Ch.274The Eighth Entanglement – Law, Order, and Capriccio (3)

That weekend had a stillness like what the detective experienced in the trenches, and like the night before Rose went to subdue the Forest’s Firstborn.

It wasn’t stillness. Everyone involved in the matter had consciously kept their mouths shut, while the air was filled with the scent of ash. It would be better not to call it stillness.

Nervous? The detective, dressed to blend in with the hired muscle and with a duffel bag prepared, clenched and unclenched his hand. His hand wasn’t trembling.

The job would be handled. It always was. The detective left his apartment at 5:30 AM on Monday. He called his client but received no answer. He had told him to be awake at dawn, but apparently, it had been too much to bear.

He hadn’t expected much anyway. After getting in his car, the detective held a mask from his duffel bag in one hand while gripping the steering wheel with the other, lightly pressing the pedal a couple of times to start the engine. He pushed the accelerator and headed toward the factory.

It would be better to arrive early. Since the union leader had been assaulted the day the detective himself had visited, the security guard would probably vaguely remember his face and voice.

It didn’t take long to reach the factory. He parked his car where the sparse streetlights of the industrial area couldn’t reach. To avoid the eyes of the Industrial Spirit, it was better to aim for places without light.

With the mask tucked into the pocket of his leather work clothes, he double-checked the clothes he’d brought in the tarp. Once he escaped, he would need to change clothes first. Burning clothes stained with gunpowder would be the cleanest way to handle things.

The detective got out of the car with his duffel bag. The factory door was already open, and a small light bulb was illuminating the security guard’s small office. He approached the guard’s office but stood outside the light.

The guard’s head was bowed low, appearing to be asleep. The detective wrinkled his nose. Not asleep. Dead. The smell of blood was strong. Not old. He had lost a lot of blood, even considering his size.

Should he leave evidence of having touched the body to check the cause of death? If there was a chance he could be implicated, it would be better not to touch it. The detective quietly went around to the side of the security guard’s office.

The guard was slumped in his chair inside the prefabricated building, his arms stretched forward. Blood was already flowing from his neck down to his stomach and groin, pooling on the floor.

It was a small prefabricated building without windows, so someone must have approached from the front and stabbed him right in the neck. The blood was still flowing, which meant it hadn’t happened too long ago. There was a possibility of getting involved.

The detective immediately returned to his car. He removed the silencer from his pistol and stuffed everything he had prepared into the duffel bag except for one pistol and a pocket knife. He headed for the back alley of the factory with a bundle of clothes.

Until now, he had needed to look like hired muscle, but not anymore. Now he needed to look like a detective again. He immediately took off his blue work clothes and changed back into his original clothes. He couldn’t get entangled for his client’s sake.

Except for the thick leather jacket, he now looked no different from when he was working as a detective. He put the work clothes he had been wearing and the duffel bag into a waterproof sack and threw it into a large trash can placed in front of the factory wall.

Losing a duffel bag with weapons and a set of work clothes was better than being caught as a suspect by the police. This was what he had to do since Yehoel wouldn’t answer the phone at this hour.

He needed to assess the internal situation. Right now, he was a detective who had received a request to investigate the union situation at the factory. The Continental Adoption Agency had plenty of reasons to investigate unions. He wouldn’t be suspected.

If such a detective found a corpse at the factory entrance, this would be the sensible course of action. He moved in a way that wouldn’t make the police suspicious. He was already following the footprints left behind.

Bringing a silencer meant he had intended to shoot someone, while carrying a gun without a silencer meant it was for self-defense. He also had a pocket knife, but since he hadn’t done anything, there was no blood on it.

The detective entered the factory after creating as many safety nets as he could within two minutes.

At 6:02 AM, before working hours had even begun, the Smith Chemical Factory was eerily quiet. An ominous silence.

He checked inside the factory first. The union members might have sneaked into the factory from this time.

Did the lynch mob I called do something? The detective pondered briefly. It was entirely possible. I told him that the Continental Adoption Agency would back him up.

There weren’t many reasons why someone who was preparing for a strike would suddenly start killing people here. Not many, which meant there were some.

With his gun drawn and aimed at the interior, he opened the door to the locker room that doubled as a break room for the hired muscle. He didn’t step inside. There was a pool of blood here too. The victim was… a dwarf with bandages wrapped around his head.

It’s obvious who that is. And the culprit seems obvious too. Leaving the door open, he turned around. Did someone call him out at this hour and stab him to death? Perhaps they thought they could cover it up with the strike.

