Ch.314Case File #231 – Staten Island Murder Case (1)

One day in early August 1916, or rather, it didn’t really matter which day. The stifling heat that had begun in late July continued to simmer through the city as if it would never dissipate.

The city was perhaps quiet. Or perhaps not quiet. You could see red-skinned devils filling the streets, waving flags emblazoned with the peace symbol—a three-legged stick inside a circle.

The dwarves added their voices to the anti-war movement. They were blocking the war fever by talking about Prime Minister Monroe’s policies and how close Germany and America were. They still appeared to be German.

On the opposite side, you could hear elves and humans shouting about the sinking of the Lusitania and the countless other ships still being sunk, about German submarines destroying American property.

Despite all the shouting, the city could still be called quiet. That’s how New York was to an exile. He wasn’t a particularly urgent exile. He simply had no interest in spending his retirement watching war unfold.

His homeland maintained neutrality. But neutrality was a compromise with war and simultaneously a compromise with the obligation to peace. He understood it was unavoidable, but at the same time, he could no longer love it.

Being in the Old World itself had felt sinful. But he hadn’t realized that coming to the New World would make him feel like he had fled. That was the extent of it.

Willem woke up feeling something he couldn’t tell was guilt or simply the lingering unpleasant sensation created by the heat. His mornings were always similar.

Breakfast was simple—a couple of biscuits and a cup of coffee. He spent considerable time grooming his beard. He combed back his increasingly white hair neatly, as if not caring about it, but plucked out the most visible ones.

With that, the gray-haired detective’s daily preparations were complete. Finally, he pulled out a black revolver from a wooden box rimmed with gold.

The grip of the gun clung to his palm as if grasping it. A small notebook kept with the revolver recorded the number of bullets fired last time.

Last time he had fired four shots. Willem held the revolver and pushed in two bullets, then skipped one chamber before filling the cylinder.

The seventh shot was always unlucky. It was one of the few flaws of this cursed revolver he had bought for a pittance from an antique shop.

Just as he finished arranging the bullets, someone knocked on the door of his small detached house. The knocking was insistent, demanding he come out quickly. The sound came from quite high up. Probably an angel.

They were like works of God—beautiful, yet created without consideration for movement, like works of God. They were the police of this country, known for their gruff demeanor and inefficient handling of matters.

It would be better to commit a crime in America than in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, Willem had been a police officer, but in America, he was merely a police investigation consultant.

Willem rose from his study, wearing a rather rough suit with patches on the elbows, and headed for the front door. With the revolver tucked into his waistband, he opened the door. As expected, it was an angel.

The angel was quite respectful to Willem, but made one mistake. It was minor, so Willem simply corrected him instead of taking offense.

“New York Police Department. Are you William Strasen, private investigator and police investigation consultant?”

“If you don’t mind, I prefer the continental pronunciation—Willem Straessen. The exile procedures aren’t even properly completed yet. Come in. Let’s hear what this is about.”

Willem was not the American-style detective that police could no longer work with—violent, gun-toting, and chain-smoking. He was thoroughly European. The angel ducked his head and entered his house.

The interior was quite modest. The old wooden furniture gave off a pleasant woody scent, and the house, located where sea breezes could reach it, reminded Willem somewhat of his homeland. It was that kind of place.

The angel, who didn’t shed a single drop of sweat despite the heat, walked over and sat across from Willem. Without producing a case file, he handed over a single document with a somewhat gruff expression.

“First, this is an official request for cooperation from the New York Police. Strictly speaking, the Straessen Private Investigation and Police Consultation Office isn’t a detective agency. I’ll need your signature first.”

Those fellows who call themselves detectives but only do union busting have made things difficult once again. Willem picked up a pen and signed the document the angel had presented. Only then did the angel speak.

After confirming the signature, the angel tucked the cooperation request into his breast pocket and spoke in a still gruff but somewhat regretful voice.

“Mr. Lawrence Carter, who manages several farms on Staten Island, was murdered last night. It appears he was killed while sleeping in his bedroom. Only his wife was home that day, and there were no signs of forced entry. Most importantly… he was found stabbed repeatedly with a knife, but not a single drop of blood was found in the bedroom. We have no way of figuring this out, so we’re requesting your help.”

If someone was killed in a house with only his wife present and no signs of intrusion, suspecting the wife would be the first course of action. But what man would marry a woman capable of killing him cleanly without leaving a trace of blood?

Willem had received a new puzzle. First, he needed to see what pieces were available, like turning over the puzzle box and shaking out all the contents. He needed to fumigate his mind first. He liked that expression.

Willem picked up his old tobacco pipe made of meerschaum, carved with the image of a ship and sailors, and slowly drew on it. After waiting for the smoke to curl, he took a deep breath and exhaled.

“First… what kind of person was Lawrence Carter? A large farm owner on Staten Island. This country has rather unpleasant memories associated with the term ‘plantation owner.’ Was he that kind of person?”

The angel understood the metaphor. A fallen angel. Willem made a clean conclusion. Ordinary angels didn’t understand such expressions, but fallen angels who had learned about humanity could understand metaphors.

It might be strange to call it a fall. Those angels had simply learned what humans desire and dislike, and had begun to use human-like cunning.

