After so many months working the nastiest cases in the West End, the people in the Watch paid little attention when Alain wanted to look at the bodies they were holding. They didn't even notice the fact that, despite he was so sweaty, his tie was gone and his shirt was halfway unbuttoned, he still had a blazer on. Or that he had one of the cameras he kept at the office tucked into a pocket. They were mostly older men on duty in there, drinking port and playing cards. If he took a while looking at the body, they might become too drunk to notice what else he did...

His right hand, not his left, was shaking when he saw what had to be Chastity's body, covered in a blanket. The door was shut, and he could hear the buzz of conversation from the guards in the other room. He forced his hand to steady, and then pulled up the blanket. It was not from the state of decay, but seeing someone he'd been so close to at one point in such a state, that made the bile rise in his throat. He clapped a hand over his mouth and coughed; then he raised his camera to take a few pictures. "Sorry, love," he muttered as he worked.

He saw everything the report mentioned. The thin bruising on her neck from whatever the weapon had been, the scratch marks on her neck, the bite on her wrist... He didn't get much of a sense of the size of mouth from the bite mark, it wasn't a complete bite.

She was impossibly thin. She'd been that way for months now. Heroin. And he frowned. "How high were you when you died, babe..." He began looking her over, inspecting her arms, and he quickly found it. A hole in the right arm, over a vein. He grimaced. She'd shot up, probably pretty recently before her death. His blue eyes raked down her arms to her hands... and paused. The Watch had missed another detail.

There was skin underneath her nails. He wrapped a handkerchief around one hand, found tweezers, and tried not to touch her too much as he pulled a little of the skin out. Whether it was her own or someone else's would be difficult to tell, especially in Rhy'Din - all he knew was, it was roughly the same complexion.

He spent a good while longer looking in vain at the body, for any sort of clue... but all he got was her glassy stare that begged for justice. "Go with God," and he threw the blanket back over her body. It was time to look at her will.

The evidence so far led Alain nowhere... so where else to return, but to the scene of the crime.

It was still not long after Chastity's death when he forced his way into her room. The signs of a struggle were clear. Overturned furniture. Shattered lamp. Many of her personal effects were still out in the open... notes, old music books, spare strings... and a few of the accessories common to an addict...

Alain checked the hallway, then shut the door behind him, and began to stroll around. Eyes lingered on the couch, then on the bed, and finally moved to a very old picture of her, sitting on a dresser. No... it seemed very old, like an eternity ago, but it was likely little over a year old. She looked... happy. Mellow, but happy. Likely before she came to Rhy'Din.

It was about then that he saw the bullethole. Off to the side of the picture, with a little piece of brass embedded in the wall.

Alain could scarcely believe his luck. He looked over his shoulder, and pushed a finger in... working the bullet out. He'd have to take a closer look later, but at a glance, it looked like a .357 or .38, probably fired from a pistol.

It wasn't the weapon that killed Chastity Colragen, but it was a weapon that was fired in the room, quite likely around the time of Chastity's death. The weapon, if he could find it, might lead him to the killer.

Alain had spent two nights walking the streets, checking out all the dealer's haunts, searching in vain for the woman the shopkeeper described. In the middle of a street not far from the docks, he sighed and stared up at the sky. The evening was darkening faster than it should -- clouds rolled in, their dark grey bellies sagging with their weight.

A moment later, the sky fell.

Alain dashed under an awning, his shirt and jacket soaked through, and shook his head to whip the water from his hair. He squinted through the heavy rain as he put a handkerchief to his face... and saw, down the street, a rapidly dispersing group. One suit, a few thugs, and a woman in a long jacket. As she drew closer, taking occasional cover beneath awnings by walking down the sidewalk, he saw she was blonde, middle-aged... still pretty, though twenty years ago she would've been striking... and she had a vacant look in her eyes.

The detective knew that look. This woman was using... and by the look of her jacket and the bulges in it, she was dealing, too.

"Evening," she smiled at him as she passed. He felt like shooting her, and something white hot and angry twisted in his belly. His gun flew out, pointed at her back.

