Chapter 536 - Eat, Drink, and Work Hard
Half an hour later, looking at the cakes in the display window, Selina mumbled, “So, this is how we work overtime.”
Luke replied self-righteously, “Do you not know how much energy we consume every day? How can you investigate cases when you’re hungry? Lucy, I would like some cakes.” Lucy, the female server, came over with a smile. “Luke, it’s been a while. Which one would you like today?”
Luke nodded with a smile and pointed at a row of cakes. “I would like ten of each of those cakes.”
Lucy was surprised. “Are you sure?” Luke had just pointed at more than ten types of cakes.
Luke nodded with a smile. “I have three gluttons at home. They all need lots of food.”
Lucy didn’t worry about it any longer after her initial surprise. In any case, this big customer always bought cakes in large amounts each time.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t remember him so vividly, though her impression of him was also partly because of his looks.
Luke and Selina left with a bunch of boxes. They put the cakes that wouldn’t flip over in the trunk, and the rest in the backseat.
Luke said to the dog in the backseat, “Gold Nugget, make sure these don’t fall over. Your favorite strawberry cream cake is in there.”
Gold Nugget instantly stretched out a paw and placed it on the pile of boxes.
Luke nodded in satisfaction. “Good boy.”
Selina: “Hey, half the cakes are mine. They’re not all for you.”
Dollar whined with a blank look as it blinked its bean-like eyes.
Selina: “It’s useless even if you tell Dollar to play cute. Half the cakes are mine.”
Dollar tilted its big head and looked at its young master innocently, and the alien dog just pretended to be deaf.
Driving off, Luke said, “It’s easy. It can’t hold the cake itself anyway. You can give it however much you want to give it, right?”
Selina realized that was true. “Haha. That’s the advantage of having hands.”
Gold Nugget silently lowered its head and looked at its paws in frustration. That’s cheating! If Luke didn’t forbid me from doing it, I can create hundreds of tentacles to steal the cakes a hundred times faster than you!
Thankfully, Selina didn’t really do what she said.
Sitting in the passenger seat, she soon began to share the cakes with Gold Nugget.
She didn’t even bother to turn around. She simply threw bits of the cake over her shoulder, and Gold Nugget would unerringly catch all of them with its big mouth.
She and the dog made a great team.
Luke simply left them alone.
With Dollar and Gold Nugget’s company, Selina was a lot happier. Compared with her condition after the trip to Mexico, she seemed to have let certain things go.
Luke was quite glad to see that.
Why else would he have let Gold Nugget off so easily for its wrongdoings? He could’ve punished the dog by cutting its snacks and feeding it dog food for a few days.
But the dog had made up for it in other ways, so it balanced out.
Before long, Luke and Selina reached the passage to an underground parking lot at the back of a bank.
Flashing their badges, they drove in and parked the car, before two men and one dog went over to a side door.
Luke glanced around and asked with a strange expression, “The robber’s death wasn’t caught on camera?”
Munching on her cake, Selina replied, “The robbery in the hall is on tape, but the cameras here were thrashed and there’s no footage of him.”
Luke asked, “And the bank has already replaced the cameras, right?”
Selina nodded. “That’s right. The case was two days ago; of course the bank wouldn’t leave the cameras broken.”
Examining the locations of the cameras, Luke said, “The guy ran off on his own, so how did he break the cameras? By shooting at them?”
Selina said, “That guy had a gun, but it wasn’t his gun that destroyed the cameras.”
Luke and Selina were on a bank robbery slash homicide case. However, the victim wasn’t any of the bank security or a client here, but the robber himself.
That unlucky bastard hung himself at the door at the end of the passage instead of leaving after the successful robbery.
Taking out a photo from the case file and comparing it with the door, Luke heaved a sigh. “In any case, I don’t believe that our Mr. Robber hung himself because of a guilty conscience after the robbery.” Selina nodded. “I don’t believe it either.”
After examining the scene, Luke didn’t tarry and left right away.
Sitting in a cafe booth, he read the case file and looked at the statements as well as photos of the crime scene, and had an inkling about what happened.
Next to him, Selina was reading case files as she munched on a cream cake. She also put a piece on Dollar’s plate every now and then.
It wasn’t long before Elsa pushed the door open and came in.
She nodded in satisfaction when she saw their diligence.
They loved to eat and drink, but they never slacked off when it came to work.
Luke raised his head and greeted her with a smile. “Shall we order now, boss?”
Elsa nodded.
Soon, they ordered a bunch of food and ate.
Drinking her tea after lunch, Elsa said, “So, what do you want to know?”
Luke shrugged. “I want to know Roger and Martin’s work situation.”
Staring at him for a moment, Elsa suddenly laughed. “You don’t know what’s going on with them? I let you go for two weeks; it would’ve been a waste if you hadn’t produced results.”
Luke asked, “So it’s all good now?”
Elsa nodded. “Sort of. They had one official warning, and aren’t eligible for promotion for the next two years. But Roger has no plans to be promoted right now, and Martin doesn’t care. So, it’s all been wrapped up.”
Luke was quite satisfied with Palmer. It was thanks to her efforts that the DEA took full responsibility for what happened in Tijuana back in Mexico.
Elsa, however, added, “But Martin might take extended leave, and Roger will take a short break.”
Luke was stunned. “Why?”
Elsa said, “I’m not sure. I asked Martin once, and he said that he needed to fix his mental condition; only after it’s stable will he think about coming back to work. As for Roger… I heard that his heart condition is flaring up again.”
Luke burst out laughing. “Are you sure it isn’t because of what Martin did?”Elsa nodded helplessly. “It probably is. He’s old, after all, and what they did was really… unbelievable. It’s not a bad idea for him to take a break.”
Looking at Luke’s laughing face, she couldn’t help but say, “Don’t be so gleeful. They’re both capable detectives. Now that they’re on leave, a lot of their cases will be transferred to us. You’ll have to work overtime.”
She felt a little helpless when she said that.
All the cases Luke and Selina worked on were tricky ones; in the hands of other detectives, only 10% of cases would’ve been cracked. For Luke and Selina to solve 30% of the cases was a real feat.
Elsa found it excessive that she had to give them more pressure.
Luke had been away for two weeks. She knew that he had probably taken a break toward the tail end of it, but she didn’t call him back; that was part of her compensation to him.
But with the Stark Expo about to open, she couldn’t continue letting her most competent general goof off.
Luke nodded with a smile. “No problem, boss. We’ll solve whatever cases we can.”
