Scattered pieces of Aptis Casotin's skull laid across the Zakera ward market of the 26th floor. Several fragments of his fringe were implanted in the garden boxes, while most remained dispensed around his body. The Zakera Skyport, normally heavily trafficked for the morning rush, teemed with C-sec officers surrounding his body.
Detective Garrus Vakarian pushed past the barricades to enter the scene. Dozens of gawkers and cameras still tried to weasel in and get a glimpse of the body. Garrus flicked out his mandible in annoyance. If they broke past, chaos would erupt on the scene.
"Ridgefield, get on barricade duty now!" Garrus ordered.
"Yes, sir," the thin human ran past him, directing the heavy traffic away. "Alright, enough of the show. Move on!" While most left, several reporters still stood peering in.
Hearing the word sir addressed towards himself felt off, especially in front of cameras. This was Garrus' third assignment as lead detective in C-Sec's Investigation Division. The first two didn't have the weight of the public watching his every move–especially with a dead turian.
As more humans expanded into Zakera, tensions rose between the two species. Still, no matter the crap politics, Garrus would solve this. Each win would get him closer to spectre training nomination and done with the red tape.
Garrus turned his attention away from the dispersing crowd and towards the scene. The young turian's sprawled corpse landed on his side on a skycar. Sparks fell from the 30th floor as the railing and barriers had been busted out. Citadel engineers had scaffolding up, surveying the damage to the kinetic windows.
All clues pointed to a suicide jump. Jumpers on Zakera ward, while rare, always had the same outcome—a crumbled body from the centrifugal pseudogravity that hurdled them into the window. And if not from the impact with the window, death once they hit the ground.
Aptis' body had already set in rigor, with a mess of blood and viscera splattered on the skycar. His eyes locked in horror as if to regret the jump that could not be taken back. He was just like the other bodies before him.
But for Aptis' body, more was amiss with a closer look. His broken skull and fringe implied he fell backward into the window. Blue-blooded stumps were where talons should be. His tongue hung loose as his mandibles had been torn off. Bone-white plates were pulled from his skull, most likely from a claw hammer due to an indentation between his eyes—a torture scene.
Garrus pushed down the tinge of nausea that rose in his stomach. He had no time for such distractions. The uproar of a tortured turian on Zakera would create a riot on the ward. He needed to end this case fast. But, still, not an everyday visual to see muscles and sinew exposed to air. He moved down and further examined the rest of the body.
The blood splatter around Aptis had congealed and laid thick. His legs swelled with fluid as if he had been kept upright when he died. Dark blue ligature marks lined Aptis' wrist and neck with bits of rope embedded into his skin. Garrus would have to dig deeper once the coroner made their report. But this was no suicide.
Garrus gathered his team, a hodgepodge crew of turians, humans, asari, and salarians.
"Alright, Ridgefield, stay on crowd control. D'layne and Lamont, I want you out on interviews. Syllian, start working on security vids in the area." Garrus looked out towards his team and straightened his stance as he addressed them. "The rest, I want this place picked over and secured before the keepers start trying to clear the area. Move out!"
Garrus headed towards the barricades to once again push past the gawking reporters to get to the 30th floor. Teams of voices yelled at him. Garrus attempted to usher them out and away.
"C-Sec is currently securing the scene, Executor Pallin will make a statement later once we are done, again move on. You're interfering with an active crime scene."
"So, is this a murder then?" A voice rang out. Cameras pressed closer to his face. He held his mandibles tight to his jaw, trying to give no clues.
"No comment, move on." Garrus clipped as he moved towards the elevators. Ridgefield moved into his space and began ushering the rest of the reporters away.
"You heard him, go!"
Garrus punched the elevator keys to close the door quickly. The doors shut, hiding the crime scene away. He sighed, pressing the back of his fringe against the wall. The pressure mounting on his shoulders ached. He did not need to hear about this from his father. The last thing he needed was a lecture on media training.
The doors soon opened to more barricades blocking off the broken railings to prevent another fall or tampering. Forensic VI cameras floated around the railing, taking photos and vids for later review.
On his initial observation, Garrus noticed scorch marks on the railing. The scorching was unlike any fire or electrical discharge he'd seen. The wave-like pattern of damage suggested a high impact of biotic energy close to the target. Peering down, C-sec officers littered the scene surrounding Aptis. Specks of his bone-white fringe glinted in the garden boxes below.
