We walk towards a dingy alleyway, already in the dingy Dock.

It's cordoned off and guarded by two of the beige suits. They're a little green in the face, and I feel…disgust radiate off of them.

Venturing deeper, I find myself bordering between apathy and disgust as well. One of which is not something I should feel while looking at two corpses.

Two…bodies, or remains lay on the ground. Both sprawled out towards the cloudy sky. One maybe female, the other maybe male. Their stomachs sit open to the air. Guts and blood spilling. Acid and bile slowly eat away at any remains. Their faces are removed and eyes are gone.

"They were found an hour ago. The coroner's on his way." Rose seems apathetic to the whole situation. A little anger, but not much else. I'm not a psychologist by any means, but I don't think apathy should be felt when looking at two harvested corpses.

Harvested as in, a good portion of each ribcage is just missing. Possibly pulled out through the stomach cavity. And, honestly, I might just disable my sense of smell because the humid air, cool winds, and two rotting corpses are getting to me.

"That…is two bodies," I say after a few minutes of us just staring at the bodies.

"No shit, Sherlock," Rose replies, still staring at the corpses.

"Fuck you, Watson." Rose concedes with a hum at that one. "So…obviously, these two were here for…some reason."

"He—maybe he—was mugging her." I look at Rose and confusion and she jerks her head in the general direction of a lone gun laying near the wall. "Plus, his clothes, despite the blood, are nowhere near clean. Actually, they haven't been washed in weeks."

"How do you know that?" I ask, simultaneously checking the gun with Telekinesis for any cartridges. There's room for six here, but only four present. Either he didn't buy enough or…

"Half-Angel. Allows me to look at…aspects of people and things. Their virtues and such. For example, I can tell you're a virgin. And, in this case, the purity of his clothes."

Oookay…

"Alright, he was mugging her. Then, somehow, they both end up dead. Their stomachs ripped open, and organs pulled out. Just a side note: that gun only has four cartridges."

Rose saunters up to the bodies and peers into each one. "The girl has bite marks on her body. Human teeth. Actually, tooth."

Huh? I walk up to the girl, and, in fact, find the same thing Rose is staring at. A single pearly white, lodged in the remains of half a gallbladder. A sickly yellow tooth. With each face ripped off, we can see that both victims have all of their teeth.

So…huh. We need the coroner.

————————————————————————————————————

A balding, haggard man stands at the heads of two metal tables. Each one empty as their previously held corpses are now kept in small fridge units. He switches his gaze between Rose and I, questioning us.

"Why are you here? I believe I sent the report to your offices." He wheezes, stumbling towards his workstation.

"Yes, you did," Rose confirms. "We just wanted to ask some questions about the file." He sighs, sighing a sigh that has been sighed many a time before.

"Go ahead." He rubs his shoulder, preparing for the eventual headache.

"So, Ms. Beck, she donated plasma a lot?"

"Yes. The workers get a lot of college students donating plasma for a their slushee funds. A small bit of pocket change. She also, yes, donated blood often. O- is quite useful."

"And Mr. Whittaker, has been arrested before?"

"Yes, yes, possession of heroin." He closes his eyes and leans back towards the ceiling, not really caring about Rose's questioning. I'm just taking this all in.

"What about this part where they died without struggle?"

"…" Coroner Oswald pauses, opening one eye as if remembering, or realizing, something interesting. "Ah, yes," he wheezes, standing up. "Normally, as most people would be during a mugging, they would panic." He coughs. "If they were to die like this, their muscles would be wound up tight."

He staggers over to Rose, tapping twice on her clipboard report when he gets here. "These two both died without a struggle. Ms. Beck, appears, to have died while asleep. Single bullet to the heart. Mr. Whittaker, suicide. Bullet went through his jaw, and subsequently, brain."

"Interesting…" Rose mumbles. Murder-suicide would be a likely answer has we not known that they never met before and…the tooth. Right, that.

"What about the tooth?" I ask, Coroner Oswald perks up, bones popping.

"It's a fake. Plastic. Placed there for some reason, though the bite marks on the stomach cavities do appear to match real teeth. The bile, however, burned away too much of the skin to match any dental records."

"Dang…" I mumble. Now both Rose and I are just standing here, thinking. Thus, Oswald decides to sit back down and rest his back. His human bones straining under the workload he's been given.

In fact, we should have about thirty CSI lab boys, but they all, except Oswald, had faked their degrees and we had to fire them. So, in the meantime, Oswald is doing the work of the entire department.

It's amazing to think he's thirty-five years old.

————————————————————————————————————

"There's definitely a third party here."

We moved out of Oswald's pristine and clean office into Rose's barren one to trade ideas.

"Yeah, a mugging turned murder-suicide, a sleeping victim in the middle of an alleyway, missing organs, indeterminate bite marks, and a fake tooth place in the middle. I think it's pretty obvious there's another person here. One that is either a criminal mastermind, or an idiot thinking they are one and decided to act like they're in a movie."

"Yeah. I don't like dealing with absolutes in cases, but this seems messy to me. A lot of free evidence. Plus, it reeks of System Skills."

"But now what? We don't have any leads."

Rose chuckles. "Dear Alice, have you ever read any of the court cases dealing with heroes and the guild?"

"Sure," I shrug. "There's plenty of them. Pretty weird ones too." I'm looking at you, Roshe v. NASA.

"Yep, and their decisions have accumulated into a big hodgepodge of legality. Technically, legal freedoms.

We have the powers of local, state, and federal officers, yet few of the limitations. Miranda rights, and the occasional insurance payout are the only things we really have to worry about. As long as we can justify our reasoning, we can essentially break any law…including amendments. We don't even needs warrants—most of the time."

"Then what's stopping us from becoming just like villains?"

She shrugs and leans back in her chair. "Not much… Morals, if that's your thing. A paycheck. Utter stupidity, but yeah. Not much. Plus, it's not like prisons can hold people like us. Only villains and heroes can contain each other."

That last statement feels like a quote, but its source slips my mind.

"Alright, that's highly questionable and all, but where does that leave us?"

"There were no cameras near that alleyway. However, this is where the power of a local agent fails and you turn federal. The NSA had some covert drones scoping the area as a favor for the FBI, looking for 'something' they said.

A few quick phone calls later, and I had everyone Ms. Beck had ever met. Everyone Mr. Whittaker had ever met. A blurry image of a man walking by at the suspected time of the incident. Yeah. The Feds come in handy when they're on your side.

Meet Zachary Vanzetti." She places a high school yearbook photo on her desk facing me. He has brown, messy hair; an unhealthy dose of acne; thick, black glasses framing his brown eyes; a sweater vest with a bowtie; and a chipped-toothed smile.

"That's an old photo," Rose explains. "However, he asked Ms. Beck to be his date to prom. She declined. He took it hard. Like, how you spiraled into an alcoholic depression; except, he had nobody to pull him out."

"Did he…?" I don't want to say attempt, but…

"Nope! Went towards vengeance instead. For ten years, to boot! He worked as a receptionist in a dentist's office until he was fired for…" Rose peers at his surprisingly thick file. "…gross misconduct? That's what is says. I honestly expected worse."

I shrug. I don't know what suspected murderers do to get to their current points. It's not as if I'm a Psychic.

Oh wait.

"Then, he was mugged by our dear dead pal Mr. Whittaker."

"How succinct. In other words, due to government interference, our 'mastermind' is almost going to be caught. With a motive and probable means, too."

Rose adorns a sage-like gaze. "Fear the alphabet agencies. They're always watching."