“I believe so. There are many unsavory rumors about him—using thugs in the process of acquiring several farms, and particularly before acquiring the Phillips farm, there was a mysterious large fire that killed the couple and their two daughters… He was a man with many bad rumors. He must have made many enemies, though not many of those enemies are still around.”

A lamentable situation. Perhaps one to be wary of. Someone had cleanly disposed of a man who had eliminated most of his enemies, without leaving a drop of blood.

If there was a grudge, it was a very deep one. People are neither born nor made to kill others. To stab someone repeatedly suggests hatred strong enough to overcome that instinct.

But someone with a grudge against such a person… wouldn’t they stop killing after this? This might be an expression of long-accumulated hatred rather than just murder. But for now, it was murder.

It might be foolish to try to understand the intentions of someone he’d never met. Willem took another puff of his pipe and spoke.

“That’s what Lawrence was like when alive. What about Lawrence in death?”

“It seems the killer stabbed him repeatedly even after he died instantly from a knife to the throat. The weapon was a hunting knife that Mr. Carter kept in the house. There was no blood on the knife either. The most important question is where the blood disappeared to… There were no vampires living nearby. Besides, drinking that much blood would be a burden even for vampires.”

Like overeating for humans. Vampires were quite a refined race. That’s what Willem understood. The refined sometimes fear fullness more than hunger.

And the weapon used was from inside the house. Was it impulsive? It doesn’t make sense that someone who legally entered the house impulsively picked up the owner’s knife, stabbed him to death, and then disposed of the blood.

The homeowner was attacked while sleeping. Who could naturally enter the house at that hour? Perhaps the homeowner’s child, but then why would a child kill their father?

Deductions requiring more than two assumptions are generally wrong. Magical infiltration seemed most likely. Willem wasn’t the type of detective who went to crime scenes.

And Willem immediately thought of certain people when it came to magical infiltration. People who carried the word “detective” in this place.

“Is there any possibility that Lawrence had a conflict with Blingkerton, or that someone with a grudge against Lawrence hired Blingkerton? If Blingkerton was involved, we could certainly determine the method of entry. It might be better to check if any of the people who lost their farms to Lawrence were vampires. It would be too much for one vampire to drink that much blood, but several could manage it.”

The angel looked through the case file for a moment and nodded. He seemed to have found something. He showed Willem a thirteen-year-old case record.

It was the case file for the Phillips family fire. There were four victims. Two parents and two daughters—an entire family died, and the bodies were burned so completely that no traces remained for identification.

According to this case file, if Lawrence Carter really caused this incident, perhaps he deserved to die. The youngest victim, Gemini Phillips, was just eight years old.

And importantly, Gemini Phillips’ mother, Charlotte Phillips, was a vampire. More precisely, she should be called a vampiric human. They were people, not monsters.

“The Phillips family were the only vampiric bloodline in that area. But… they all died without any survivors, and there were no other connections, so it’s better to remove them from the list of suspects. If you have no more questions, shall we go to the scene? Since there wasn’t a single drop of blood, it didn’t take long to process the scene.”

Willem didn’t like crime scenes. It was just a personal preference. Perhaps in the world there are people who search for evidence by examining crime scenes and rummaging through trash cans, while others solve cases using only their minds.

“We do have one witness. Tell me about Mrs. Carter. What kind of woman is she? What kind of person? How did she seem to you personally? Science finds evidence, but people recognize people. I already knew you were not an ordinary angel but a fallen one. So we can talk, can’t we?”

For angels, being fallen was quite shameful. Just for having human emotions, for knowing good and evil and knowing shame, they felt guilty like ancestors who once did.

The angel kept his mouth shut for quite some time. But perhaps compromising for the sake of solving the case, he quietly opened his mouth.

“She was no different from other wives whose husbands had been murdered. Crying loudly saying this couldn’t be happening, clinging to the angels asking who could have done such a thing. But, looking into this woman who is the most likely suspect… there was something strange. Nobody knows her. There are no records of her at all. We don’t even know where she came from.”

“No records? That means she never worked, never went to school… was never anyone’s neighbor, was never even born? That’s impossible. Unless you’re trying to arrest Lawrence Carter’s imaginary friend, that’s absolutely impossible.”

Moreover, while Lawrence Carter might be dead, his wife was perfectly alive. To not know what life a living person had led… was difficult to understand from any perspective.

The angel also began to speak openly as if troubled by Lawrence Carter’s wife. Now that his fallen status had been revealed, he seemed to have nothing to hide.

“To be precise, there are no records of her before her marriage to Mr. Carter. She claims she attended certain schools and worked certain places… but she seemed uncertain about these details. And there was something else strange… her reactions were too generic. In other words, it was as if… she was acting the part of a grieving widow. I wonder if the wife hired someone to do it. That’s what I think.”

Willem wasn’t fond of investigative questioning, but after hearing that, it seemed he couldn’t handle everything from his armchair. Willem picked up the case journal.

How many cases was this now? Right, 231. A multiple of 7. The seventh was always unlucky. Willem hoped this one would be different. He couldn’t remember who he was hoping to.

In fact, it didn’t matter who. What god would ignore justice, what god would let criminals go free? In that sense, it truly didn’t matter.