Ch.275The Eighth Entanglement – Law, Order, and Capriccio (4)

Things are getting messy again. The detective thought with a familiarity as natural as heading to Bar Two Face in the evening. With the client dead, there would be no payment.

Only now could the detective see the wounds on the client’s body. The wound on the back was fake. Someone had already inflicted a fatal injury elsewhere, then forcefully stabbed the knife into the back afterward to make it visible.

Examining the wound’s depth, it was quite deep. Not at the level of an Argonne Invincible, though. The detective knew exactly what stab wounds made with double strength looked like. The lynch mob member the detective had seen was rather weak.

More importantly, the wound went from bottom to top. Amateurs would have gripped the knife like an ice pick and stabbed downward. Stabbing upward indicated skill.

The perpetrator might not be from the lynch mob, but it was impossible to be certain. With a heavy enough knife, and in darkness where one couldn’t even see who was on the ground, delivering one powerful thrust would be simple.

Besides, even as a worker, he was born in the back alleys. Someone from the streets who led lynch mobs would naturally know how to use a pocket knife. It’s just that now, things weren’t so clear.

The detective could now see things that hadn’t seemed important when hastily piecing things together for the client. Above all, it was frustrating that all the work done over the weekend might be for nothing.

Inspector Semangelof, who had been staring at the detective for quite some time, cleared his throat. His voice betrayed suspicion about why the detective had been looking for so long.

“If you’re not planning to conduct an autopsy here, please tell me where the weapon might have fallen. Do you have any relationship with this victim?”

Would it help to say the victim was a client? The detective stood up. There was no time to think further. After pointing to where the lynch mob member had fled, the detective spoke. That was all the time there was to think.

Revealing the truth would be more beneficial than lying. Not revealing the truth would make the detective just a witness and third party, but admitting to being hired by the victim could provide additional information.

“I apologize. The person lying there is my client. We can discuss the details of the assignment later… The weapon is over there. I caught someone fleeing in that direction, so it should be around the corner of the factory.”

At this, Inspector Semangelof set aside his suspicions. One way or another, the detective looked like a seasoned professional despite being young, and such people rarely stabbed their own clients.

So it must be the worker the detective had caught. The security guard was obviously killed to facilitate the break-in. Judging by the amount of blood spilled, he had been stabbed multiple times for a quick kill.

It made some sense that if the man who hired the detective to investigate them had tried to enter the factory, they might have drawn a knife in anger and stabbed him during a confrontation.

As for the skill with the knife… that’s just how people from the back alleys are. Inspector Semangelof drew his own conclusions. Either way, the story made some sense.

The two walked toward the corner of the factory, where they found signs of a small struggle and a knife on the ground. It was a pocket knife, though with a longer blade than usual—not meant for self-defense.

The black leather handle was quite sturdy and large, and unlike typical thin pocket knives, the blade was long and thick to match the handle. With something like this, even that worker could have stabbed downward with his full weight.

The knife was soaked in blood all the way to the handle. Most of it was probably the orc’s blood. The orc security guard had bled profusely, so it must have gotten covered during that process. The deduction flowed smoothly.

Inspector Semangelof lightly flew up and called other angels. He carefully picked up the thick pocket knife, which had few clean spots to hold, and placed it in a paper envelope. There was no smell of magic.

Mana is a catalyst for all reactions. If magic had been involved, there would have been some alteration to the knife or blood, but not this time. Without magical interference, evidence generally told the truth.

Other angels began bustling around collecting evidence. The detective consciously avoided looking toward the trash can, keeping his gaze natural. What had been hidden shouldn’t be discovered.

The detective had initially said that watching this factory was the assignment. In the current situation, this civilian professional would know more about the case than the police.

Inspector Semangelof called over one of the angel officers. Both were quietly making plans for their own purposes.

With the client dead, the detective had already taken a loss. All that remained was to extract from this situation before incurring more damage. But running away and abandoning everything wasn’t an option.

If a detective failed to discover anything when a client died during an investigation, it would damage credibility. It would make potential clients nervous, so staying close to the police was necessary.

Inspector Semangelof wanted to cover this matter simply and definitively. Since Sacco and Vanzetti had been caught, people tended to view police with suspicion when they arrested workers.

Soon, a stern-faced angel officer flew over. Standing before the two who had moved away from the crime scene, he saluted Inspector Semangelof lightly.

“You called for me, Inspector Semangelof. We were proceeding with our duties while you were with the witness, but is there a problem?”

Inspector Semangelof spoke with uncharacteristic gentleness. He was quite a stern angel, but he could only maintain his gruffness and dismissiveness when the situation allowed. That wasn’t the case yet.

“No, there’s no problem. I just thought it might be better to offer our witness a warm cup of coffee in this cold weather. Could you bring one?”

“Hot beverages help stabilize the mind and facilitate clear statements. I’ll go right away.”

This wasn’t employment, but police using a detective’s information to build their case would violate federal law. After getting rid of the principled officer, Inspector Semangelof sighed once and said:

“Now that prying eyes are gone, you should be free to speak. Since your assignment was to observe the factory, you must know who the victims are… Can you help with the investigation?”

Yehoel was asking for information to handle the case easily, and Inspector Semangelof was asking out of concern for future complications. The lack of threats made it obvious.

If he had intended to cover up the case, there would have been no need to get rid of an uncorrupted angel with the excuse of getting coffee for a civilian professional. The detective carefully weighed options.

Revealing details about the assignment violated principles, but the detective had clearly told the client that if he died, the assignment would be canceled. So it wasn’t breaking a cardinal rule.

Moreover, by staying close to the angels under the pretext of helping with the investigation, the detective could observe while the angels would essentially spoon-feed all the evidence that might have been missed while pretending not to be involved.

