Private A Scandal in Scarlet

[Ashur Harth]

Planetary Capital of Lamont, Necropolis
The Core Worlds

Ashur parked his speeder near the back entrance of the Afterlife, a nightclub known for its wealthy and exclusive clientele. Barely an hour had passed since the initial reports of a murder having taken place within the club's walls, and already a crowd of onlookers had gathered outside the building. The victim was high profile: a politician currently up for re-election. Ashur wasn't overly familiar with the political climate on the planet, but he knew that things were tenuous at best. Necropolis, also known as Dahrtag, had been an Alliance world until the Alliance collapsed. With the balance of power sabotaged overnight and everyone scrambling to regain control, there were bound to be casualties.

He left his car and headed inside, passing by a few reporters eager to shove their microphones in his face (or the face of anyone who looked remotely involved in the investigation) and protesters waving signs with slogans like "REPUBLIC IN NAME ONLY" and "DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES". The building was already taped off and the police were casing the place, trying to keep things as undisturbed as possible. Best tread carefully.

Ashur smelled death the moment he opened the door. Blaster-caused death, to be exact. He made his way down a dark, narrow corridor to reach the club proper. Neon lights were still flashing, but the music had gone silent. Ashur's eyes were drawn to the headless female corpse sprawled across a booth seat, clad in a red sequin dress still sparkling beneath the neon lights, to the inscrutable chunks of charred flesh, bone, and burnt hair littering the dancefloor beyond the table. He cleared his throat nervously and fished in his coat pocket for a stick of gum. "Something tells me her head exploded," he muttered to himself, shoving the cinnamon-flavored gum in his mouth. Sometimes it helped with the smell.

Serena Harth​

 

[Serena Harth]

Ashur Harth​

"What gave it away?" An irritatingly-familiar voice replied from behind. Serena Harth stood confidently, arms crossed, a bubble of gum inflating and popping between her lips. Beside her hovered a camdroid, already filming everything the passed it's photoreceptors. How she got into the crime scene was anyone'e guess, but she hadn't been kicked out yet.

"Look at you, hard at work," She sauntered up closer, placing her hands in the pockets of her yellow jacket, "This your first big case, Blue?"

 

[Ashur Harth]

"What gave it away?"

Ashur whirled around at the horribly familiar sound of his sister's voice, coming face to face with Serena Harth. He blinked several times in rapid succession, his bewilderment at her presence quickly replaced by annoyance.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded around the wad of gum in his cheek, though he already knew the answer to his question. She was hunting for her next scoop. She'd even brought a camdroid along. "I'm surprised you can stand to be in here with a dead body. Especially one that looks like that." He jerked a thumb toward the headless, burnt corpse.

"Look at you, hard at work. This your first big case, Blue?"

Ashur's face reddened to a more purplish hue. "I thought we were past referring to each other by our skin colors," he said, planting his fists on his hips. She was so annoying, all the more so because she was right—it was indeed Baby's First Murder Mystery. Ashur was so newly-minted green that it almost hurt the jaded veterans to look at him. He even dressed like a noir detective straight out of the golden age holos, with a tan trenchcoat over his off white turtleneck and literal, honest-to-the-Force gumshoes on his feet. Only thing missing was a fedora.

"You know, I could charge you for sneaking past the barriers," he said. "'Tampering with evidence' is a crime. Especially in a case as high profile as this, they won't let it slide so easily."

She would probably blow him off anyway. She always did. And really, he was more worried that his bosses would blame him for letting a reporter stomp all over the crime scene. Even worse if they found out she was related to him. Not like the family resemblance would give it away...

Serena Harth​

 

[Serena Harth]

"Maybe I was referring to you by your profession this time," Serena shrugged. She wasn't, but it gave her a leg up in this inconsequential back and forth, "Or maybe in that case I should call ya Green, newbie?"

His threats were ignored, and she stepped closer to get a look at the scene in detail, "You could. But you wouldn't do that to your sister, would you?"

"Besides, I might be able to help ya on this case." A glint in her tawny eyes hinted at greater knowledge of the situation at hand than she revealed.

Ashur Harth​

 

[Ashur Harth]

"You could. But you wouldn't do that to your sister, would you?"

Ashur’s eyes narrowed. She was right. He wouldn't. But that didn't mean he liked her saying it. “Might as well make yourself useful,” he begrudgingly acquiesced. “Could use another camera, anyway. For uh, documentation. But you'll have to wear these, because I know you're not going to listen to me if I tell you not to touch anything." Grabbing an extra pair of disposable gloves, he tossed them at her head. "Think fast.”

Some part of him liked the idea of being in the spotlight, even if it was his big sister holding it on him. Assuming she wouldn't cut him out of every shot, which was just as likely. The shit he'd had to deal with growing up with her stank ass...

Turning back to the crime scene, he took out his little flashlight and approached the booth. The back of the victim’s seat was blasted open, bits of stuffing hanging from the crumbling hole. “Looks like an explosive device was used to kill the victim. Possibly a grenade or a small bomb.” He doubted anything bigger would've escaped notice. "Witnesses at the scene described her death as sudden. You can use that as a quote. It may have been planted beforehand. Possibly inside the seat, or on the victim's person...

"So, Miss Bigshot Reporter, how much do you know about her?" He pointed at the corpse with the beam of his flashlight, the sequins of her dress sparkling in the glow. Ashur hadn't had the chance to do any research on the victim while he was rushing to the scene. He only knew that she was involved in politics, and her name was Zeena Marr.

Serena Harth​

 

[Serena Harth]

Serena caught the gloves, and acquiesced to putting them on for her brother's sake. She motioned for P0P to start filming the crime scene proper, leaving nothing undocumented. Meanwhile, Serena began to write down the details, including that which Ashur told her directly.

"Zeena Marr," Serena started, snapping her notepad shut, "She's involved in planetary politics. Just got elected to a new term, despite some controversies surrounding her public image. Pretty standard stuff: bribery, sex, cover-ups, the works." She grimaced looking at the unsightly consequences, "Clearly, there was some truth to it. And some of it went deeper than we thought."

Ashur Harth​

 

[Ashur Harth]

"Clearly, there was some truth to it. And some of it went deeper than we thought."

"Who's 'we'?" Ashur asked. Her response had contained just enough tantalizing info to make him want to know more. Still, it wasn't enough.

His gaze was drawn to a glimmer of something embedded in the seat cushion behind the body. Crouching, he pried it free and held it up to the light. It looked like a piece of something electronic, though he wouldn't know what kind of equipment it was from.

"Doesn't all that sound like typical politician bullshit, though?" he mused aloud. "I mean, why go through the trouble of assassinating her like this if all she did was take a bribery or sleep with someone she shouldn't have? Her death was public, brutal..." And untraceable. He studied the fragment, holding it between his fingers, before carefully sealing it in a clear plasteel bag marked Evidence.

Moments later, a Weequay in a white lab coat crossed the police perimeter. He was the coroner, and the briefcase he was carrying contained scanners and other technology which would give them a much clearer understanding of what happened. Ashur gave him space to do his thing, moving away from the corpse and gesturing for Serena to do the same. "So, how have things been with you?" he asked her, flattening his chewing gum against the roof of his mouth. "Still interviewing Jedi Masters and business moguls?"

Serena Harth​