Chapter 47 – Don't Feel Bad

All Blake can do is try her best…right?

Team Job didn't have a car, but the old man with them was such a slow walker that it probably would've taken him an hour to get back home from his own power. He was used to his own steady pace and was willing to walk, but Blake wasn't. Asking him to pick up the pace would be rude, so she instead hired a rideshare to take them there.

I wonder if we should invest in a car, the second Job Hunter. But no, it'd be a waste of money. We rarely drive within Vale, and it's only about 50 lien per ride. Cars go for much, much higher, and they require their own fuel.

Fitting a full four people into any car would be an unpleasant trip, so Jaune accompanied the client back to his apartment complex while Blake and Velvet took a second vehicle to get there.

It was an ordeal to slowly walk the old man, whose name was Gottlieb (he was old enough to have possibly even predated normal names), up the stairs, but the apartment he lived in was a low rent one and lacked an elevator or escalator, so Team Job had to wait as he ambled his way up.

"Mmmmmsorry," he wheezed, taking another step with one foot and following it up with another. "Sorry, folks."

"We're in no rush, sir," Blake. "Please, take your time."

Upon the words leaving her mouth, she sort of regretted them, as they might have implied they would be solving his wife's murder at a leisurely pace, but he took it in the spirit it was given and smiled.

"Mmmmthank ye. Thank ye."

By the time they made it up to his apartment, it was almost noon. Mr. Gottlieb offered them some food when they got in, but Blake would have felt dirty taking from him given how transparently poor he was.

This entire complex is cheap, and his furniture looks worn down. The foods in his refrigerator are mostly simple, cheap items like pasta and frozen vegetables, with no meats. I doubt he'll even be able to afford our rates.

Of course, Blake intended to give him an extreme discount here, if she even charged him at all. She would run things over with her companions first, and Mr. Gottlieb would have to be asked to keep quiet about that lest other clients started wanting the same treatment, but Team Job Security wasn't struggling for lien any longer. They could afford to be good people, and the kindly old man certainly deserved some leniency after everything he'd been through.

I can't even imagine. He and his wife were probably expecting to pass away peacefully in one another's arms – to be violently killed like that so close to a natural end to her life is simply horrendous.

After briefly perusing the man's inexpensive accommodations and getting a feel for the place, Blake quickly checked the front door and windows. Mr. Gottlieb had said they'd been locked, but she wanted to have a look just in case.

The door was the only point of ingress or egress, and while the paint was chipped and the wood flimsy, the deadbolt on the front looked to be one of the only functional objects in the entire neighborhood. Perhaps it could have been forced – Blake imagined any member of Team Job could push open the door – but that would leave it broken and splintered. As there was no such sign of damage, that meant there had been no unwanted houseguest pushing their way in.

Velvet was waiting for her at the window.

"I figured I'd go ahead and check it," she explained. "He was telling the truth – we are on the fifth floor. Gods, it must be a nightmare for him to go up and down every time he wants to –"

"Velvet."

"Sorry. There's no lock, but there doesn't need to be one. It's just a sheer wall down, with no fire escape or convenient ivy to be climbed. If someone, I dunno, had an ice pick and spelunking gear, they might be able to get in, but I really doubt it."

"Good work," Blake said. "Let's have a look at the kitchen."

Jaune was with Mr. Gottlieb in the room where the crime itself had happened, getting the story from him. While they spoke, Blake listened in while Velvet patiently waited on the sidelines.

"…wasn't even allowed in…huhhh…until they'd…I can't remember their words. I thought it was an active, haaauuhh, crime scene. I let them collect her. But then they said it was nothing. It…It was not nothing! Hhhhnnggggh…"

"I'm so sorry for your loss, sir." Jaune helped the man over to a chair in the dining room. It was out of the kitchen itself but still close enough to see what was going on inside. "My team and I will take a look around, if you don't mind."

He nodded. "Mmmmmgo ahead."

Whatever the police and Goodwitch had done, they'd done it thoroughly. There were no signs that a person had died in this room just four days ago, around the time Team Job was still staking out Tyrian's powered-down household. Blake looked over the floors for anything that could be a clue – left behind items from the killer, blood stains, scratches from nails to indicate Mrs. Theo having fought back – but found nothing.

It's actually rather clean. I don't want to think that Beacon was covering something up, but if they did find evidence they didn't like, I'd imagine it would look something like this afterwards.

Velvet took the cabinets while Jaune's eyes ran up and down the walls and ceiling, but their investigations came up just as blank as hers.

"You didn't see anything?" Blake asked her teammates when they'd all finished – her first, then Jaune, then Velvet.

"No dust on any of the walls," Jaune noted. "But there was some on most other surfaces in the house."

So it had been cleaned…but was that truly an indication of a conspiracy? Or had it merely been police kind enough to remove the blood of an old man's wife from his household so that he didn't have to witness it?

But why would they call Beacon?

"I didn't see anything either," Velvet said. "B-But, I'm gonna be honest here, I don't really know what I was supposed to be looking for."

"Neither did I," Jaune admitted bashfully.

