“You’re joking.” Fokine looked confused by what Harold had said. “But if that’s true…they bribed the coroner lady here? Is she part of the Alliance?”
“No, I imagine she’s an outsider. The Alliance must have bribed her to make sure anyone interrogating her wouldn’t come up with any dirt. It’s perfectly plausible to keep your identity concealed if all you’re doing is transferring money.”
“So if we try to question her, then the Alliance will know we figured out how the investors died and try to silence us next.” If the bureau really was compromised, that would be a likely outcome. “Just checking, but you have no proof about the bribery itself, right?”
“I think the discrepancy between the autopsy reports we received and the state of the bodies is compelling evidence on its own.”
Fokine settled into pensive silence, as though refusing to admit the reality before his eyes.
In all likelihood, it had been the Alliance that had tried to shoot down the transport drone carrying Banfield’s sample. But they’d failed, leaving only a scratch on one of its blades. The facts that the sample analysis had gone ahead and that the Alliance hadn’t been able to fully mask the cause of the investors’ deaths no doubt threw a wrench into their plans. They must have made an example out of Totoki in retribution for throwing things off.
Which meant the Alliance was feeling the pressure.
“This doesn’t really mean we caught them red-handed, though.” Fokine ruffled his hair in frustration. “We assumed the Alliance had disposed of the investors the whole time. Finding out they used the chimeric virus to do it doesn’t change much—”
“It does make it clear that the investors were directly injected with the virus.” Harold cut him off softly. “There were no signs of a homicide on the crime scene, and no people entered their homes around their times of death. And yet somehow, the virus had been directly injected into their bodies. If we can elucidate this point, we might have a breakthrough on our hands…”
Just then, there was another strong rapping on the door. Based on the strength of the knocking and the muffled shouts they heard, this wasn’t the coroner. Harold and Fokine exchanged glances. Now that they’d checked the corpses, there was no need to lock themselves in here.
“…Either way, it’s not like reporting this to the bureau would help us solve this.” Fokine took a deep breath. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about the bruises. You might get targeted next.”
“Yes.” Harold jerked his chin in agreement. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Well… Something like that. Pretend like you’re covering for me for a bit, okay?”
Fokine rolled up his sleeves, as though firing himself up, and walked away from the corpses. Harold instantly understood what he was planning; he played the part of a machine and stood stock-still. Fokine pulled the cart away, and the door instantly burst open.
“What in the world are you thinking?!”
None other than Chief Smith himself stormed into the room. With a vein bulging on his forehead, he drew on Fokine like he was intent on striking him. Standing frozen by the door was the female coroner, who must have called Smith over. Her eyes moved to the four corpses, and she went very pale.
“You shut the coroner out of the room and inspected the corpses without permission?!” Smith looked like he was moments from foaming at the mouth with anger. “I never told you to do any of that! I only told you to call the investors!”
“Well, you see, I asked Fokine here to help me clean the fridge,” said Harold, trying to cover for Fokine, as he’d been instructed.
Smith turned, glaring at Harold. He was no doubt terrified that his subordinates’ unauthorized actions could end up costing him his new position.
“The fridge? Oh, yes, I suppose this counts as a fridge. But I explicitly told you to go to the pantry!”
“My hearing device is in bad condition, so I didn’t hear it. I assumed this was a roundabout way of asking me to inspect the bodies—”
“Go back to Novae Robotics Inc. for more maintenance! And this time, go straight to Saint Petersburg!”
“—so I had Investigator Fokine help me.”
Harold ignored Smith’s hollering and shifted his gaze to Fokine.
“Yes, and I did just that.” Fokine nodded nonchalantly. “That said, we didn’t find anything… But I guess cleaning the fridge is much better than having to call people all day like a salesclerk.”
He was being insolent to an almost exaggerated degree. He thrust his thumbs into his pockets and glared straight at his angry supervisor. It was blatant provocation, but Smith was too furious to notice.
“What is the meaning of this, Investigator Fokine?”
“I’m saying I can’t stand the way you’re running things,” Fokine said, ready to spit in anger. “You scrap all our progress on Kai and the biological weapons and tell us to look up the investors again? I get it, you hate having to take over for Chief Totoki, but your petty pride is getting in the way of our work.”
He was clearly going too far, but in this case, crashing and burning was better than going too easy.
Smith squinted at him. “…If you’re going to take that back, you better do it now.”
“If you want me to take that back, then try doing your job as honestly as Chief Totoki did.”
“You call fabricating evidence to boost your career honesty?”
Smith sneered at Fokine, who took a step forward. He grabbed his superior by the collar and slammed him against the wall. Smith grabbed Fokine’s collar in response, trying to pull the man off him. It only took a second, but the new chief’s pupils widened in outraged surprise.
“Don’t you dare insult Totoki,” Fokine spat. “She’s much smarter than you’ll ever—!”
Before he could finish that sentence, Smith slammed his fist into Fokine’s cheek. Harold frowned as Fokine staggered a few steps back and glared defiantly at his boss.
The cold air spilling out of the open cold storage device billowed over the floor.
“Investigator Fokine, hand over your ID and sidearm. Now.”
Smith stuck out his hand. Fokine wordlessly drew his pistol from his holster and pushed it into the chief’s hands, along with his ID card. The female coroner wasn’t at the door—she’d gone off somewhere without anyone noticing.
Smith spoke his order loudly, his voice trembling with anger as it reverberated through the room.
“You are hereby suspended from your role for assaulting a superior officer and breaking orders. You will be contacted later on with regard to the duration of your suspension.”
“I don’t care why you did it—you went too far! What’s the point of getting yourself intentionally fired?!”
Bigga’s outraged cry echoed through the weed-choked backyard of Lloyd’s estate. She was being loud. Echika quickly brought an index finger to her lips to hush Bigga, then turned to look at the house. Thankfully, Gardener didn’t rush out to check what the commotion was all about.