Salvi and Beggs split the residents of the vic’s immediate neighboring apartment, who’d reported the body on the balcony to police. The witnesses, like Myki and the vic, were late 20s or early 30s, buff and beautiful, and their home was similarly adorned with sleek aesthetics and the best house AI money could buy. While Beggs took the woman into the kitchen area, Salvi questioned the man, Rusty Connor, by the doors of their balcony.
“And what time was this?” Salvi asked Connor, who stood around 6ft and weighed a good 200lbs. – most of it muscle. Turned out he owned one of the Gym-Fit outlets, where members stood in special machines that stimulated muscle growth. It was the perfectly lazy way to get buff and an incredibly popular way to ‘exercise’.
“It was, like, after midnight,” Connor said, scratching his fingers through his brown bed hair.
“And you didn’t see anyone?” she asked.
Connor shook his head. “No. By the time I got out of bed and went out there, I just saw their leg as they moved back inside.”
“What were they wearing?”
“I didn’t catch what exactly. I just saw a black leg.”
“Black pants?”
He nodded. “Pants and shoes. It was all black.”
“Do you know what type of black material it was? If they were black jeans or sweats or something else?”
“I didn’t get a look. I just saw black.”
“Did you hear any voices?” she asked. “Did it sound like more than one person?”
He shook his head. “No, and I didn’t stick around to find out. I saw the guy with his head smashed in and ran back inside to contact you guys, and they told me a unit was already on the way.”
Salvi nodded. “Did they party much?”
“Them?” he hiked his thumb to Myki’s apartment. “No, they were pretty quiet. I think they did their partying elsewhere. I never saw them much.”
“What about arguments or any other disturbances?”
Connor shook his head. “No. They were quiet.”
“Okay. Did you see anyone else on the other balconies who might’ve seen something?”
Connor thought for a moment. “I didn’t notice any the first time, but when I came out again after calling you, yeah, there were some overhead and across the way.” He pointed across the street to another tower of apartments. Salvi studied them and saw the blinds in one window move. Someone was watching them. It was bound to happen with all the commotion, but the question was, did someone witness the crime or the perpetrators, or were they just rubbernecking now?
Her eyes darted to the drone that slowly moved across the apartments filming the surrounding balconies, before she looked back to Connor.
“Alright,” she said. “If you think of anything else, you contact me at hub 9. Got it?”
Connor nodded. “Sure.”
Salvi looked to Beggs, who was finishing up interviewing Connor’s partner. He caught her eye, thanked the woman, then began heading for the door. Salvi followed him outside into the plush carpeted corridor, where Beggs sighed and turned to her.
“It’s gonna take us hours to interview all the surrounding neighbors here and across the way, even using some of the uniforms.”
Salvi nodded. “Yeah.”
Beggs grinned. “You sure picked a real good night to start back, Brentt.”
“Tell me about it,” she said.
“I’ll take evens, you take odds,” he said, then moved off to another apartment.
Salvi pressed the buzzer on the door, then showed her face to the security camera. The door opened and Mitch stood there. He was shirtless, his hair ruffled, eyes squinting in the light. He’d buzzed her up from the street, of course, so her appearance at his front door wasn’t a surprise.
“Sorry to wake you,” she said, then hesitated when she saw him rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “This was a bad idea… I shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m awake now,” he said, then opened his door further and walked back inside his molecular apartment. Salvi followed, watching as the pink and red lights of the club in the alleyway behind flashed through the porthole window beside his bed, blending with the apartment’s green Bio-Lume light on the ceiling.
“You caught a late one?” he said, yawning, and sitting down at his two-chair table in the tiny studio-like layout. His whole apartment was actually smaller than the living area of hers.
She nodded, taking the other seat. “Pretty brutal murder in the Sensation.”
“Yeah?” he said, motioning to the healing patch over her scratched neck. “That’s new. You caught ‘em?”
“No. The vic’s girlfriend did this.”
“She the one?”
“Not sure yet… but my gut says no. I don’t think she’d have the strength to do what was done to the vic. Besides, we sent her off the hospital, she’s possibly a victim of a 261.”
He nodded and the silence sat.
“Sounds like you had an interesting first day back,” he eventually said.
“Yeah,” she nodded, and they stared at each other across the table, before he took her right forearm and studied it.
“It’s nice to finally have that cast removed,” she said, twisting her arm about, “and to be off desk duty.”
“How’d it go with Beggs today?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Alright. How you doing with Caine?”
“Alright.” Mitch studied her again, trying to read something on her face. “Why are you here, Salvi?”
She thought it over. “Guess I missed talking over a case with my old partner.”
He nodded. “You woke me up at 3.37am to talk about your case?”
She stared at him. Mitch had been patient these past several weeks. She’d needed space after the Bountiful case and he’d given it to her. They’d been cordial, seeing each other only when Mitch and Caine came into the station hub, when Ford delivered team updates. They’d intentionally kept their distance, aware they’d drawn curiosity from their colleagues as to why they’d suddenly changed partners. Ford had made a decent excuse about training Salvi up with different partners, but whether people bought it… Once upon a time it would’ve bothered her
