Villach

[Oneida]

-- Chapter 1 --
A Murder
​

“Let’s go!” Officer Pethes yelled as she pushed a man near twice her size down the hall to the cells.

“I need my pills! My pills!” the man yelled back.

“Yeah, yeah – you’re pills” Pethes backed, holding the man’s arm behind his back.

“Got another one, Pethes?” another officer called out.

Headquarters was a loud, cramped, dark place captured in a gothic aesthetic long out of style. The building’s design didn’t keep up with the needs of a modern police force, but the historic standing of the building kept it in use. After all, it has served as the Headquarters of the Villach Police Department for 150 years. It had a flair you really couldn’t find elsewhere in Villach or Carinthia.

“I need my fucking pills!” the man screamed, throwing his arm back and easily breaking Pethes’ grip. He immediately lifted her gun into the air and pulled the trigger, silencing the entire room.

“My pills!” he screamed.

The cells of Headquarters were right next to the desks of most of the officers and right outside the office of the Captain himself. The gunshot was more than enough to have all forty of the officers present to hold their guns and fix it onto the orc holding Pethes with a gun to her head.

“Drop the fucking gun!” the officers screamed in an uncoordinated chorus, met by the less numerous shouts of needing pills.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” screamed an officer, who was running down the stairs, pushing officers aside to get face to face to the man holding Pethes.

“Sir, look at me, at me – only me, not them. My name is Adrian Bauer, I have your pills right here,” Adrian said, lifting up a bottle of Asprin God himself placed on the desk next to him. Adrian threw the man the bottle.

The man lunged his hulking body to grab the bottle, dropping the gun in the process. The moment he did, Adrian jumped in, subduing the giant and releasing Pethes. A hit the back of the head sent the giant to the ground. Adrian grabbed the gun, unloaded it and flipped a bullet into the air – a smirk covering his entire face.

“Sorry guys, didn’t mean to frazzle you,” he said – to a sea of booing and dismissive waves.

A group of cops rushed in and grabbed the unconscious man, two holding him up, as a third and fourth began mercilessly punching him in the face.

“Guys, guys – easy he’s down!” Adrian yelled, as some pulled him away from the scene.

“What the hell was that?” Ebner scolded.

“A job well done,” Adrian answered.

“To hell it is, rookie mistake. You could have gotten hurt, an officer could have gotten killed. That man had a gun to an officer’s head. We had what, thirty officers with a clear shot – easy god damn fix,” Ebner ranted.

“We got out with no bloodshed, that’s our job,” Adrian retorted.

“No, next time we take the shot. We don’t take chances. Jesus Adrian,” Ebner shook his head.

“If I would have shot that man, it would have set everyone off – gunfire every which way, more people would have gotten hurt,” Adrian’s protest grew stronger.

“Listen to me, Bauer, someone grabs a cop’s gun, you shoot him. That’s basic, get your head together,” Ebner yelled.

“Ebner, Bauer, you’re up! Shooting near the theater district,” Officer Feld yelled through the commotion.

“Give me a break, my shift is almost over,” Bauer yelled back.

“Yeah, nearly,” Feld laughed.

Ebner looked at Adrian, even more annoyed than he was before. Adrian flipped the bullet in his hand again and gave Ebner a look “Ready to go?”

By the time Ebner and Bauer arrived, a small army of cops and media had arrived on the scene. Police tape had sectioned off a good portion of the alley. It was dark and had rained, but floodlights and reflections from the water lit nearly the entire alley. The public had gathered as well, demanding answers from stoic officers who told them to stay back.

“Ah, well I’ll be damned – the legendary Detective Kay Ebner, no rest for the wicked, am I right?” Officer Wirnhier called out when he saw Ebner arrive to the scene.

“Fiete, good to see you. This is my new partner, Adrian Bauer. What do we got?” Bauer had little time for pleasantries.

“Male, female, gunshot wound – dead instantly. The kid saw the whole thing, poor guy hasn’t said a word yet,” Wirnhier answered.

Ebner kneeled down to lift up the white sheets covering the bodies, looking at each of their faces. He then took a long sigh, and placed his hand over his mouth before standing back up.

Adrian looked over to see a small kid, no more than eight years old, sitting alone on a pulled down fire escape. He had a rough, uncomfortable police-issued background covering him. Adrian couldn’t tell if he was rocking due to the cold, the shock, or both. He walked over to the boy.

“My name is Adrian Bauer, a detective with the Villach Police Department. What’s your name?”

