Episode 15

Corporal Diogenes: A what?

Officer Ruiz: No nothing. Say do you know what she looks like?

Corporal Diogenes: Absolutely no idea.

Officer Ruiz: Well do we usually do this?

Corporal Diogenes: Usually, hell no. We reconnoiter the area first before we do something like this. And we don’t even have a warrant now. All we can do right now is invite them for questioning.

Officer Ruiz: So how do we know?

Corporal Diogenes: We ask. I wished they sent us at least a photo.

Officer Ruiz: I think this is the house. Rather large is it?

Corporal Diogenes: Yeah, does she live all alone here?

Officer Ruiz: Makes you wonder, why work at the community hall?

Corporal Diogenes: She must be a Datu Class. Anyway, We're recording this live via TheDagWay. And here take my phone, you take the video while I do the talking.

A squad car stops two houses away. While the corporal knocks on the door of a large house. It is actually a metal gate made with GI Pipes and GI Sheets. No one answers.

Corporal Diogenes: I wonder if you can find a doorbell or something. I don’t think they can hear us. There seems to be a garage here.

Officer Ruiz: It’s to your left, with a small cover.

The corporal presses on the doorbell. It took two more rings until someone from the door in the house opened and came out to see who was at the gate.

Corporal Diogenes: Hello? We would like to see Ms. Estardante if she is around, please.

Someone peeked in between the gate’s hinges.

House Helper: May I know who you are, please?

Corporal Diogenes: We are the police, we are from the Directorate’s Cybercrime Unit. I am Corporal Diogenes and with me is Officer Ruiz.

House Helper: What do you want?

Corporal Diogenes: We are looking for Ms. Estardante, can we come in?

House Helper: Please wait.

The house help hurriedly left them and went back inside the house. Meanwhile, Officer Ruiz, while still recording, walks towards the gate maintaining her focus of the live broadcast on the corporal. She takes a peek in between the hinges to see a female running back into the house.

Officer Ruiz: She seems a little frantic.

Corporal Diogenes: How so?

Officer Ruiz: Well the way she runs.

Corporal Diogenes: I guess we looked like cops, we said we were cops.

Officer Ruiz: Well are they hiding anything? I thought Ms. Estardante works for the government, well the local one here though.

Corporal Diogenes: Maybe she is always like that.

The door on the gate opens.

A dignified-looking lady emerges, her face that bears the lines of experience and sacrifices betrays her posture, slender and straight. Her body’s shape is as if she is still a maiden. Along with her bearing and stride, as she walks like walking on air, one word says it all that it demands ‘respect’. She approaches the officers with a stern look, a perfect poker face, unrelenting, with her chins up high. Her eyebrows meet while the one on the left is raised. With a calm but rather assertive voice, she opens up.

Mrs. Lim: Officers? What is it that you want?

Corporal Diogenes: Good Afternoon madam.

A moment of silence. A moment of hesitation. Corporal Diogenes realizes this will not be easy.

Oh shit! He thought.

Corporal Diogenes: Corporal Diogenes.

He takes his badge and ID out to show her his credentials.

Corporal Diogenes: And this is Officer Ruiz. Pardon our recording, but this is for your safety as well as ours. However, we are only here to ask for Ms. Estardante, are you her mother.

Mrs. Lim, glowering at the officers.

Mrs. Lim: I am the landlady, Mrs. Lim. We are not related, this is a boarding house, she rents a room to herself here. Why are you looking for her?

Corporal Diogenes, relieved and pleads.

Corporal Diogenes: Oh, my apologies madam. I did not realize this was a boarding house. You have a large house, and it looks magnificent. We only have to ask her some questions, if she could come to the office.

Magnificent what the **** am I talking about. Corporal Diogenes mumbles in his thoughts.

Mrs. Lim: Rina!

She yells more calling for her maid.

Mrs. Lim: This is going to take a while, but I think I saw her leave earlier, I’ll have Rina check on her and see if she really is around. Would you come in and have a seat in our waiting area?

She opens the gate doors widely and allows the two officers in and shows them where to sit.

Mrs. Lim: I don’t allow visitors to go up, just to make sure nobody accuses anyone of stealing or getting robbed by someone.

Rina comes out, wide-eyed and forehead creased.

Mrs. Lim: What the hell are you looking at? Go and find Sol and see if she is around.

Rina: But she left ma’am.

Mrs. Lim: Well did you knock on her door just to make sure?

Rina: Right away ma’am.

Rina hurriedly ran back inside the house. While Mrs. Lim walks back inside following her.

Meanwhile, Sol finds a small home cook-style restaurant, two blocks away. She sits, contemplating. Pondering her next move, her next step.

At her boarding house, the cops hear Mrs. Lim with a loud voice talking to Rina from the inside of the house. Although they cannot make out what the conversation is about, it is clear, she seems angry at her. Five minutes later Mrs. Lim comes back out.

Mrs. Lim: Officers it seems Sol is not in her room.

Corporal Diogenes: Is that definite?

Mrs. Lim: Of course, she padlocked it. Usually, she does when she goes out. Otherwise, it would only be locked from the inside.

Corporal Diogenes: Maybe someone locked her room from the outside. Did you try knocking?

Mrs. Lim: Certainly.

Corporal Diogenes: May we see her room?

Mrs. Lim: Certainly… [she paused for a bit]... Not.

She is after all the queen in this house.

Corporal Diogenes: Madam, we just want to be sure that she is safe. This also happens to be a murder investigation. May we ask for your indulgence, and allow us to check.

Mrs. Lim replies with an obscure proverb...

Mrs. Lim: ‘She who indulges bulges’. If I let you in, you will mess things up. And if this is a murder investigation, then it is not a cybercrime investigation.

Corporal Diogenes: This is also a murder investigation apart from a cybercrime investigation.

She cuts him off.

Mrs. Lim: Corporal, my husband is a member of the Magistrate Council and currently the City District Solicitor. I know the law, no warrant, no entry.

Corporal Diogenes: Then we will come back with a warrant then. [He smiles, to keep himself cordial]. Thank you for your cooperation, Madam.

Mrs. Lim: My advice. Maybe, or, why don’t you ask the Community Government if she is at the office. She usually is a ‘home to office’ kind of person, I suppose.

Both police officers step out of the house. However, outside, as the door closes behind them, the corporal pauses.

Corporal Diogenes: If she wants to play this game, we’ll play the game.

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