Truth be told, Blake wasn't a crime scene investigator either. If there was something obvious like a name carved into the tiles or a droplet of dried blood, she'd recognize that, but her detective game wasn't particularly strong.

We could look up how to investigate on our scrolls, but then we'd be no different than any old idiot who has an internet connection. Mr. Gottlieb hired us – Team Job, a band of youngish freelancers – for a reason. We're hunter-adjacent when it comes to combat, but we don't have the same limitations and ties to the institution that all of our peers do.

"We don't know what happened here, but someone in the police force had the bright idea to call in Beacon's top deputy," Blake pointed out. If they couldn't find the bloodied murder weapon they were looking for, perhaps they could reason why it had been removed. "What could they have found about a body with its throat slit that would warrant bringing in Glynda Goodwitch herself?"

"A Grimm?" Jaune suggested. "No, that can't be right. Aside from the fact that it would never kill just one person, there's no way it would wind up in some rent-controlled housing complex." He lowered his voice. "Plus, it wouldn't slit someone's throat; it'd bite it out whole."

"It's more than that," Velvet said pensively. "You guys wouldn't know, but hunters typically only get involved for extremely dangerous or critical police cases. Normally, if there's a risk to police officers' lives, a consulting huntsman or huntress is called in, not the deputy headmistress of Beacon herself. Like, for instance, a gun-wielding maniac would be stopped by an aura-users with far greater ease than they would have been by a squad of squishy police." Velvet stroked her chin and glanced through the open doorway at Mr. Gottlieb, who was resting his eyes. "But why Miss Goodwitch? I don't know. They called in the literal best they had, the best the world has – even Ozpin isn't rated as high for combat, and he's legendary."

"And I'm guessing that covering up the truth isn't also school policy?" Blake asked.

Velvet didn't seem too happy about the accusation Blake was making, but even she had to admit there was something fishy about this.

"I guess we know it's a really dangerous criminal then," Jaune said. "And, uh, maybe Beacon is trying to stop people from panicking? But that stuff doesn't really help us figure out who killed Mrs. Theo."

He wasn't wrong, but Blake didn't exactly hear a suggestion coming from her partner. To be fair, she didn't have any either.

"Velvet…did any of your classes tell you how to investigate a crime?" Blake asked.

"Not one," she said with an unhappy shake of her head. "All I could think is for us to interview the neighbors? Perhaps they heard something…but that came from a TV show I watched, not some hidden huntress knowledge."

"It's worth a shot," Jaune said. "We're stumped otherwise."

The apartment complex in which Mr. Gottleib lived reminded Blake a lot of some of the cheaper motels she'd seen. It was wedged in between two mid-rise office buildings, one of which Blake wasn't entirely convinced was even in use due to an unfixed, broken window on the third floor. Though there were alleyways on both sides of the apartment complex, the actual building itself was only accessible from two entrances, which faces the opposite streets that boxes it in.

The apartment complex itself was a hollow square shaped building with a roofless central common area in the center, and the apartments were all built surrounding it. To enter, one would have to either unlock the front gate or be buzzed in, at which point they would be able to walk through a breezeway into the central area.

No people lived on the first floor – only the leasing office, some maintenance spaces, and electrical rooms would be found there. There were two sets of stairs, one on the left and one on the right, that led up to each floor. The doors of the apartments were accessible via open-air walkways that went along the inside, meaning that anyone could go right up to the door of any apartment as long as they were past the gate.

The next-door neighbor of Mr. Gottleib to his right didn't even answer, even though Blake could hear his footsteps coming from within to check to peephole. They had no legal authority here to force whoever it was to answer their questions, however, and Blake really didn't even know how much they expected this to accomplish other than to cover all bases. Thus, whoever was behind the door was spared Team Job's wrath.

On to the next one, I guess.

The left neighbor actually did respond, though. A middle-aged woman came forth, probably about half to two-thirds of the age of her decrepit neighbor. She answered the door wearing a bathrobe with a yapping miniature poodle in her hands. Blake had to hold back the hisses that instinctively tried to escape her lips, and she pushed Jaune forward to handle this.

"Hello? Can I help you?" asked the woman.

"Hello, ma'am. My name is Jaune Arc, and I'm a member of Team Job Security. Your next-door neighbor, Mr. Gottleib, has partaken of our services in order to investigate the recent –"

"Oh, I know all about that," said the woman, sorrow taking her face. "A simply dreadful business. I wasn't close with them, but Theo and I exchanged recipes, and she occasionally cared for Ralphie here when I went on vacation." The woman stroked her noisy-ass dog's neck. "I'll help in any way I can."

"Thank you very much." Jaune cleared his throat. "I would like to clarify – my colleagues and I represent the independent security firm Team Job Security, and thus you have no legal obligation to answer any questions we ask. We are not police officers, nor do we have their authority."

"And I'd like to clarify that I'll help in any way I can," said the woman.

She stepped back in the doorway and turned her back to them, and it took Jaune walking in after her for Blake to realize that the action had been intended to invite them inside. Blake filed in after Velvet was already through.

