Ch.142The Fourth Entanglement – Elegy for the Vigilantes (3)

“All of New York is trembling in fear over another series of murders. There are rumors everywhere that this is far more calculated than the previous killings by The Hanger of New York! An ordinary family man has been killed. A wealthy man and a driver have also been killed. Who can feel safe?”

The radio news delivered its heated commentary. Generally, it was a broadcast that said what people wanted to hear, but occasionally it became the voice of the people. During The Hanger of New York case, they had been the first to report.

Rose Clichy, who had been listening to the broadcast, got up from the sofa in her cheap apartment. It seemed she would have to go looking into this.

Though she couldn’t yet be confident in her abilities, Rose Leafman—or rather, Rose who hadn’t yet decided on her new surname—was the only reporter at Golden Age Press who specialized in these kinds of cases.

It was somewhat misleading to call her a specialist. Simply put, she had often been caught up in such incidents and, while caught up in them, had also reported on them, so strangely enough, she had more experience with these matters than most.

The only advantage The Hanger of New York had over these new killers was that he was caught in just one day. Angels had discovered how the victims were selected and ambushed him, or so they said.

“Our radio news is also gathering information, so please share any confirmed information you may have. We will be the voice of New York citizens. And with that, today’s news…”

Gathering information like that would result in far too much information. Rose recalled searching through the library with Paulina in Lancaster.

Embracing more information than one could process was closer to ignorance than knowledge. While quantity of information did create quality, experts could extract important details even from minimal information.

She thought of the detective who could extract information about informants or sources from a single word, combining it with what he remembered to arrive at the correct answer. He was quite a chilling person.

Still, she couldn’t solve this case with the detective. More precisely, Rose had already tried, but the detective wasn’t answering his phone. Only an “absent” sign hung at his office-cum-home.

Inspector Leonard was the same. Whenever she called to see if he had any information, she was told he had gone out for investigation. She couldn’t interfere with such busy police work.

Who should I hire this time? The first person Rose thought of was Paulina, but she was a legal expert, not a crime specialist. With limited funds, she needed to choose carefully.

Honestly, if Rose called Paulina and asked for help without pay, she would surely come running. But Rose didn’t want to rely on such kindness—it felt too much like returning to the past.

Rose decided to limit her dependence on Paulina to inviting her over for Ogre-style dinners after completing jobs. That should be enough.

She opened her wallet and searched through her business cards. After Charles Clichy’s death, Rose’s network had almost disappeared. They had been people connected through her father, so it was inevitable.

After discarding all the useless cards, not many remained. Among them was one particularly important one: a card for Willem Straessen, Private Investigator and Police Investigation Consultant.

Rose no longer suffered from the amnesia that had plagued her. This was a card given to her by the detective who had helped when she was attacked by the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn due to her father’s mistake.

No, the backstory wasn’t important. She saw the words “Police Investigation Consultant.” He was the most police-like person she knew. He was also the most detective-like person.

Realizing that Willem was her only option, Rose picked up the phone. She dialed the number on the card and after quite a wait, the call connected.

A leisurely voice characteristic of someone already retired came through. She felt guilty about dragging him into this.

“Who is this? Ah, the Straessen office is currently closed. If you’re a regular client from last year, I apologize.”

“Currently closed” suggested he might return, and fortunately, Rose wasn’t a regular client from last year. She decided to be a bit more brazen.

“Um, this is Rose Leafman, the reporter! We met on the train to Pennsylvania last time. Do you remember me?”

For New York detectives, forgetting was routine. The number of people they met equaled the number of people they forgot. But this old detective was European. For such a detective, not forgetting was a virtue.

“I never forget anyone. You’re that reporter who improvised with a flash bulb to create a sun-like flash against those fanatics. How could I forget? I believe I gave you my card to call if you needed help. I saw your article exposing the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn.”

It felt good to know someone had been watching. Rose continued cheerfully.

“Well, I’m trying to write an article about these serial killings, but I don’t have many sources who know about such things, and the few I have are all unavailable. Since you worked as a private investigator and police consultant, I thought you might be able to help, so I called you first. Perhaps…”

Willem’s laughter traveled through the phone line. After a scratching sound like someone stroking their beard, his voice continued.

“You’re honest. Serial killers, such villains. Would a detective with a cursed revolver bought for two pennies at an antique shop be enough? If so, I’ll leave right away. The fee can wait until after we solve the case. What’s money to a detective? The weight of a solved case is payment enough.”

Willem laughed boisterously and confidently. He was a detective who remembered romance. A detective who remembered when detectives fought crime, not unions.

In comparison, today’s detectives were little more than contractors. Watching them take requests and handle jobs, words like “fixer” seemed more appropriate than “detective.”

But Willem shared one thing in common with those detectives. If someone threatened his life, Willem would gladly pull out his two-penny cursed revolver and shoot them all dead.

In an era when thugs carried pocket knives and trained fists, detectives carried canes and learned boxing. If the city’s thugs carried guns, detectives would carry guns too. Willem pulled out an old wooden box.

Rose, to be honest, didn’t understand this aspect of Willem. The detective she knew valued payment above all else. Still, her judgment that he was a reliable person remained unchanged.

“Ah, um, you really seem like you stepped out of a book… Anyway, that’s great! I’d appreciate your help. My address is…”

After hearing the address, Willem nodded and unlocked two locks to open the box. He took out an old but well-oiled revolver. The revolver was still heavy.

He brought out a speed loader and loaded the bullets. In the first loader, he put all six rounds. In the second, he left the first chamber empty and loaded five. In the third, he left the second chamber empty and loaded five, and so on, preparing five speed loaders so that every seventh chamber would be empty. Having used them for so long, they were numbered to avoid confusion.