Garrus rubbed at his fringe in frustration, watching the scene from up high. Was he biotically thrown? It wouldn't go with the theory that Aptis had already been dead before he hit the window. The barriers were meant to prevent accidental or intentional falls. To demolish it required deliberate effort and intent. No pattern of biotic damage was found on the body. Why go to all the trouble to leave him out in the open?
Either way, someone pushed or threw him from the 30th floor. The pseudogravity forces of Citadel shot Aptis into the kinetic windows, shattering his fringe and skull. The body then fell to the 26th-floor Skyport lot, where he was now laid dead.
Most likely, it was a body drop to look like a suicide. A sloppy cover-up. Or worse, a warning for more to come.
The C-sec offices of the Zakera ward bustled with constant movement. Garrus drowned out the noise as he organized his board of information that his team collected.
Garrus combed over the Citadel records of the victim, trying to find motives in his torture and death.
Name: Aptis Casotin
Race: Turian
Age: 25
Citizen Status: Citadel, Aroch Ward
Occupation: Dock Worker of Aroch Ward Shipping Port
Familial Connections: Speca Casotin, daughter, Aroch Ward
Known Affiliations: Turian Military 2171-2174, Ship engineer on THS Kraxus
Assets: Sky-Car registration for a 2175 Cison Gallant, purchased six months ago
Threat level: 0
Status: Deceased as of Cycle 45, Orbit 5, 2181
Location: C-Sec Morgue
How does a ship engineer go to a dock worker barely making it by on the Citadel? And how was he on the Zakera ward? No transit information was logged, and his car was missing. Garrus would have to send out feelers to other divisions on the missing Cison Gallant.
The forensic team still worked on the omni-tool data access. Their only luck was a call from a frantic babysitter who came through while they worked the encryption system.
The young asari cried over the call, saying Aptis was ten hours late. Garrus ordered his team to secure the apartment in the Aroch ward. The young turian child, at most four, would have to be taken in by social workers.
Next, Garrus reviewed the video evidence, or lack thereof, from the fall. The last seven hours of Aptis' life were just gone. There were no backup vids, just static from any feed in the area. The earliest detection that found him alive was outside the DarkStar bar at 1900 galactic time.
The vid showed a tall human female with a dark red crest and a pale pink tone. She wore a light blue dress that tightly went from her neck to her feet. She approached Aptis, grabbing him by his carapace. No audio was on the vids, but she looked to be screaming at him for several minutes before disappearing into the bar. Aptis soon followed after her.
Garrus mandibles flared in a grin. This would at least be a start. He had more luck with vid reports on the human. Face recognition data immediately brought up her Citadel record:
Name: Olivia Shepard
Race: Human
Age: 27
Citizen Status: Citadel, Aroch Ward
Occupation: Student, Sudona University, School of Law, 1st year
Familial Connections: Charlotte Walker, sister, Zakera Ward
Known Affiliations:
Alliance Navy, Infiltration and Reconnaissance, 2172-2177 (Less-Than-Honorable Discharge)
10th Street Reds, Santa Monica, Earth, Pacific Sector, Current
Assets: None
Threat level: Registered Biotic, Level 1
Status: Alive
Location: Zakera Wards Sobering Cells
Garrus dug deeper into the file. She had been found strung out near the DarkStar bar and thrown into the sobering tanks only four hours ago. He sent for one of his team to prepare her for interrogation while researching her further than just her thin C-sec file.
First, the 10th Street Reds was not a familiar name on the Zakera Ward. With a bare file, the information didn't get Garrus far except for one entry.
10th Street Reds:
Earth-based gang of Santa Monica, Pacific Sector of Earth.
Known traffickers of Red Sand, Hallex, and Minagen X3 through the Sahrabarik System Flagged as a known xenophobic and Earth separatist movement group.
Possible connection but no charges to the murder of Charles Pierces of Kithoi ward 2177.
Known affiliations on the Citadel: Joshua Beckman, Wes Elders, Marsa Keyes, Olivia Shepard, Will Plock, Finch Watkins, and Curt Weisman.