So the detective decided to help willingly. Both parties carefully tipped their scales, resulting in a handshake. The detective spoke leisurely.

“The orc who died in the security office was obviously the security guard, and the dwarf who died in the employee lounge/changing room was the union leader. He was a company-sided union leader, and my client was… believe it or not, someone from the Industrial Union. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, a union leader backed by the Industrial Union had joined the company union, so they asked me to look into the factory situation.”

The detective slightly altered the content of the assignment in a way that wouldn’t put a knife to their own throat, but it didn’t hinder helping with the case. That was what the detective had been doing anyway.

Inspector Semangelof slowly wrote down the information. The only contradictory part would be that someone from the Industrial Union hired a detective… but that could be verified soon enough.

Their goals were the same: avoid suspicion while handling the matter cleanly. The detective wanted to avoid the angel’s eyes, and the angel wanted to avoid people’s eyes. The detective continued:

“Originally, that dwarf was a union leader backed by the Industrial Union, but he got caught up in some unsavory rumors, and several union members assaulted and denounced him. So the union leader joined the factory owner’s side for revenge, and the Industrial Union hired a detective because the union they had helped establish was fractured and the leader had switched sides. And the suspect you arrested was one of those assailants.”

The most important information came last. Inspector Semangelof wrote down the details about the suspect. If he had previously assaulted the union leader, and that union leader had been established by the Industrial Union… the possibility was sufficient.

The security guard would naturally side with the factory owner rather than the workers, so he would have been attacked. If the union leader had joined the factory owner’s side for revenge, there would be justification in calling him a traitor.

In fact, beyond justification, it was obvious how much that dwarf with a plausible grudge would have tormented the assailant, so there would have been personal resentment too. Dwarves never forgot grudges.

For now, they assumed the last victim was indeed from the Industrial Union. Then there was the possibility of a worker killing an Industrial Union person with his own hands… Inspector Semangelof slowly spoke:

“Was there ever a time when someone discovered you were investigating the factory? You know, like making eye contact while watching from outside a window, or them seeing you reporting to your client somewhere. You don’t seem like that kind of detective, but… it would make things simpler.”

The detective had only properly met with the client once, in the detective’s own office. And since the assignment wasn’t about investigating, there had been no reason to make eye contact with the assailant.

However, detectives typically lied about such matters. To hide their incompetence, they would claim their work was perfect but circumstances turned bad.

While the detective knew their own work quality, from Inspector Semangelof’s perspective, the detective was just another professional he’d never met before.

Well, then the only options are to tell the truth, or to tell the truth extremely well. My job always gives me so many choices. The detective spoke:

“What detective would admit to making mistakes when asked such a question? But I mostly communicated with my client by phone, and the only time I met him was at my office, which is more than a 30-minute drive from here. And you know as well as I do that there’s an Industrial Spirit King, so sneaking into the factory for investigation wouldn’t work. I used cleaner methods.”

With those words, the detective handed Inspector Semangelof a business card for Husband Detective Agency. The address was indeed quite far from this factory area.

It would be better to think this detective hadn’t made mistakes, but that still left the question of why the assailant had stabbed and killed someone from the Industrial Union.

If he didn’t know that man had hired a detective, the Industrial Union was absolutely on the workers’ side. To kill someone on his own side with his own hands… Inspector Semangelof spoke first:

“I don’t understand the motive. Did he really stab that man too because they ran into each other as he was trying to escape after killing people, and he was afraid of being caught?”

The detective briefly shook his head. The client’s back had a deep stab wound made with full force from both hands. There would be no need for such a demonstrative action when dealing with a witness.

“You saw the wound on his back. It would be a miracle if someone fleeing who encountered an unidentified person managed to properly stab them in the side, let alone leave a knife embedded in their back in that situation.”

It would be more normal to take the knife. So perhaps he was frantically trying to pull out the knife when they encountered each other? The detective pondered briefly, but the figure he had seen was definitely standing.

If he had been trying to pull out the knife, he would have been kneeling or at least bent over. He was standing there with the knife already pulled out, looking confused.

He might have encountered someone immediately after pulling out the knife, but it didn’t make sense for someone who had methodically killed two people to tremble on the spot after killing a third. There was a threshold for guilt.

Uncharacteristically doing work like a radio detective, the detective sighed once. It was better to stay close to the angel even while doing such work, so the detective didn’t show it.

If the assailant was truly the culprit, the law would handle it; if not, the detective would have to handle it in their own way. Until then, it was better to help this police officer. There might be a reward.

The only clues were the words the assailant had spoken when the detective caught and reported him. He had definitely said he saw the knife embedded in the back. He might have actually seen it.

If he had mixed blood from a species with particularly good night vision, seeing objects well at night would be common. And people always spoke from their own perspective.

“Ah, he definitely said that. He claimed he only came to put up a banner, but saw someone fallen with a knife in them, and was just trying to pull it out. I don’t think that’s true, but he might really have good enough night vision to see a knife embedded even in that darkness. So, he only realized it was someone from the Industrial Union after killing him.”

That would explain why he was standing there hesitating with the knife drawn when the detective saw him. He had only meant to eliminate a witness but had ended up killing someone from the Industrial Union, his own backing.

But this wasn’t a satisfactory answer for Inspector Semangelof. Still, seeing some possibility, he asked:

“Why is that important?”

“Who would think a worker would stab someone from the Industrial Union, the workers’ greatest ally, in the back? He probably thought leaving a wound like that, as if leaving a trophy, would avoid suspicion. The only problem is that he made eye contact with me before he could pull out the knife and escape. Doesn’t that make some sense?”

“Some sense.” An important phrase. Neither the detective nor Inspector Semangelof had an explanation beyond “some sense.” The result of both their deductions was uncertainty.