Neon Tiger

[WolfofWords]

Moonlight climbed off of his light racer and keyed his security code deftly into the ignition panel, locking the vehicle in place. He brushed his jacket back into place and then headed toward the main entrance of the Clash headquarters. Moonlight had joined up a few years prior, wanting to make a difference and he held the record for resolving criminal incidents. He stepped inside the front door.

“Agent Sirius Moonlight,” he said, flashing his badge. “Here to see Captain Farrell.”

The man at the desk blinked for a moment as he studied Moonlight and his badge. “Agent Moonlight,” he said slowly. “I caught your most recent intervention on the news. I can’t believe nobody died.”

Moonlight shrugged and smiled. “Just a few lucky shots,” he said. “That’s what I’ve trained for.”

“Speaking of your sidearm, you’re going to need to check that in here,” the desk sergeant said. He saw Moonlight hesitate to give up his sidearm. “We all have to do it. You’ll be safe inside.” The last was said with a small, mocking smile.

Moonlight shrugged again. “I don’t need a sidearm to defend myself,” he said.

“You’re going to have to give up your sword too,” the sergeant said. Everybody knew that Agent Moonlight favored a sword as his backup weapon. He pressed a button and a small box opened next to the desk.

Moonlight took his sidearm out of its holster and placed it in the box. He then pulled the collapsible sword from his jacket. He made sure that it was in a locked position and placed it in the box as well. The box closed and a moment later the door opened that led further into the building. Moonlight nodded to the desk sergeant and headed inside. He had not been at main headquarters too often but he still pretty much knew where he was going. He saw people notice him but he did not really like being a celebrity. He knew he was good at his job but that was because he was dedicated to it. He paused outside of Captain Farrell’s office, smiled, and showed his badge.

“Agent Moonlight to see the Captain,” he said. “I’m expected.”

Janie Gunn, the Captain's assistant, smiled and nodded. “I know you are Agent Moonlight,” she said. “You can go right in.”

“Thank you,” Moonlight said and opened the door and walked into the office.

Captain Farrell stood up from his desk and reached out his hand for a shake. Moonlight reached out and shook the man’s hand gladly.

“Thanks for coming uptown so quickly, Agent Moonlight,” the Captain said. “I hate to interrupt your good work.”

“I go where ordered, sir,” Moonlight said. “I’m happy to come up here to meet with you.”

“Good,” the Captain said. “This won’t take long. It’s come to my attention that you’ve been running without a partner for a while.”

“It has been a while,” Moonlight said, an eyebrow slowly raising. He had a bad feeling about where this was going. “It’s been since my training partner but I do work with others sometimes.”

“Well, then you’re due to get a new partner,” the Captain said. “That’s where Agent Jones comes in. She’s also between partners.”

It was only then that Moonlight noticed the woman sitting silently in the corner. She stood up and offered a stiff smile. Moonlight shook her hand. For what it was worth, she had a firm grip.

“So, if I connect the dots correctly, Mrs. Jones here is my new partner,” Moonlight said.

“It’s Miss Amanda Jones,” Jones said. “But really it’s Agent Jones. Let’s keep this professional.”

“Sorry,” Moonlight said. “You’ve got a ring on your hand. I just assumed.”

“It’s to keep people from barking up the wrong tree,” Jones said. “Forget about the ring.”

“This is where I’m supposed to get bent out of shape about having to deal with a new partner?” Moonlight asked. “I’ll bite. I work best alone. I’ve worked alone for years.”

“You’ve gotten lucky,” Jones said. “Lucky doesn’t last forever. We both need somebody to watch our back.”

“Obviously I have no real say in this,” Moonlight said. “So I guess we’re partners.”

“I guess so,” Jones said.

[WolfofWords]

Agent Moonlight and Agent Jones stepped out of their car and headed into the alleyway. Moonlight spotted the body first but that was not a great feat as local medical examiner Dr. Creeper was standing over it. In this town, nobody wanted to meet the Creeper. Anybody who did had probably come to a bad end. Agent Jones silently pointed up and Moonlight followed the gesture to see a broken window a few stories above. Moonlight nodded. They would have to check it out.

“What have we got doctor?” Moonlight asked. “Things look messy here.”

“Is that you, Sirius?” the doctor asked with a grin. He was gaunt with long hair that he had to keep tucking back. “You’re assigned to this one?”

“Me and Mrs. Jones,” Moonlight said. “Agent Jones, sorry.”

Jones seemed to let that one slide. “Nice to meet you doctor,” she said. “I’ve heard good things about you.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Dr. Creeper said. “But I’m happy to be of service. The young lady here had her throat slit before she took a ride through the window. She has glass shards embedded in her. It was a race between blood loss and the impact for what killed her. I need to do an autopsy but it was clearly murder.”

“I hope so,” Jones said. “Otherwise it’s the showiest suicide ever.”

Moonlight grunted at that. “Do we have a positive ID, Doc?” he asked. “We wouldn’t want to keep you from hauling her back to your lab.”

“I’m going to hit you with a shocker,” Dr. Creeper said. “She isn’t chipped.”

“That’s becoming rarer and rarer,” Jones said. “It’s about to become mandatory.”