"Known xenophobic and Earth separatist movement" flashed out at Garrus. His mandibles held tight to his jaw. A new gang moving in with tortured turians would turn the ward into a warzone. He needed to make this a quick case, gain another win on his mantle, and move on before riots broke out.
Garrus would have to dig into the other dossiers later, but his focus remained sharply on Shepard for now, as she was his closest lead.
Extranet research actually had a lot on her. Olivia Shepard, Hero of Elysium, with a straight-to-vid movie produced by the Alliance. It was scrubbed and ditched after her dishonorable discharge a year after the siege.
Extranet forums teemed with conspiracy theories around her name. Theories ranged from her being a plant for the Alliance that fabricated the attack to justify their quick military reach in the region. Some even dug far back to the Shanix incident, where her father, a botanist, was killed. Others even speculated if she was even a real person.
He built her profile of known fact versus extranet conspiracy, weighing what was real and what was not. Still, all evidence pointed towards her for now. Military trained, xenophobic background, and gang affiliated—a deadly trinity. Garrus was ready to end this case.
White walls of the C-sec interrogation room surrounded a shock of red from the human. Her crest fell short, past her ears. Hard green eyes stared holes at Garrus through the two-way mirror.
The dress she wore in the vid, now tattered, exposed her legs and boots. Fresh blood tinged her nostrils and mouth. But she sat with her hands crossed in a neat fashion, patiently waiting.
Garrus took a deep breath before pushing the doors open, studying over the data pads in hand. He raked a talon over the screen. His glove off and talons out, a quiet intimidation tactic that has worked well before with humans.
Her eyes snapped to him as he opened the door, barely giving him a second in the room.
"Olivia—"
"It's Shepard. I haven't been read my rights. I want my lawyer." She curtly cut him off, hands still folded neatly but with a stare intently following him.
"You're not under arrest." Garrus took a seat, placing the datapads in front of her.
"Then I can leave? What legal reason do you have to keep me here?"
"Shepard, you were the last known witness who—"
"Lawyer. Or let me leave. Is your translator not working?" She gestured at her head in anger before standing. She lorded over him but took no effort to leave. She wanted to know why she was there.
Garrus stayed seated and slowly organized his datapads while she looked over him.
"You're here for questioning," his voice clipped in an authoritative tone. She was beginning to annoy him. He cast his eyes down at the datapads, ignoring her. "We found a turian dead on the Zakera market floor this morning."
"I'm from Aroch. Why would I know anything about some Zakera ward prick?"
"Well, for one, my men found you in the gutter here in Zakera." Garrus paused, drawing out his statements to keep her in suspense. "We could easily throw you back in the drunk tank."
Shepard's eyes grew wide. Her face scrunched in an unnatural elastic way that human faces moved. Bright white teeth flashed out, grimace or smile. Garrus still hadn't worked out the complexity of human features.
Readings on her heart and breath rate increased on his visor. Small daps of sweat formed near her temple. Those were easier to quantify. She was nervous. Garrus continued to push.
"But I was hoping we could just talk. What do you remember about last night?"
"I met up with some friends, drank, danced. In that order, and now I'm here. Lawyer. Now."
"Do you remember anything specific? Your blood alcohol level was above legal limits to drive when you were picked up."
"Fuck off. Was I behind a wheel?" Her tone shot at him, her pale hands gripping tightly to the table.
"You tell me, what do you remember?" Garrus jeered.
"Nothing involving a dead turian."
"How about Aptis Casotin? Also from Aroch ward. We found his body not far from you."
Her brows shot up. Hard green eyes now softened as she fell back to the chair.
"D-dead?" She shuttered out quietly, almost too faint for Garrus' translator to pick up.
"So you know him?"
The human turned her head away, her red crest swaying with her movement. The smile or grimace hid behind tight lips.
"What do you know about Aptis? We have camera evidence placing you as the last known person to speak with him." Garrus' voice rose as she stayed silent. His left mandible flicked out in annoyance.
She continued to ignore him, staring off into the corner, her elastic face scrunched and hands gripping tighter on the table.
"I didn't kill him." Her voice meeked out. The hostile tone disappeared. She possibly soothed her voice to feign innocence. They mostly always did at this point in the interrogation.
It could be possible she doesn't remember. She could have killed him and dumped the body. Alliance records showed her as an infiltration and tech expert. She could have easily wiped the vids with her skill. But why pull plates and talons? Garrus needed more answers.
