Angelad nods to him, and hops up into the drivers seat of one of the little electric Emergency Services vehicles.

"The other scene's only a few streets away, so it's not a long trip," she informs him. "Do you mind if I look up swimerwudnoicane on the way there? I'm not familiar with it, and I'll have to use the audio interface since I'm driving. You can't drive because of our insurance."

"No trouble at all, I'll be happy to review it as well" John replies as he hops into the other seat. 

She nods, puts the vehicle in gear, and then taps her phone and whistles a long series of morse-code-like sounds. Johns translation artifact renders it as:

"Voice command — search request — encyclopedia — s-w-i-m-e-r-w-u-d-n-o-i-c-a-n-e"

Her phone chirps, and responds in the same code.

"Recognized: voice command, search encyclopedia. Searching ..."

"Swimerwudnoicane, also referred to as sumdruginane, is a chemical primarily used in veterinary medicine for the treatment of heartworm. In low doses, it can bolster immune response and prevent cardiovascular spasms. In high doses, swimerwudnoicane can cause dizziness, nausea, and heart attacks. The drug is usually counterindicated for human use, but has been successfully used to treat some congenital microcardiopathies. The Large Continent Safe Medicine Coalition restricts its use and sale to licensed veterinarians and doctors in the territories that subscribe to their handling guidelines. Smaller Continent does not make much use of the drug, preferring to use the older wyrmbegonicane, although recent studies on the effectiveness of swimerwudnoicane in treating cows and other large farm animals may change that. Swimerwudnoicane is manufactured through a process involving the reduction of precursorite with acetic acid ..."

Angelad taps the phone to interrupt its playback, and leaves her finger on the fingerprint sensor.

"Voice command — search request — Emergency Services database — local veterinarians"

"Recognized: voice command, search Emergency Services database. Searching ..."

"Two veterinary practices within 30 kilometers. Result one: Too Many Cows Animal Hospital, proprietor Zoshter, distance 4 kilometers. Result two: Seacoast Animal Rescue Center, proprieter Seacoast Animal Rescue Center Corporation, distance 15 kilometers. Expand search?"

"... huh."

Angelad turns the cart down a street that joins this one at a 120° angle, and beeps the cart's siren to get a pair of pedestrians to get out of the way.

"Do you want me to look up anything else before we arrive?"

"Zoshter, isn't that the partner?" John asks.

"Yes, indeed. But they have a rock-solid alibi, given that Emergency Services people have been with them all morning," Angelad remarks.

"I'm not sure what to make of it. But it's just as well — we're there."

"There" turns out to be a small building with a sign across the top reading "Flexible Community Spaces". Another purple-pantsed person waves Angelad and John in. Angelad grabs her crime-scene kit from the back of the cart, and makes a point of going in first — she is the official one, even if John knows how to respect a crime scene.

Inside, there are a number of small meeting rooms with movable dividers so that the space can be reconfigured for different purposes. One of them, near the middle, has the body in it. The body wears a reversible red and green robe, currently with green on the outside. On his feet are a pair of strappy sandles. He was a small man, and he fell with a hand outstretched toward the door, face down. His phone lies where it fell beside him. His hair is a wispy greying red, and the syringe, still half-full, lies on the ground by his neck.

Angelad pulls on a fresh set of gloves.

"I'm not so sure that these two cases are related," she remarks, as she gets out a magnifying glass and camera. "The other one was nice and clean, but this one is pretty messy. Look — there's a gouge in his neck where the syringe was knocked or pulled out as he struggled, and there's blood on his knuckles, probably from the same."

"Maybe Zoshter could have an accomplice, but the perpetrator could well be trying to frame them," John muses before they go inside, giving way to Angelad automatically (and respecting her point about being first). As John does not have official cameras and tools, he elects to stand back a bit out of the way and observe while Angelad pokes at the scene.

"I'm not actually certain they're related, this just strikes me as being too much crime in too small a time for this density, though of course criminals don't exactly keep time tables," John says. "Sometimes criminals are smart enough to change their modus operendi, or they have things go wrong unexpectedly, which makes this sort of thing hard to tell definitively, but I agree the previous murder looked much more well-planned than this one. Hey, do we have an identification for this guy?"

"That's a good question."

She looks up at the medic who was first on the scene.

