The Harmony of the Spheres

Arc 1:7

The funeral of Nicholas Kim was small. Only a handful of figures stood around the gravesite. The two women huddled under a black umbrella while snow lightly dusted the shoulders of the tall man gritting his jaw to hold back tears. Nearly twenty steps behind them, several suited figures waited next to uniform black sedans.

The priest's voice droned through the silence, providing a sonorous melody over a background of distant traffic. Two rows back, behind a nearby buckthorn, several gravediggers perched on blue and white coolers. This wasn't the only funeral being conducted and each grave needed filling. While they waited for the funeral to finish, they warmed their hands with coffee from a dented thermos. Technically, they were allowed to start filling the grave as soon as the ceremony was complete, but they were all human enough to know that no-one likes seeing a loved one's grave slowly disappear under layers of dirt. Human empathy aside, none of the gravediggers wanted to intrude on mourners who came to a funeral with a retinue of bodyguards. While they waited, the men turned to one of their favourite games:

"Fiver on the short chick being the widow."

"Nah, I raise you double on the dude."

"Him? Didn't you hear the priest earlier? The funeral's for a Nicholas Kim."

"So?"

"Nicholas Kim? That's a dude's name."

"So?"

"And you think that guy is the grieving widow? No way. Just look at him."

"So? What... you think a guy like him can't be a homo?"

"Even if he is a fag, he aint the wife. No way a guy like him takes a dick up the arse."

"Just a guy like you?"

"Hey! I'm no homo. I don't take dick up the arse."

"Just a finger when Janey gives head."

"Fucker."

"Girls talk, man. Especially when they're on the piss."

When the FBI arrived on the brownstone's doorstep a mere three days after the funeral, the Family Heads weren't too worried. Various members of the Seljaro and Silvestra Families were visited by the FBI to 'assist' with ongoing investigations on a semi-regular basis. The men in the Families seemed to see such frequent visits as a badge of pride; they were obviously doing their jobs well enough to not leave the evidence required for an arrest. The younger cousins even had an annual tally going and the person with the most visits for the year paid for their New Year's Eve alcohol. So when the Heads were notified that Gabe had FBI visitors, they chuckled at each other and shared the opinion that work would help clear his mind of grief for his friend. And would maybe entice him to shower off his three-day-drunk.

They did start to worry when Gabe was escorted to an unmarked car without even being granted the curtesy of freshening up before leaving the house.

When Louisa was escorted from the brownstone later that afternoon, the Family called an emergency meeting. They couldn't post bail until charges had been pressed so didn't waste their time trying to pull Gabe and Louisa out. Instead, they called in their IT experts to secure any and all leaks that could have lead to an arrest. All computers used for Family business included encryptions as well as software that tracked whether documents had been copied or saved elsewhere. To their surprise, after a day of running the software and scouring the logs, no leak had been found. Which meant someone had talked.

Betrayal hit hard.

On the surface the Family Heads maintained a calm composure, reaffirming their confidence that this investigation would be as fruitless as all previous cases. Beyond the public eye, the atmosphere was dense with suspicion and anxiety filling the air. Lower ranked peons disappeared and their own families kept quiet, too scared to do more than sob into their pillows knowing they would never see their husband, or lover, or brother, or father, again. Suspicion fell on Sheree; she was brought into the Family through her marriage to Nicholas but had her loyalty died with her husband? Brought before the two Family Heads, she promptly revealed the truth of their private relationships and her distress for Louisa helped reassure the men that her heart was with the woman in the hands of the FBI and not in a snow covered grave.