1.10 - Questions

The next morning, Danisha got up and did something she hadn't in a long time... make breakfast.  She cooked up some waffles for herself and Nielson before making some baby food for Erika as well.

She spent some time with Erika as well, before it was time for her to head off to work.  Before leaving, she put the little toddler into one of her new purchases to spruce up the new apartment, a baby swing.  It wasn't one of those fancy electronic ones that played music and could swing on its own, but Erika still seemed to enjoy it.  And she quickly learned that if she kicked her legs back and forth she could make the swing move on its own.  It was perfect.

Nielson, meanwhile, had started high school.  He found that even now that he was going to school regularly he still wasn't able to make friends easily.  He was a bit of a loner to start with, and then the fact that all of the kids seemed to already have their pals from elementary school just made things worse.

Fortunately, he was able to befriend another boy in his class who was also an outcast.  Luke Bell was his name, and he's the son of Jupiter Bell who's known for being a very eccentric celebrity.  So despite being fabulously wealthy and famous, Luke didn't really have any friends either.  It seemed like the two outcasts took some comfort in each other.  At least Nielson had someone to sit by on the bus.

Although, to be honest Nielson preferred to chat with his friends on the computer.  If he'd had a computer as a child he probably would have used it to socialize too, and was grateful his mom had sold off the Foosball table that had come with the apartment to buy this instead.

Part of him wondered if his childhood of barely ever going to school and interacting with his peers didn't somehow contribute to his lonesome nature.  Not that he was really bothered by it, mind you.  He could even stand talking to some of the girls in his class on the computer.  They tended to be loud and obnoxious in person... rather like his little sister.

 He didn't see his mom as much now that he had his own room either.  She was spending even more time at work than before (if that was possible) and what little time she did have at home she devoted to little Erika.  Although he supposed that couldn't be helped since she was a toddler and couldn't do much on her own.

Still, Nielson couldn't help but feel there was something off about his little sister.  Even something as simple as 'the claw' game.  Nielson couldn't help but notice that Erika looked more surprised a curious about the claw than actually being afraid of it.  Or, at least, that's how it looked to him.

Nielson just sighed and tried to ignore his sister's shrieking/wailing/crying whenever he did his homework.  He tried to at least be semi-social by doing it in the kitchen instead of in his room (otherwise all his time would be spent in there) but Erika really made it hard to stay committed to that...

 As a result, Nielson decided to spend his weekend out of the house.  Not that he wanted to spend it with other people, either.  Fortunately, although the spring festival was in town it was still a few days until Love Day so there was barely anyone there.  And that suited Nielson just fine.  Most of his classmates were probably home getting ready for the stupid prom anyway.

He decided to kill some time until Erika's bedtime by trying some rollerskating.  He recalled going iceskating as a kid.  Rollerskating couldn't be that much harder, could it?

Famous last words.

In the end he grew bored with falling on his face and spotted a bunch of his fellow students across the street heading into the school for the prom.  When he spotted Belisama entering the school.  She looked really pretty in a black dress, and Nielson fell down again while watching her.

Well, maybe it would be worth it to go to prom after all.  He didn't have a monkey suit or anything to wear, but he spotted Luke showing up in his regular clothes so he figured he wouldn't be too out of place and went inside.

Meanwhile, Danisha was on her way home from a long day of work.  Being a patrol officer had been hard work, but now she was a lieutenant.  Which meant more responsibility that was going to weigh heavily on her.

"You seem tense," Bianca pointed out from the driver's seat of the cruiser.

"It's nothing," Danisha replied with a smile.  She was one step closer to reaching her goal.  She couldn't let nerves hinder her now.  She needed to be brave.

When she got home she waited to wave goodbye to her partner before heading inside.  She was about to head upstairs to relieve the babysitter and make sure that Erika was okay when she was stopped in the lobby.

"'Scuse me, lady.  Yer an officer, ain't ya?" a man asked hesitantly as he approached Danisha.

"I am," she replied, not questioning the man on recognizing her from her uniform since he seemed very uncomfortable.

"Name's Emilio.  I live in this here apartments too.  'M a fisherman," Emilio explained while Danisha waited patiently for him to get to the reason why he had approached her.  "An I saw somethin'," he added, his voice dropping in volume as if he worried about someone overhearing him.

"Saw something?" Danisha repeated.  All of a sudden she had a feeling this might be important.  Maybe even related to her husband's death, so she quickly pulled out her notepad.  "All right, tell me exactly what it is you saw," she urged, ready to take down his statement.

"Well, I was fishin' on the river, ye see.  Don't have no boat like the big ocean fishermen, but I make do..." he began to ramble, but a sharp look from Danisha got him back on track.  "Ah... yes... an' I saw these guys on the other side of the river.  They was too far away to see their faces, but they definitely wasn't doing anything legal-like.  In fact... I think they may have been dumpin' somethin' in the river," he explained, beginning to look more nervous the longer he spoke.

