The White Twi'lek/Chapter 3

Jali had several appointments the next morning, most of them were finishing off cases and he had Xhen locate their files to find the various documents needed. With one or two of the cases Jali had Xhen sit in the room with him so he could observe what happened when a case was finished. What Jali saw that morning more or less satisfied him. While Xhen might not be one of the first stars to come out at night, Jali knew he would do all right.

They were just about done with the morning’s appointments when the comm unit buzzed. Stubbing out his spent cigarette, Jali answered it.

“There’s a Ms. Vertey here to see you,” Ayan said. “She doesn’t have an appointment, but she says it’s pretty urgent.”

“What sort of urgent?” Jali asked. He would have preferred to deal with this Ms Vertey tomorrow, but Ayan’s next words convinced him otherwise.

“I can’t really get much out of her,” the Zabrak answered in a low voice. “She seems pretty upset, shall I send her in?”

Jali glanced at Xhen who shrugged. “Send her in,” Jali said, taking his hand off the comm unit as the door opened.

Ayan’s description of the young woman was an understatement, her hair was windblown, her face was streaked with tears and she trembled slightly as she walked into the room. Xhen vacated the room’s only other chair and was about to leave when Jali motioned him to stay.

“If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d like my assistant to sit in on this interview,” Jali said, she had no objections. Jali was all smiles as he invited her to sit down and asked her if she wanted some stimcaf. She declined, sitting down carefully on the seat offered and gripping her white purse between her hands. The woman was not very tall, slightly shorter than Jali with dark hair and a face so nondescript and unremarkable that if Jali had been asked to describe her later on he would have had difficulty.

“I understand you’re a new client, Ms Vertey,” Jali said gently when the woman wouldn’t speak. “Could you tell me a few things about yourself?” He lit up another cigarette.

She gave her full name, Elya Vertey and an address in Eastport, her voice still trembling as she spoke.

For all that she’s upset, Jali mused as he took down these details, she’s not volunteering much information.

“Now,” Jali continued, taking this one step at a time, “could you tell me why you came to see me, ma’am. I’ll need a few details if I’m going to help you.”

“It’s about my husband,” Elya said, wiping away a few tears.

How many times have I heard that? Jali said to himself, forgoing the temptation to smile.

“Is he causing you any trouble, ma’am?” Jali asked cautiously.

“No, I don’t know where he is,” Elya answered.

A missing case, Jali realised at once, they were usually long, complicated and yielded very little result. “All right, how long has it been since you have seen him?” Jali asked.

“Three days,” Elya said.

All right, Jali thought, she came to see me a bit too early, so she may be the panicky sort. He gave her a reassuring smile. “Sometimes it takes a long time to find someone,” Jali reminded her.

“I know, but he isn’t like that,” Elya said. “He would have said something, I would know.”

Jali frowned. There’s something more here, he thought, but chose not to question it just now.

“You’ve notified the authorities, of course?” Jali asked.

“I notified the Security Force,” she said. “But they’ve done nothing to help.”

“I’m sure,” Xhen reassured, “they must have done something.”

Elya sniffed contemptuously. “Oh yes, if you call reassuring me that he’s quite all right and will turn up any day now actually doing something.”

“Sometimes things don’t happen as fast as we would like them to,” Jali said lightly, he knew that from his own experiences that such reassurances were commonplace. “We need to get down to particulars; can you tell us his name?”

“Lucen, Lucen Vertey,” she told them, “he worked in customs at Eastport.”

“And when was it that you last saw him?” Jali asked, silencing Xhen with a look as he opened his mouth to say something.

Elya looked at him rather sharply. “I already told you that, it was three days ago.”

“I wouldn’t ask questions if I didn’t need answers,” Jali reminded her gently. “I need details, when exactly did you last see him? Was it in the morning or the evening?”

Elya considered the question. “Yes, it was in the morning,” she said. “He left home to go to work and told me to expect me at the usual time.”

“And what time was that?” Jali pressed, Elya stared at him. “I need to know everything if I'm going to find him,” he added.

“I usually expected him home at about seventeen thirty,” Elya replied. “He called me a few minutes after seventeen and he said that he needed to go and see someone and might be a little late.”

“Do you have any idea who this was?” Jali asked.

“No,” Elya answered.

Jali noted this down. “And when did you realise something was wrong?”

“It was about nineteen thirty when he didn’t come home,” Elya said, shivering at the recollection. “I was about frantic, calling all our friends, all his friends, anyone I can think of…” She wiped away another tear. “It was the next morning when his boss called me asking where he was that I notified authorities.”

Jali nodded. “I’ll need a description, as well as any pictures you have of him.”

