If there’s one thing Yixing Zhang’s weak to, it’s the female form. The carefully carved curves and perfectly polished poise as the left leg crosses the right — then the right, the left. He’s physically attracted to fragile creatures; he can’t help himself. Very much like every girl’s childhood dreams, he yearned to play a Prince. 

“Egotistical,” the comment he received on his police academy’s final evaluation. According to the instructors, this “begs the question: why a police officer?” Firefighter suited his MO much better.

With the day’s torrential downpour, police officers and firefighters alike found themselves idle. Unlike the risk-takers in metropolis, this suburbia’s citizens stayed inside when nature struck back. “Not even the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy could weather this storm,” Officer Brown quipped to quizzical coworkers at the water cooler.

Detective Yixing Zhang stole away to the communal restroom, phone in hand, minutes later. Nostalgia overflowed as he re-watched George Lucas’s masterpiece; constipation kept his face from reacting to Star Wars references in public. Legs crossed, bladder lacking relief, the super sleuth slid from the stalls as inconspicuously as possible. Wheein Jung conspicuously appearing at the front desk startled him into a stumble — mission failure.

Moo Mama’s bartender was soaked head to toe. Seemingly disappointed by Officer Brown’s conversational skills, she latched onto Yixing Zhang’s appearance in an instant. “Detective Zhang!” How well she knew his weaknesses already. 

“Miss Jung,” feeling superior, he strolled on over, singsonging, “feeling guilty?”

Flattened curls sticking to damp dimples, she tested the waters with, “May we speak privately?”

“No.” The detective suffered humiliation at her hands. “If your situation is so serious, perhaps the entire department should hearken after your distressed call?” He’d be damned if he didn’t seek retribution; damnation comes to those most desperate to escape it.

Without her gullible gaggle of supporters, she appealed to Officer Brown, “When will Captain Wu return?” An answer containing indefinite variables, “maybes” and “I thinks” abound, left her downtrodden. Defeated. Embarrassing the high-and-mighty Wheein Jung: mission success. 

“Steady as she goes, Miss Jung. Can’t take a joke?”

“I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one,” she quoted Marilyn Monroe whilst holding tight to drenched hems: a defense against the hateful, hot air he blew up her skirts.

Deliberately flouting her legitimate plight was cruel, in hindsight. Princely predilection for a damsel in distress had Yixing Zhang retracting. Caving under the pressure of a mere year as a detective. Chalk his inappropriate behavior up to inexperience — and days without regular bowel movements. 

“Walk with me.”

“No,” she refuses to be caught by this hook, “we’ll talk here.” A gesture gives her the floor. “My cat’s been stolen.”

“Maybe she ran away. Don’t you think felines are prone to wonder?” 

“Highly unlikely.”

If there’s one thing Yixing Zhang's weak to, it’s a good mystery. The scrupulous Sherlock Holmes and juxtaposed John Watson demonstrated great ingenuity while solving cases — and subsequently snatching criminals. He’s mentally enamored with deducing the shrouded beyond the norm; he was convinced looks, actions, phrases all shielded some grand secret. What a striking resemblance this description bears to his aforementioned fixation.

“She’s dead.”

“How do you know he’ll bite?”

“Carnivores look for every opportunity to break their diet.”

It’s still raining as Detective Zhang ascends Wheein Jung’s stoop. Rubber soles squeak against concaving wooden steps. “Forced entry,” he notes a broken window. He inspects the shattered glass, dotting the porch like stardust. “Was the door unlocked when you returned home today?”

Standing close by, Wheein shakes her head. “No.”

“This glass is splayed in different directions. Chances are he exited the same way he got in and scattered the shards in his stumble to escape. Can I have a look inside?”

“Of course.” She makes quick work of the lock, stepping aside to let the good man pass. He stays rooted in place, prompting the question: "What?”

“Nothing," is his immediate response. Upon entering the abode, he notices it lacks negative space; Van Gough would be proud a pupil applied his style to the interior's design. Put concisely, Wheein Jung lived amongst a orderly mess — as Yixing would soon discover. What he comments on first is her unusually amicable state, “You appear relatively calm.”

There's indignation in her shrug. Red curls dry in uneven waves. “I shouldn’t be?”

“A man, perhaps someone you know, blatantly broke into the place you sleep at night. Say you'd been here. What lengths would he've gone to to satisfy his strange for cat ashes? Men have murdered for less."

“He.” Wheein stops the hamsterwheel, ignorance bliss as she asks, “What makes you so convinced my cat thief is male?”

Stepping into the living room, Yixing drags a finger from her head to her toes. “Take a good look at yourself" — he's not. “Besides, 8 out of 10 reported B&Es with female residents are committed by male suspects.” There's quiet. It's his turn to say, “What?"

She's staring. Perhaps they share a moment that ends when she fills the suffocating space with, "Nothing," only to admit, "you appear quite good at your job." Men have imagined with less than a look.

“Was there ever any evidence to the contrary?”

Avoiding the subject, she stands by the fireplace. Books, nicknacks, and questionable decor choices cover every wall and shelf except one crevice. There's a link missing between Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost. A spotless space big enough for a funeral urn.

“Copper. 6 inches tall. Filled to the brim. We burned her favorite toys along with her.” We: the pronoun evades the detective for now. She shrugs again. Two shrugs in one day; the notion is near inconceivable for a woman of her disposition. “It’s all he plainly took.”

“Plainly?

“At first glance.” 

Adding "detail-disoriented" to her descriptors, he snaps latex gloves over his hands. Swipes a finger along the coffee table, then the suspended sill. Muses aloud, “Do you dust often?”

“No.”

“Cleanliness may not be your strong suit, but it’s not his either.”

Wheein Jung’s plea for a private investigation into her cat thief was dramatized. Detective Yixing Zhang became convinced he’d find the perpetrator before the day’s end. Though he was right, he was wholly wrong.

“Ring if anything happens, honey.”

“Remember, darling: we gentlewomen don’t take kindly to such insults.”

“Let the man give me another reason to brandish my monkey wrench.”

“As expected; guard dogs are inferior to friends such as these.”

A/N: What’ll happen next in the case of the missing kitty, I wonder?