Confidential Cases: Winggarden

20 Yunyu, 199 TI/1024 ALB
232 Hope Drive, Winggarden

It was too early in the morning for the phone to be ringing.

Azerda struggled in her bed as the ringing in the living room continued, feeling an unexpected weight on her stomach in the dark. Her hooves stumbled onto the nightstand lamp. As the room illuminated, her eyes struggled to adapt to the suddenly brightened room; she saw Spectre suddenly stand up from her bed and jump off onto the floor.

Glad to know I'm still alive, at least, Azerda thought, glancing at the clock with a groan. The hands read 4:28. She had a good feeling that if anyone would be calling her at this time of the day, it had to be Crystalstar. This better be good.

Azerda sluggishly trotted to the living room, careful not to walk into Spectre along the way. Spectre's dark fur blended easily in the dark, and it was difficult to spot him if it weren't for his bright, topaz-colored eyes. She hastily flicked the light switch there and put the telephone hoofset near her ear. "Who's this?" she grumbled, slumping onto the beige armchair.

"Miss Zamarata. Apologies for the unexpected call, but the company requires your service urgently," the voice said. The caller had a firmly uniform and neutral voice, making it difficult to distinguish their gender, much less their nationality. Must be some kind of voice-altering crystal. Crystalstar likes to hide their tracks.

"What kind of case are we talking about here?" Azerda asked.

"An important figure of Crystalstar Corporation, Sirocco, has been found dead, along with an unknown cadaver in a house fire. The company suspects foul play. Winggarden PD officers are already at the scene. 142 Bay Drive. Your compensation will be ~~S~~1000. The company will reimburse any transit fees incurred."

Arson and murder, most likely. Azerda generally avoided making assumptions before examining the scene, but the company must have been confident about the crime if they wanted to call her. Spectre idly walked in front of her, pressing his black fur against her hooves. "Fine. I'll head there in an hour. Just give me time to get ready," she replied before placing the hoofset back on the telephone.

Azerda looked down at Spectre and gave him a brief stroke on the head. It was going to be a long day. She needed a good cup of coffee, some shakshouka, and a day's worth of food for her cat. "Damn trams don't even run this early in the morning," she muttered to Spectre. Azerda pulled away the curtains and peeked outside the window; outside of the lampposts, the street was black and devoid of activity. She sighed and picked up the phone again. "Guess I'll call a night taxi."

Echo Gardens. Should have expected a rich corporate executive would live in a place like this. The neighborhood was near the eastern borders of Winggarden, located just west of Tidewater. Despite technically being located within the city, Echo Gardens felt isolated from Winggarden; the Dry Creek Parkway split the neighborhood between the more modest Marina Heights on the east side.

Azerda made sure to stop the taxi near the main road at least a block away from Bay Drive; the last thing she wanted was some nosy taxi driver to get too curious about one of her investigations. The narrow tree-lined street was paralleled by charming bungalow courts and generously sized Middle Sea Revival estates, their front windows masked by hedges and shrubs. Each house had its own side driveway, closed up with wrought iron gates, with roughly a quarter acre of private space. It was too nice of a neighborhood to have bad habits in.

As Azerda trotted towards the address, she saw a small crowd of hippogriffs crowding behind a gated driveway, barricaded by yellow fences that read: "WPD CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS". A policegriff stood idly behind the fence, while another stood next to a police car and Harvester fire truck with two hippogriffs next to him. A sky blue hippogriff and a beige one sat next to the police car – both of them wore faded khaki fatigues and were armed, though they didn't look like police officers or firefighters.

She looked up at the clean white residence in front of her. It was another two-story Revival mansion, with rounded arched Aquileian windows and doorways, an ornately tiled red roof, and thick stucco walls. Baroque columns lined the corners of the house, and the entrance was dominated by a grand porch, embellished with a quatrefoil window. The mansion was surely almost as big as the apartment Azerda was living in.

It would have looked nicer if a third of the mansion wasn't smoking and charred black.

Azerda pushed through the small crowd to the yellow fence. Her work was made easier by how a few hippogriff civilians simply stood out of the way, not used to seeing a zebra in such a neighborhood. "Zmamrta, private detective! Let me through," she muttered before blinking and stumbling, momentarily blinded by the flash of a camera.

The grey hippogriff mare behind her lowered her camera and growled. "Out of the way, stripeback! Don't get in the way of my scoop," she spat. A press pass for the Winggarden Examiner was tucked snugly in the front pocket of her tweed sports jacket.

Azerda glanced back. "Thought you hippogriffs would have come up with more creative insults by now."

