Insight Through Inquiry.

Woop woop, that's the sound of the police.

+ ARTHUR MCDUCK

They say that in Seattle alone, the odds of being victim to a violent crime are fifty-nine in a thousand. Shave that down to homicides, and the odds of being murdered are sixteen in a thousand. Now, the real question was, what were the odds of getting murdered in a bustling train station? And what were the odds of that victim being a police officer?

The spare-framed, grey-eyed detective sure as hell didn't know. But what he did know was that it had happened.

It had been scarcely 30 minutes since Mason had come roaring down South Jackson and King in an unmarked Dodge Charger, 30 minutes since those immortal numbers graced his ears. Code 999. Officer Down. An inevitability, given their line of work; each and every single one of them swore an oath when they donned the blue. But it was the nature in which that officer had been dispatched, which warranted his presence. Which warranted their presence.

Efficient was not something that Detective Hollis could attribute to the Seattle Police Department in terms of how they handled homicide cases. In some ways it was downright bureaucratic, and it was the sheer length of deliberation that he despised. Yet, the response today had been swift and efficient. Unnaturally so.

Patrol officers stood guard at the perimeter, a wall of black and silver to isolate the crime scene from the numerous passersby. CSI technicians flitted about, collecting samples, analyzing data, rewatching security footage. And in the dead center of the historic yet dated metro station, cordoned by yellow-tape and illuminated by the flickering reds and blues of patrol cars, lay a single woman, face planted between tiles of burnished linoleum. Mason didn't need a dossier to ascertain her identity; he'd seen her face countless times, both on the media and at headquarters: Cassandra Walker, Lieutenant of the Seattle Police Department West Precinct. An ambitious individual with a certain jenesaisquoi that rubbed the man off the wrong way, but a respectable figure nevertheless. 

With the contents of Lieutenant Walker's skull glistening under the faint incandescent light like a crimson flower in full bloom, her death was anything but.

"Evening, Hollis. Looks like you weren't late for once."

The detective's moment of rumination was broken for a brief spell, and upon the familiar image of a goateed patrol officer did his facial features soften.

"I'm plenty surprised myself, Hank."

A pair of nitrile gloves did Mason don, and with a glance toward his watch did he stand.

Waiting.


But for whom?