Poison City

 

“Morning Detective Cai.” The next morning, close to noon, after Marcus’ dropping off his simple report on the stolen files on the captain's desk and having an earful of Captain Ko’s scolding and warnings, a uniformed officer holding a folder came to him: “We have an update on Mr. Bai Gu.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Bai Gu, the perp you brought back from the raid?” This officer shrugged: “We have a quick update for you.”

 

“Oh, oh, yeah! What’s up?” Marcus smacked himself on his forehead, then asked: “Sorry, it’s just been quite busy a couple of days.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I understand. Everyone’s talking about the case with the missing rich kid and the emergency reparations team. So the update is this: Bai Gu has been cooperating with the investigation and provided some useful information. And Captain Ko has approved of either putting him into protective custody or providing him with some limited police protection. ”

 

“Okay, what’d he choose? Protective custody?” Marcus sighed and asked.

 

“No, he chose to go to some temple, and accepted the terms that he will have officers visit him regularly.” The officer shrugged: “He’s set to be released soon, maybe just later today. So we were wondering if you wanna talk with him, since he asked about you a few times - he seemed… a little concerned about you.”

 

“About me?” Marcus scratched his jaw: “I’ll see if I have time, I have to head back to the South-Eastern District and do some more interviews. Thank you for keeping me updated. Could you also loop me in on where he ends up?”

 

“No problem, detective.” This officer nodded with a smile. And just when she was about to head back, something came to her mind and she pulled out a few pages of files stapled together and handed them to Marcus: “Oh, I almost forgot - Kevin asked me to hand this to you - it’s the test results of Mr. Bai Gu’s blood, saliva and stomach fluid.”

 

“Oh, what’d he find?”

 

“Not much, no traces of hallucinogens, but apparently he ingested a lot of different mushrooms that could be somewhat toxic to the human body. Kevin mentioned that according to some local superstitions, they allow people to hide from spirits and evil.”

 

“That - was unexpected but also made sense, thank you.” Marcus frowned and took a look at the report filled with a bunch of words he could barely pronounce, let alone read: “Thanks.”

 

Marcus was not lying about having to go back to the South-Eastern District, as the next thing he did was hop on a bus heading there. Even officers or detectives who owned cars would not drive there at this hour, for very simple reasons: the communities just did not welcome police vehicles in their neighborhood, and there would be hardly any witnesses if their vehicles got vandalized.

 

Luckily for him, there were many public transportations that could take him there directly, albeit slowly. He told Bulu Wang that he would come back today to check on the woman who was looking for her son, and he would like to check on Mrs. Emma Evans and see how she was doing. After the meeting with Bulu Wang, he was informed by the local community watch and patrol team about where the woman would be staying, and the first thing for him to do right now was to visit her and get an update on the search for her son.

 

The place where the woman should be staying was not far from the bus stop. After getting off the bus, he turned from the main road and proceeded to a side street that was barely wide enough for two small cars to pass through. There were people selling all kinds of things on the side of the road, making it even narrower. Maybe it was because it was already halfway through the afternoon, or it was because of the gloomy weather, or it was because this being a not so well off and well run part of the South-Eastern District, everything seemed to be slightly more depressing than Marcus remembered the district to be.

 

“You want some homemade jerkies, sir?” An old woman with a hunched back asked Marcus with a trembling voice: “I have some chicken, some duck, and even beef if you’d like …”

 

“No, thank you.” Marcus refused without turning his head, per his experience, these street jerkies were rarely made from meat of quality, sometimes not even proper meat. He actually knew someone who found out that they had a rat hair allergy through them.

 

“Good morning sir, would you like some breakfast?” Just a moment later, a man standing over some mobile bamboo steamers asked Marcus: “We have some fresh steamed dumplings and baos!”

 

“No, thanks.” Marcus shrugged this man off again, due to the same kind of caution he practiced with the old woman’s jerkies.

 

Walking past these street merchants and two beggars, Marcus noticed something strange up front - the place at which the woman should be staying halfway down the street from him, but there seemed to be an abnormal amount of people gathered around the location.

 

“What’s happening?” Marcus pushed through some of the people standing to the side and got into the inner place.

 

The door was open, and there were three people with the community watch armbands walking in and out of the room, clearing things out. On the floor was the woman he saw yesterday, the one who was looking for her son, now no longer breathing. There was a bruise line on her neck, her face was purple and her eyes were bulging out, indicating that she died of asphyxiation. But even though this seemed like a painful way to go, the corners of her mouth were raised, as if she died smiling.

