Raiyev Part 8
#8 of Raiyev
"She's dead!" he cried. The tall fox was stooped over the body of Dr. Paxton lying on the ground in the cafeteria. Raiyev had seen it happen; well, most of it, anyway. He, along with the rest of the cafeteria, had looked over at Paxton when he heard the shattering crash of her coffee mug being cast to the linoleum floor.
She had slipped out of her chair and fallen on the floor, going into seizures. A few furs ran over to try to help her, but her convulsions turned into twitches, and then finally into nothingness. One of the furs, a tall and slender fox whom Raiyev didn't know, checked her pulse, his eyes still wide with terror. After his proclamation to the room, however, Raiyev saw the fox's face turn from terror into a sort of respectful grief.
Being a room full of bright scientific minds, the uproar was considerably milder than it would have been had the event happened in any run-of-the-mill restaurant. However, that is not to say that there was no uproar at all. Almost everyone stood up, some rushing over to get a closer look at the body or to confirm her death, some rushing off to try to get help. The few who decided to remain sitting were either still too shocked to fully believe or be aware of the situation, or merely peering over at the commotion (the body quickly surrounded and blocked from view), or else chatting hurriedly amongst themselves in hushed whispers.
Raiyev was one of the few still sitting in shock at his usual table by the window with his fiancée. Raiyev looked at Brad with a quizzical look on his face, only to see that Brad was still gazing open-mouthed at the scene, his sandwich still being held inches away from his face.
"Out of the way!" Raiyev heard a gruff voice call, and looked back towards the body again to see Ms. Bilicek tossing furs aside to get to Paxton's body. She knelt down by Paxton's body, placing two fat, stubby fingers to one of Paxton's limp, thin wrists. Unsatisfied, Bilicek tried once more, this time with two fingers at the neck. Placing her head to Paxton's bosom, she finally got up, a grave look about her. "Alright!" she called to everyone, making her already-loud voice boom even louder. "No one comes within twenty feet of this body! This is a crime scene now, and I won't have all your filthy paws grubbin' it up and makin' it hard to investigate, ya hear? Now, everyone wait just outside the cafeteria!" She pointed towards the doors leading outside to an open field, then picked up her walkie-talkie and called for some back-up to watch the body.
A short and slender young cougar adorned in the same officer's outfit as Bilicek came running in and stood guard by the body with a surly look on his face. Bilicek, in the meantime, was ushering all the furs out to the field just outside. Raiyev and Brad were still just sitting and watching, the shock not completely worn off, when Bilicek finally came around to them.
"Up, you two!" she barked at them. She grabbed Raiyev and yanked him up from his seat, trying to move things along.
"Hey!" Brad yelled. "We're going! No need to rough-handle us!" He got up from his seat and looked Bilicek up and down, sizing her up. She glared back at him with a queer look in her eye, as if she almost wasn't sure if she could fully handle someone that practically matched her size and strength.
"Brad, let's just go," Raiyev said, not wanting any trouble to spark between the two. After a moment, Brad reluctantly let the matter go, and followed the rest of the group outside to the field.
"She shouldn't have done that to you," Brad said as they strode outside onto the springy grass, where all the other furs were mulling around, talking excitedly to one another. "We were going, after all!"
"I know," Raiyev offered in return, "but think about it: someone just died?someone we know, or least have seen before. She was probably just having difficulties functioning under the stress. It's understandable."
"She's an officer?she's supposed to know how to operate properly under stress! That's her job!" Brad was still fuming as he stared back inside one of the cafeteria windows to see Bilicek getting the last couple furs up from where they were still sitting. Raiyev watched, too, as Bilicek followed behind the last couple furs (a barn owl and a tapir), calling back orders Raiyev couldn't hear to the cougar standing guard. The cougar then handed Bilicek a large, flat object that Raiyev couldn't make out through the tinted windows.
Bilicek, the owl, and the tapir all rushed outside, Bilicek prodding the other two into a quick trot with a "Come on, we haven't got all day." She surveyed the group of furs, counting heads?a task made easy for her, since she stood so much taller than most of the lot. "Alright," she called, and everyone grew silent. "Everyone's still here, from what I can see?all fifty-six of ya." How she could know for sure that no one had slipped away unnoticed, Raiyev could only guess. "That's fifty-six eye-witnesses, in my book, and all of ya are going to give me a full report of what you saw and did!" Some nervously looked around at each other at this remark, but everyone silently agreed.
"However," the bear continued, "I can't survey you all right now, so the best I can do is get all of your names and question you later." She held up a clipboard?the object the cougar had just handed her a moment ago, Raiyev figured. "So form a single-file line and let me write down your names."
The mass of furs carefully turned from an amorphous mob into a neat, single-file line, moving rather quickly as each fur stated his or her name and in which department he or she worked in. Waiting in line, Raiyev considered Toni's warning to him...what had happened to Paxton? Was this what Toni was referring to when she had talked about danger to him the other evening? And where was Toni, anyway? Is it possible that she murder Dr. Paxton? Scores of questions raced through Raiyev's mind as he drew nearer to the line's end.
As soon as Raiyev got up to the front of the line, Bilicek immediately grabbed hold of Raiyev's security pass and scribbled down his information from it, totally disregarding Raiyev and paying only attention to his pass. Raiyev waited for Brad to go through the same quick ordeal so they could say a final goodbye before going back to their respective departments. Raiyev, however, took this opportunity to check back at Paxton's office before returning to his lab. His eager expression turned a bit forlorn as he poked his head inside Room 115 of the Astronomy department to see yet again an empty secretary's desk.
"Toni?" he called out softly, a bit tentative. There was no answer. He stood there for a moment at a loss of what to make of the situation. The death of a colleague just now had sent his reasoning mind out of whack, and he was slowly finding himself. Perhaps it was just as well, then, that Toni wasn't there?Raiyev didn't really know what he was going to say to her. He was considering her warning again. Should he leave? Was someone out to get him? He remembered that it was Paxton, after all, who had stopped Toni from telling Raiyev all that she had wanted to tell him. Had Toni herself been murdered?
Raiyev figured that whatever Toni knew, Paxton knew as well. Now, someone who didn't want that information?whatever it was?getting out had murdered Toni, then murdered Paxton. Was he next, then? Is this what Toni's warning had meant? Raiyev started to get rather frightened at this whole notion, but then, regaining himself, reminded himself that there had to be a more logical explanation for all of this. He was still standing by the doorway of Room 115, staring idly at the empty office, when a voice rang through his ears.
"The perpetrator always seems to show up where the victim could commonly be found." Raiyev's eyes widened as he jerked his head towards the sound of the voice. It was Bilicek, and she was headed down the corridor towards him, her look as mean as ever. "You lookin' to be arrested or something?" she said to him, and Raiyev's throat became suddenly dry.