Ch.281The Eighth Entanglement – Law, Order, and Capriccio (10)

# A Chance to Set Things Right

The detective snatched the glove. Inside remained strands of Noll’s fur. The bright beige color characteristic of the Nolls brought by the Matriarch was blindingly vivid.

“For a species that sheds so helplessly, you manage to work as an operative quite well.” The detective put the glove into his waterproof sack containing his belongings and tossed it in the opposite direction from where he had entered.

He rummaged through the remaining trash cans a bit more. He needed to make it seem like he hadn’t come with a specific item in mind. Being in contact with such foul odors was always arduous, but it was a hardship he was willing to endure.

After searching the back alley for quite some time, the detective walked out to the front of the factory where Inspector Semangelof was waiting, wearing an expression suggesting he’d found nothing. He shook his head at the inspector’s questioning look.

“A case where there’s really nothing but trash in the trash cans. Damn… I really need to rest, Inspector Semangelof.”

The inspector clicked his tongue, not even properly understanding what was happening. He actually viewed the detective as a very diligent and ideal operative. Perhaps that was an accurate assessment.

“That’s why I told you to go in and rest earlier. Whether that guy is the culprit or not, we’ll find out, so just give your testimony properly. Go on in.”

The detective got in his car and took a wide detour to the back of the factory. He retrieved the waterproof sack he had thrown earlier and returned to his apartment.

While someone was trying to uncover the untraceable details of a murder case, someone else was working to ensure those details remained untraceable. Their work always ran in parallel like this.

But this time, there was a point of intersection. The detective planned to do one good deed before planning a murder. He seemed to have been more habitually helpful to others in the past.

The detective returned home briefly and called the reporter. She was a woman who couldn’t write anywhere except at her apartment where her typewriter was.

The connection tone rang exactly three times. Rose, who now answered calls quite quickly, picked up the detective’s call. The detective spoke first to confirm.

“Did you get back safely?”

“I did! Thanks to you pretending not to know, Inspector Semangelof doesn’t realize he’s falling into a trap… Or rather! He doesn’t see that his trap is falling into an even bigger trap!”

After properly confirming the reporter’s voice, the detective passed along information. It was admittedly rather amusing information, but it would at least serve as a compass.

“I have one piece of good news and one piece of bad news… I’ll tell you in order. That guy is not the culprit. I’m certain. But, I can’t give you any information except the information that I can’t give you any information. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I suppose the information you found wasn’t obtained through legal methods?”

She had now reached the point where she could properly understand and respond to the hints the detective dropped to test her. Watching the trust relationship they had built shine, the detective nodded briefly.

“That’s right. And because of how I obtained that information, I’ve got more work to do. That bastard may be an assailant, but at least he’s not a murderer. Do you think you and your lawyer can handle this?”

Rose wasn’t anxious. If she believed she was helping the right person, she wouldn’t regret it at all and could ignite her will without hesitation. It was something she had received from her father.

“We have to! I can’t let an innocent person be made into a murderer just because I might not be able to handle it. Besides, even if you were here, Michael, wouldn’t you have tried to manipulate me as usual?”

“Well, if you call it manipulation, last time with Congressman Edward Collins’s death, you didn’t even blink before publishing that story. You went ahead and did it. Think of this as something similar.”

The two would now run parallel to each other, but running parallel meant that whenever they looked to the side, they could confirm the other was running alongside them.

Rose spoke while twitching the tip of her ear. She looked like she might get sucked right into the telephone. Paulina, watching her lean heavily against the phone, let out a slight chuckle.

“How long are you going to bring that up! Actually, I agonized over that quite a bit. Even though that person was bad, I wondered if he deserved what happened to him… This time is the same.”

“And how long are you going to try to prove to me how much you’ve grown? We have better things to say to each other now. Let’s try to finish this before Christmas without getting indicted if possible.”

The first change Rose noticed in the detective was that he no longer added phrases like “Do you understand?” or “That’s it” whenever he told her something. It was an acknowledgment that she would understand what he said.

That had now become a suggestion to finish before Christmas. It reflected trust that she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by the mild deadline imposed on the work.

