Ch.145The Fourth Entanglement – Elegy for the Vigilantes (6)

A deal is a deal. A client’s request is a client’s request. The detective decided to cooperate with the journalist who had just been showing her teeth moments ago.

There was no need for deliberation. He had worked with the journalist quite often. Judging by the skilled old man she’d brought along—from who knows where—she wasn’t being emotional either.

There was no need to hide their relationship anymore. The detective finally stopped treating Madam with formality. The detective sitting across from her probably knew everything already anyway.

“If that’s Madam’s request, I can certainly help. You know what I’m capable of.”

The journalist no longer hesitated to speak such words aloud. She looked the detective straight in the eye. Not everything can always be resolved through conversation and negotiation.

“From framing and sabotage to assassination and sniping… Actually, you seem like someone who could fulfill any request, no matter how absurd—even if I asked you to make a lemon tart right here. Still, I want the murderer handled legally. We need to call the police and have them arrested. Otherwise, no one except us will know whether that person is a murderer or not.”

The journalist spoke prepared to be mocked by the detective. She didn’t mind being called naive. After all, it was this detective who told her she never needed to apologize for what she believed in.

Still, their interests aligned this time. That’s why the detective had decided to hand the ledger over to Madam rather than keeping it himself and becoming a night visitor—so she could turn it over to the police.

The wealthy might hire lawyers to win in court, but even they couldn’t summon attorneys to defend them in the court of public opinion. That’s why he had handed it over, but now the ledger was gone.

Whoever the masked person was who took it, they were handling things stupidly and blindly. People wouldn’t even know why the victims had died. That wasn’t right.

Those things needed to be displayed in the square. Preferably hung in the highest place to become a spectacle. Only then would he feel somewhat satisfied. The detective was still taking this personally.

“I like that. So, we’re collaborating?”

“Yes, we’re collaborating! Oh, let me tell you what we know. So…”

The journalist who was about to share information couldn’t continue. Thinking about it, she didn’t know anything about the murderer either. She had simply followed the Pandemonium lead to get here.

The detective interrupted her before she could continue.

“If you knew anything, you wouldn’t have come all the way to Pandemonium. I think you need to help us, Madam. We share the same goal.”

No matter how comfortable their relationship was, Madam was still his employer. A detective who revealed what the client knew would starve to death, so the detective leaned back against the sofa.

Madam didn’t hesitate. While carefully hiding the fact that the detective had dealt with the brothel across the street, she only revealed where the ledger might have leaked. The ledger was the priority for now.

“We don’t know much either, darling. What we know is… Ah, yes. I know the name of the police officer who came then. Inspector Leonard Price. He took the ledger.”

The journalist only now sensed the entanglement. Realizing that coming here had been worthwhile after all, she immediately responded.

“I know that police officer. He’s like an uncle to me—one of the few people who still keeps in touch with my father. You probably know him too? Back then, when we were searching for the children, Inspector Leonard was the elf police officer who rushed into the orphanage. Oh, why isn’t he answering his phone now…”

The detective remembered the police officer who had come to the orphanage with the names of every missing child memorized. He had thought the man would be flexible enough to let him go, but perhaps not?

An elf who trembled while calling out each child’s name with a guilt-ridden voice could certainly lose his mind after seeing the ledger. It would be better to make contact if he was still in his right mind.

If he was just a vigilante seeking satisfying revenge, showing him the names hung in the highest place in New York might be enough to satisfy him. Then the matter could be buried somehow.

If he was the Hanger of New York, then as the journalist said, they could catch him and turn him over to the police. If they could prove that the police had stolen the ledger and started this, they wouldn’t even need to find the ledger.

There was no need to kill him. Killing a current police officer, especially one with rank, was more burdensome than killing goblin mafia members who couldn’t even report crimes.

They could determine whether he was the culprit just by following him around.

“Do you know that police officer’s address? If he’s connected to this, we need to check. Since you seem to have someone to stand by your side this time—not that ogre half-breed—I won’t need to accompany you.”

