Killer Bay

Killer Takes All

"Thank God we're out of Innovation Valley, Adalet! I swear, if I see one more robot, I'll scream!" Frank proclaimed while side-eyeing the coffee maker.

Adalet rolled her eyes, "quite glaring at the appliances, Frank! They're not out to get you... Look on the bright side, we're in Paradise City now! Home of seizure-inducing neon lights..."

He smirked, "the only thing people care about in Paradise City is having fun! I came here once before. I drank so much I forgot my own name."

"Sounds pretty quiet by your standards, Frank!" Andrea teased as she joined the two officers, "anyway, Paradise City isn't heaven. Gambling, prostitution, drugs - the list goes on! Not only that, but the number of robberies is going up! Specifically in the big casinos at the strip! This town needs to be put back in the straight and narrow! And Adalet's the one to show these corrupt locals how real police work's done."

Adalet saluted, "you can count on it, Chief!"

"And if we happen to play some poker in the process, what's the harm in that..." Frank hums in thought.

"No way, Frank! I don't need a gambling addict on my team!" Andrea yelled, crushing the detective dreams of playing poker later.

"But, Andrea! That's like showing a man a steak dinner and then telling him that he could only eat the salad! Everyone gambles in Paradise City!" he argues.

The Chief's glare hardened.

"Oh, alright," he relented, "come on, Adalet. Let's go check out the Strip, see if there's any crime that can take my mind off the casinos."

Leaving the station, Adalet and Frank began walking along the Strip. The neon lights glowed brightly this late at night, some pulsating to a certain pattern. Adalet could feel a headache already starting, so she pulled out her sunglasses and slipped them over her eyes. While she was stopped something caught her attention in her peripheral vision.

Slumped against the rail of a water fountain was a man dressed in a green vest and matching plastic visor. Though it was the gold stick shoved into his left orbital socket that made Adalet pay more attention. Looking around the body, she notices an open box to the right of the man that was filled with colourful poker chips. She also found some broken pieces of something that glittered under the neon lights that had almost fallen into the fountain.

"Woah, Adalet! How do you do it?!" Frank asked after he had doubled back once he noticed his partner had stopped, "we're just having a look around the Paradise City Strip and you find a body! I guess you could hardly miss the guy with a stick in his eye! What is that, anyway?"

Adalet examined the opposite end of the stick, "It looks like a croupier stick! Makes sense since we're on the Strip..."

"They use them in casinos for moving your winnings around... that's if you win, of course!" he joked, "so someone used that croupier stick as a murder weapon! Talk about bad luck!"

"And while I haven't been in a casino recently, judging from his clothes, our victim's a casino croupier himself," she says, getting a better look at the man's uniform.

"Maybe a disgruntled customer offed him?" he suggested, "what did you find to help figure this crime out? Those broken pieces look quite expensive, put them back together!"

"They're very shiny," Adalet agrees, begging to glue the pieces back together, while she was doing that she tapped the box she had found with her foot, "and check this out, Frank!"

"I like your thinking, Adalet. If this guy was killed with a croupier stick, then maybe that gambling set is connected to the murder! Let's look through it!" Frank grins, for once kneeling and getting to work himself.