Billy Goats Gruff - Puzzle Pieces

Mal scrolled through the latest reports Kimura sent over. Police reports, toxicology reports, first-hand accounts, the Jaggs, and emergency services, she left no stone unturned.

Kimura sat comfortably in a love seat the soft clack of her working on her laptop and information flowed in. She was tapping the local Jaggs for cell phone footage that hadn’t yet been posted on social media.

Cain walked in with drinks and snacks, he already knew they were going to be up all night so he was preparing things so no one had to move too far for sustenance. “Should we order pizza?”

Dogo much like Mal was scrolling through the glut of reports as they came in, and flashed Cain a thumbs up.

“This was just four people?” Mal asked. “All this damage?” He whistled through his teeth. The Carbon Copy issue, as Kimura had predicted, was now officially out of hand. He answered his own question. “Four or more individuals, they identified four, three dead, one in the hospital.”

“Four so far. A pyro who started it all, that the one who went to the hospital. It’s going to take a bit to get her name and info. The others? One flew, passed out from the G’s, and crashed into the side of a bus, another girl froze herself to death, and a speedster who … well … let's just say that haven’t found all of him yet.” Kimura said without looking up.

Dogo held up five fingers as Cain poured out tea for Kimura and some soda for his brothers.

“Five?” Mal asked his brother, picking up the Coke, while nodding a thanks to Cain. “Who’s the fifth?”

Dogo flick images of still captured from video, taking one heavily obscured by some kind of thick sudden fog he zoomed in to the point it was getting pixilated. The outline of someone holding something, but more importantly the hint of red in the clothing. Dogo moved the clip frame by frame as the fog moved showing more hints here and there, more importantly, a frame with the man’s hand whose fingers were black.

Dogo’s dry-erase marker squeaked. ‘There was an Anmon on site.’

“It’s a pretty rough shot.” Cain noted. “Anything we can do to get something more positive than a pixelated image? Do we have a guest list or something?”

“No one uses their real name,” Mal reminded him, squinting his eyes as he tried to see better.

“Alright … well … let's dive into the social media. They may not use their real names but you know these dumbasses were posting their ‘crazy party’ across all their platforms to flex. Use that, stitch together the timeline, of who was where when so and so is recording, and place them in the crowd. Then we can see a better idea of who was where when it all went down. Plus if there was an Anom on scene they have to be somewhere in that crowd. This can help us narrow down a face.” Cain offered.

Dogo whiteboard squeaked. ‘You start compiling the sweep and I can use that to make a render.’

“On it,” Mal replied.

Cain looked at his table. “Hey … look who was there.” He said flicking an image form a social media site. “DJ look familiar?” He asked the photo of Cyd at the DJ table with ‘Tottally vibing with DigiKitty!’ captioned below.

“She was at the rave with the bunny chick,” Mal nodded, “who tried to sell us CC before…” He didn’t finish the statement. No need to rub salt in that wound when it was still fresh. “Any images of Cottontail?”

“No … I don't see any pigtails … but …” Cain said, tossing up another photo. “ … look who else was there.” Even in the background an arm around a pretty girl with a tight black dress talking to a few people the red leather jacket made it pretty obvious who he was. “You think It's coincide? Guy who says he doesn't deal that shit is there in an incident where a bunch of people take Carbon Copy?”

“Candyman?” Mal asked, trying to hone in on the image. “Red jacket was at at least two other parties with DigiKitty.”

“Guy gets around apparently. Normally I would say it's weird to see a sprawler at this kind of party but he seems to be pretty popular, apparently, a lot of the stuff he deals with no one else has. The Red Devil, Halos, and … that other thing that I can't remember, you get the point. So if you want it, you can only get it from him.” Cain explained it was one of the reasons they at the time so firmly believed he might have been dealing Carbon Copy. He was already dealing with some exclusive drug … it hadn't been a big leap to think he was involved.

“You think he’s associated with black eyes?” Mal asked.

“You're all speculating at this point and Red Jacket is no longer relevant.” Kimura said, sitting up and sharing the video's confession of one of the detained suspects spilling her guts.

“Well,” Mal said, after they’d watched the confession. “Looks like we have a lead. Let’s see if we can trace anything else back to ‘em.”

“The lab should be getting back with the results soon. I'll make a call to see if I can push for a rush to get it done. See what you can glean about what she's talking about? It's hard to understand everything she's saying while she's losing her shit.” Kimura said standing and walking off to make her call. They were so close to cracking this!