"Do you have any idea what they might have been dumping?" Danisha asked, wondering if this was just one of many industrial crimes this city was plagued with.

"I think t'was a body," the man replied with a whisper, causing Danisha to look up sharply.

"Where was this?  Can you take me to the exact location?" Danisha demanded.

"I ain't goin' back there.  Nossir.  But I can tell you where t'was," the man replied, looking even more agitated.  Danisha supposed she should be grateful he'd given her the information at all.  Most people didn't want to get involved with these things and pretended they'd never seen anything in the first place.  It was part of the reason why crime was so rampant here.

Understanding that this was the best she was going to get, she took down what information she could get out of the man before letting him retreat to his apartment.  She needed to file a report with the department anyway.

She was now doubly glad she had bought Nielson a computer, both because he liked it so much and because she could now electronically file her report while the information was still fresh without having to wait for work the next day.  And I'll the while she was writing the information down, she wondered if these murderers might have any connection to Nielson's murderer.  Maybe she was finally getting somewhere after well over a decade of no progress.

Unfortunately, the evening did not go nearly as well for another member of the family.  Nielson came home more certain than ever that large groups of people were something to avoid.  He'd attempted to ask Belisama to a dance and had gotten rejected.  Then her boyfriend (Nielson had no clue she was dating anyone) had picked a fight with him.  Then someone had started picking on Luke so Nielson who had already been high-strung from his previous fight decided to pick a fight with them.  It was a miracle he hadn't been kicked out of the prom.  But right now all he wanted to do was bury his face in his pillow and go to bed.

Fortunately, his mother had already finished her report by then so he was able to do so without having to answer any question's about how his day was.

The next morning, Danisha was awoken early by a ring to the doorbell, and to her surprise she found an older woman dressed in fur standing outside her door.  "I have information for you.  Is there somewhere we can talk privately?" the woman asked.

"Of course," Danisha said, before hurrying into Nielson's room.  "I'm sorry, honey, but would you mind letting me use your bedroom for a bit?  Erika's still sleeping and you know how she gets when she wakes up," she explained.

Nielson reluctantly agreed.  He figured he might as well head to the kitchen and get breakfast anyway.

"Make sure you take care of your sister when she wakes up.  I don't know how long I'll be," Danisha urged before ushering the woman into the room and shutting the door behind them.

"Information, you say?" she asked, now turning her full and undivided attention on the stranger.

"Yes.  Emilio said I should come talk to you," the woman replied in a highly nasal voice.  She seemed rather arrogant, although Danisha couldn't help but notice that her fur coat had seen better days and was probably quite old.  "You see, I live on that side of the river," she added, and Danisha suddenly realized she was talking about the same incident Emilio had told her about last evening.

"And?  Did you see anything?" Danisha asked eagerly.

"Maybe.  But my advice is stay away from them.  This isn't some petty burglar you're dealing with.  This is a crime syndicate.  Even if you do get evidence on them, all that's going to happen is that you're going to end up like your husband," the woman informed her with a sniff.

"I don't care.  Please, what do you know?" Danisha urged, pulling out her notepad again.  The woman sighed and shook her head.

"All I can tell you is that they're powerful and are extremely wealthy.  They sometimes take in promising young crooks, but for the most part they just look after their own.  Like a family.  I'm not sure if they had anything to do with your husband's death, though.  They don't kill for no reason.  Ends up with people like you on their back.  So unless he was connected to them somehow, the criminal you're after is probably just some common thug who got lucky enough to avoid police detection.  Not that that's all that hard, given the incompetence of the police force.  No offense," the woman added with a shrug.

Danisha realized that was all she was going to get out of her.  She wanted to shake the woman until she gave her more.  To take her down to the precinct and question her until she learned everything.  But she had nothing on this woman to do so.  There was literally nothing more she could do but report the information she had gotten and hope to get a break.

"Thank you for coming all this way," she replied, trying not to sound too disappointed.

The woman let herself out, leaving Danisha to file a report on what little information she'd managed to gather.

Meanwhile, Nielson was hoping that the lady leaving meant that his mother would be out to save him, soon.  Erika was being... less than cooperative to put it lightly.  After throwing her baby food in his face she'd set up one hell of a temper tantrum and Nielson was at a complete loss on how to calm her down.  What did he do to deserve this level of torture?

"Danisha?  You're coming out soon, right?" he called down the hallway.  "Danisha?"


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Poor Nielson and his sister.  I actually had an instance where Erika started crying in her crib in Danisha's bedroom... and it managed to wake Nielson up in his bedroom.  So apparently the girl has quite the set of lungs on her.  And the lady who showed up at the apartment really was a complete stranger.  I have no idea why she decided to stop by, but I figured I could work her into the story.  Plus it gave me the opportunity to write another report and improve Danisha's job performance.  She's halfway through the law enforcement career now.  Hopefully her progress will continue to be swift now that there's no pesky maternity leave to get in her way.