From a well-worn handbag, Elya removed a few printed holopics. Jali looked over them carefully and passed them on to Xhen when he had finished. Lucen had fair skin, hair that was between brown and blond and grey-blue eyes. Jali made a note of this on the datapad. “How tall is he?” he asked. “Is there anything else distinguishing about him that I can’t see here?” He tapped one of the holopics.

“He’s taller than me,” she said, “about a metre seven, but there’s nothing that really stands out about Lucen.”

This was the case with so many that Jali wasn't very disappointed. “And one final thing, can you remember what he was wearing?”

Elya considered a moment. “They wear a sort of uniform at Eastport, so he was wearing that,” she said. “He had a black holdall that I put his lunch in and where he put his papers, and grey boots with a white stripe down the outside.

“Right,” he said, closing the datapad, “I need to make a few calls regarding this, I’ll have to be up to speed on where the Security Force is. Xhen’s going to take down a few more details, names and addresses of friends and family we might need to contact.”

“But that’s already been done,” Elya protested. “I thought that you would do something different.”

Jali gave her a half-smile. “We do do something different,” Jali told her, “it just starts the same, that’s all.”

Taking the cue, Xhen picked up his own datapad and ushered Elya into his office. When he was alone, Jali called Pallavi Dashiell.

A low female voice responded on the other end. “Officer Dashiell speaking,” she said.

Pallavi was a young Security Force officer; she had only been with them in the last few years so Jali hadn't known her before his time in jail. He had met her on one of his cases and Pallavi had said she had been impressed with the way he had handled Tollan Antilles’ case. They had dated a few times, but it had gone no further than that and Jali didn’t blame her for it.

Now and then she helped him out with information, whether it actually passed into her hands or not.

“Hi, I thought I’d just get a quick vector on you,” he said into the link.

There was a pause and the sound of movement at the other end. “Jali, why do you always catch me at a bad time?” Pallavi teased.

“What’s going on, you in the ‘fresher?” Jali teased.

“No, worse, I was with Vantel,” she answered. “Just about to get a grilling about the Lanco case. He thinks that I should have got it before you did.”

“Hey, you would have beat me if you had just asked the right people like I did,” Jali defended.

“That's what you always say,” Pallavi argued, but there was a hint of a laugh in her voice. “Okay, what is it you want?”

“Guy named Vertey, Lucen Vertey,” he told her. “I just got a new case about him.”

“Haven’t heard of him,” she said. “You sure it’s one of ours?”

“Possibly,” conceded Jali. “Fact is, he’s been missing and I’ve just had his wife complain about the lack of results from your end.”

“No one I know is handling it,” Pallavi said, “but I can make inquiries. I’ll let you know when I have something.”



It was getting towards the afternoon when Jali and Xhen finally emerged from the office. They caught a turbolift down and walked out onto the main street of Eastport. Wherever you looked there was movement, the landspeeders and walkers along the road, the air-traffic that coasted never-endingly above. And even, Jali knew, beneath their feet was activity. The cityscape went endlessly down, down to the less desirable regions such as Vos Gesal Street and Lopek Avenue with the nightclubs, tapcafes, strip joints and other disreputable places.

But on the surface, at Eastport, with the Senate Building looming majestically in the distance and the Column Commons just ahead, things were a little more at ease. And Jali felt a little more at ease. Still, he was ever on the lookout for any trouble, you never knew just when it would come.

“I still don’t get that,” Xhen said to Jali as they waited for a set of lights to change. “Notifying you this soon after he disappeared?”

Jali shrugged. “As long as she’s paying for it, I'm not arguing. Besides,” he added, “she probably wouldn’t have gone to these measures unless she was sure something happened to him.” He gave Xhen a sideways glance. “Not everyone lives for excitement, you know.”

“True,” Xhen agreed as they continued walking.

On the next block was Eastport Docking Facility, their destination. They stopped outside.

“So what’s our first point of call?” Jali asked Xhen, who hadn’t spoken since they had left the office.

Xhen held up a datapad with a list of names and addresses on it. “W’kar Fenn,” he said. “He was Vertey’s immediate supervisor Eastport Docking Facility.” He looked at Jali. “He’s a Duro, rather pushy, she said.”

“Most of ‘em are,” Jali said dryly. “Anyone else of interest?”

“There's a whole bunch of friends that she gave the names for,” Xhen told him. “But Daur Kremoine should be here too, he worked with Vertey.”

The spaceport was busy, people everywhere with luggage, droids and load-lifters with hoversleds, hawkers trying to sell tickets to the smaller commercial liners. Eastport dealt mainly with walking cargo, yet there were a few large freighters came here, sometimes taking passengers on board as well.

