Weijun could not help himself, he jumped in. "Probably leaped through the window and called the police. She had a sword and she was angry. What were you thinking by staying back and yelling at her?"
Liwu cleared her throat.
Weijun grimaced and placed the notebook over his mouth.
The door opened and Linlin walked in, having completed her interrogation of Sisi already. "Your wife says that she only tried to cut your balls off because you kept annoying her by narrating the details of your affair like a sports event!"
Liwu and Weijun gaped.
Siyan scoffed. "She cheated too, let’s not act like she is a pure virgin. Who do you think bought her those gold earrings she is wearing? If she can rub her affair in my face, I am allowed to rub mine all over the house."
The room went silent.
Liwu processed it all and sighed. "The assault will be transferred to another division and you two will have to check the its complicated or enemies box. anwhile, let’s talk about the severed fingers."
"Your wife says she has no idea about why they were found in your house." Linlin said from a corner where she was standing with her arms crossed.
Liwu slid the evidence box onto the table. "The fingers are in the lab right now and we are working on getting an ID on the owner. Perhaps, you can tell us Mr. Siyan, why they were delivered to your apartnt today morning?"
Siyan blinked. "I ordered for sausages, not fingers. They got the wrong address, you can check."
Linlin nodded at Liwu. Indeed, Sisi had confird that her husband had ordered for sausages and he had opened the package with the intentions of frying them. But, they got into a fight so they did not realize the package did not contain sausages at all!
Linlin relayed all this to Liwu as they left the interrogation room.
Liwu shook the box. "They are labeled movie props. There is a shipping address on the box to a place downtown. Let’s go check it out." She pointed to Weijun. "You, stay."
Unfortunately for Liwu, she had not realized yet just how stubborn Weijun could be. As they drove the address on the box, he shadowed them in his own car!
"Is he still following us?" Linlin muttered.
Liwu groaned. "Apparently, he is worried that we are going to shut down a sausage factory or movie set for no reason and affect the image and earnings of the city."
Linlin rolled her eyes. "That man is obsessed with the city."
"He did kind of build it." Liwu chuckled. "And, shadowing around ans he spends less ti hanging around the actress."
They arrived at the address which was a dingy warehouse wit a crooked sign: ’Movie Props, Horror wonders & More.’
Inside, the sll of formaldehyde, cranberry juice, old butter and stale popcorn filed the air. Shelves were stacked with fake fingers, eyeballs, prosthetics, rubber intestines, fake knives, old clothes, rubber masks and severed heads.
Weijun’s fingers clung to the straps of Liwu’s bullet proof vest. "This place is creepy. It is like a shop for serial killers!"
Linlin muttered, "It’s a prop shop."
Weijun stepped on a fake mouse and it squeaked. In turn, he squealed.
Liwu and Linlin, weapons raised, glared at him.
"Sorry," he whispered.
They continued forward and found an office with a human. It was a man, sitting slumped in a chair, clutching his hand. Three of his fingers were missing.
"Help." The man groaned. "They...they took my fingers. They said it had to be real."
Liwu crouched beside him. "Who took your fingers?"
He winced. "A couple. A very loud man and an angry woman."
Weijun gasped. "Siyan and Sisi. It’s them, they are the finger thieves or cutters. My goodness, don’t tell they eat fingers!"
Liwu snapped, "Stop!"
The man shook his head. "No...they didn’t cut them off or steal them. I sold them. I needed rent money."
Linlin gasped. "Sir, am I getting this right, you sold your fingers?"
The man shrugged. "Better than selling my kidney."
Liwu stood up, "Okay, I don’t understand what is going on here but you are going to the hospital first and then...." she looked at Linlin. "Do we have a protocol for whatever the fruit this is?"
Linlin looked in the direction of the entrance from where sirens from an ambulance were coming. "We will figure it out as we go."
As they helped the man out, Liwu wondered how much rent was worth three fingers and Weijun notified his PR departnt to make sure that ’fingers for rent in One city’ was not the headline of the news the following day, or any other day.
No matter how this case ended, he would make sure there were no press conferences by the Bureau.
Back at the precinct, Siyan and Sisi were brought into a single interrogation room.
Liwu and Linlin confronted them with the new discovery imdiately.
"You bought a man’s fingers." Liwu accused.
Siyan looked horrified. "No way, I did not. I ordered for sausages."
Liwu slamd the pictures of the man from the warehouse on the table.
Sisi gasped. "Him, Mr. Yen! we did not buy his fingers, why would we? We t him yesterday evening because he owes us rent money. But, we did not get it because this loser was yelling so loud that I could not hear what Mr. Yen was saying."
"It’s a circus in here." Linlin muttered.
Weijun chid in from behind the observation glass, "Ask him if this is part of a black-market organ ring. That or they are cannibals." He scread into a microphone, causing Liwu and Linlin to flinch.
Chief Abby and three other detectives that were quietly observing shook their heads. They wondered if Weijun thought they were idiots. Of course they had looked into all those possibilities. It was their job!
Liwu tapped the picture. "We found Mr. Yen alive, without three fingers. He said you made a deal, three fingers for unpaid rent. The two of you co-own six properties in this city together. What I want to know is simple, how often does this happen? If I visit more of your tenants, how many will I find with missing body parts?"
Weijun gasped. "Oh no, it can’t be!"
If it was as his wife suspected, there would be a press conference. Not a tiny press conference with two reporters and a bored cara man.
It would be a major press conference with hungry sharks looking to make his city appear like so kind of rotting, organ trading Gotham city!
"Please just be cannibals." he whispered.
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