Thomas and Aimee arrived at the scene where the poor girl’s body was found - it was at the corner of the street in a pretty run down neighborhood at south San Jose. According to field officers, the body was found by some early morning pedestrians. From the signs of the scene, there was not much useful evidence at the scene, and since it had rained lightly the night before, what evidence that might have remained could have already been swept away.

What made matters worse for both Aimee and Thomas, was that the neighborhood was not only pretty run down, it was also a notoriously high crime rate neighborhood. The area had its fair share of street punks and drug dealers roaming around almost all the time and was technically the edge area of some local gang’s turf.

“Nah, I ain’t heard nothing.” when being interviewed by Aimee and Thomas, the owner of a cigarette store shook his head and answered with an empty and slightly dismissive tone: “I don’t know what to tell ya. At night I usually get waaay high with my boys and and hit the nacho and burrito store down the road, so I ain’t know nothing about your dead girl.”

“Okay, thank you for your cooperation. If you can think of anything, call us.” Aimee sighed, and passed over a piece of note with her and Thomas’s phone number on it.

“Yeah, sure officer.” the owner went back into his store, and didn’t even wait till Aimee and Thomas left to throw the note away.

“So, like I said. The people are not willing to just talk to cops. We need to find the CI first.” Thomas almost gave the cigarette store the finger: “That is … if he’s still willing to talk.”

“Oh, he’s willing to talk.” Aimee said: “He’s gonna talk.”

“Yeah? Let’s hope he forgave you for arresting his cousin and not letting the unpaid tickets slide.”

“No. Nonono. Get out!” when Aimee and Thomas found the place at which their CI, or to be more accurate, their former CI, worked, the man they were looking for almost threw them out immediately: “I don’t wanna talk to you. Either of you! Especially you, Miss, Ma’am! You pretentious, stone-cold, up tight cun - bit - pig!”

“Yeah. The first two would’ve been less hurtful.” Thomas had his left hand on the store’s door to not let their former CI close it on them: “Listen, Stuart, please just hear us out first. I promise you it’s for a really good cause.”

“Yeah. Tom, you know, I’m just some guy on the streets barely getting by, good causes don’t agree with me and don’t pay the fucking bills. You see my fucking store?” Stuart opened the door slightly to show them the insides of his store: “This is a fucking grandpa and grandma store that sells canned fruit, pickled eggs and beef jerkies that taste like shoes. And grandpa and grandma fucking cheap as hell ‘cause I can’t pass a fucking 25 dollar background check!”

“This is your store. You don’t do background checks. And no background checks cost only 25 dollars.” Aimee said.

“Oh, fuck me, man!” Stuart stared and pointed at Aimee: “You’re a piece of work, you know that lady?”

“Okay. Calm down Okay Stuart? ” Thomas pushed Stuart’s hand down and said in a more serious tone: “Can you at least hear us out? We’ll pay you, and we’ll pay extra, just in case you need to remodel your store.”

“Thomas, you know we can’t just randomly up the CI payments.” Aimee grabbed Thomas by the arm and said: “We need Captain’s approval.”

“And that’s some stupid fucking rules … to bring up right now. We’ll cover it first. The Captain should reimburse us later.” Thomas shook his head, then he turned to Stuart: “We’ll cover it, just hear us out.”

“Okay. But I’d like some payments up front.”

“Here. You fucking blood sucker.” Thomas pulled out his wallet and handed a 20 dollar bill to Stuart: “We’ll pay when we have the information we needed.”

“A 20? What am I, a fucking peasant?” Stuart was unimpressed and sounded offended, but it didn’t stop him from taking the money.

“Here’s another. Your information better be good.” Thomas let out a long exhale and gave Stuart another 20 dollar bill.

“Just 40? I...”

“Stuart? I swear to god … ”

“Okay, okay, you drive a hard fucking bargain, come on in.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, not the worst two hundred dollars we’ve spent.” when Thomas and Aimee found the place the victim was staying at when she was alive using the information provided by Stuart, Aimee finally stopped cursing at Stuart internally, “Living with in a crowded apartment building, using an alias and paying mostly cash, it could take weeks to track her down through the normal routes.”

No one actually knows what the unfortunate girl’s real name is, the only traces of her identity they could find so far were a few fake IDs with mediocre quality. And one of which happened to seem really familiar to both Aimee and Thomas, because it was very likely the work of Stuart himself.

The alias she used to stay in this apartment was Tracy Lane. Though often late, she managed to be mostly up to date with her rent, which was apparently one of the reasons that the management at this apartment building knew about her when Aimee and Thomas asked.

“Thank you sir.” Thomas nodded at the old man in charge of managing the apartments: “Do you happen to know who she hanged out with? Any frequent visitors? Friends?”

“All I know is she seemed to hang out with some rambunctious and troublesome young people her own age. But, I hardly know any of them because none of them live here. I just know their faces and what they like to wear. I am quite good with these.” the old man was slow to respond but he had a soothing voice: “It helps, but probably not as much. If you have pictures of someone you suspected, I can tell you if they showed up here before.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.” Aimee thanked the old man again as he opened the door for her and Thomas.

“Always happy to help. ” the old man stepped to the side to let the detectives in: “I’ll be waiting outside for you. Take your time.”

A strange smell hit both Aimee and Thomas when they entered the apartment, it was not a good smell and it was not something either of them had experienced before. Aimee and Thomas exchanged looks, then they started looking around in the living room.

“Uh. What do you think this is? Crack? Meth?” Thomas picked up a small piece of rolled up paper with a little bit of residual white powder inside when he looked under one of the dirty couches.

“So not just needles.” Aimee sighed and as she opened a drawer, she saw an empty syringe inside, as well as a broken piece of tooth: “Now that we know what we know - what do you think these … people want from girls like her?”

“Well, my first thought was that the drugs changed their blood chemistry.” Thomas looked under a table and found a boba rewards card: “Pity, she was only three more drinks away from a free waffle.”

Just this moment, a cracking sound came from the bathroom, it sounded like someone was trying to open the window from inside.

“I thought there’s no one else here?” Aimee and Thomas immediately drew their guns.