 

“What - what the fuck happened?” Marcus lunged forward, grabbed one guy with an armband while showing his badge and yelled: “What happened to her!? I thought Bulu Wang and his men will take care of her?”

 

“I - ” The man grabbed by Marcus was stunned: “I - What - ”

 

“Detective - ” Another older man with a mustache and an armband with additional patterns on it came over and tried to get Marcus’ hand off his fellow: “Please, let go of him - I can explain.”

 

“Okay, sorry, my apologies.” Marcus immediately let go of the man and gently bowed: “I talked with Bulu Wan about her yesterday - she was looking for her son, who did this?”

 

“It appears - no one.” This man with a mustache sighed: “One of our caretakers found her hanging in the room this morning. There was no signs of forced entry or struggles, the rope was made from her own bedsheet, she used the chair in her own room - everything we found so far points to suicide. I’m sorry, detective.”

 

“But, why?” Marcus frowned: “Her son is still not found, is he? Is there any update on that?”

 

“Sorry Detective, but I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.” The man with a mustache shook his head: “I can direct you to our operating center - ”

 

“No need, I’ll find Bulu Wang myself.” Marcus shook his head, then tried to walk away.

 

“This is your doing, pig!” Just this moment, a hoarse shout came from the crowd surrounding the room.

 

“What?” Marcus was stunned for a brief moment, then turned to the direction of the voice.

 

The man who just shouted, wearing a slightly worn and tarnished gray and blue T-shirt and with a rough beard on his face, stepped forward and pointed his finger at Marcus: “It must be you! You interrogated her yesterday! While she was grieving and begging you for help!”

 

“I did not interrogate her, I offered to help.” Marcus responded with a calm tone, while slowly getting ready to turn on his police cam.

 

“You interrogated her! You asked her all kinds of questions as if she’s a bad mother!” This man looked around with an angry look in his eyes, his tone was indignant, his other hand was waving in the air. And this attitude turned quite infectious, as many among the crowd surrounding the scene started murmuring and looking at Marcus with similarly unfriendly looks. “That’s what you did! You were shaming her and attacking her!”

 

“You killed her!” Another man yelled: “How can you ask a woman who lost her son questions like that?”

 

“Yeah!” “Heartless monster!!” “You disgusting Pig!” More members of the crowd became agitated along with the man who hurled the accusation at Marcus and joined in on the attack.

 

Marcus turned to the three members of the local community watch and patrol team, and found that they had already left the scene without looking back, leaving him to deal with the riled up crowd alone.

 

“You must pay, cop!” Someone threw a dirty and half-rotten bok choy at Marcus, which just bounced off his shoulder.

 

“Outta my way.” Marcus sighed, and said to the locals standing in his way. He started pushing forward, and though many of them tried to push back, he was able to make it halfway through.

 

“Die, you swine!” Just this moment, a man with a higher pitched voice growled behind Marcus, and in his right hand was a make-shift flail, made of a wooden chair lag, a short metal chain and a heavy metal lock as the head. With his teeth clenched and his eyes open wide to an almost bulging extent, he swung the flail at the back of Marcus’ head.

 

“Clunk!” The sound of metal clashing together erupted from the impact between the metal lock and Marcus’ hand - who turned back and grabbed the head of the flail just moments before it could connect with its target.

 

“Have you thought this through?” Marcus stared right into this man’s eyes and asked with a calm voice, his right hand and arm unwavering even when the man was pulling the flail with all his power: “If you assault a police officer from the city, the city will have an excuse to send their forces in without consulting of your community collective. And if you gravely injure one, things would be even messier.”

 

“I don’t care! I don’t fucking care, you PIG!” This man’s eyes were still wide open, but his fervor and craze was not enough to cover the fact that his body twitched to a slight extent at Marcus’ words.

 

Before Marcus could say anything else, another man lunged at Marcus from his back with a long wooden stick with exposed nails. Marcus immediately turned back and put his left forearm up. The wooden stick cracked and broke upon impact, the end of the stick with exposed nails embedded inside dropped down and hit him on his left shoulder.

 

“Once again, back off!” Marcus turned on his police camera, and uttered his order in a stern tone: “Back off! You’ve been warned! I am a detective of the PCPD and I am ordering you, back off!”

 

“Fuck you, Pig! ” “Yeah! Fuck you!” More angry yells and curses started coming from the crowd.