The press reporter looked up at her face. "Oh. So you're Zamarata, the Zumidian war hero, huh?" she sneered. "How's it feel to not live in a dirt house for once? Don't know why the Queen insisted on taking you all. Bastards like you should go back to where you came from."

"Are you done, miss?" a voice interrupted. Azerda turned around to see a familiar white hippogriff, dressed in a blue waistcoat with a flashlight on his left claw. Trace gestured with his light towards the reporter's vehicle. "You've got your headline and you've got your pictures. Move along."

The press reporter hesitated for several seconds, then nodded her head. "Y-yes, officer. I'll be on my way," she finally replied and flew off towards her car. Azerda saw the hippogriff mare glare back at her as she left. Don't let them get to you.

"Glad to see you again, Azerda. Should have at least called me before you headed back home," Trace greeted, turning to the light orange patrol officer next to him. "She's with Crystalstar, Sunshower. The vic's involved with the company. And she's a good case mare."

Sunshower looked at Azerda, unconvinced. "If you don't let me in, Crystalstar's going to be sending a firmly worded letter to the Chief. How about we save some of the trouble?" Azerda added.

The officer sighed and shifted the fence open. "Alright, Zamarata. No touching any marked evidence. Detective Trace will handle it."

Azerda followed Trace down the driveway, which split off into a detached two-car garage. The driveway was clean save for a half-dozen blue-tipped cigarette butts left near the garage door. The faint smoke of tobacco reminded Azerda that she was on her 39th month sober. One of the garage doors were open, with a sleek red Eldorado convertible parked inside, worth as much as what the zebra mare made in six months. Maybe those Reds do have a point. "So how did the PD decide to put a detective like you on a case like this?" she asked.

"I've made Homicide," Trace answered succinctly. He trotted up the porch stairway and opened the white double doors.

"Heading to the major leagues now, hm?"

The two entered into a short foyer, with the rooms divided by white arches and floored with earthy red terracotta tiles. A glass chandelier with light bulbs shaped like candles hung on the ceiling. On the left, however, Azerda can spot some of the fire damage, which had burnt part of the hallway down and covered the rest in black soot. The air smelled faintly of smoke. "You can say that. I did three years in Financial Crimes. Mostly just investigating break-ins and nighttime burglaries," Trace said. "Guess that heist case showed what I could do. With a little help from a private sleuth, of course."

"Detective Trace. Don't mind me cutting the chit-chat, but I'll like to get on with this," a mauve hippogriff stallion interjected, dressed in a clean white suit jacket. He had a set of rectangular glasses that hung from his beak in front of his bright green eyes and a short, braided magenta mane.

"Medical Examiner Clear Cut," Trace raised his claw and lightly tapped Azerda's side. "She's one of Crystalstar's detectives, Azerda Zamarata. I don't believe you two have properly met each other yet. She was at the scene for the Barracuda Drive shootout."

"Nice to meet you, Azerda," Clear Cut pushed her glasses and took out a notebook. "Follow me down the hall. I hope you two have strong stomachs."

Trace gulped briefly as the three trotted down the partially burnt hallway, which ended at a spacious study room with a low beamed ceiling and beige colored plaster walls. The open windows were drenched in water and covered in ash, but were otherwise intact. Mahogany bookshelves lined the wall; the fire damage was extensive and had burned much of the books. One of the walls had a decorative Kirian screen, though the embroidery on it had burned off without a trace. Below it was a set of red and white pottery covered in soot. A reddish brown hippogriff with firefighter hat on top of his faded yellow mane was kneeling down near the burnt furniture, placing evidence markers on the ground.

But Azerda's attention was focused on two charred corpses in front of her. The hairless bodies were charred black with the occasionally exposed brown muscle and bone. Any facial details either body had on them were completely unrecognizable, but she could identify one as a hippogriff and another as an equine around her height. with a burnt satchel wrapped around their barrel. The hippogriff's claws and rear hooves had contracted upwards, as if they were trying to shield the victim from a blow.

"O-oh, Tiamat..." Trace heaved and staggered over to the side of the wall, covering his mouth with his hoof to heave to himself.

Azerda grimaced and scratched on her shirt collar. "What in Zargon's name are those bodies doing?" she finally asked after a lengthy pause.

"Best you talk to Back Draft about that. He's the expert around here," Clear Cut replied, pointing to the brown hippogriff.

The brown hippogriff stood up and gave a brief, firm nod. "Back Draft, fire investigator for the WFD. What you're seeing here is pugilistic attitude. The muscles and tendons contract due to dehydration caused by extreme temperatures," Back Draft stated factually, unfazed by the bodies. He put on a set of gloves and pointed to the hippogriff corpse. "Look here. The burns on the victim's rear hooves show signs of blistering and inflammation. I'm almost certain the cause of death is from burn injury, rather than asphyxiation from smoke. It's the same story for the other body."