"His phone identifies him as Dhant, nominally of Largest City, but in practice he's not there much," the medic replies. "Dispatch says he's a travelouge writer, goes all over. But he must be independently wealthy or something, because his books are terrible, and never sell more than a few copies. His car is parked outside — the blue and white one. Dispatch is trying to figure out who his next of kin is, so we[in] can get permission to search it."

Well isn't that suspicious.

"Thank you," he says with a nod of acknowledgement. "It might be good to figure out where his money came from, but I suspect this man was killed for witnessing or knowing the wrong thing."

Of course he can't just ask about any log books, attendants, or hours these "Flexible Community Spaces" have, that'd give away that he doesn't actually belong here... wait, didn't somebody mention a parking monitor earlier?

"Actually, do we have any data on his movements, where he was before he came here?" he asks, keeping his hands in his pockets and generally standing far enough away from the phone not to make people nervous he's going to touch it or anything.

"I'm not sure. Let me ask."

The medic takes their phone off their vest and has a short conversation with dispatch.

"The parking monitor first registered his car at the lot by the train station two days ago. Dispatch just got off the phone with the inn there, and they confirm that he had rented a room for a week. The other parking places in town aren't rigged for automatic payments, so we[ex]'re not sure where else he may have gone, but we[ex] can ask anyone if they've seen it or him around town."

"Tsk. Careless," Angelad interjects from the floor. "No prints on the syringe, but there's a partial print on the discarded safety cap here, over near the wall. It's not big enough to get a definitive match, but it might help."

"It's heartening that they're sloppy, at least. And please do ask around, thank you". 

The continued examination of the scene — and consultation with the building's appointments calendar — yields the following additional facts:

Dhant booked the room on arrival, at 20 this morning. His feet are one centimeter shorter than the boot prints in Jannami's office, although boots can just be bigger than sandals. On the table is a printed manuscript, purportedly authored by him, that pretends to be a romance novel but is actually mostly a lovingly detailed description of the assembly of a certain kind of fuel-air bomb. The blood on his knuckles isn't his.

Looking in through his car's window shows that he keeps it scrupulously clean, and the back is full of opaque wooden boxes, probably containing traveling supplies. His next of kin, a woman in Largest City named Vrormes, of unspecified relation, has categorically denied permission to search the vehicle, and the matter is currently going up in front of a judge in Shining Sea City.

The neighbors across the street, who live above a little bakery, and are therefore up early in the morning, don't remember seeing any car but his parked in front of the community space. A plastic surgical glove was found discarded behind a bush by the front door of the building. Angelad couldn't get any prints off of it, much to her frustration.

After learning the knuckle blood isn't the victim's, John waits for a good moment to surreptitiously acquire a drop on one of his handkerchiefs, for a quiet moment he can use to try and drowse this guy. It doesn't often work, but given the sheer lack of mystic wards around these parts, it stands a better chance here than the Nightside. 

The glove is just deeply confusing. There was a partial print on the needle cap, but none on the glove? John hopes it's a red herring, he doesn't actually want to know how a clean plastic glove relates to this nonsense. 

Once everybody seems to be done with the scene, John thanks them all before inquiring into the next steps to take: back to the previous crime scene, hang around for the courts to maybe let them search the car, wait around somewhere for additional reports to come in?

"People around here tend to prefer the government correct, rather than fast," the medic observes, shaking their head. "It's probably going to be two hours before we have permission, and Shining Sea City courts don't allow preemptive conditional searches."

Angelad packs away her equipment.

"Well, I've got to go write up two reports, for our records. But I'm going to have dispatch send someone to ask Zoshtel about the syringe, and if I were you I would want to be there for that. I can drop you off at the end of the street as I head back to the office, if you'd like?"

"You are correct, thank you kindly" John replies. 

Their return trip is equally quick, although more people seem to be out and about at this time of day.

When he walks back up to the house, a tall man is speaking amiably to Zoshter.

"Of course — just let me know if you need anything," he says, patting them on the arm. "I know how important you were to Jannami, and of course I want to support you at a difficult time like this, no matter how you're feeling."

Zoshter gives a tight nod, and the man slips into a small green car. He carefully pulls out around John, giving him a neighborly click as he does. As he goes, a close examination shows that there's a bit of red clay in the tread of his tires.

Zoshter works their jaw, and turns to go inside.