“So it’s gonna be real-tricky then.” Kevin flipped back a few pages of his report and frowned even harder: “Okay, folks. Do you know anything about electrical substations?”
“Yeah, a little bit.” Mick shrugged as Marcus shook his head: “What do you wanna know?”
“Okay, here’s what I found - ” Kevin pulled out ay page from the report and started writing on it: “You know, I’ve been trag some other cases iy as well. And there was retly a surge of violent crimes, almost all homicides, even in South-Western District. And here’s the weird part - a lot of them seemed to cide with damages to local electrical substations.”
“That - I don’t really know anything about that.” Mick raised his brows: “But it sounded like an unfortunate ce.”
“Okay, and do you know if our substations are special? You know, pared to the substations from other cities?” Kevin turned and looked Mi the eyes.
“Well, I have a couple of college buddies who have family members that are higher up exe these electrical pahey were quite proud of the ‘revolutionary infrastructure’ of our city’s electric grid system.” Mick thought for a while, then answered: “Apparently they had some kind of high ted extra sturdy transformers deployed in those substations. And they are not deployed anywhere outside of the city because it was a collective trade secret of the ey. That’s about it, I don’t know any further details though.”
“Special transformers, hmm…” Kevin scratched his jaw, then sighed: “Yeah, enough about me. How’s your iigation otherwise? Any leads aside from having to deal with Brooklyn Payne?”
“Well - ” Marcus tried to formute his thoughts and pose a few not so orthordox questions. But before he could do it, Mick’s cell ph and interrupted him.
“Sorry, I o take this.” Mick took a look at his phohe out of the prect to take this call.
“Okay, while Mick is away. Kevin, here’s where I would like your semi-professional opinion again.” Marcus took a quick look at Mick then turo Kevin: “I know - I don’t usually talk to you or anyone about this kind of stuff. But let me ask a hypothetical question first: is it true that acc to legend, if a woman dies wearing red, she’ll turn into a vengeful spirit?”
“Yeah, well, acc to legend. But I’ve gotta ask - is there something that led you to approach the case this way?” Kevin nodded, but then asked Marcus with a frown: “You know, I for one am gd that we could see more eye to eye on this, but there’s no way Captain Ko would go along with this theory.”
“Nonono, I am not pnning on it.” Marcus shook his head: “I want to find out the truth first, and then we think about how to hahe Bensons. And if we’re going by the testaments of the people Mid I interviewed today, things looked pretty bad for our rich boy Carl. Before he got in that car and probably started driving drunk with Lydia Mu, he actually hit several bars trying to pick up girls. From what the girl’s coworkers told us, he might have lied to take the victim with him. And they were likely both drunk at the time of death.”
“She was indeed drunk.” Kevin nodded: “The autopsy did find signs of her being intoxicated - she died of asphyxiatioo vomit. So - let’s say, if things did you as you suspected - ”
The lights in the officer flickered a few times. Both Kevin and Marcus stopped for a moment and looked around, but there was nothing anywhere.
“She killed him, because she was wearing a red dress.” Marcus scratched his forehead, then sighed: “But the main reason was that he lied, got her drunk, probably and very likely took advantage of her, aually got her killed. The burning of him was actually some kind of just desert, because Carl Benson was, acc to multiple witnesses, very boastful about this new car.”
“Yes. I’ve gotta say I’m liking this new Marcus.” Kevin smiled: “That sounded - actually pretty likely. ”
The lights in the prect flickered some more, and a gust of cold wind came out of nowhere and blew through them. A faint weep came from the inner parts of the prect. Marcus immediately jumped up and stood before Kevin with his Qi c through his meridians and trated on his eyes and ears. This would not be like the st time, he promised himself.
The wrew dimmer in Marcus’s sight, yet this time, he actually saw things that were not there before, things he never saw before, things he still had doubts about, but of which he had beore accepting.
The lights in the hall leading towards the evidens flickered the most. Some kind of dark mist flowed from the inner rooms. At the end of the hall, a shadow started to emerge. And as the shadow gradually took shape, the hairs on the baarcus’ neck stood up straight and he could feel the chills radiating from his extremities throughout his entire body.
This was the shadow of a young woman, in a dress that was literally dripping red. Pools of blood formed as more and more droplets of blood fell from her dress. Marks of tears of blood crawled down on her face, inating from her eyes, and ending at the edges of her . Marcus’s hands ched tight as he stared at this shadht at the eyes. Yes, it looked just like Lydia Mu, but there was no way he could if this shadow harbored ill will.
After a short while, seemingly all of a sudden, white spots started appearing on her dress, not many, but visible. When Marcus was staring at the shadow, the shadow was also staring back at him and Kevin as well. Before long, the lights flickered once again, and for but oremely quistant, Marcus saw something ed around the shadow’s left arm and wrist, then violently pulled her away.
“Marcus?” Kevin asked from behind him with a curious and worried voice: “Wha - what happened?”
The lights stopped flickering, and Marcus felt that the back of his shirt was wet from his cold sweat.
“Did you see that?” Marcus asked, still looking around just in case something else would appear.
“See what?” Kevin appeared fused, then his eyes lit up: “What did you see? Did something just happen?”
“What happened?” Just this moment, Mick came bato the prect after taking his call.
“Okay.” Marcus quickly gathered himself, then turo Kevin: “So, Kevin, when you have time, please tinue looking into the things I mentioo you st time. To be ho, I am still unclear what I saw, but I’ll e bad expihing, okay? I o che something.”
“Detective, do you wao e with you?” Mick asked, fused but slightly embarrassed: “I ’t if it’s too far, I’ve gotta …”
“No need, I o go in alone.” Marcus opened up his drawers and shuffled through some files before he pulled up a map with Kevin’s drawings on it: “Kevin, if you are w here til te, be sure to prep more of those talismans, okay?”
“What’s going on?” Mick asked.
“Okay, let me know if you need some teical support.” Kevin nodded.
“I’ll expin ter!” Marcus picked up the squad car keys again and ran towards the garage. On his way, he sent a quick message to his father, inf him that he would be te tonight again and there would be o wait for him.
The map he had in his hand was from more than a month ago at this point, it was ohat was marked by Kevin. The marked area on the map, was the old turf of Bai Gu, the “junior” drug dealer of one of the crews uhe local drug lord Carl Strong. Per his knowledge, that area should be abandoned right now due to some of the ret crackdowns from the city police forces, which would be beneficial for what he was about to do. Visiting an unsafe area at this time of day was not a good idea, but he could not help the urge to check the area out and could not wait till m. Bai Gu cried about a woman wanting to kill him, he did not believe him then. But right now he just wao try and see for himself.
One good thing about this time of day, at least to Marcus, was that traffic everywhere had mostly subsided. The drive was only about half an hour, and he was able to reach the area before the sun pletely went down.
Uhe dimming e and red clouds, Marcus parked the squad car in a retively secure er away from the actual turf, then walked to the area and started looking around.
If it was before, Marcus would have no idea what to look for or eveo start. But now that his Qi trolling teique proved effective, he could revisit everything with literally a fresh new perspective.