He muffled his footsteps to prevent the metal-plated shoes from making clicking sounds as he exited the factory interior. He raised his wrist to check his watch. It was 6:05 AM. It would be better to circle the factory once before reporting.

This wasn’t what his client wanted, but the union leader had already been dealt with, and the angels would naturally try to implicate the lynch mob. That meant he wouldn’t have to do anything, and everything would end cleanly.

The detective briefly recalled his appointment with the journalist. If that lynch mob had really gone as far as killing, it would be right to have him dealt with by the police. The demonic factory owner was the journalist’s prey, not his.

After leaving the factory, the detective circled the premises once. He sensed someone near the back door. Anxious breathing. Probably the culprit. There was no need to shoot him dead right away. If he only had a knife, he wouldn’t be dangerous.

The detective turned the corner of the factory with his gun drawn. There was another fallen man, and a figure standing in front of him. Who was the third victim? The target was probably the union leader.

Killing the security guard seemed somewhat impulsive and rushed. Judging by how the blood was splattered, as if the victim had been stabbed two or three times when once would have sufficed, the killer had originally intended to kill only one person.

Could a worker not know that the security guard arrived at this hour? It was possible. The detective willingly pointed his gun at the standing figure.

“Seems like this city can’t go a day without someone dying. Did you choose dawn to cause a commotion without the Industrial Spirit noticing?”

It was true that the machine of the age knew what was happening on its body, but there wasn’t much it could detect with just touch and hearing. Even the machine of the age needed light to see.

Whoever was standing there had been clever in their own way, but they couldn’t have known that someone not from the Continental Adoption Agency would need to come to the factory at this hour.

The figure seemed unaware that the detective had something in his hand and started running away.

When it came to running, the detective didn’t mind either. He kicked off the ground with twice the strength. The other person seemed to have tried to run too, but they quickly stopped, perhaps due to insufficient lung capacity.

It was quite a funny optimism to think that chemical factory workers could have firm jaws or healthy lungs. The distance between the two quickly narrowed, and soon the detective’s hand grabbed the back of the man’s neck.

His body was pulled in too easily. As his forward-running body was suddenly yanked backward, he made choking sounds as his collar strangled his neck, and he fell backward. The detective raised his gun again.

Since the figure still didn’t seem to see properly, he bent down and placed the gun’s muzzle against his forehead. Normally, it would be better to stay two steps away, but that was only when the other person knew about the gun.

It didn’t take long for the figure to realize what was pressed against his head. He trembled as he raised both hands and cried out as if he were wronged.

“It, it wasn’t me! I, I just arrived late and discovered it, so, well, that’s…”

It was a familiar voice. It was also an expected voice. It was the voice of the very lynch mob the detective himself had called two days ago. The smell of blood emanated from his hands too.

“Try saying something that makes sense. Did you think that once the strike started and this place became chaotic, a union leader stabbed to death wouldn’t even be noticed?”

“The, the union leader is dead? I, I came in through the back door to bring some banners, and, well, I found someone collapsed with a knife wound in front of the back door, and I was just standing there wondering what to do…”

Something fell from his free hand. There was the sound of metal hitting the hard floor and bouncing lightly. The detective mocked him leisurely.

“So you’re saying you couldn’t see that I was holding a gun until I pressed it against your forehead, but you could see someone collapsed with a knife wound at a time when it’s too dark to see? What’s next? Are you going to say you thought they would survive if you pulled out the knife stuck in them? Please don’t say that. I’d rather believe in Peter Pan or Santa Claus than that.”

“I, I didn’t know they were dead, so I tried to pull out the knife first. I, I could see a little with the remaining moonlight…”

There was no reason to implicate the moon as an accomplice, so there was no value in continuing the conversation. Thick clouds were covering the sky, preventing any moonlight from reaching the ground. The detective grabbed the man by the collar.

He picked him up and headed toward the factory’s main entrance, avoiding the pool of blood. The lynch mob tried to resist by grabbing the detective’s sleeve with his blood-stained hands, but he was no match in terms of strength.

It was an abnormal level of strength. However, he feared what the detective was about to do more than the detective’s strength. The detective exited through the factory’s main entrance. He willingly held onto him and headed for a public phone.

During the phone call, the detective lightly grabbed the lynch mob’s neck to prevent him from saying nonsense. He didn’t intend to strangle him or leave scars, just applied moderate pressure. The struggle was only feeble.