Jali lit up a cigarette, but he had hardly put it in his mouth when a small droid appeared out of nowhere and buzzed near his shoulder.

“No smoking here, sir,” the droid said bossily, thrusting an ashtray under Jali’s nose.

“Okay, okay, just give me a second,” Jali complained, sulkily stubbing the lit cigarette in the ashtray before the droid rushed off to bother someone else.

They had to find the customs offices. Senior staff, like W’kar Fenn, were likely to be located on the upper levels even though most of the work was done where the docking bays were. He and Xhen ducked into a turbolift that was already occupied by a Bith carrying a large flat crate on a hoversled, the Bith headed out on a level where the freighters usually docked and Xhen and Jali got out on the next floor.

“W’kar Fenn?” asked the receptionist. “You’ve just missed him; he’s sorting out an issue on the freight level.”

“Wouldn’t he have someone to do that for him?” Jali asked her.

The receptionist shrugged. “Someone from downstairs wanted someone from upstairs, and so he went. You’ll find him in Bay 24.”



Bay 24 contained a ship that could be described as your average freighter, carbon-scored with the residue of occasional encounters with pirates, the hatch to its cargo hold was wide open—but empty. The cargo, or what there was of it, was being examined by Eastport officials while a Duro held a loud conversation with a belligerent Falleen who looked as if he was the captain of this vessel. The shouts were audible before Jali and Xhen had entered the room.

“This search is completely unprecedented!” he complained. “I demand an explanation for this outrageous act!”

“I have official orders to have all ships going out have to have their cargo checked and searched,” the Duro explained tiredly, holding up a few documents. “This is just a formality, nothing more.”

“I certainly hope so,” fumed the Falleen, turning away from him to make sure his cargo wasn't treated too roughly.

The Duro watched them, his arms folded. Jali walked towards him. “W’kar Fenn?”

His head turned. “Yeah, who wants to know?” He examined Jali and Xhen suspiciously.

“I'm Jali Dawler, this is Xhen Rinner.” He offered his hand, Fenn didn’t take it. “I was wondering if we could talk about Lucen Vertey.”

Fenn sniffed disdainfully. “Yeah, well, if you see him, tell him from me that he’s fired.” He walked away.

Jali followed him, Xhen was close behind. “His wife asked me to find him and I was hoping you could help.”

“There’s nothing I can tell you,” Fenn spat, stopping short and glaring at Jali, he didn’t look at Xhen. “I saw him three days ago when he came here for work and then left here at the end of his shift with his friend Kremoine.” “Any idea where they may have gone?” Xhen asked.

“Ask him,” Fenn suggested, still looking at Jali. “I don’t make it a policy to follow my employees around.”

“Is there anything unusual that you can remember?” Jali asked. “Anything that might give us an idea of why he disappeared?”

“Nope, or I would have told the Security Force when they came calling round here,” he snapped. “Anything else? You want to know what he had for lunch that day?”

“No thanks,” Jali said, flashing a smile that further infuriated the Duro. “You were a real help.”

Still scowling, Fenn stomped off to the turbolift.

“Nice guy,” Xhen observed.

“Yeah, a real friendly sort,” agreed Jali.

“So Kremoine’s next?” Xhen asked.

“Yep,” Jali replied, though not really paying attention. “We’ll probably find him back in that docking bay.”

In their absence, something had happened. Jali and Xhen could hear the Falleen’s angry protests before they got near the door.

“I don’t know how that got in there!” he complained. “Look, I don’t even know the guy, so don’t bother asking!”

Jali wrinkled his nose. “Can you smell something?” he asked Xhen, putting his hand to his face.

Xhen had his hand over his mouth and nose too. “What is it?” he asked, his voice slightly muffled.

Jali didn’t answer, there had been a few times when he was in the Security Force when he had encountered a similar smell, or rather stench. Rot…decay…it made his stomach turn a little.

One of the officials turned around as he heard Jali and Xhen approach. “You guys Security Force?” He asked, gesturing to the open crate with the hand that wasn't covering his nose. “You might want to take a look at this, more your line than ours.” He stepped aside so Jali could see.

It was the body of a man, a human male about a metre seven with hair between blond and brown. But it wasn't a pretty sight, Jali’s stomach gave another turn. What could be seen of Vertey’s skin was tinged blue, his face was swollen and his purple tongue was sticking out through his puffed-up lips.

Jali blinked then took out the holopic that Elya had given him.

Xhen stared, his face turned paler. “That’s…”

“It is,” Jali nodded, he stepped back and glanced at the chrono on his wrist. “Lucen Vertey, found after about one hour and forty-five minutes.”