Silence, the boy didn’t do so much as even look up to the detective standing in front of him.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk.”

Ebner paced slightly, before turning to Wirnhier and moving in very close to him.

“Do me a favor,” his stern voice called “you didn’t see me, you got it? I didn’t come here.”

“I see you right now,” Wirnhier replied “What’s the problem?”

“That’s Markus and Astrid Siekert,” Ebner answered “I don’t need this kind of heat on my plate. Call the Special Crime Unit, they’d love to have this.”

“Yeah, they would, but they’re not here,” Wirnhier looked at the bodies behind him “And your partner is talking to the witness. Makes it your case.”

Adrian was staring at a nervous Ebner, but stood steadfast with the boy who was still shaking on the fire escape.

“Max,” the boy whimpered “my name is Max Siekert.”

“Can you tell me what happened, Max?” Adrian asked – but the boy only started to sob uncontrollably. Adrian knelt down next to him and sat next to him on the fire escape.

“When I was about your age, a drunk driver hit our car. Killed my dad, I was right to him. I know how you feel right now and I promise however dark and scary the world is right now, there will be light. There will be light, Max.”

“We just got out of the movies. We were walking down the alley to get a cab and a man came out of the shadows. He wore a hat, long black coat, and a scarf over his face. He had shiny shoes and then he pulled a gun. He took my dad’s wallet, my mom’s necklace, and then he shot them. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t do anything more, he just walked away,” Max answered “and I just stood there. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Be brave, Max, be brave. I promise you, here and now, that I will find the man who did this and we will put him behind bars. I promise,” Adrian told the boy.

“Max!” an older man yelled, emerging from the crowd. As soon as Max heard the voice, he looked up and ran to the man. Adrian followed closely.
“Adrian Bauer,” he said.

“Eckart Wãhner,” he answered.

“I’m going to find the man who did this,” Adrian declared “I promise.”

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” Wähner dismissed “Come Max, let’s go home.”

Adrian watched as the man walked Max away and he could feel the anger building inside of him. He noticed that Ebner had stood next to him and he looked just as enraged.

“We need to find this guy,” Adrian said.

“You just handed us a steaming pile of shit,” Ebner scolded – again.

 

[Oneida]

-- Chapter 2 --
A Siren​

“Enough, my god enough!” Captain Barbara Kahler slammed her hands onto the table “Kay, you need to understand the pressures I’m working under here. This is Markus and Astrid Siekert. I need a perp in jail and I need it to happen now. I don’t care what resources you use, close this case.”

“Captain,” Adrian answered “We’ll find the guy who did this, you have my word.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ebner shook his head paced away from Adrian.

“Great, glad to hear it Bauer. Now, unless there’s anything else, I think we’re done here?” Even before she finished, Kay turned to her to begin his protest – but she gave them a look that she had come to be known for. The Captain’s mind was made up and that was that.

The two men stepped outside of the Captain’s office, which opened up in a large room that contained the entire hustle and bustle of the Villach PD. Kay walked up to the railing over the balcony and leaned on it, shaking his head.

Kay was, in almost every way, Adrian’s opposite. He was a tall man, slouching man whose shaggy hair could only be matched by the wrinkles of an ill fitted suit. They were, to his defense, hard to notice over how completed dated the patterns and style of Kay’s clothes were. He was portly, but that came with age…and maybe some heavy drinking as well.

Adrian, on the other hand, was at least six inches shorter than Kay, had short, dark combed hair with a suit that looked like he had spent his entire paycheck on. Adrian didn’t seem to have an ounce of body fat on him and his body was complemented by a great posture.

“Ready to begin?” Adrian asked.

“Have you heard of Markus and Astrid Siekert?” Kay shot back.

“Sure, the Siekert Foundation, Siekert Enterprises,” Adrian answered.

“Markus and Astrid Siekert were some of the richest, most powerful, most influential people in all of Villach. Wherever they went, rainbows and happiness follow. They had everything you could possibly want and more,” Kay mumbled over his words.

“Then doesn’t that make you wonder why they’re dead now?”

“No Adrian, it really doesn’t. You have a bunch of rich people who shit gold, they walk down a dark alley, a guy takes a chance to become a rich son of a bitch. It’s not hard,” Kay said “Could be any one of the scum that fester around this city. I wouldn’t even know how to track them down.”

“I can help!” Heinrich Alscher, Chief of Forensics, interrupted “I found something unusual.”