"Pleasant night, isn't it," he said, forcing a semblance of calm into his voice. "And don't even think about running." His blaster emitted a low whine as it built up charge, itching to be fired. "Don't even give me an excuse."

She froze, stiff as the dead for a second, and then slowly pulled her hands out of her pockets and raised them to either side of her head. "Please... put the gun down and let me walk away..." She was shaking. Behind the rage, a pity stirred in Alain as he was reminded of Chastity. But he buried it.

"Put your hands behind your head, turn around slowly, and take a look at this." She did as he instructed, and he pulled the revolver from the pawn shop out of his pocket. "You fired this in Chastity Colragen's room the night she was murdered. Thought you'd never see it again, huh?" His tongue ring clicked against the back of his teeth. Her blank look continued for a few seconds, and then she softly uttered,

"Who?"

"You shot at a woman in the Red Dragon Inn with this gun a week ago. You bought it in a pawn shop, did your dirty work, and sold it right back." He put the revolver away and put both hands on his blaster. "You can play dumb all you like... but here, from my vantage point, it's simple. You murdered that poor young woman. I'm sure the courts will see it the same way."

The woman's eyes dropped. She knew something. "I... I didn't kill her... Look -- all I do is sell guns and drugs... Please, you have to believe, I didn't kill that woman -- I swear!"

"If all you do is sell guns, why'd you buy and then return a weapon that killed somebody?" He pressed the gun closer, and his voice rose with a desperate anger. "Because so far, it's in your hands at the time of her death!"

Tears formed in her eyes; her voice shook. "Let me go... I can't answer you... I have a family... I need to protect them -- please, I beg of you."

"You point me in the right direction and let us worry about whoever did it, or you take the fall for the murder, and we'll see what wonders that does for your family, never mind your neck! Were you or were you not the only one who used that gun when it was gone from the pawn shop on the tenth of August?"

Her eyes widened. "They'll kill me and my family if they see me speaking to you," she whispered softly. "We can't speak in the open like -- " There was a car coming. "Oh shit... oh, oh shit..." She moved her hands down and looked to Alain, who had lowered his gun uncertainly and stared at the car. "We... we have to hide!"

Without a second thought, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him fiercely. It nearly knocked him flat, but he knew the drill. His free hand clamped down on her back, and the car slowed down as it passed them... but then kept on going. She pulled back and kept close to him, in his arms. Her words were a frantic whisper. "All I did... all I... was... I was told to buy the gun from... the shop. I don't know why. And deliver it to the Red Dragon Inn. A room across from where... that..." It just hit her, she was an accomplice in a murder, and the tears streamed down her face. "I'm so sorry, I just...!" She swallowed. "I just delivered it to the room! That's all! I didn't know the woman was going to be killed, please believe me...!" Her head dropped to his chest, and she sobbed into it.

Alain was stunned. The whole case unraveled in front of him, and his hands shook as they stroked her back. He lowered his voice. "Please... the woman who is dead was a dear friend of mine... Who told you to buy that gun?" He was almost certain...

The woman rested her chin on Alain's shoulder and breathed a slow sigh. "I'm... You must hate me... I used to be good, I was a good cop... Now I..." She paused; she'd almost lost herself in self-pity. She turned her head a little towards his ear. "It came from -- "

She fell silent at the same moment her weight sagged in his arms, and hot blood and bits of brain splattered across the wall and along Alain's neck. He swore loudly as she dropped from his arms, and he dropped down behind her for cover. There was nothing for it -- she was dead, he was sure of it immediately.

Across the street, he could see movement... through an open window. A figure darted away, simply... leaving the suppressed assault rifle right there in the open.

It was still raining. The woman's blood flowed down the sidewalk and pooled around Alain's knees. Her paling face was pointed directly at him, but her eyes were no more glassy than they'd already been. It sickened him, and his heart twisted with pity and guilt.

He forced himself to stand. He checked his surroundings and dashed through the rain across the street. There was a symbol on the back of the rifle...

...the same beta symbol a vandal had carved into Chastity's headstone in the Rhy'Din Cemetery.