Though it was a promise for the future, it also showed faith that she would remember not to focus solely on tomorrow’s stakes while forgetting today’s hand, lest she lose all her cards.

So Rose responded not like someone talking to a person she had a crush on, but like someone looking at a compass. Perhaps he was her North Star.

“Alright! Since you need to eat well for Christmas, don’t get shot in the stomach! Paulina’s generosity gets even bigger during holidays. And look forward to today’s evening newspaper!”

The detective would start moving today, but the reporter would begin tomorrow. Things would start when Inspector Semangelof gathered enough evidence and called that half-Ogre lawyer back to the police station.

He emptied the contents of the waterproof sack, but these items couldn’t be used to catch the mafia. What he needed immediately was a knife with a reasonably long blade. If it was sharp, he couldn’t ask for more.

The detective suddenly turned his head. Since it wasn’t time for a client to visit, he could see the knife block in the kitchen through the wide-open curtains. That operative was large even among female Nolls.

The detective did have a pocket knife with a fairly long blade, but it wasn’t a good tool for killing a Noll as big as Giuseppina. He had a separate knife for such purposes.

Rising from his seat and approaching it, the detective drew out Sol Invictus’s gladius, which he was using as a can opener. Despite being carelessly inserted, the blade wasn’t damaged at all. It was abnormal.

It had just enough weight that a single upward thrust could easily split a Noll’s belly. There was no better knife for creating the two wounds like those the Noll had left on his client.

He pulled out a box he had stashed in the closet, given to him by the Divine State along with Sol Invictus’s gladius. Inside was the scabbard Sol Invictus used when wearing his sword.

No fool would believe that in this beautiful 20th century, someone would use a war god’s gladius for assassination. The detective naturally attached the scabbard to an empty spot on his holster suspenders. It fit perfectly.

The weapon cannot be deduced. Only one person knows my motive—the Noll branch manager who passed information to me—and she won’t reveal my identity to the Matriarch, if only to avoid getting caught herself.

So it will take about a week. Even Congressman Edward Collins, who traveled with seven bodyguards, could be killed after that much preparation time. A Noll without bodyguards would obviously be simpler.

The easiest place to kill someone was definitely a bar. It would be even better if she was the type to roam all over New York looking for good bars.

The more information you gather to kill someone, the harder it becomes to kill them. Once you start knowing which grocery store they use, how many times a week they ride a bicycle, or what gear they set the acceleration lever to when driving, someone who can’t be killed quickly becomes someone who can’t be killed at all. But when the client died, it wasn’t like that.

The detective began tailing her from that day. He had to dive in headfirst. He recklessly waited in his car on Fifth Avenue for the Noll to come out of the Nolls’ restaurant and then followed her.

Her lifestyle was quite simple. She went to bars every day. Generally, she started by having aperitifs and digestifs at the Italian restaurant run by the Matriarch’s Nolls.

Afterward, she usually went to The Last Plank. She would start pouring rum down her throat and end her daily routine with the Orcs’ elixir, as if trying to show off how well she could drink.

On Wednesdays, she headed to a more glamorous place. As a Noll who distinguished between male and female like other races distinguish between men and women, she never flirted at Bouton de Rose. She tried to maintain her dignity.

The fact that she went to Bouton de Rose showed she had such desires. She wanted to embrace all the women she desired, but as an operative directly employed by one of the two Italian Noll Matriarchs, she couldn’t behave that way.

That Noll had quite good instincts. During the detective’s surveillance, she would occasionally turn her head to find who was watching her, or had a habit of looking around when sitting in a bar. But she couldn’t find the detective.

He was perhaps the last piece of an unsolvable puzzle, the final challenge in a hidden picture game tucked between pages. Even a Noll with good instincts couldn’t distinguish a face among the million in New York.

Understanding more. Figuring out more. It was around this time that Paulina received Inspector Semangelof’s summons to the police station. He had quite confidently called for Paulina.

He must have either found or fabricated evidence. Paulina still needed to hold the high ground. She brought Rose along to create an environment where the angel officer over 7 feet tall couldn’t properly rough anyone up.

Although she was now defending that assailant, Rose was still her employer, so the fact that Paulina could bring Rose along as an observer was a great advantage for her.