"You're telling me they burnt to death," Azerda said. Out of the many ways a creature could die, that was one of the nastier kinds the zebra could imagine. "You've got a name for both of them?"

"I can't positively ID the equine. The burns on the equine's body are too extensive; they cover their entire body, in fact. Only thing I can deduce is that the equine victim must either be an earth pony or a zebra with a lack of a horn or wings," Clear Cut said. "The hippogriff victim is almost certainly Sirocco. Forty-two years old, 175 centimeters tall. His claw marks are a perfect match. Two of the security guards outside heard screaming in the house and spotted the fire at around a quarter past midnight and called it in. The body temperature on the body matches the time frame given by the witnesses."

"There were guards outside the mansion? For such an influential hippogriff, Sirocco's unusually light on the security detail." Azerda questioned further, raising an eye. She gestured to the open windows. "And did the firefighters break their way in? I don't see any broken windows."

"The guards were both patrolling around the perimeter of the mansion. A patrol officer is outside keeping watch on them until they're ready for questioning." Clear Cut responded. "And no, the study room windows were already open before the firefighters came here."

"It's like they've been set on fire," Back Draft added with a perplexed look. "This is a highly unusual case. In almost every instance of arson, there are traces of ignitable liquid residues on the site. But I haven't found any. It doesn't make any sense."

Azerda knelt down next to the body and put on a set of gloves. Her eyes stopped at a pair of small glass vials next to the empty satchel, one empty and another with red powder inside. The powder inside was flaky and coarse. She carefully picked up the vial, wafting the vial with her hoof. A sharp smell stung her nose, and Azerda instinctively scrunched up her muzzle in response. "Is this...chili powder? What's this doing here?"

Trace finally recovered from his retching fit and stumbled back next to Azerda. "How can you tell?"

"I happened to be eating some shakshouka this morning," Azerda said. "Much like most of North Zebrica, we use plenty of spices and hot peppers in Zumidian cuisine. Though this powder is much stronger than anything we ever use for cooking in Zumidia. And it hasn't burnt up like the rest of the things here."

"Do you think it's been planted here after the fire?"

Back Draft shook his head. "No, you can see that there's flakes of ash and soot on the vials. It must have been here when the fire happened. It didn't look like anything was taken out of the satchel either, or the ash would have been disturbed. So it only had those vials inside."

Azerda raised an eye. "So you're telling me that one of those victims was carrying the powder when they died?"

Clear Cut took the glass vials. "It seems like it. I can look into what kind of powder this is at the forensic lab. There could be some magic at work," he added.

"Mind if I look upstairs at the vic's room?" Azerda asked.

"Sure. It should still be intact. We haven't touched it since we got here."

"I'll take a look around at the study room and the other rooms downstairs," Trace said. "We'll cover more ground if we investigate separately."

Azerda nodded and trotted up the stairs, going through the rooms one by one. The room furthest to the right of the landing had a tag on the front of the door, with the name Show Stopper. A pony name, Azerda deduced and swung the bedroom door open.

The bedroom was simple, and functional, unlike the rest of the mansion, and undamaged from the fire. A full size bed lay near the center of the room, with the pale-striped bed sheets neatly folded. A mahogany dresser with a circular mirror lay on one side of the wall. On the table were a toiletry bag filled with personal care products and a framed monochrome photograph of an earth pony mare. She wore a set of glasses, had her mane tied up into a ponytail that went down to her neck, and looked to be in her mid-twenties. No sign of forced entry, and there's no dust on the end tables. They must have been cleaned recently.

Azerda paused as she spotted a small green booklet sticking out beneath the toiletry bag. Lifting the bag slightly, she was able to slide it out and opened the notebook. On it was something all too familiar to the zebra: a payroll not too dissimilar to the slip she found at Izavel's room. Azerda scanned the notebook.

Wage: S150/mo Rent: S45/mo Expenses: S60/mo
Current savings: S1505.08

"Zargon be damned. She's not making that much, especially in a pricey city like Winggarden," Azerda muttered as she put the payroll slip in her satchel. The rest of her room and bathroom had nothing of note to find, so she moved onto the other rooms. She took a short look at the other two bedrooms, a billiard room, and finally Sirocco's master bedroom, combined into a small office and attached to a sleeping porch.

