It took a while, but Marcus finally managed to bring the weeping man back to the 17th Precinct and away from the agitated locals. The mother of one of the children kidnapped by this man’s cohort could not make it here with them, but she could be here later when she’s fully recovered.

“Marcus.” Right after Marcus’ putting the man into an interrogation room, Detective Shrevas Pahaik came to him with an almost empty coffee mug in his hands: “I heard you went back to the South-Eastern District to check on the widow again - how’d it go? Did you learn anything new?”

“I’m sorry, things got a little - hairy.” Marcus shook his head and sighed: “Something unexpected happened, so I have to come back early. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her.” He then proceeded to explain to Shrevas everything that happened. From the dead woman who was looking for her boy, to the three men snatching kids away from their mothers in almost broad daylight.

“Okay…” Shrevas sighed, then nodded: “Thank you - I totally understand. Sounds like a nasty, nasty case. Once you are done with this, please follow up on your leads. And - to give you a little update, the officers checking on that final member of the emergency reparations team are still trying to find him. So I issued a BOLO, and hopefully we can locate him soon. When you’ve followed up, come help me with the search. I suspect he might know more than we think.”

“Thank you. Will do.” Marcus nodded back: “I’ll try and see what I can get out of him first - this will be a tricky and sensitive case. I’ll ping the captain as well.”

“Thank you. Appreciate your help.” Shrevas let out a tired smile: “Oh, and uh, not sure if you are interested, but we are still looking for Carl Benson - from what I heard looks like the PI his father hired haven’t found anything either. So - we still don’t have anything yet, if anyone asks.”

“Understood, appreciate it.” Marcus grabbed his coffee mug and walked toward the kitchen area along with Shrevas: “Is there evidence of any connections between these two cases? You know, my gut says they’re related, but looking at the details, nothing stands out to me.”

“Lance is still looking at this - last time I spoke to her, she said there was something peculiar, but she didn’t tell me what exactly. You can ask her if you wanna learn more - you know how she is, she won’t say much until she is certain.”

“Alright, will do.” Marcus filled her cup, then started heading towards the interrogation room.

The silent and weeping kidnapper he brought back was still in the room, still keeping his mouth shut. There was a strange sense of pride, determination and burden to his silence, instead of simply not willing to risk incriminating himself. This was not rare for the kind of criminals who got brainwashed by cults and gangs, which came more often from those who came from the South-Eastern District than any other place.

“Alright, you in a talking mood yet?” Marcus brought the fresh cup of coffee with him when he entered the room: “You know, technically we can't search you, yet. But we can run some facial recognition software with your mugshots. So, we already know who you are. Your name’s Simon Tu, street name ‘Sitch’. You used to work for the local church, then you changed jobs and have been working for the local coffin home since. Your records are mostly quite clean, aside from some petty theft charges, and some vandalism charges - yes, when you have committed something as despised as kidnapping a child from his mother, the community collective was quite happy to oblige our inquiry for information.”

The man took a look at Marcus’ face, his coffee mug, and then his face again. And after a long sigh, he shook his head and finally opened his mouth for the first time since the moment Marcus put cuffs on his wrists: “I’m not gonna tell you anything.”

“Oh, why?” Marcus sipped his coffee.

“You wouldn’t understand. You people from the South-Western District wouldn’t understand.” The man shook his head.

“Oh? And what you did, you thought the people from the South-Eastern District, of all three districts, will understand?” Marcus scoffed and gently shook his mug.

Sitch did not respond.

“You know, if you confess now, not only will you save us a ton of time, but you may also get a chance to get a plea deal and be put into protective custody.” Marcus shrugged: “You still live there, so I would say you know the district and the people there more than I do. Tell me, what do they do with child traffickers?”

“You wouldn’t understand. They don’t understand.” Sitch shook his head still, “None of you would understand. I’m not talking.”

“And - just let me know, because I want to take a nap, had a couple of long days, you know?” Marcus shrugged: “How long do you plan on not talking, and just talking this cryptically about your whole operation? Because I was thinking - you must have some kind of mastermind behind your whole thing, am I right? You have a few people working together in a coordinated fashion, and it’s in the late afternoon where kids are still out there and people are getting tired and less on alert. Sounds well thought out to me. And throwing a kid to distract the ones chasing you? That sounds like some psychopathic scheme, and I would not believe you are the one who came up with it.”

“I am not saying anything.”

“Alright.” Marcus stood up shaking his head and let out a long sigh: “Let us know if you need anything or would like to talk. I have plenty of time. Just so you know, the sooner you talk, the easier the punishment and a better deal you’ll get. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go and take a break, and update your local community collective. Just hang in here, alright? Think about it, with what you did and you being here? Both the locals AND the people behind you are gonna wanna find you.”

“Let him stew in there for a bit. No one gets in without me knowing.” Marcus told an officer guarding the interrogation rooms and the evidence room when he came out: “I’m going to work on other things for a bit - and take a short nap.”

“Understood, detective.”

When Marcus got back to his desk, he started watching the footage recorded by his police camera - it was not required, but recommended, especially when it came to dealing with cases in the South-Eastern District, where politics of the city versus the district community collective could really get in the way.

The footage of him facing the local mob when he found the woman who seemingly hung herself seemed fine - he showed restraint even when attacked, making him seem more in the right. The footage of him pursuing the kid snatchers, however, somehow gave him a strange sense of unease and even eeriness. He looked over the footage a few times, yet the source of the strange sense still eluded him. Maybe it was the slightly red sky? Or maybe it was the bizarrely shaped shadows that lingered around some of the buildings, or was it the look of fervor and zeal on some of the locals’ faces?

“Cai.” Just this moment, Detective Lance came to his desk with Kevin Loo: “An update for you.”

“Sure, Keryn, Kevin, what’s up?” Marcus paused the footage.

“Just a quick update for you.” Detective Lance said, her face almost emotionless, with a slight hint of frustration and some weariness: “Kevin and Dr. Flemmings have finished up the forensic examination of all of those bodies. Apparently, all of them drowned.”

“Drowned?”

“Yes, the killers are really trying to hammer this water and Lake Aqiu Theme.” Kevin shook his head: “I’ve checked our database of at-large serial killers, no matches.”

“We’re not sure it’s a serial killer, it’s just a theory.” Detective Lance took a side look at Kevin: “We don’t know anything about the killer yet.”

“Yes. But there is surely some kind of pattern.” Kevin smiled at Detective Lance, then turned to Marcus: “Wait, speaking off patterns - Detective Lance just told me about that Benson kid, I - I think this could be a useful intel - ”

“Just like the serial killer theory, it’s not confirmed. We are still waiting to hear back from the 4th District.” Detective Lance sighed: “There’s rumor that - ”

“Word on the street is that before he crashed his car, he was hitting several clubs in the Northern District, and might have purchased some narcotics.” Kevin was so excited that he cut Detective Lance off: “I think we might be very close to mapping out his trail.”

“Again, still waiting on confirmation.” Detective Lance sighed.