The journalist thought that Willem had a better impression than the detective. He was polite yet quite cheerful and bright. And while perhaps not as skilled as the detective, he seemed quite capable.

Their briefly aligned gazes diverged again. To the journalist, Leonard was still “Uncle Leonard,” but to the detective, he had become the prime suspect. The journalist drew a line.

“You know he was with us back then. Why would someone like that become a vigilante? He even got promoted after that incident—what would make him do something like this?”

“I saw the expression on that elf’s face when he found those missing children. And even though I shot and killed the handler who was guarding those kids, he let me go. If he hated vigilantes, he would have tried to arrest me.”

The detective’s words seemed right, but the journalist decided to deny it for now. She knew she wasn’t being rational at the moment, but she couldn’t help it.

Her father had shot himself. He had cut ties with his family, and stopped employing Paulina. The sources she had gained through her father’s connections were gone. Uncle Leonard was one of the few people left.

If she gave up on one of the few remaining people, the loneliness would become too overwhelming. That was all. We are all emotional beings.

“That might be because… because I introduced you. He’s like an uncle to me…”

The detective gave a short nod. There was no need to say that he could see right through her thoughts. The journalist understood from that single gesture.

Only then did the journalist give Leonard Price’s address to the detective. She still hoped the detective wouldn’t find anything, but she couldn’t turn away from what she had discovered.

The journalist wasn’t someone who performed well when anxious. The detective knew this, so instead of delegating responsibility to the Dutchman, he spoke himself.

“If we can talk, we’ll handle it through dialogue. So far, he’s only been shooting people who deserve to be shot. If we tell him that exposing their crimes and making them live in shame for the rest of their lives would be more satisfying, he might come around. Then you won’t need to lie. If you write an article about who the murderer is, no one will throw stones at that police officer.”

He might be criticized for his methods, but not for his actions. Perhaps they could still hang those things in the square, albeit belatedly.

If the conversation became that comfortable, writing an article to expose them would become a burden-free task. All the journalist wanted was to avoid having to bury that police officer with her own hands.

The journalist glared again. The Clichy blood couldn’t be hidden. Willem saw for the first time the journalist making an expression like the Forest’s Firstborn.

“Don’t talk as if he’s definitely the culprit. We don’t know anything yet.”

The detective stared at Rose, who had bared her teeth so recklessly. While she was acting like the Forest’s Firstborn, it wasn’t particularly chilling. After all, he wasn’t that old man who died because of his own foolish choices.

This time, the expression didn’t last long. The journalist had her doubts too. Finally, a voice tinged with anxiety followed.

“Even if we don’t know anything yet… what would be a bad sign?”

“If they’ve started acting in groups, there’s a high chance they won’t listen to reason. If they’ve started killing people whose names aren’t even in the ledger because they’re intoxicated with the feeling, they’ve crossed a line of no return.”

We didn’t fear them because we couldn’t become like them. We feared them because any one of us could become one of them.

The Rat-Catcher, once a war hero, became the Hanger of New York, and Leonard Price, the journalist’s reliable ally… The detective hadn’t made a conclusion yet. It was still unknown.

The second criterion was one he had applied to the Rat-Catcher as well. If he had killed just one criminal, or perhaps even harmed the bodyguard who tried to protect that criminal with a bit of flexibility, it could be understood.

However, if he had harmed innocent people because they were in the way, or if he had started pointing his gun at people he had disliked all along because he was intoxicated with the feeling of being a vigilante, then he had to be killed.

“I… guess so. I’ll keep that in mind. Oh, you can contact me at my new place… here’s the phone number.”

The detective took the note with the phone number and immediately left Pandemonium. Instead of using the Pandemonium parking lot, he got into his car parked on the street and pulled the acceleration lever to go check out the address.

Leonard Price’s house was… not in a special location. It wasn’t on Motherwood Avenue; he simply lived in a decent apartment near the police station for an easy commute.

Apartments were harder to observe than mansions. Unlike mansions in residential areas or suburbs, apartments were right in the heart of the city, with too many watching eyes around. If possible, the rooftop of a nearby building would be more convenient.