As she entered, Azerda noticed that Sirocco's bedroom had been partially burned and drenched with water – his bedroom lay directly on top of the study room where the fire had taken place. Despite the damage, the bedroom's opulence was still in full display with its coffered ceilings, patterned wooden floors, and wide windows. A double bed lay in the center of the room with a badly charred mattress and frame, with a peculiar hiltless sword hanging on top. Opposite to the fire damage was a grand oak desk with a set of blue Kirian pottery and a set of rice wine bottles placed neatly along a wine rack. A soot-covered white folder lay on the table. Azerda flipped the folder open and read its contents:

Pre-Silence Door Panel with Cross Lattice Pattern: S240 ✔️
Vermilion Red and White Dragon Vase, 130cm: S200 ✔️
Carved Coral Glazed Fishbowl with Stand: S120
Red Mahogany Display Table: S80
Round Hoof-Painted Wall Panel with Cranes and Orchids: S100
Black Inlaid Pearl End Table: S140 ✔️
Arrives at end of month

Rosewood's Gallery
1521 Palm Avenue, Winggarden

Sirocco's a stallion of high tastes. That explains all the Kirian furniture and antiques. Palm Avenue...that's at Little Zumidia in Midtown. Azerda took the folder, then knelt down to try each of the drawers on the work desk; most of them had nothing other than stationery and office equipment, but the bottom drawer had a locked steel safe inside with a wheel combination lock. The safe was much too thick to bother prying open and too heavy to carry around on her own, and Azerda had to leave the safe where it was. She ran her hoof over the sticker on the side of the safe. Firebrand Security. Model No. F4, Serial No. 198268. "Trace could track down the combination," she murmured, writing down the information on a small note.

With nothing else of note to investigate in the bedroom, Azerda exited the room and headed down the set of stairs. Trace stood idly at the base, scribbling something on his notepad before closing it up. "You find anything up there?" he asked.

"We've got two leads. First is on Show Stopper. We don't know where she is, but she could either be one of the deceased or a possible suspect," Azerda replied. "The other is Rosewood's Gallery. Sirocco's been buying furniture recently and the owner there could give us something to work on."

"Rosewood's Gallery? I found a price tag that survived the fire on one of the screens that has the same name. He must have just bought it."

Azerda took out her note and handed the note to Trace. "Yeah. I found a safe in Sirocco's desk, but there's no way to open it up. Can you trace the serial number?"

"I'll see what I can do," Trace said, scanning the note and pointing to the kitchen down the foyer. "I know how our perpetrator came in. One of the windows in the kitchen at the back was open. The window stool had depressed hoof marks, size 5s would be my best guess. They must have put a lot of weight climbing through. But there were no signs of them forcing their way in. No broken glass nor damaged window frames."

"The windows could have already been open before the perp showed up. Sirocco's study room windows were open, too," Azerda surmised. "Summers here in Winggarden can be brutal. He could have been letting air inside. You said the kitchen was at the back of the house, right?"

Trace nodded. "Yeah. You should go talk to the guards and see what they know. I'll call Records Units and see if they can track down the safe's company."

"Right," Azerda said, exiting from the front door with Trace behind her. The two split ways as Trace flew to a nearby police car, pulling out a car phone from the vehicle. It was still dark outside, but she could spot the faint reddish glow of the sun below the horizon. She saw the two guards still standing near the police car. The blue one was conversing with a green hippogriff officer, who scribbled something on a sheet of paper before folding it up.

"...Just give the detectives your story and you'll be alright," the patrol officer said to the beige hippogriff.

"What have you got?" Azerda asked.

The officer turned her head. "You’re the Crystalstar detective, aren’t you?” she asked, then hesitated for a moment. “Patrolgriff Typhoon Gale. I’m just getting a statement from these two. The blue one is Calm Waters and the beige one is Pearl Glitz."

Azerda looked between them. Calm Waters looked roughly Trace's age and had a clean appearance. The young hippogriff's clothes were freshly cleaned and ironed, and his wandering gaze suggested that he was new to the job. Pearl Glitz was older, roughly in his early forties, with dull eyes and a bored look. His khaki shirt smelled of nicotine. Azerda noted the teal star-shaped badge on his sleeve. “The Zumidian Star. You were in the Army at Ain Trotgourait?" she asked.

Pearl Glitz nodded. "Yes, I was. Did you serve?"

"Every adult Zumidian did," Azerda answered flatly. "And you smoke Estates cigarettes."

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What?"

"That was the brand put in Type K rations. I used to smoke them every day," Azerda explained. "You get used to the taste, the texture, and the smell. And your shirt smells like Estates. Your partner's shirt, too."

"I'm sorry, Miss Zamarata, but please ask questions that are relevant to the investigation," Typhoon interrupted.

