The Norn Files

[kyonides]

Chapter Two

Guilty?

by Kyonides

Keith was not supposed to be busy sniffing around like a hound. His friend Wulfo might have been framed by an unknown hitman and it could be his fault for only seeing what the murderer wanted them to see. Since he was aware of this situation, it had become his duty to forcefully open their eyes and focus on finding the truth.

The young man entered the coroner’s and starting asking for Dr. Sliver. Time did not appear to be running out at all. Widespread rumors led him to that expert, the one who would have to answer all of his seemingly stupid questions.

“Hey doctor! I guess I might be interrupting you right now but people keep telling me you’re in charge of the analyzing the corpse found at the Sirius Plaza Mall yesterday afternoon. Is there anything you’d tell me how exactly did the victim die. My fears don’t let me even take a nap for I seriously doubt we had arrested the killer or the accomplice at all. We didn’t find any lethal weapon at the crime scene. Let’s say it’d be helpful to know what we’re actually looking for there.”

“Uh huh? And you are…” the doctor preferred to get the intruder’s name first.

“That’s easy! I’m detective Norn, at your service I guess!” the inquisitive guy told him.

“Hrm, I see. I’ve never seen you around here before. Anyway, I can tell you for sure he surely knew how to die in a creative way!” Sliver carelessly revealed.

“Please define how creative he actually was, doctor Sliver!” the cop inquired of the coroner.

“Oh the killer’s ingenuity is formidable!” the expert went on. “Bring me a pellet or a marble or perhaps even a die and I’d be able to prove it in no time, Mr. Norn.”

“A marble… Now I’m suspecting I’d need you to elaborate a bit more on the cause of death, doc” the confused cop let him know.

“My examination indicated a small object like those I’ve mentioned before was the only thing the killer ever needed to trigger a minuscule bomb located in his left temple” the doctor concluded.

“So why didn’t the head blow up into smithereens then?” the detective had to ask him.

“It wasn’t a big detonation but just an insignificant one capable of breaking the blood vessels in a matter of milliseconds” doctor Sliver added then.

Norn now had to suspect the victim might have been forced to get a lethal implant before he could work for his last employer. So now the question was who was capable of performing such a feat in the surrounding area. Or did he need to do a nationwide search for the culprit? Things just got more complicated than a rookie like him could ever handle.

“How the hell am I supposed to know where that damn surgery might have taken place?” he questioned himself.

“In my humble opinion, nobody in this city might be skillful enough to perform it without killing his patient during this dangerous procedure…” the doctor revealed after eavesdropping on Keith’s commentary.

No matter what detectives Falcon and Dahlia thought about Wulfo’s involvement in this case, there was no way he could be connected to such a high profile individual or any secret organization. Who the hell would use a marble or die to kill a coworker, friend or acquaintance? He had to be released from prison for sure. His problem was that Keith would need to first convince sergeant Young and then the district attorney as well.

The attorney could be his biggest roadblock here, especially if Mrs. Alice “The Executioner” Relish had been assigned to his case. She did not earn her lovely nickname because the defendant should be sentenced to death no matter what he or she had done. What made her a real issue here was that she had never asked the judge for a jail sentence of no less than ten or twenty years.

If the case did not comply to her expectations, Relish knew how to quickly adapt to the unacceptable situation. She would keep pressing new charges, at least until the defendant had to serve the minimum time she had set in her own mind in the county prison. Some of his coworkers strongly believed even her own boss stopped caring about her obsession long time ago.

The Bad News

Fifteen past two, the businessman got a new phone call at his large office. One of his unknown associates was calling him from a private number. He had not heard from him for several weeks so he was intrigued, sort of. After thinking about it twice, the guy slid his finger and answered it.

“Idiot! Why haven’t you taken care of the darn Shelter yet?” the other voice grounded him.

“Of course I’m taking care of it right now!” the man in gray argued.

“No, you’re not! There’s pretty much no fresh meat in the Shelter right now!” he severely denounced.

“Impossible! I’ve got my men busy dealing with that issue right now, everything should be ready for tomorrow night” the well combed man stated.

“You better keep your word or else the overseer will be in dire need of finishing your contract at dusk!” the stranger warned him and hung up.

His usually sharp mind had become dense, what the hell happened there? His other contact had never failed him like that, it got to be illogical. The utter importance of the thirty first and the following days was out of question for both of them. At this point he had to ask him for a report on his progress.

“Answer the darn phone, you moron!” he voiced out of total displeasure.

Nobody was on the other side for the stupid beep keep lurking around. Unbeknownst to him detecive Dahlia was interrogating Wulfo at that precise moment when she suddenly stopped doing so and preferred to stare at her suspect. His phone was inside a plastic bag, it was the very same evidence that linked him to the murder.

“Feel free to pick up your phone at any time, furry guy!” she advised him while grinning.

Yes, it got to be a trap for sure. Taking into consideration that his lawyer had been unable to give him any legal advise, he would get in serious troubles if he ever grabbed that damned cellphone. Or was this the only way to get some darn answers?