"Then do you know who did?"
Silence met Garrus again as she watched the corner, slowly rocking her head back and forth.
"Let me repeat myself, Aptis Casotin, doc worker from the Aroch ward, single father to a daughter, barely four."
Garrus slammed the first datapad in front of her. The metal echoing filled the room, bringing her attention back to the datapad—a photo of Aptis, light green colony markings covering his pale plates. Speca, a bright yellow fledgling, coiled up in his cowl. His mandibles flashed out in a grin, face still intact.
"Her father is now dead. Pity he has no known family connections that we can find. She may end up as a duct rat—"
"Fuck off!"
A rush of air passed Garrus' face as the datapad whorled into the two-way mirror. It cracked the glass with ease. The oxygen sucked away from his breath as ozone perforated the room.
Purple and blue lights glitched and moved around Shepard's form. Her eyes went to milky white. She remained seated, hands still tightly gripping the table.
Garrus was out of his seat, pistol drawn and trained between her eyes. The easiest way to take a human down. Kinetic ammo to bypass her barriers, hopefully.
The pounding in his chest rose into his throat. He gritted his fangs together, holding his breath, waiting for one wrong movement.
"Shepard, calm down. I could place you under arrest for threatening an officer, or we can have a nice chat. What do you want?" He kept his voice low, but his dual tones noted his nervousness. Hopefully, she did not pick that up like most humans.
In his peripheral, Ridgefield and D'layne stormed the room, pistols out, and readied on her.
Her green eyes came into focus, darting from his pistol to the ones behind him. She sighed as the lights died around her, sputtering and hitching with its last gasp. Her white teeth flashed out—definitely a grimace.
"At ease, I've got this," Garrus said without laying his eyes off her, pistol still drawn.
"Sir?" Ridgefield's voice wavered as he questioned. Garrus gave him a quick nod for the door as he lowered his weapon. Shepard was panicking and about to break. Garrus almost had her. He didn't need his team doubting him in front of her.
As the door closed behind him, Garrus took his seat, intently watching Shepard's movement.
"I didn't kill anyone, only when the Alliance ordered me to. I'm a free agent, a student trying to get by." Droplets of water edged at her eyes. She puffed out her chest while wiping her face dry. Liquor still wafted from her breath. Garrus was ready to turn the screws on her.
"And how does a dishonorably discharged ex-marine afford to go to law school?"
"Less-Than-Honorable," Shepard shot out.
"There's a difference?"
"Yes." Hard green eyes, now bloodshot, stared into him. He stepped on a nerve. He filed that for later use.
Garrus continued. "Still, if Alliance isn't paying, who is? Records intact, you haven't worked in four years."
She mumbled, indigestible for his translator to pick up. Her head hung low, exactly where he wanted her.
"Speak up for my translator. it's not working, remember?" Garrus mirrored her earlier gesture in a taunting manner.
"We were just talking."
"Talking? You were screaming at him. We have recordings."
"He was late on payments. That's what we talked about. Dead men, well, turians can't pay debts."
"For the Reds?"
Her face soured at the name. He let the silence between them hang in the air before moving on.
"You don't think we research those who come here? Quite an interesting background." Garrus picked up his next datapad, listing off her life's accomplishments.
"Military trained, tech expert, biotic, with known ties to a xenophobic group? And now we have a dead turian on the Zakera ward. No recording. And barriers destroyed by, interestingly enough, biotics." Garrus turned to the two-way mirror where the crack grew.
"You want to put me in jail? Fine, do it. You'll get the job done, and an asshole who did kill him is still out there. I don't expect much from some two-bit cop." She paused for breath before spitting red-tinged saliva on the ground. "Corrupt asshole."
Her tirade surprised Garrus. The most she had spoken so far. Could be another act to seed doubt, could be the truth, could be she's panicking. He'd have to sort through that later.
"You're not under arrest like I said. We're questioning. I'm trying to find out who killed Aptis." Garrus studied her face, which now lay blank, not giving him much to go on.
She remained silent, so he continued. "The longer you stay quiet, the longer Aptis and his daughter go without justice. The longer this could happen again. I'm not having that on this ward. So keep talking, what do you know?"