Despite having spent only two days in the holding cell, the client looked quite haggard. They must have tormented him thoroughly to make him slip up. They even called such things investigative techniques.

This time, proper evidence was presented. The first things pushed forward were three blood test papers. They seemed to have tried to determine whose blood was on the assailant’s clothes.

“Let’s first check the new evidence we’ve found. Something quite decisive came up. Most of the bloodstains on his clothes were indeed human. It was so clear we didn’t even need to distinguish it.”

Inspector Semangelof placed three pieces of cloth with reagent drops in front of Paulina. The first piece was soaked with blood, suggesting it was probably from the clothes the victim was wearing when murdered.

But there wasn’t just one piece of cloth. A small droplet of blood embedded like a red pattern in the center of another piece of cloth clearly showed it was Dwarf blood when the reagent was sprayed.

Inspector Semangelof, having confirmed this fact with Paulina, spoke quite politely. He now had his chance. That was certainly true.

“Although the Orc guard was cleanly pierced and the perpetrator fled before blood could spray, so no evidence remained on the clothes, there was still Dwarf blood. Quite a lot of it. The blood must have splattered after stabbing with a knife and lingering nearby. The droplets were so small that applying the reagent was quite troublesome. So doesn’t this mean our suspect is at least connected to the deaths of both victims?”

Paulina naturally presented her defense logic. Since her conversation with the detective, Rose had developed a great belief that this assailant was innocent, so Paulina could think a bit faster.

A lawyer had to speak confidently and loudly. A client who felt cornered would easily consider how to confess and make a plea bargain.

“The victim died from an upward stab to the side. Well, I don’t know if you’ll accept this as evidence… but when stabbed that way, blood droplets don’t scatter on clothes like that.”

They had simply used a cloth piece with a few drops of Dwarf blood deliberately sprinkled on it. If blood had splattered when using a knife, it would naturally spray visibly—such small droplets were unnatural.

It was obvious they were doing everything possible to send the case to prosecution with an indictment recommendation. Compared to police trying to pass the case off simply, Paulina couldn’t handle the prosecutors alone.

Despite his evidence being immediately refuted, Inspector Semangelof continued talking as if determined to push through. He seemed to think it was quite conclusive evidence and even handed a photo to Rose.

“Moreover, as you said, I looked through the victim’s belongings to see if there was any record that could prove your client’s alibi… and found quite an important clue.”

With those words, Inspector Semangelof placed a notebook on the interrogation room table. Carefully holding the pages open with the tips of his spread wings, he opened to seven pages from the back.

“Monday, December 8, strike planned at Smith Chemical Factory… Meet with pre-selected personnel before 7 o’clock,” was written in neat handwriting. It matched the writing of an Industrial Union activist.

“It seems true that the Industrial Union tried to handle things quietly for whatever reason, as your client said. But isn’t the timing strange? The meeting time was said to be around 7 AM, but the suspect was already at the factory at 6. And checking around, there wasn’t a single banner in sight. Do you perhaps know the activist’s other contact?”

He had believed the Industrial Union’s help would be with him, but if they recommended someone else as the new union leader, it would create a significant wound both practically and to his pride.

Inspector Semangelof pressed hard on this point. He spoke in a voice that seemed to coax the suspect. This time he sounded genuinely gentle.

“This is in the realm of reasonable speculation, but that contact was probably the original union leader. The union history of Smith Chemical Factory really… makes people unable to trust each other. Don’t you think? I’ve never seen factory workers lynch their own union leader before. If that’s the case, everything connects.”

The Orc guard died because he was a guard, but now there was a more substantial reason for the Dwarf union leader’s death.

He didn’t kill the Dwarf union leader simply out of grudge. It was obvious that if the Industrial Union reinstated him as union leader, he would be cast aside, so he struck first.

When the motive and reason were sufficient and sensible, very minor details—like wounds that looked as if the knife had been pulled out, contrary to those left by someone skilled with a knife—could be packaged as mistakes or intentional actions.

Inspector Semangelof had already laid out before them, like his gleaming golden fist, the fact that it was sufficient to send an indictment recommendation. He would be charged with first-degree murder and illegal strike conspiracy.