Yehoel wouldn’t have arrived at work yet. So he had to report to a regular angel. He dialed the police station number he used to contact Yehoel. It connected immediately.

“Even in this early dawn, the God-President’s blessing…”

The detective made a tsk sound once, cutting off the angel’s monotonous voice. It would take a full minute to listen to that greeting.

“This is an urgent matter, so I’ll cut you off. I caught someone stabbing people at the Smith Chemical Factory. Can you come urgently? I’ve subdued him, so you can come at your leisure, but this cruel man has stabbed three people with a knife. The weapon is also at the scene, so please come.”

Regular angels never casually dismissed such statements. Unlike the chronic frivolity of archangels, ordinary angels were a very serious bunch about everything.

“I’ll come right away for citizen safety. It’s a moonless dawn, so it might take a little time to fly, but I’ll arrive within 5 minutes after locating the position. If there’s someone nearby who can help subdue the criminal, please keep him subdued together. Is it the Smith Chemical Factory, located on the outskirts of the industrial area?”

“That’s right. Please come quickly. I’ll be waiting in front of the main entrance.”

Only after the call ended did the detective release the lynch mob’s neck. Leaning against the public phone booth with his gun drawn, he looked down at the lynch mob. The man looked up at the detective with a suspicious expression.

“Th-that, perhaps…”

So he’s trying to recognize my voice now. The detective decided to brush it off. It wasn’t difficult to persuade someone when holding a gun.

He might be interrogated, but even if there were some injuries on his face, the angels would likely overlook it if he said it happened during the fight to catch the criminal.

“No, I’m not your friend and I won’t become your friend. Got it? It was quite timely that my client asked me to look into the unions. Just before this guy was about to cause trouble.”

From the mention of a client, he would have inferred my profession to some extent. Not many people could assume that a detective and a Continental Adoption Agency activist were the same person. That made it easier to infiltrate.

He tried to appeal one last time. But the blood on his sleeve and the knife he had dropped were making a confession. Confession was stronger than appeal.

“R-really, I just entered through the back door and only saw a knife stuck in that person’s back! But suddenly someone jumped out, and I thought I might be suspected as the culprit…”

“So you ran away with a knife in your hand. That’s convincing.”

The detective intended to remain uncomprehending this time too, and the man couldn’t find anything to refute the detective’s words. He grabbed his head and lowered it, but that didn’t last long.

From the sky, the sound of angels’ wings and police cars rushing could be heard. The man caught by the detective seemed to have lost the will to escape, overwhelmed by force.

He had acted so simply just upon hearing that the Continental Adoption Agency would back him up. The detective suppressed the urge to thank him. He needed to know who the third dead person was.

An angel who flew in first landed in front of the public phone booth. Having rushed out after hearing about a murder case with three deaths, an angel with a halo attached to the back of his head landed heavily in front of them.

The angel in a black uniform looked at the detective, who had blood only on his sleeve. Catching people would be more of his expertise. Especially after hearing how calmly he had reported that three people had died.

But not today. He had just dragged a worker with blood on both hands from inside the factory, and there were traces of resistance. Having quickly assessed the causality, he spoke to the detective.

“I’m Inspector Semangelof from the New York Police Department. Are you the one who reported this?”

The detective didn’t hide his blood-stained sleeve. As if subtly revealing why there was blood on it, he grabbed the lynch mob with that hand and lightly threw him in front of Inspector Semangelof.

“I am the one who reported it. I’m Michael Husband, running the Husband Detective Agency. I came to observe the factory’s situation for a client and discovered this. Let’s go take a look together.”

The angel took out a flashlight. It looked more like a small light used on ships due to its size, but in the angel’s hand, it looked like a flashlight. Other angels arrived around that time.

Inspector Semangelof entrusted the suspect, almost certainly the culprit, to them and entered the factory’s main entrance with the detective. The orc security guard was still bleeding from his neck.

In the break room inside the factory, a dwarf who had been stabbed in the stomach had his face buried in his own pool of blood. Finally, in front of the factory’s back door… a human male was lying face down with a wound piercing his back.

No, that’s not it. Inspector Semangelof shook his head briefly. The knife in the back was just stuck there after the killing. The real wound was on the side. It was a very skillful upward stab.

This was a fact the detective could also discern. Anyone who had used a knife or seen many stab wounds would recognize it. But the detective didn’t pay attention to that fact this time.

Instead, he could now understand why his client hadn’t answered the phone at dawn today. The third victim was his client.