chapter 195

word count: 1282

continuing on to the precinct after having dropped her new partner, hank bowers, off at the scene of his fiancés traffic accident,, detective marisa wells felt amazingly empowered as she transported a quietly chanting mrs. yoo back to the precinct on her own....

the truth of the matter was,, detective wells was glad to be rid of the gruff detective and his intimidating interrogation techniques.. after all,, mrs. yoo herself was not, as of yet, suspected of any wrong doing. it had in fact been her husband,, who according to mrs. yoo,, had been missing for two days, that was suspect of criminal dealings,, and as was the culture in the chinese community,, it was entirely possible the subservient mrs. yoo had no knowledge what so ever of his alleged illegal activities..

detective bowers handling of the situation had been completely  uncalled for.. not only had mrs. yoo been forced to suffer the disappearance of her husband and beloved out of fear of violating her husband’s wishes by involving the police,, but she had just received the news every parents nightmares are made of,, her daughter tiffany was believed to have met with a gruesome end.. and as if that wasn’t enough,, the task of identifying her cold lifeless corpse had fallen to mrs. yoo in default,  due to the ongoing absence of her husband..

although it was as of yet unconfirmed,, marisa’s gut told her that mrs yoo’s husband had met with a similar fate,, and it would just be a matter of time until they were once again transporting an already grieving mrs. yoo to identify his remains as well..

detective wells pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the coroner’s office,, as she promised mrs. yoo that she would accompany her  through the identification procedure, with the aid of detective sun hung’s translation services,, before detective hung  would  take mrs. yoo and proceed with the questioning in mandarin, as it was both of their native tongue..

detective wells took mrs. yoo into the waiting room, gently seated her in a chair near the window and then placed a call to detective hung advising her meet them there so they could proceed..  while they waited,, detective wells did her best to calm mrs. yoo by firmly placing her arm around her trembling shoulders.. she knew the worst was yet to come,, and she secretly wished she could do more..

as she had promised,, she stayed with mrs. yoo throughout the gut wrenching identification process,, and then had detective hung explain to her in her native language,, that she would take her upstairs to file the proper paperwork..

once detective hung and mrs. yoo had disappeared behind the elevator door, marisa headed back the hospital to pick up her new partner.. when he wasn’t waiting for her outside,, or in the hospital reception area, she returned to the parking lot where she bided her time drinking a diet coke and chain smoking cigarettes perched on the hood of the police issue crown vic..

as she waited impatiently,, she kept checking her watch.. every minute seemed to take an hour to pass.. she hadn’t expected hank to still be in the hospital when she returned.. they were, after all on a case.. six bodies had been discovered in china town this morning,, one of them mrs. yoo’s daughter tiffany,, and  she was anxious to get back on the case.. 

eyes trained on the door willing hank to exit at any moment,, she was somewhat surprised to see detective buzz miller come through the automatic sliding doors instead. . when she saw him she crushed out her cigarette,, and hurried to approach him..

“detective miller!” she called out to her as she closed in and extended her hand in friendship, “marisa wells, i’m hank’s new partner..”

“good to meet you!!” buzz greeted her quite warmly considering his usual disposition.. “finally get to put a face to the name..”

as detective wells went on to fill him in on the key points of the case they were currently involved in,, buzz gave her a thorough going over.. ‘how did i ever let this one get by me?’ he thought to himself as his mind ran away with the possibilities,, all the while responding perfunctorily to detective wells monologue with a correctly placed,  “got cha.” or “i see.”

when detective wells had summed up the case,, there was a few seconds of dead air between them before buzz realized it and took the opportunity to turn the conversation into something more befitting of his own fantasy..

“you know, marisa, you don’t mind if i call you marisa do you?” he asked,, although he did not afford her even so much as a moment to respond.. “i have a gut feeling this is in some way tied into the case i am currently working on.. i’d like to go over the possible similarities with you if you have a moment while you’re waiting for hank..”

with that,, he firmly,, and in strictly a professional manner,, placed his hand on marisa’s shoulder and cleverly guided her back toward the hospital..

“let’s grab a cup of coffee,, and see if we can’t put two and two together.. i’ll call hank and let him know where to find you when he’s finished up with stephanie..”

***

as enos became more comfortable with the ever affable algie,, he became more forthcoming with information pertinent to establishing who was in possession of the diamond before it came skimming across the floor of the airport only to come to a stop directly at feet of enos and his fellow missionary.. 

as enos went on to describe the scene that played out just prior to their discovery of the diamond,, algie paid special attention to the part about the TSA agents swarming a group of fellow travelers.. in his trained calculating mind,, it only made sense that the diamond was either tossed or involuntarily lost by one of the travelers involved in the incident that enos had witnessed..

“so then, “ algie led in, “this group of travelers,, the ones the TSA agents descended upon,, did you catch a glimpse of them before the uproar?? would you be able to provide a description of any of them??   as i feel that may very well be our key to finding the original possessors of the diamond should we locate jacob and be able to convince him of the error of his ways..”

“sure,” enos smiled,, ever so thankful that he might finally have finally  hit upon something that might serve as a reasoning tool with jacob, once they found him..

“one of them was a big guy,, in a trench coat.. he was ahead of us in line at the ticket counter until the other two guys,, both equally as huge and dressed in dark business suits came up to him,, and then he, well he seemed to panic,, running to the head of the line and demanding that he be served immediately due to illness..”

‘ah ha!! i see!!” algie remarked thoughtfully as a clear picture of a grouping of local mobsters painted itself in his head..

“and then there was this woman,” enos continued. “a kind of small woman,, with a suitcase.. i think she was alone. i didn’t see her join the men,, or what happened between the four of them,, but i do know that after the woman joined the group,, the TSA surrounded them,, and dragged them all off,, well except for the guy in the trench coat.. he was still lying on the floor when jacob and i took off to hail a cab..”