could be related in some way," she answered just as her attention was shifted to the Chief's visitors. Councilor Magan, Princess Allura, Commander Keith Kogane and Larmina had arrived and were following the constable chief for the scheduled close-door meeting.
The other constable officers who came with the Chief had returned to their respective workstations to process the evidences they had collected from Kellan's field.
"And you want to join Eli to Lazar?" Marsh was trying to figure out if she knew more about the cases than she was letting on.
"That's the plan," she replied a little too brightly. There were at least three discernible scratch marks on Marsh's heavily lined visage. Jazia glossed over any indication she had noticed them.
"Be careful out there."
She nodded before reclaiming her seat. Thoughts churned on her delicate situation. She was in deep cover for Kala, and the persona she decided to use had gained her enough freedom to move around town. She hadn't expected to be solving a case so soon in her undercover mission.
She settled back in her seat after sending the report. She can't deny she enjoyed this distraction—that much she can say. She hadn't been active with the Drule Empire after she had come across her mother's termination file years ago. She had vowed to severe all links with this accursed empire, but Kala managed to track her down, which shocked her to the bones. She thought she had destroyed every link tying her to the Drule Intelligence, and to further her grim surprise, four other registered signals had also traced Kala's signal. Her old team was also out there, searching for her. Perhaps if she completed this operation ahead of schedule, the other four won't come knocking at her door too soon. She could disappear on the next home world and assume another identity. A smile of anticipation crept on her face. She couldn't wait to conclude this investigation, and contemplated how she can direct Zanir's case to one of their deputies. She needed proof to tie Marsh and hopefully, the evidence under Zanir's fingernails will provide the opening.