“Morning, detective!” The morning of the second day since Marcus was assigned to partner with Mick, a future detective, he was greeted with an enthusiastic and smiling face the moment he set foot in the precinct.

 

“Mick, you’re very - very early.” Marcus sighed and then smiled.

 

“Yeah, I’m just here to tune something, I want to have your paperwork organized as soon as possible. ” Mick pointed at a small pile of printed paperwork on his desk, marked and put into different folders: “And yeah - these are the organized files. I chose only the first three pages of each file so that I wouldn’t need to waste paper, but still have enough information for you.”

 

“You did that with this little time?” Marcus’ eyes opened wide.

 

“Yeah, it’s still pretty preliminary - I just used a script my buddy from college wrote to analyze the files.” Mick nodded, but then immediately waved his hands : “And no! It doesn’t send the files to any outside place, it just processes the file and does some kind of syntactical analysis and carves out keywords.”

 

“A script, huh?” Marcus nodded: “Yeah, I understand. But do talk to me and have someone read that script next time, okay? I know you think this is a faster way to do it, but as your S.O, I and the captain will need to know what’s in it, to make sure it doesn’t constitute a security risk. So, maybe talk to Kevin about this. ”

 

“Understood, detective.” Mick thought for a quick moment, then immediately nodded: “My apologies - we used a version of the script back at my old precinct, but I remember it went through a vetting process as well. Won’t happen next time, and I - I will talk to Mr. Loo next.”

 

“Don’t be afraid of him. He’s just eccentric and a bit of a troll.” Marcus chuckled: “Okay, here’s the thing we do next, we have a few bars to hit.”

 

“For the Carl Benson case?” Mick sounded confused: “Aren’t we gonna deal with the reparations team case first?”

 

“We’ll need to get to that later.” Marcus showed Mick a text message, sent to his phone late last night. “But don’t worry, we already have Detective Pahaik and Lance dealing with it.”

 

It was a text from Captain Ko. “Prioritize the Carl Benson case for now, the kid’s parents are making a fuss and are bothering Shervas. Go check it out with the kid. ” The text read.

 

“The kid?” Mick seemed somewhat unhappy about the word.

 

“You’ll have to excuse Captain Ko.” Marcus shook his head and put his phone back into his pocket: “He might not look it, but he’s old as fuck.”

 

“Really? I was thinking that when I met him.” Mick chuckled: “I heard he was on the force for more than two decades, yet he looked - maybe just a little bit over my age.”

 

“Yeah, but don’t ask him how he did that. He hates that question.” Marcus tossed the rolled plastic breakfast bag into the bin by his desk: “So, you’re ready? Let’s go and visit a few bars. Then if we have time we will go check out some drug dealer turfs.”

 

“Okay.” Mick nodded: “How should we go? Taxi? Bus?”

 

“It’s in the South-Western District, so I’ll drive.” Marcus went into the record room of the precinct - it was still early, so there was no one on duty. But Marcus just took one car key from the wall and wrote his name and current time on the checkout form hanging on the door.

 

“Which bars are we going to?” Mick asked before Marcus pulled away from the precinct’s parking lot.

 

“Here.” Marcus handed Mick a piece of note, with five names on there - all of which were of high end or semi-high end nightclubs and bars.

 

“We might need to hurry.” Mick browsed through the list and drew up a rough route using an app on his phone: “They might be completely closing up for the day soon. Here, use this route, it might be faster.”

 

“Thanks.” Marcus took a quick look at the route on Mick’s phone, then continued with his driving.

 

Marcus only went with part of the route pointed by Mick’s app, for his usual habits and experiences with these roads led him to familiar routes instead of faster ones a couple of times. And eventually he did arrive at the location on the top of the list - the nightclub Emerald Starlight, where the unfortunate young woman Lydia Mu worked, whose body in a red dress was found at the electrical substation.

 

“So this is the Emerald Starlight.” Marcus looked up at the dark green arch with golden edges, tall semi-transparent dark green glass doors, dark marble stairs and flooring on the entrance. The whole place had a dark green theme echoing its name, and one did not need much clue to tell it was a nightclub of exclusivity and higher class.

 

“You’ve never been here before?” Mick asked.

 

“No, not really.” Marcus shrugged: “You?”

 

“Once or twice, college parties.” Mick scratched his head: “It’s a cool place if you have money to spend - ”

 

“Aren’t all nightclubs?” Marcus smiled and walked right into the front door.

