Karmic Retribution

[Azar Torsin]

The "massage parlor" had been shut down and the authorities were now here in force. The Jedi and his GAR partner had full access to the records in the location and had spent the last several hours scouring them and looking for anything that might point them to the killer.

So far, Azar had nothing to show for it. He had known they were taking a detour to get here, but that didn't mean he felt bad about it. They had done something to make a difference here and he only hoped this time it wouldn't cost the life of another victim. He was wrong.

The sergeant came to them moments later to report another body, this one far more personal. They've found another body. This one was a GAR lieutenant, he stated as he came into the room. Azar couldn't stop himself from glancing in Lex's direction, wondering if she had known the woman who was their newest victim. He reached up and rubbed his face as he stood to be taken to the next location.

He then paused a moment. What was her name? he asked, having a thought to try to search the name through the databases here in hopes of finding a lead or connection. Whatever was going on here seemed to be at the heart of this killer's plans, which meant he wanted to find out if there was a connection to this one.

He did a quick search and something came up. She visited here, he said, glancing up at Lex and wondering why everyone seemed to have a connection to this place.

 

[Lex Kyrst]

She knew they had taken a risk, but it didn’t sting any less when word came that another body had been found. As if to add salt to injury, it was a GAR soldier. Lex had to take a moment to gather herself and put her pokerface on, knowing she couldn’t let personal feelings bleed into this. She caught Azar looking at her, but she didn’t return the gaze. She knew what he was thinking, and she wondered the same thing. Did she know this girl? What was so different between her and the victim?

Lex looked through the files and sighed, “Recent graduate from Corellian Academy,” She muttered as she looked through her information, “Cat figurine was found next to her pistol – no surprise there. How the hell was he able to take her down without any signs of a struggle?” She looked up as Azar mentioned a connection to the parlor. Everything had threads here, and Lex simply couldn’t place it. While the women may have been imported from other planets, the victims had no apparent link to the parlor itself.

“I’m wondering if it was a money laundering scheme,” Lex finally spoke, glancing up at Azar, “The parlor is obviously a cover up, but there’s a financial angle to this we’re not considering. An angle that links to this killer. Perhaps that’s how he’s able to cover so much ground or access people so easily. I'm also inclined to believe that our killer is a charming individual. There's never any struggle, so I have a feeling he simply walks right up to his victims,” She was throwing darts at this point. Lex shrugged, shaking her head, “Let’s go check out this latest crime scene.”

They hopped into a speeder that took them directly to where the GAR woman had been found. Lieutenant Jax was her name, and she was a bright new graduate ready for her first missions. She had been out on a routine patrol assignment when she was abducted and butchered like the other victims. She was picked up directly on her patrol route, meaning the killer had no concerns about being seen.

“Do we have any security footage?” Lex asked the same detective on the scene that was there before. He was irritated this time, especially as he knew she and Azar had taken a slight detour.

 

[Azar Torsin]

Azar wasn't too happy about this, but he knew he wasn't the only person who felt that way. He shouldn't be letting himself get involved and he knew he needed to try to keep his distance, but it was getting more difficult by the moment. His left hand reached up and gently tugged at the medallion around his neck, reminding himself of where the path of emotion and anger would take him. He had sworn he would never let that happen to him.

He could sense Lex was growing as upset as he was, but it didn't take a Force user to be able to tell that. It was natural human emotion. He shook his head a moment later, forcing the thoughts aside and pulling his mind back to their task. If he didn't keep his head in the game there would be more bodies, he reminded himself.

He climbed into the speeder after Lex, taking off to the next crime scene and beginning to examine the bodies as Lex spoke to the detective who was obviously growing more annoyed.

No, we don't. I hope you have something to show for your investigation because now we've got our own filling the body bags while you... he stopped, biting the inside of his lip before finishing his sentence. We do have someone who thought he saw something, though, the detective said, leading Lex over to a young man, probably not even 14, who stared back at the GAR lieutenant. He looked more than a little shocked and it was clear that Lex was going to have to question him gently and carefully.

Meanwhile, Azar examined the body, looking over their cat figurine again and puzzling over it. What significance was this cat? He ran his mind through what he'd seen so far and tried to remember if there was any connection between cats and the massage parlor, but he came up short.