Azerda nickered in reply. "Right. Let's start from the beginning. When do your shifts start for you two?"

"Around eleven. We get off at seven in the morning," Calm interjected.

"And did you spot anything suspicious before and when the fire happened? Did any creature enter from the front gate?"

Pearl shook his head. "No. No creature came in or out. We were keeping watch all night. Around 00:15, we heard screaming that sounded like Sirocco. We rushed into the building, but the fire spread and the doorknobs were hot to the touch. That's when I called in the firefighters."

"Oh?" Azerda let out a short laugh. "Because I noticed about six spent Estates cigarettes near the garage. It must have been there for a couple hours, judging by the faint smell. Each cigarette gives you about five minutes. I'll say you two were spending about fifteen minutes on your smoke break instead of patrolling the mansion. Fifteen minutes that a suspect could have snuck in."

The older hippogriff grumbled and sighed. "We were out having a smoke near the garage. This kid here never tried cigs before, so I gave him a few to smoke. He was coughing up a lung."

"There was evidence of some creature sneaking in from the back. There was a good time window where they could have snuck in without being spotted," Azerda continued. "I suspect foul play. Do you know any creature who would harbor a grudge against Sirocco?"

"Now that you say that, I did remember some creature coming to Sirocco's home four days ago. A rose red kirin stallion," Calm Waters responded, raising his claw. "It was around midnight, during my shift. I couldn't hear what they were talking about clearly, but it sounded like they were arguing."

"You think this kirin stallion could be responsible for the fire?"

Calm shrugged. "They go nirik when they lose their temper, right? It keeps them from thinking straight."

The zebra mare frowned and glared briefly at Calm Waters. I guess zebras aren't the only race hippogriffs like him make assumptions of. This all sounds very convenient... "And what about Show Stopper? Have you seen her lately?" Azerda pressed, ignoring his conjecture.

"Show Stopper is Sirocco's secretary. Usually she comes back late at night, but not this time. I didn't see her room window light up."

"Either of you have any idea where she would normally be at night? A friend's house, a bar, a nightclub?"

"La Costa Cafetería is my best guess," Pearl Glitz answered, taking out a fresh Estates cigarette from his half-used pack. Azerda glanced at the pack and subtly smirked – her memory didn't let her down. "She frequents there at around eight in the evening, before our shift."

"This cafe have an address?"

Pearl flicked a lighter and lit his cigarette. He took a brief drag before exhaling to the side. Azerda's eye twitched at the smell. "1240 Palisades Avenue," he said.

Azerda jotted the address down on a note. "Okay. Thanks for the help. I'll see where this information leads."

"Not like Sirocco is alive to pay us anymore," Pearl Glitz muttered and continued smoking.

Azerda trotted away from the two and spotted Trace returning from the police car. The crowd in front of the mansion gate had thinned up, with only a couple needy reporters still behind the yellow barricades taking pictures of the burned mansion. Azerda scanned the crowd; fortunately, the Examiner reporter was long gone. "Any luck, Trace?" she asked.

"I found the address for Firebrand Security, but it's a Howlington address. It'll take a few hours to track down the phone number," Trace said. He trotted towards the gate and beckoned Azerda to follow closely behind. "In the meantime, we should head out and follow our leads. Should we head to Rosewood's Gallery first, or do you have another place in mind?"

"I do. We head to La Costa Cafetería first," Azerda proposed, showing Trace the written address once they had moved through the crowd. "Maybe some creature there would know where Show Stopper went."

"Where she went?" Trace stared at Azerda. "You're talking like she's still alive."

"She could be," Azerda reasoned with a smile. "When I was examining her room, I noticed something...or well, the lack of something. I couldn't find her hoofbag. The fire didn't reach her room, so it couldn't have burned away. It's difficult to imagine she was the dead equine carrying the satchel, too. There was nothing inside the satchel besides the vials, not even a wallet or ID card. Like Back Draft said, nothing was placed into nor taken out of the satchel, so they couldn't have been stolen. And finally, the guards said they didn't see her come back. So there's a chance that she's still out there."

"Alright, I'll take your theory. If we're going to spend a long day working on a homicide case, I guess some liquor won't hurt," Trace quipped and stopped next to a black Buck Super parked on the side of the road. He opened the passenger door. "Hop on in. And if you're wondering, the police department's got me a new car. Hopefully you don't wreck this one this time."

Azerda hopped into the coupe and closed the door. She looked out the window to see the sun rising from the horizon, letting out a yawn before leaning back on the seat. It was a new day and a new case, and she needed a fifteen minute nap.