Back to work now. Willem was not a man who needed to strengthen his resolve. His revolver stuck to his hand as if made entirely of rubber. It was clearly heavily cursed.

But he didn’t mind. Cursed or not, it was useful. Just as a cursed person could be innocent, a merely cursed weapon was innocent too. It all depended on the user’s hand.

Holstering the revolver, Willem recalled the maxim he always repeated: Don’t fear people, do what’s right. He had been reciting it since his police days, so that saying too had aged considerably.

A man who didn’t care about curses certainly wouldn’t care about age. Old or not, it didn’t matter as long as the job was done well.

The door of Willem’s house, located on a rather nice stretch of 14th Street, opened, and for the first time in a very long time, a detective with a gun walked out. He got into his car and headed to the address the reporter had given him.

Willem knew something about these serial killers. After the first incident, he thought it was the work of someone who knew the victim, but after the second and third victims, his thinking changed.

Those killers were clearly patrolling the city in police uniforms. Only police could confidently knock on someone’s door in the morning making the homeowner come out defenseless, get a driver to step out of a car parked in front of a dance hall, or stop a car driving on the outskirts of New York.

The police must have figured this out too. That’s why neither radio news nor newspapers were saying anything. If they revealed this fact, they would likely be misunderstood.

Is it really a misunderstanding? What if it really is the police doing this, Willem? Willem asked himself. The answer was always the same: Don’t fear people, do what’s right.

Still, it was unlikely to be the police. Real police officers who randomly selected and killed people would surely be rejected by their colleagues and would be suspected when such incidents occurred.

For an armchair detective, all that was needed for deduction was a chair. And Willem had spent quite a bit on his car seat. It was like a moving armchair, he thought absently as he gathered his thoughts.

By then, Willem had arrived at the reporter’s apartment. It was in a not-so-good neighborhood, in a not-so-good building. It didn’t look like it would collapse, but it wasn’t excellent either.

Not bad for a young professional’s first home. There was a newspaper stand in front of the apartment too, so Willem bought one newspaper from each major publisher run by different ethnic groups, tucked them under his arm, and went up to the apartment.

The reporter’s apartment was 203. When he knocked, someone soon approached and opened the door. It was the same reporter he had met before. No, is it the same person, Willem? he asked himself.

She didn’t look the same. Something had changed, but it was so internal that it wasn’t visible on the outside. Still, she had become more reliable than the trustworthy young lady he remembered.

“Good morning, Mr. Straessen. You came right away!”

Willem twisted his beard, clicked his heels together with a cheerful sound, and nodded. He was not the type to be lazy.

“I had just finished shaving when I received your call, so why delay? Let me introduce myself again: Willem Straessen. Detective. I suppose I must say I’m back in the field now. Thanks to you, miss.”

He was a gentleman with graying hair and a well-groomed beard. Though his attire wasn’t particularly neat, it had dignity, and though he was brazen, he had manners.

Rose smiled with relief at the sight. There was something amusing about two people meeting who didn’t fit the city’s atmosphere at all, and she felt like she couldn’t stop smiling.

Willem was a person only half-pickled in the city’s air. He was a detective but had humor; he was diligent like a detective but more skilled with flowery language than most detectives.

“Detectives are all so diligent. Our newspaper is small, so I’m the only one who’s covered more than one case like this. The editor-in-chief has given me permission to investigate… Did you already figure something out on your way here? No, that’s impossible. Right?”

Rose thought that while Willem acted like detectives in novels, he couldn’t find things as easily as they did. But reality was more realistic than the word “realistic” suggested.

Willem naturally entered the reporter’s apartment and nodded briefly as he observed the cheap furniture arranged with care. This environment wasn’t bad for working.

Sitting on the sofa, he put down the bundle of newspapers he had bought. The reporter sat across from him with expectant eyes. Willem opened an article that covered the murder methods in excessive detail and began to speak.

“So far, there have been only those three murders recently. I heard about a corrupt officer who died, but that’s probably unrelated to this case, so we needn’t worry about it. And all three have something in common, don’t they? The victims all walked out of places where they should have been safe. The first victim from his home, the second from his car, the third from a moving car. Who do you think it could be?”

Rose immediately thought of the answer.

“Ah, so, the police?”

“That’s right! But they’re probably impersonating police. If it were real police, they would have been caught by now. And if they revealed this suspicion, they might be suspected in return, so the police are keeping quiet. They seem to commit murder once every three days, but we don’t know what principle they’re following yet. Do you know anything, Miss Rose?”

Rose shook her head. Usually, her sources would provide all the necessary information, but this time she couldn’t contact any of them.

“I can’t reach any of my police connections or the other detective. Ah, but you don’t need to suspect them!”

Rose didn’t suspect the detective. If it had been him, she would have said that nine people in three days would be too few, not three in nine days.

She didn’t suspect Inspector Leonard either. He had been there when Rose shot her father. He had seen her when she had to fire a bullet to stop her father.

Rose was a person full of conviction, but in that moment she had none. She didn’t think someone who had seen her swallowing horror with only a sense of duty would shoot others.

But that wasn’t enough to convince him. A detective who only befriended evidence and reason wouldn’t be swayed by such pleas.

“No, if there’s a fixer who can’t be reached at times like this, and police who can’t be contacted at times like this, one should either worry or suspect. Which would you prefer?”

Rose briefly considered five possible answers but knew what she had to say. Recalling the first principle of the street she had learned from the detective, she answered.

“So… both.”