"Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm-mm. Mm. Mm." Feet skidding left and right by turns, Nikola Celsus swayed through the small kitchen of the empty office. Gliding on sock-clad feet, she bumped a hip against the laminate countertop to stop herself and dropped a spoon into her coffee with a liquid plunk and a clink against the bottom of the ceramic mug. With an aggressive stir or three, she tilted back her head and sang:
"Every little swallow, every chick-a-dee! Every little bird in the tall oak tree. The wise old owl, the big black crow, flappin' their wings singing go bird go! Rockin' Robin! Tweet Tweedle-lee-dee!"
Humming around the spoon she popped into her mouth, she quickly pulled it out as the hot metal scalded her tongue. Scowling at it, she tossed the spoon carelessly in the sink. The minor clatter it made was lost below the music blaring in her ears. She continued to dance as the tune changed and pulsed through the headset that rested over her dyed-dark hair. Her nearly white-blonde lashes and brows were also tinted a deep brown to match. A dusting of muted freckles fell over her winter pale nose, eyes at curious odds with each other as she gazed out into the pre-dawn dimness below the offices of The Old Dunaway Street Detective Agency. One of the private investigator's eyes was a seaglass green that seemed to shift with the low light. The other was a motley mixture of amber and dark brown limning the outer iris, something quite like tiger's eye. Regardless of colour, they both regarded the Alberton night as though something would come out of the silence beneath the flickering street lamp. That thing really needed some repair.
Old Dunaway Street was delineated from Dunaway Street where it ran perpendicular to Main Street at a T-intersection that really did form the main drag of the city - or what masqueraded for a city. Old Dunaway was a little run down, out of favour with the commercial and entertainment options that were popular on its newer counterpart. Alberton still felt like a city in name only, though their incorporated town had blossomed from just under six thousand residents to nearly twenty-five thousand in less than two years when their neighboring metropolis, Bonheur, had struck a deal with the megacorporation Lancelight. By that reckoning their new status was earned. The tax incentives had been attractive enough to win out the bid to bring the company to the area, and they had wasted no time in breaking ground almost before the ink was dry. Now, amidst rumours of police and city official corruption, the corporation loomed over the Bonheur both in reputation and in actuality in the physical form of the towering headquarters it had built for itself in the heart of the financial district. The rumours were natural, if unfounded. Crime had increased in both Bonheur and the bedroom community that Alberton had become, but Nike felt that was just a matter of course when the population boomed the way it had. Lancelight had brought jobs, but along with that came the vices that its slew of professionals required. If you asked her, though, there was little indication that they were directly involved in anything untoward. The night was unchanged when she pulled her thoughts from her musings, and she sighed. Might as well make herself useful.
Skirting the little sitting area for client interviews by the bank of windows that overlooked the street, Nike moved back towards the wall that held the front door to the right, the little kitchen and adjoining washroom in the center, and the alcove and left wall of the room that they had screened off to serve as proper offices. Dodging around the screens, Nike cut a spin as she arrived at her desk. The inquiry agent bit her lip with an internal reprimand as the contents of her cup nearly sloshed out onto a stack of evidentiary boxes piled against one wall. Setting her coffee aside, she ran a hand along the name written in bold letters along the front.
SUTTER, DAVID
It was a strange case end-to-end, and when the handsome young trust fund baby had shown up at their door two days before he was arrested on suspicion of murder, asking them for help looking into the untimely death of his ex-girlfriend, neither of the partners had hesitated to take the case. Sure, one might think it was also due to the fact that business was slow to start and it would be nice to move to actual "offices" as opposed to one large room where the two nearly walked over each other in their daily work. Still, she thought, lips curving faintly, she'd not trade a day of it to work with anyone else doing anything else. One thing the spate of crime brought on by the population boom was not, was bad for business. They were on track to really make a go of things if things kept on as they had - and this client could make their business not just off of his commission, but off of the recommendations someone like him could give to equally wealthy silver-spoons. Assuming he was innocent, that is.
Pushing the lid off of the corrugated file box, she tucked her hair behind her ear. It fell forward again immediately. Blowing it out of the way ineffectually, she walked her fingers along the first two files before sliding out the dossiers on all of the members of the Rencart family. Setting them on her desk, she tugged out the accompanying information on their staff and business associates. They'd need to consider all of them, but with a flick of the cover and a smirk, she set the file for their employer on her partner's desk thinking, 'You're welcome'. He'd seemed to like her, easily smiling whenever he had spoken with her. Cupid didn't need her help, but it never hurt to help him sight a good match.
Thumping her toned frame into her chair, she pushed back the sleeve of her black suit jacket and checked the time. Still a while yet before the work day began properly, but something had kept her awake. Insomniac by nature, her itchy brain was hard to scratch, but work definitely helped. She buried herself in it when she couldn't sleep, whether it was sourcing a new client or pouring over case files. She might not be as personable as her partner, but she did her diligence just the same. Somewhere through the photocopying and highlighting, the shuffling of the pile of boxes and opening of files until the office looked as though it had exploded in a paper storm, the first rays of daylight pierced her concentration. When she looked from the window again, the street below was changing from grey to colour in the yellow-blue haze of dawn. Yawning, she checked her watch again. Her partner would be arriving within the hour. Glancing back over her shoulder, she surveyed the trashed office.
"She's going to kill you, Nike."
Stretching and taking a swig of cold coffee which she also promptly spat back into the mug with a grimace, she set a fresh pot on to percolate while she washed and put away the spoon and mug. That done, she set about organising the files into something of a more orderly colony of piles well behind the screens that blocked off their desks from the rest of the office. The cheap cork board they used to keep track of suspects and cases hung along the wall in front of the desks they had placed in an L shape between the alcove and the screened off open area. A table laden with additional evidence boxes from closed cases yet to be destroyed or cleared away heaped towards the ceiling and nearly blocked out the light from the window overlooking the Old Dunaway. It wasn't that it was a problem to spread out her research, only that with limited space and a small open office there wasn't room to spread things everywhere and also meet with new and existing clients in a way that was at least approaching professional. When she was satisfied she had remedied the mess her midnight oil burning had created, she stifled a yawn on the back of her hand and pulled off her headset, surprised at the sound of rain beating against the windows. The sun was still visible, but it was almost as if someone had ripped open the lining of the sunny morning and allowed buckets of heavy rain to pour from it all across the city.
"Weird." Shivering at the sudden chill she felt, she switched on the space heater in the little kitchen and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. It warmed her hands and soothed her sleep-deprived mind. Some might consider her something of a gym rat, but she found that the routine kept her disciplined and a gym was a good place to work out the mind on the stickier angles of a case while exercising the body. She had a feeling about this one. It could really do a lot for them, but from what she had read there were a lot of gaps in the narrative. For a moment she allowed the rumours about Lancelight to bleed into her thoughts, but shoved them away as nonsense. No reason to let idle panic sink in just because one of their corporate high-ups was in a personal crisis.
Sipping her coffee, she promised herself time to sweat through any lingering misgivings at the first opportunity.
Bookmarks