Garrus pointed his talons on the table for emphasis. He raked them carefully across the steel surface.
Shepard's eyes widened, darting to the window and back at his talon. That expression Garrus did know on humans—Fear.
She moved her chair further from him, arms crossed tight, almost like to protect her body.
"Listen, I can't trust C-Sec. They have eyes and ears everywhere. Keep digging, and you'll get your plates pulled from your skull. I'll lose my fucking head. Lawyer. Now."
"Is that a threat—"
"A warning."
"Who's the "they" pulling the plates of turian skulls in this station? The Reds? What aren't you letting on?"
Her head turned away to avoid his gaze, her lips pursed. Heat rose in his throat from anger. He almost had the information he needed.
"How did you know about the plates?"
Garrus threw down the next datapad. The images compiled of Aptis' body sprawled out in front of her. The dark purple of muscle and sinew of Aptis' face lined the page. The plates between his eyes were gone. His pale fringe scattered against the skycar—a screaming stuck mouth.
Her pale pink tone quickly faded to sheet white. Her eyes rolled back as she fell to the floor.
"Crap."
Garrus dashed around to the table to catch her. Her head barely missed the floor. Humans were vulnerable that way. A dead or comatose human was not going to help his investigation.
She laid in between his arms as he kept her head up. The heat of body burned at the tips of his fingers. She felt like a furnace.
Her dark red crest framed the soft, rounded features of her face. She looked almost innocent at that moment. Within seconds, her eyes fluttered back out. Her grimace flashed back at him.
"Don't fucking touch me." She bolted from his arms, stumbling back to her seat. Her heart rate increased, and her breathing became more irregular from the shock. Color began to return to her face, a darker red than before.
Could be the alcohol. Could be she can't stand the sight of her own work. Could be innocent. A lot of coulds so far, but not a lot of answers.
Garrus picked up the datapad from the corner before returning to her. The edge cracked from the impact. The surface sputtered at Aptis' face.
"Get that shit away from me." She knocked over the previous datapad. Her hand gestured out, almost pleading for the datapad he held.
"I'm not going to throw it at you, please ." She placed emphasis on the word, please. Garrus raised his brow plates at her, surprised at the change in attitude. Garrus played along, hoping she'd cooperate now.
"Appreciate it, turians don't make a habit of ducking."
A small laugh escaped from her mouth. Bright white teeth flashed out. Even for a split second, that was a smile.
Garrus handed her the datapad, waiting for any sudden movements. Instead, she stood still, her eyes cast down, lost in the photo. Garrus stayed quiet, waiting for her to talk.
"Where's Speca?" Her voice dropped to a mournful tone. "I don't have anything to do with this. Please, you have to believe me. Is she safe?"
"How do you know her name?" Garrus' tone came out soft. There was a lot more to her than what he expected.
"Aptis is my—"
Her words were cut short as the door burst open. A frail human man interrupted with a booming voice.
"Vakarian, how should I have known? Your interpretation of the due process is always inspiring. I might have to talk to Castis about this, huh?"
Clayton Basting, known criminal defense lawyer of the Zakera ward. And a constant thorn in Garrus' hide. Basting took the chair next to Shepard, draping his arm around her.
"Shepard and I here were just chatting," Garrus hissed out.
Basting smirked, holding tighter to Shepard. She squirmed under the pressure on her shoulders.
"Well, I'm sure at some point during your 'chat,' she asked about a lawyer? I know she's a law student, but that doesn't mean she can defend herself. Or is that another basic that C-Sec needs to discuss with you?"
Garrus bore a hole into his head with a stare. He almost had her. He, finally, had something of substance against her or at least pointed towards the Reds.
"Now, unless you actually have a warrant for her arrest." Bastings leaned in with an arrogant whisper. "I think we're done here."
Garrus pushed up from the table, collected the datapads, and walked out the door without a word. He didn't need to hear about this from his father.
"Now when Joshua hears—" Bastings booming voice cut as Garrus slammed the door behind him.
Through the now cracked two-way mirror, Clayton barrelled into Shepard, most likely for talking. Shepard's eye remained vacant, staring out the window, past Basting and past Garrus. Her words echoed in his head.
Is she safe?
Garrus huffed out a breath and stormed back towards his office to work on his next plan.
Who killed Aptis? And what did Shepard have to do with it?