B5-2 Conversation with Sese (Patreon)

Still on a roll with Tori. After pissing off the commissioner, Tori still has a job to do. Let's see just what clues are inside Stoli's apartment!

Note: There's a line of dialogue in this one that I need to move back a couple scenes. If you're really curious, you can look for the note in the reviewer's document linked at the end.

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The big officer rolled the screwdriver back and forth between her palms like she was trying to warm her paws. While they walked, Tori glanced over at her and smiled. Officer Sese was clearly a fidgeter who needed to be playing with something whenever she was idle.

Tori found that trait charming. She could never understand those who were content to be doing nothing.

Checking her notes against the number on the door, she asked, “Was this Stoli’s apartment?”

Sese nodded. She tapped an access code into the strand on her shoulder, then leaned her back up against the door while she fidgeted more with the screwdriver. When Tori cast a confused look at her, Sese explained, “Waiting for Chief Tipohee to approve the override of his lock. Shouldn’t take long.”

Tori nodded and ten or fifteen seconds later, the lock clicked. Sese held the door open, and Tori stepped in. The apartment seemed pleasant enough—large, generally tidy but left as if the former occupant had not been expecting company. A tablet computer rested on the couch and a small throw blanket laid nearby on the deck.

In front of the couch sat a metal and glass coffee table with three framed photos: a geroo with his young cubs and two portraits of young adults—a male and a female—who looked like grown-up versions of the cubs in the first picture.

“Ew!” groaned Sese, wrinkling her muzzle in disgust.

“What?” asked Tori, and the officer pointed toward a meal bowl on the kitchen table. Tori investigated, but there wasn’t much she could make out. Whatever fruit Stoli had left sitting out had rotted away to a moldy mush since his death. For a moment, her stomach tightened, her lunch threatening to come back, but the sensation quickly passed.

The insides of Sese’s ears looked pale. “The smell doesn’t bother you?” she asked, holding her nose.

Tori shrugged. “I’ve got sulfur burns throughout my sinuses. I can’t smell a thing.” She opened the refrigerator and was immediately thankful. More mold grew inside.

“Oh … yikes,” said Sese. “I’m … so sorry.” Her ears hung low and tragic. A sense of smell was such a fundamental component of geroo existence, that most couldn’t imagine going on without it.

“Yeah, I’m … looking into surgery to fix it, to fix … a lot of things,” Tori said as she pored through the refrigerator’s contents.

“Find anything?” asked Sese without getting closer.

“Just verification, I suppose,” said Tori. “A witness said that the victim died after eating some leftover sooba soup. Although nasty now, it looks like a second container was ready to go to work, and…”—she closed the refrigerator and looked over beside the sink—“another reusable soup container is sitting on a towel to dry. I guess our victim liked making big meals that lasted him several days.”

Sese shrugged. “It’s a good way to save money over eating out,” she said, “provided you don’t mind the same thing over and over. Cooking for one is tricky.”

Tori glanced over at the big female. “You don’t live with someone?”

Sese shook her head. “Not at the moment. We rushed moving in together cuz his roommate was kicking him out. Should’a seen that as a bad sign.” She grinned. “I’ll be choosier next time.”

Tori nodded. “Well, there’s every indication that the soup had been cooked only a couple days before the victim was killed. That narrows our window considerably since it wasn’t just waiting in his freezer.”

“I guess that’s something,” said Sese as she started stalking the apartment’s perimeter. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”

“A way in,” said Tori. “If he was eating soup every day to use it up before it went bad, then shortly before the murder—probably within the last two days, judging by this single washed container—someone must have gotten in here and poisoned the leftovers. Either someone broke in or snuck the poison in during a visit.”

“Well, he didn’t report a break-in,” said Sese.

“True, but I also checked his call log. There’s no way of knowing what he talked about, but I didn’t see any pattern indicating he was dating someone, and he didn’t have any evening or early-morning calls for the last few days prior to his death. So, there was no indication that someone was coming over.”

Sese sighed. “I suppose someone could have come over without calling first.”

“They could have,” admitted Tori, “but I’m leaning away from that explanation. Witness testimony said that he’d become paranoid of being targeted, so I doubt he’d let a stranger root around in his fridge. That just leaves either someone he trusted or someone sneaking in without getting caught.”

Sese pointed to the photos. “One of his cubs?”

Tori pulled out a chair to take a quick rest. “That’s possible, but again, I doubt it. Stoli wouldn’t be the first parent to get murdered by his own cub, but patricide? That sounds so much more passionate to me. Like a cub raised in an abusive household who finally snaps.”