“Lucky me,” Dr. Creeper said. “That only makes my job easier but I have another surprise. She was carrying this.” He held out a wallet in his gloved hands.

Moonlight slipped on his own gloves before taking the wallet with some amusement. “Wow, that’s old school,” he said. “I guess she needed to carry identification somehow.”

He opened the wallet and pulled out a thin plastic card.

“Annie Ophelia Kaye,” Moonlight said. He held the card up so Jones could scan it with her handheld.

“This is her address,” Jones said with a look back up to the window. “More or less. I guess we should go up and see what we can see.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Moonlight said. He put the ID card carefully back in the wallet and then slipped the whole thing into an evidence bag. The two of them headed into the building and climbed the stairs. “Which apartment was she in?”

“4A,” Jones said. “Right here. I’ll take care of the lock.”

She pulled out a slicer tool and burned through the lock quickly. She pushed open the door slowly, hand on the handle of her pistol in its holster. Moonlight drew his collapsible sword but did not trigger it to expand. They entered the apartment with confidence in one swift movement and looked in opposite directions, ready for an attack. No attack came. They slowly relaxed.

“Some bloodstains on the carpet over there,” Moonlight said, point at the stains. “Probably close to where the initial attack took place.”

“The fire escape is just outside of the window,” Jones said. “It would have to have been a hard throw to send her through the window and also clear the railing.”

“Some bio-enhancements could achieve that kind of strength strength,” Moonlight said, still looking around.

Jones put her handheld up against a picture of Annie standing very close to a young man and scanned it. Her eyebrows went up as she read the screen.

“I knew I recognized that face,” Jones said. “That’s Maxwell Silver. What’s he doing slumming it in this neighborhood?”

“Dating our victim or at least that’s what it looks like,” Moonlight said. “We’re going to have to take it slow with the Silver family but he just might be our guy.”

“It can’t be that easy,” Jones said.

“He should at least know something,” Moonlight said. “We’ll get the forensic squad down here to check this place out. We’ll check in on Mr. Silver and any of Annie’s other known associates. We’ll shake something loose.”

“I hope so,” Jones said. “For her sake.”

[WolfofWords]

Detectives Moonlight and Jones decided to stick around at Ms. Kaye’s apartment. With no signs of the culprit of her murder on the premises, they could spend some more time taking in the scene. They did not want to walk around too much as that might disturb evidence. Most of the apartment thankfully had hardwood floors which would make searching for evidence a bit easier. When they cleared the apartment of hostiles, they had roughly mapped the place out. There was one big area that included living room, kitchen, and dining areas. In the back was a separate bedroom and bathroom. It was a cozy little apartment, a little rundown but great for the part of town it was in.

The detectives silently walked into the dining area and saw that the table was against the wall with one of the legs askew. There were scratch marks on the floor that seemed to indicate that the table had been shoved aside. There was a large puddle of blood on the floor nearer the origin points of the scratch marks.

“Looks like the table was moved,” Jones said.

“Violently,” Moonlight said in agreement. “A lot of blood. Was she hiding under the table, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Jones said. “Looks like the blood leads either to or from the bedroom.”

“Good eye,” Moonlight said. “Let’s take a peek.”

They carefully made their way to the bedroom and looked in from the doorway. It would still be a while until forensics would arrive still. When they looked in, they found a gruesome scene. There was blood everywhere and signs of a massive struggle. At a glance, it was clear that the bed had been shoved at an odd angle and the mirror on the vanity was broken.

“A lot of bloodstains on that carpet,” Jones said. “Hard to pinpoint just where it started.”

“At least we know where it ended,” Moonlight said, gesturing back toward the living room window and the general direction of where Annie’s body had fallen into the alleyway. “So I could be wrong but it looks like the violence started here and ended at the living room window. The windows in the bedroom and bathroom look intact so entry through there is unlikely. We’ll let the techs check that out.”

“There’s blood on the broken mirror so I think she was shoved up against it,” Jones said. “With all this blood the fatal blow might have been delivered here and she bled out.”

“We’ll get notes from Doctor Creeper on that later,” Moonlight said. “But you might be right.”

They walked away from the bedroom and back into the living area near the door. They both took a moment to enter their thoughts into their tablets. It was important not to let any of those thoughts slip away. Their notes were instantly filed in the case file and Moonlight was curious to read Jones’ notes.

“So the door and its lock are intact,” Moonlight said. “That supports our initial theory that she knew her attacker.”

“As you well know, door locks can be hacked,” Jones said. “I mean, we just did.” She held up her slicer tool.

“True,” Moonlight said. “It’s not common tech but it’s out there.” He shrugged. “You’re right, it’s important to keep an open mind at this point.”

“It’s getting late,” Jones said. “We should let the techs and Creeper do their job. In the morning, we can visit the boyfriend and see what we can get from friends and family.”

“Before we leave we’ll do a little canvassing of the area,” Moonlight said. “Something like this was loud enough that somebody had to have heard something.”

There was a knock on the door.

“That ought to be the crew from forensics,” Jones said.

“Let’s let them in and get to work,” Moonlight said.