The woman led them to her living room and remained standing, as there weren't enough seats for them all.

"Now, then. Mrs.…"

"Dorean," said the lady.

"Mrs. Dorean," Jaune repeated, smiling as much as was acceptable for such a grim topic. "There isn't much for us to go off of due to the crime scene in question being so…cold. Furthermore, the police have…"

"They took poor Theo's body," groused Mrs. Dorean. "And they say they won't return it to Gottleib for a funeral."

"We were wondering if there might be anything you could tell us that would give us a direction to begin in, frankly," Jaune said. "Anything you heard the night of, any knowledge of enemies your neighbors might have had…whatever you could tell us, it would be of great help."

Mrs. Dorean bit her lip. "I'm…I'm afraid I simply have nothing. I slept soundly that night, and neither Gottleib nor Theo antagonized anyone to my knowledge. I wish I could give you some clue, but I…I have nothing."

Jaune just nodded. "I understand, ma'am."

"W-Will you be able to…"

"Most likely not," Blake said. "It's simply so long passed that we have virtually nothing to work off of. Maybe if we'd been here earlier…"

It probably wouldn't have made a difference, as Team Job wasn't formally trained whatsoever on how to solve a murder case, but nothing Blake could offer would ease these folks' pain, so perhaps a comforting white lie might.

"I'm so sorry I'm not more help," said Mrs. Dorean, twiddling her thumbs uncomfortably. Her lower lip wobbled slightly. "Poor Theo. Oh, poor, poor Theo."

Jaune took a step back. "We'll, ahem, see ourselves out."

"Mmmmmyou can't?"

Blake felt like such a coward for leaving it to Jaune once again to break the news to Mr. Gottleib. The knowledge that he was better at easing people into it did little to quell her guilty conscience.

It's better for everyone this way, if he breaks the news. I just happen to be a part of everyone.

"I'm afraid we can't, sir."

"Understand," he rasped. "Damned hunters…cleaned out the evidence. Damned…damn them. Damn them all."

Velvet obviously didn't appreciate that sentiment, but Blake couldn't find it in herself to be bothered by her dropout huntress employee's bruised ego. Beacon was at fault here, and this old man's anger at the profession that had heartily screwed him over was 100% justified in her eyes.

"All fees are waived," Jaune said. "We were unable to complete our mission."

"Mmmmmmif anything changes, huuuh, and you think you can do it, huuuuah, I'll pay you double. Triple."

"I'm sorry to tell you that that's unlikely." Jaune placed his hands behind his back. "But I personally promise you that if we have any leads, we'll come right back here, and we won't stop until they're exhausted, or the culprit is brought to justice."

Mr. Gottleib's eyes shut, and his head lulled up and down without stopping. When it became clear he had nothing more to say, Team Job excused themselves.

"That was unpleasant," Velvet said as soon as they were out of the apartment complex. "Remind me to never take on a job we have no experience on again."

"Seconded," Jaune said. His face buried itself in his hands. "Gods, I really wish we could've done more."

"Sometimes, things just don't work out," Blake tried to say, but the sentiment wasn't heartfelt.

Had this been a mission where they'd simply failed, that would have sucked, but at least then they could say they'd tried their hardest. In this case, they hadn't even been able to try.

We were asked to come and investigate, and we did just that. There were no clues, and we didn't charge the guy. Aside from giving him false hope just by existing, I don't think we did anything wrong. At the very least, there was nothing we could have done better.

It was just a bad scenario for everyone. Mr. Gottleib was an old man, and Blake expected that he would be joining his wife in the next life within the next ten years at the very longest. For him to have to live with the brutal way that she'd passed, and to never know why or how…

I don't know what I'd do if mom or dad or Jaune or Velvet were murdered like that, let alone what I'd do if justice completely failed to take place. I guess I should just be thankful that my own loved ones are all still alive and well.

Team Job had no other visits for the rest of the day.

Blake waved goodbye to Velvet and locked the office. No profit today, but no loss.

She ate some of Jaune's home cooking, but it was tasteless in her mouth.

After he'd retreated to his room for the night, Blake spent three hours awake mentally going over everything she'd seen in her head. Mr. Gottleib had said he would welcome any new developments, and Blake took that to heart.

She reviewed every sight, every sound, every sensation she'd experienced upon walking into that apartment complex. She walked back up the stairs in her mind's eye, running through each memory she again and again to check if there was anything suspicious about it. She checked the doors again, and she heard Velvet describe the windows a second time.

In the end, she came to the same conclusion. There was simply nothing. No clues, no leads, nothing.

The next day, Mrs. Dorean was waiting outside their office when they arrived to open it up. As they got closer to her, Blake made out the sparkle of withheld tears in her eyes.

"Ma'am?" Jaune said. Blake let him speak first, like always. "Can we help you?"

"Gottleib was murdered last night," she said.

Coming Soon: CSI, Vale

Maybe Jaune might be able to do a little bit better at detective work when the crime scene is as fresh as a daisy.

Author's Notes

Man, it's been a while since I've ordered a hit on my own OCs. I was really slipping if it took this long.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!