 

The floor inside was nowhere as clean and exquisite as the outside. The air reeked of spilled alcohol, vomit, smoke and sweat, Marcus could even smell the after scent of certain narcotics. Aside from glass shards from broken alcohol bottles and glasses, there were marks on the ground that indicated heavy objects being dragged outside, maybe some kind of merchandise, or drunk people. Two cleaners in overalls were cleaning the place up, neither of whom responded to Marcus and Mick.

 

“Is this place always like this?” Marcus asked Mick.

 

“No - at least I don’t remember so.” Mick frowned: “Looks like there was a big party here last night - I don’t think people here just break things like this.”

 

“Gentlemen.” Marcus called out to the two cleaners: “We’re officers from the PCPD, may I ask who’s in charge here?”

 

The cleaners exchanged looks, then both pointed at a door at the back of the central dance floor with a golden plaque. There was nothing written on the plaque, just some flowery and shiny patterns.

 

“Thank you.” Marcus and Mick nodded at the cleaners and walked in.

 

“What?!” When Marcus and Mick pushed the door open, a man with messy blonde hair in a slightly glistening suit covered in crumbs, alcohol stains and marks of stretches and folds looked up from his table. His eyes were bloodshot, drool was dripping from the corners of his mouth, and there was some kind of light yellow powder on his nose. Mick was almost about to whip out his badge, but Marcus stopped him.

 

“I’m sorry sir, I know this is a terrible time.” Marcus raised both his hands barely over his shoulder: “But - we have some questions to ask you.”

 

“What the fuck - who are you? What are you doing here!?” The man seemed to have taken a short minute before he realized Marcus and Mick were not his staff. And the moment he realized, he almost jumped out of his chair. His hand started ruffling through his pockets.

 

“Stop! Stop!” Marcus stared right at the man’s red eyes, raised his voice while extending his left palm at the man with his right hand behind his back: “We’re not here to hurt you, but if you keep searching like that, there’ll be no guarantee.”

 

“Who - who the fuck are you?” The man finally calmed down but kept his body at the wall, his body was shaking: “You guys cops?”

 

“Do you want us to be cops?” Marcus narrowed his eyes and gently tilted his head.

 

“... what do you want?” The man let out such a long sigh that almost made him shrink in size.

 

“Lydia Mu.” Marcus pulled out a picture of the unfortunate young woman and put it on the man’s table, one of her smiling happily in a white dress under a tree: “She was a waitress and drink promoter here. We wanna know - ”

 

“She’s fired.” The man shook his head: “She skipped out on work one night and stopped coming in.”

 

“What happened?” Marcus asked.

 

“How the fuck should I know?” The man shrugged and threw himself back into his comfortable looking chair: “She asked some other girls to send me a fucking message, didn’t even have the courtesy to speak to me face to face. Boy, I was even planning to save her a spot later…”

 

“Save her a spot?” Mick asked.

 

“She wants to sing! ” The man spun in his chair with his head resting on the back looking up at the ceiling: “Always bugging me, always - and then just when I finally cleared it with upper management, she ditched work on a Friday night to go drive around with some trust fund prick who just could, not, shut, up, about, his fucking car.”

 

“What else can you tell us about that night?” Marcus asked.

 

“What? Something happened to her?” The man looked both Marcus and Mick in the eyes: “What? What?!”

 

“She’s dead.” Marcus thought for a brief moment, then just dropped the truth on the man’s lap.

 

“What?” The man shivered: “How? Where? Did that bastard - ”

 

“That’s none of your concern.” Marcus’s voice got colder, his eyes even glowed a little: “What do you remember from that night?”

 

“I - I -” The man still wanted to ask something, but the stern and slightly dangerous aura radiating from Marcus got him stumped. Maybe it was because his mind was not in the right state, maybe it was because Marcus’ eyes became too terrifying for him, he eventually relented.

 

When Marcus and Mick left the nightclub, they had a pretty clear picture on what happened that night, though not much of it was very useful, and there was barely any guarantee that any of it was accurate. 

 

According to the man, the night shift manager of Emerald Starlight, the night Lydia Mu left work early, she was driven away by a rich young man, who claimed that he was a fan of her music and would like to “introduce her to his connections and friends in show business.” And apparently, when they left, neither the young man nor the unfortunately young woman were in conditions to drive. The sad thing was, there was no security footage to corroborate it, or so the man said, even after some pushing from both of them. “I can’t access the security footage, if you’re cops, just arrest me. I still can’t do it.” These were his own words.

 

“So, Carl Benson, in a truly South-Western fashion rich kid fashion, tried to pick up a girl with false promises and fake grandeur.” Mick sighed: “This part seemed like an open and shut case to me. But - who the fuck killed him? And why? I mean - what do you think, detective?”

 

“Let’s go ask a few of the girls.” Marcus thought for a moment, then answered.