The werewolf had never had any actual need to purchase one of them, the old landline was everything he ever needed. Becoming the owner of the local pawn shop showed him how convenient it was for him to carry it along the whole day. There was no need to drive all the way back to the store to solve simple problems anymore.

The Protocols

At the shelter Lady Saddy was being undressed by her subordinates. They were preparing her for the upcoming ritual. It was mandatory for any lady in her position to go through it before the evening had began. She had to fully purify her body, her very essence, before she could proceed to the next stage. The woman was expected to become the perfect incarnation of dignity. Yet, she had something to complain about after all.

“What are you doing, you living bag of chicken bones?” Saddy voiced angrily.

Her aide Nina, representing the Left Hand, had polluted her body by applying the average soy oil to her superior’s delicate skin. Extremely irritated, Lady Saddy hit her, wounding her lips. Even so that was not enough to let her atone for her terrible sin. She used her own fist to punch the idiot girl on her left eye without feeling remorse. Obviously that meant her boss was evidently contaminated with her ineptitude, forcing the lady choke her to ensure she would not make the same mistake ever again.

Excuses, Saddy was growing tired of them so she ordered “Throw her in the Catacombs of Sorrow for the next three days and three nights!”

Soon the crying girl was replaced with another one that was a year younger than her. Incredibly pure water helped this new aide get rid of the nefarious stain. This time she did apply the extra virgin olive oil the circumstances demanded from them. Now the question was if she could last more than forty five minutes.

“I can’t believe how incompetent girls are nowadays! They’re nothing but trash!” she gladly denigrated all of her assistants.

After seeing the way Nina’s face looked like then, one of the female servants made her second attempt to escape from that horrible place. The previous one failed when she found out a backdoor was locked. Later on she learned that rules had become stricter than usual in the last two weeks for no specific reason. Some friend she had made as of late was helping her, he had smuggled a copy of the key she badly needed to flee away forever.

Back at the office, the janitor’s daughter had finally arrived and was registering at the counter. Her hope was this would become her last interview before getting hired by the businessman. She completely ignored her own mother was appealing to her boss’s sex drive to ensure she would get the job. At least that was what that successful man let her think. Meanwhile the girl pressed the elevator’s button and attached her badge to her blouse, it surely had a seemingly wide cleavage.

A Cute Daughter

After a shooting or any similar event, you would expect that ordinary people would stay away from such a dangerous place. No, not this mother and her little daughter, who kind of resembled the businessman’s own child. The young adult was distracted, last hour offers seemed to flood the area all of sudden. It was a must to take a chance to get her delicate hands on something delightful indeed.

“Mommy! I want that cute bear!” the sweet kid asked of her.

“Stop it, Yumi! You don’t need any teddy bear at all!” Mrs. Yamato quickly told her.

“But… but I love that balloon, mommy!” the sad girl insisted.

“Oh it was a balloon… Fine, let’s buy one!” the mother raised the white flag at the end.

Few moments later both entered a store where Chiaki Yamato had found some nice shoes. She could easily prove her husband how badly she needed to get new ones so the young wife had nothing to worry about. It was impossible for her not to feel that she was in her own private paradise. When she recalled once again she had a daughter, Chiaki thought her child should also get some pair of shoes as well.

“Now dear Yumi, you’ll now learn how to pick your own shoes. You’re gonna love it!” she informed her with a grin on her sly face.

There was just a small problem she had to deal first. Her lovable Yumi was no longer at her side nor at a safe distance. Leaving all the boxes behind, she ran around like crazy looking for her missing daughter. After a while she got close to the counter.

“My Yumi is lost! Please help me find her at once!” Mrs. Yamato desperately commanded them.

Norn and Claymouth were patrolling the streets when they received an alert. Little Yumi, age five, was missing. The news made them feel sad for the girl and her family. It was not the first nor the second report they had heard about in the last week after all.

“Is this crappy city going crazy now?” Miller remarked in distraught.

Keith then suggested “Perhaps we should soon lend them a hand.”

Before the car turned right, detective Donuts Lover thought he had seen something unusual at the blue box. It was a balloon resembling a friendly bear.

“What’s a balloon doing here?” they both asked themselves after parking and stepping down the car.

In a blink a woman in her fifties stepped out of the nearby candy store. She informed the cops “Oh you mean that cute bear! A couple just left it behind. It happened a few minutes ago, they later went to the north.”

“Something’s wrong about that old lady, she’s too serviceable, don’t you think?” Mr. Donuts exposed his theory.

“Perhaps you’re right, we better check out if her security camera caught them on tape!” Keith told his partner.

“How bad! My camera doesn’t work and the technician hasn’t come over here since I reported it last month” the old eavesdropper explained them.

“Then help me say ‘how convenient’…” Norn commented in a deadpan tone.

To be continued

...if laziness doesn't make me desist first.