Heinrich pushed up his glasses below pulling out a baggy from his coat that contained a bullet. It was charred and deformed, basically meaningless to anyone who happened to take a look at it. “I pried this out of Mrs. Siekert’s chest. What you have there is a Dahmer Gold Dot, no doubting that. I shot one of those in my life, it’s not something you forget.”

“That’s a $5 bullet,” Adrian grabbed the baggy “Where does a common street thug get something like this?”

“Oh, he doesn’t. You’re looking at something a little bigger than that my friend. You’ve landed quite the case, Kay, hope you don’t wind up on my table by the end of it.” Heinrich laughed, grabbed the bullet, and returned to his office.

“Fuck,” Kay said “God I wish you didn’t take this case. Come on, we need to go pay a visit to Elisa, Elisavet Spiros.”

“She works for Torbin Maier,” Adrian was confused “Why would we be meeting her?”

“Elisa controls the theater district. Last night there was a murder of the two richest people in Villach with a bullet that’s almost just as expensive. If something is going on here, she knows about it.”

---

The rain was starting to slow into a drizzle at the back alley of the Red Lagoon. The sound of the rain was finally starting to be overtaken by the whimpers of Milos. He was laying on the ground, surrounded by six men and one Elisavet Spiros herself.

Elisavet was a short, thin woman who carried the complexion of the people of her homeland in Pelasgia. Her short, black hair had a red streak going through it, it served as her signature. The combination made it look as though her eyes were glowing. She was wearing a black, short dress with a white coat over it and black gloves to match. She was thirty-six, but definitely looked older – though no one was brave enough to say anything to her. She was standing over Milos with her long, black high heels digging into his neck.

“Milos,” her voice so radiant and calming “I’m beginning to worry you don’t love me anymore.”

“No no no,” he muttered back “Lady Elisa, my beautiful, I love you more than anyone else.”

“He doesn’t love you, he doesn’t respect you Lady Elisa!” Bronislav Skalicky kept calling, shaking the umbrella he was holding over Elisa’s head out of sheer, sadistic excitement “He deserves to suffer and hurt!”

“And so will you if my hair gets even a little frizzy from this rain,” she barked back at him, silencing him instantly.

“Elisa,” Ben called to her “Detective Kay Ebner is here.”

“Oh, what a surprise,” she said, stepping off Milos’ neck, but remembering to twist her heel as she did so “I wouldn’t want to keep the good detective waiting. Ben, would you be a dear and take care of the situation out here?”

“With pleasure, ma’am,” he said, grabbing a baseball bat and stepping toward Milos.

The Red Lagoon was magnificent. It had high ceilings with a baroque style architecture fit for the Royal Palaces in Hallein and Karcag. It was a large, open floor plan with a stage in the back, the bar in a circle at the middle, and a number of tables with booths lining the walls. Red drapes, red fabrics, red and gold – made the entire interior. Clearly, this was a bar owned by Torbin Maier.

“Elisa Spiros,” Kay called “As I live and breathe.”

“Just barely it seems,” Elisa leaned in and kissed Kay’s cheeks “It’s so nice to see you again…oh and who is this?”

“This is my new partner, Adrian Bauer,” Kay answered, Adrian didn’t acknowledge.

“Oh the new kid on the block, well what a pleasure it is to meet you,” almost as soon as she finished the sentence, a blood curdling scream could be heard from the back of the bar. It immediately raised Adrian’s suspicions.

“Ma’am, was that screaming?” Adrian looked to her.

“Why yes, my boys are watching a scary movie.” More, even more frightening screaming could be heard “A very scary movie.”

“Relax, Adrian – Elisa gets some slack. She keeps some pretty tough guys in line, sometimes you got to show a little force to do that,” Ebner stopped Adrian.

“A little tough love,” Elisa added.

“Elisa,” Adrian continued “We’re here because of the Siekert Murders. We were hoping that you’d be able to point us in the right direction on any leads you have.”

“Why would I have any leads on the Siekert murders?” she shot back.

“Elisa, darling,” Ebner interrupted “We really need to close this quickly. I was hoping one of our eyes and ears saw or heard something. Anything to point us in the right direction. I’m coming to you out of respect.”

“See, Adrian?” She said “Ask nicely. I’ll be honest with you, Kay, I haven’t heard anything about it – and I certainly didn’t order it. None of my boys would have done anything to Mr. and Mrs. Siekert without my approval. But I’ll keep my head to the ground, see what I can find out for you…now can I interest any of you boys in a drink?”

“No,” Adrian grabbed Ebner and they left the bar.