The detective parked his car on the shoulder and scanned the apartment listed in the address he received from the journalist. Fourth floor—not too high, but he would need to climb quite high to properly observe the inside.

It would have been convenient if the building across from the apartment was a hotel, or at least a motel, but the opposite building was also an ordinary building with shops on the first floor and residences above.

It’s getting close to summer, so that’s fortunate at least. There weren’t many tasks as arduous as following someone and sitting on a building rooftop watching someone in the dead of winter.

To begin surveillance, he needed to know when the target entered and left home. After parking his car in the parking lot behind the building across from Leonard Price’s apartment, he looked for the fire escape stairs.

The ladder was up again. When there were no pedestrians around, he jumped up lightly, grabbed the iron railing, and pulled himself up. It wasn’t a difficult task. He climbed up the fire escape stairs to the building’s rooftop.

Since it was a five-story building, the height of the rooftop was quite good for looking into the apartment. He took out the binoculars he had left in the car and watched, thinking that no one would come up to the rooftop that didn’t even have flower pots.

If he spotted him today, Leonard Price probably wasn’t the culprit. The serial killer committed murders every three days, and today was the third day.

The detective remembered his face. He was an elf with quite a fragile impression. Or rather, an elf whose impression had become fragile. He was slightly over 5 feet tall, which was tall for an elf.

Leonard Price didn’t return home until evening. He didn’t come home until midnight, when the sun had completely set and bars were reaching their peak sales. The lights were on in the house and there were signs of life, but it seemed only his wife and children were home. He made a note of this. Everyone needs to prepare for unforeseen circumstances.

It was only in the early hours of that morning that a car stopped in front of the house. A neat-looking… police officer got out of the passenger seat and opened the back door, from which Leonard Price emerged.

At least three of them. The detective also checked the window on the opposite side of where Leonard got out. He was too far away and it was too dark to see who was getting out of the car, but… he saw a cigarette light. Now there are four.

Had they formed a group? It was still unknown. Leonard Price came up to his house, and only at that early hour did the lights turn on, and he embraced his wife. Unlike the elf embezzler’s family, it was quite a happy home.

The detective didn’t know how to read lips from this distance, but he could tell that the two elves were talking to each other with smiles.

Leonard Price’s complexion had improved quite a bit since the last time he saw him. He had a very healthy and energetic face.

Soon the living room lights went off. They moved to the bedroom and closed the curtains, but a soft light leaked from inside. The detective didn’t feel the need to see more. Tomorrow at dawn, I should follow the car that brought that elf.

The next morning’s newspaper reported that the serial killings had continued. Around 10 PM, someone who had used that brothel had been shot and killed, according to the article.

This time, he died leaning against a wall in an alley. They probably made him put his hands on the wall under the pretext of a stop and search, then shot him. It seems about time this murderer gets a nickname.

While the death itself wasn’t something to worry about, if they were going to do this, they should at least have left evidence explaining why they killed him. Their handling was indeed clumsy.

That dawn, instead of looking into the house, the detective parked his car at the corner of the entrance to Leonard Price’s apartment and waited. The car was at least more comfortable than the hard concrete floor of the building rooftop.

He didn’t smoke. The detective didn’t want to ruin his work because of cigarettes either. Again, a car stopped in front of the apartment at dawn, dropped off Leonard, and departed.

The detective followed. Keeping enough distance so they wouldn’t feel they were being followed, he saw them simply dropping off each person one by one around New York City before finally stopping in front of the driver’s home. Leonard Price had definitely gone to work properly in the morning. It was time to find out when he left the police station and where he was coming from.

Following a police officer during working hours wasn’t a particularly good choice. Unlike random thugs, he would at least know if someone was following him.

Nevertheless, it had to be done. The next day, he continued his stakeout at a cafe near the police station, where a notice saying “Please let us know in advance if you have a shrimp allergy” was attached to the menu, while eating a shrimp sandwich.

Around 4 PM, a police car left the police station parking lot. Though he didn’t have binoculars, he could tell that Inspector Leonard was in that car. Time to follow again.