Salvi left the office with Ford’s eyes hot on her back. Although the Subjugates and Serenes had aided her in the Bountiful case, indicating that perhaps the treatment did work, deep down there was still a part of her that wondered about Subjugate-52. After all, she had managed to get him to break his Serenity relatively easily, and that was something she just couldn’t shake. Her old partner, Stan Stanlevski, had always driven that into her: to listen to her gut, to use her senses. Right now, her gut still felt unease when it came to the Subjugate.
She made her way back to her desk and saw Beggs watching her from where he sat opposite.
“What was that about?” he asked.
Salvi waved it off. “Just my last case.”
“Well that’s closed, right?” he said. “So let’s get to closing this Kelto’s Diner one.”
Salvi shook her head at him.
Beggs smiled. “Hey, I know you want to hit the streets now you’re back, but we gotta close this other shit out first. It’s ain’t all fun and games, Brentt.”
“Especially with you as my partner,” she said dryly.
“Well,” he said, “you can always go back to Grenville.”
Salvi shrugged. “Ford wanted the switch up. Not my choice,” she lied.
Beggs stared at her a moment and she thought she caught a look of doubt in his eyes, before he turned back to his screen.
Salvi was ready to close the Kelto’s Diner case. She’d read through the report carefully and was satisfied everything was in order. With dozens of witnesses to the murder and security footage inside the diner, it was pretty clear as to what had happened and why. At approximately 2.16pm on Wednesday November 14th, Tynan Williams, 23 years old, entered Kelto’s Diner and walked up to Joseph Delroy, 47 years old, who sat eating his lunch at a table in the middle of the restaurant. Williams pulled a gun and fired at Delroy. Delroy somehow managed to pull his own gun and shot back, but quickly succumbed to his wounds. Witnesses state that as Delroy lay dead on the floor in a pool of blood, Williams reloaded and continued to fire, screaming at Delroy that he owed him money. Witnesses stated that Williams paced the diner, breathing heavily in an agitated state, possibly on some kind of narcotic, before he too succumbed to his injuries and collapsed on the floor. Ambulance staff arrived in time to perform CPR and keep Williams alive long enough to make it to the hospital where he later died.
Further investigation by Salvi and Beggs had confirmed Joseph Delroy owned a cleaning business in the city and that Tynan Williams was an employee. Having checked their banking records, it appeared as though Delroy had been paying Williams the same amount for some time and didn’t look to have missed any payments. With the tighter gun ownership laws in California, neither of their weapons were registered. As much as Salvi wanted to know what Williams was referring to when he said Delroy owed him money – was it a card game? Overtime payments? – they did not have the time nor the resources to pursue the finer detail. There were other cases that needed their attention. Besides, the details would not alter the facts of this case, nor would they affect its closure. Williams murdered Delroy in cold blood and Delroy killed Williams in self-defense, in front of several witnesses and captured on security footage. End of story. Case closed.
Salvi tapped the glass display of her console, shutting the file down. She pressed her left thumb against the authorization panel beside her console. It flashed blue as it read her print, then green, indicating the department’s system had accepted it. She then scrawled her signature onto the scratch pad, it registered on the display, then she tapped “File Report”. Off it went, to be stored in their archived data bank.
“That Kelto’s Diner case wound up yet?” Ford asked, approaching her from behind.
“Yeah,” Salvi said, swinging her chair around to face her. “That should help your monthly stats to Chief Garrett.”
“I do like a closed case,” Ford said, pulling her coat over her broad shoulders. “Now if you could just tackle the thousands of other unsolved cases we have that’d be great.”
“I’ll do my best,” Salvi smiled, as Ford checked her iPort.
“I gotta go or my wife will kill me. My kid’s recital is tonight.”
“Enjoy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ford nodded, walking to the door. “Don’t burn yourself out on the first day back, Brentt.”
Salvi watched her leave then turned her eyes to the mugshows by the door again. She looked over at Hernandez and Bronte working away silently at their desks, then shifted her eyes to the empty desks of Mitch and Caine, then to that of Beggs. She checked her iPort, saw it was nearing 7pm, so decided to take Ford’s advice, log off and head home.
She walked into her Sky Tower apartment complex close to 7.30pm. The auto-concierge hologram came to life, projected from a sensor on the wall, welcoming her. As usual she ignored it, heading straight to the elevator, listening as her boots tapped on the white polished tiled floors of the grand foyer.
When she stepped inside her apartment on the 77th floor and closed the door behind her, she paused a moment listening for the chime of the digital lock behind her.
Then she waited a few moments more.
She listened for any sounds that shouldn’t be there, studied the apartment for anything out of place. It was the only thing that had changed about her life since the Bountiful case. Since she’d arrived home to the noises coming from her bedroom. Since she’d found surveillance cameras set up within her air conditioning vents. Since a serial killer had been watching her private moments. She regularly checked the vents now, just to be sure no one else
