Investigations at CID Team B Office - Part (2/2)

Sergeant Leo and Constable Jenny exchanged confused glances after Constable Jackson responded. The sergeant would walk over to one side of the wall screen and return while dragging his hand across the screen with two pictures of Frank Tucker and Felicia Harvey. His finger tapped between them.

Leo rubbed at his chin for a moment. “You’re saying it was Sarah Tucker’s husband calling his mistress that got her to explode like that?”

“The time checked out. The call was made about 2 hours before we raided the Tucker apartment. It was about a minute long sooo.” Jackson glanced at the YouTube Short, in time to see Felicia smash her phone to make it explode. Given how the short video was made, he couldn’t resist laughing – but stopped when the others leered. “Ahem. Something definitely went down between the ‘lovebirds’. I’ll keep tabs on the guy who owned the video clip.”

“You do that, and--” Once more Leo was interrupted when someone rushed into the office. “McLamb! Finally. Did you find anything about them!?”

Constable McLamb panted a bit before whipping up two folders. Both of them were considerably thick, with many loose photo copy papers and tagged with bright neon yellow stick notes. He handed them over to Leo and Jackson – the latter tossing it to Jenny – and he snagged a cup of water from the cooler to hydrate.

“Okay so,” McLamb gulped down some water “Felicia Harvey. Was born here in the Metro City, had her elementary and high school education here, then went to study abroad at Switzerland to earn her Bachelor and Masters in Business Administrations and train as an insurance agent. Eventually moved back to here in the city several years ago and has been working in Precious Life since.” McLamb then walked to a corner to drag the doctor’s portrait, placing it right next to Felicia Harvey. “Dr. Samuel Malcolm. Born and raised in the states, comes from Manhattan, New York. Whole education and medical training in New York. It’s only about 5 years ago he came to the Metro City, earlier than Felicia Harvey.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jackson held up a hand. “Slow down there sparky. What is this about?”

“While you and Jenny were checking Felicia and Dr. Malcolm’s alibi, I had a hunch they knew each other.” Leo kept sorting through the printed notes in the folder. “Dr. Malcolm has means, but no motive. Felicia had motive, but no means. I wanted to see if there was a connection between them. Whether they ever met, learned about one another’s affair, and perhaps collaborated to kill Sarah Tucker together. I already updated it on our live chat, but I didn’t get any word back from you and Jenny.”

“Ah sorry Leo.” Jenny held up a hand in apology while. “My tablet ran out of power and I forgot to turn my phone back on after asking the hospital employees.”

Leo gave her a nod of understanding, then frowned at Jackson, “Let me guess: busy investigating YouTube Shorts?”

“Bro.” Jackson gestured his arms to the table full of takeout bags. “God gave me two hands.”

McLamb waited for everyone to settle before he finished his report. “No matter it be childhood, adulthood, career, or even medicine – neither Felicia or Dr. Malcolm show any evidence of having met each other physically. At most we know Felicia was aware of Sarah and the doctor’s affair, but Dr. Malcolm would not have know about the insurance agent. Unless they are hiding their relationship from others with an affair of their own, I’ve got nothing that would link them together to Sarah Tucker’s murder.”

“Everything’s a dead end huh.” Leo mulled over the information was reading through the papers. After a moment he gave a nod and patted McLamb on the shoulder in gratitude. “Worth a shot. Come on let’s eat. Everyone’s tired and starving.”

“Yeah.” Jenny sighed. She put aside the folder and went to charge her police tablet.

Jackson marched over to the desk, rubbing his hands together. “Tonight’s a smorgasbord ladies and gentlemen. I got the full works: Golden Dragon Expression, Taco Del, Kiara’s Fried Turkey, SubHey, Him Tortin donuts and coffee, aaaaaaaaaaaand Jenny’s all time favourite.” He dipped his hand into a paper W&A bag to pluck out, “100% plant burgeeeer. On the house fam—nah, you owe me $7.99 with taxes. Pay up.”

Jackson held out a hand, waiting for payment. Jenny marched over, slapped a tired hand into his empty palm, and swiped away the burger. Just to be sure, Jackson turned his hand front and back – still empty.

“You’re welcome.” The constable mumbled and pulled out a tin container to toss it to McLamb. “Chicken Chow Mein with three item combo. Hope you’re not allergic to deep fried Szechuan calimari. And you my man Leo, get – a Happy Meal!” He held up a small bag with a tiny burger and fries. Leo came over without looking, dove his hand into one bag, randomly picked a submarine to eat in front of the wall screen. Jackson glanced over, but flinched and looked away from the images. “Dude! Please put away the corpse photo! We’re eating here! At least think about McLamb’s stomach!”

Said McLamb glanced at the wall, before turning his chair about to have his back facing the wall screen.

Jenny grabbed a milkshake a sipped her drink as a starter before taking a big bite from her burger. It only took two chews, before she frantically waved at McLamb to whip over a waste basket to her. “BLEEEEEGH!” She spat out her burger into the bucket, coughing and gagging. “Jackson! I’m vegetarian!”

Jackson was in the middle of biting his apple pie when his name was called over. He tapped his phone to mute the forest fairy Vtuber stream he was watching and glared back. “Yeah. I know. Hence why I went out of my way to get you a plant based burger – on the other end of town I might add.”

“No! This is a cheeseburger! Look!” Jenny waved her meal, showing two double meat patties, melted cheese, and some pickles. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

“...Gurl. It’s 3 in the morning. I was lucky to find a place that still sold plant based burgers at this hour! And I wouldn’t blame the college part-timer who got the order wrong! Man was sleeping on his feet! Besides! Plant burgers, regular burgers, they all look the same to me!”

Leo stopped mid-bite with his submarine while he stared at the collection of corpse photo. His eyes lit up with a thought and he walked back over. Not saying anything he picked up Jenny’s burger and examined it.

Double cheese burger, in a wrapper reading 100% plant based. He plucked out his phone, typing Plant burger, and compared the images. Bun, lettuce, tomato, plant paddy. Sometimes with or without red onions.

The detective couldn’t stop looking left and right, from the bitten ‘plant burger’ and the Internet's ‘plant burger.’

Leo gave the police wall screen one last look. He eyed the many body parts laid out on the morgue table, each of their parts cleanly sliced off at the joints. Even the fingers were not spared, save for a thumb.

“...Everyone drop what you’re doing. Restart the investigation. Now.”