“No one at work liked him,” said Sese. “His coworkers said he loved confrontation. His subordinates said he took a pathological joy—end quote—in making his subordinates cry over the tiniest mistake. But you’re certain his cubs loved him?”

“No, not at all,” said Tori. “They may well have hated his guts, but why all the other killings then? If one of his cubs snapped, killed him, and then went on a killing spree, why wasn’t he the first victim? Or, if the cub was working up the courage to kill their father and took a few prior victims, then why keep killing after they finally managed their goal? The fact that he was in the middle of the string makes me doubt it was a family member.”

“Unless the cub snapped and was trying to work up the nerve!” Sese yarped. Then more seriously, “Or was trying to hide their relationship to the victim.”

“Perhaps, but my gut says a sneaky break-in is still more likely.”

“Access panel,” said Sese, shining her flashlight in a corner of the kitchen.

She removed four screws holding it in place and peered inside.

“Well?” Tori asked.

“Nah,” said Sese, “just electrical connections in here. Besides, how could they have removed the screws from inside?”

She set it aside and continued her search. “Okay… Supposing someone snuck in through the front door without a trace… It’s an electronic lock…” Sese muttered. Then in an accusatory tone, she added, “I get the feeling your engineer friend would gladly analyze how difficult that might be to do.”

Tori frowned. “We could ask him.”

The room went cold under the weight of Sese’s glare. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Just level with me, Tori, should I have arrested him?”

Tori hung her head, refusing to meet the officer’s eyes. “Honestly? In a fair galaxy, yes. And maybe we still need to do that, but there’s an … urgency to this investigation and Runo’oa is the least of my concerns at the moment. A trial is a distraction that we simply don’t have time for right now. Can we please just focus on who broke into this apartment?”

“I guess,” said Sese, but her tone left a lot unsaid.

Tori sighed, finally looking up. “And now you’re pissed at me.”

“A little, yeah.”

“Great. I’m just pissing off everyone today,” grumbled Tori.

Sese resumed her search of the apartment. “Oh yeah? Who else did you piss off? No one important, I hope.”

“Deputy Commissioner Daskatoma.”

Sese dropped the screwdriver with a thud and ducked down to grab it, but when she peeked back up from behind the couch, her eyes were wide and frightened. She whispered, “How did you piss the commissioner off?”

“He won’t let me get corrective surgery. I asked him why,” Tori explained. When Sese opened her mouth, the investigator added, “And no, he wouldn’t say.”

After another breathless moment, the big geroo nodded and shuddered visibly before walking off into the bedroom. “Please don’t anger the krakun, Tori,” she called. “We need your help on this case and you can’t do that if they squish you into a breakfast cake.”

Tori smiled for a moment before Sese called, “Air vent.”

In the bedroom, she found the officer pulling a plastic grate away from a rectangular hole in the wall. “It’s just snapped in,” Sese explained. “No screws required to remove it.” The opening was short and even more narrow. She peered inside with the flashlight.

“Could someone have snuck through it?”

“I couldn’t have,” said Sese. “But someone small maybe. A cub perhaps? It’s hard to say without actually trying it. And it might not be sturdy enough to support someone’s weight. Wasn’t designed for someone to crawl through.”

Sese sighed and turned back to Tori. “So, who’s that leave as suspects? Just teens or technology nerds that could pick an electronic lock?”

“Well, there’s two other suspects that I can’t really eliminate, as unlikely as they might be. The captain, for one.”

Sese frowned. “Why would the captain murder a bunch of officers?”

“I didn’t say I had a motive for him,” said Tori, “only that I can’t rule him out. He’s got enough access to go anywhere on this ship without leaving a trace in the access logs.”

“Seems unlikely,” said the officer, “but if it was him, good luck proving it. You’d need irrefutable evidence to prove a captain guilty of anything. Who’s the other?”

Tori frowned. “Our boss.”

Sese stood and clapped the dust from her paws. “No way. He wouldn’t.”

“Didn’t say he did,” reminded Tori, “only that I can’t eliminate the possibility.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not Tipohee. Investigate him all you want, but I’m telling you now, he didn’t do it.”

“I believe you, but both of them have access,” sighed Tori. She stood and headed to the door. “I suppose I could go talk with Runo’oa about hacking a door lock.”

Sese said nothing.

“I guess he could kill me to cover up what I know.”

Sese still didn’t respond.

“I’d probably deserve it.”

Sese’s ear twitched.

Tori bit her lip. “If you weren’t overly pissed at me, you could come along.”

The bigger gal stood still a moment longer before finally saying, “I could come.”

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XfDA8ry_lwVrQkZBQ-oWJNHz4oLFA_FvzItww7UHwKw/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?