Chapter Seven - The Thought Process

  Maybe I am going too fast about things. It has only been two days, and I am already finding myself in vain. I have decided to pay a visit to Penrose Park, a lovely garden not far from the precinct. I used to go there whenever I couldn’t wrap my head around something, and that place would always help me during the worst of times.

  There isn’t anything extraordinary about the park, in truth, it is as standard as a park gets. A few luscious trees, your typical wooden benches right next to trash cans, and a large pond for the local duck populace. What I value about it is that it is peaceful – no one will come up to you to disturb you in any way. Except the ducks, those will disturb you as much as they can. Regardless, today is a very sunny day, warm enough for me to shed my trench coat in a good while. Without it, it feels like a part of me is missing. During all of these years, I have had only one – it feels like a crime to not be wearing it.

  Right now, I am not a detective. There is a lot to be discovered in MC-13, and I do not have the right mentality to process it. Even if I tried, I could not continue. As a detective, a mindset is everything. It doesn’t matter if you found the greatest clue one could ask for if you won’t know how to deal with it. As for my case, I know nothing about what will happen.

  The progenitor of MC-13 – what kind of a person is he? I am saying “he” as that is what Sylphie claimed he is. My knowledge only covers everything about the Face, however, Sylphie knows something more than that. I can see the tracks they left behind, the scenes they made. From the common view, it all seems pointless. Even as a murderer, why go through the trouble of killing your victims in such a profuse manner? More than pointless, it is redundant. The asphyxiation method applied takes a long time to perform. A human brain takes approximately five minutes to suffer damage from a lack of oxygen – is that not precious time in the middle of a murder? Perhaps I am thinking too grounded, too simplistically. Maybe it isn’t about efficiency, despite the number of bodies made.

  If that is the case, if the mastermind truly does not care about gain, who am I really dealing with? A murderer? A maniac? It is hard to tell – none of it makes sense to a passerby. This person has been killing for many years now, always leaving behind the same scene. That goes beyond mindless killing. It is coordinated and premeditated, and the goal is too fragmented for me to understand. Linda Miller mentioned a “magnum opus” – could that speak of something? The Face definitely carries out the will of the mastermind, the motives should be identical in that case. A magnum opus is a phrase referring to the perfect piece – a flawless creation. Hm, flawless. Thinking about it now, I have only been playing in the hands of a perfected criminal. I have not reached beyond the grasp of the towering shadow above me. I am but a marionette, dancing by the strings the puppeteer manipulates.

  The Flawless, I shall call him. A title fitting for one so bereft of flaws. Truthfully, I know nothing, nor will I ever understand anything regarding him in the state that I am. His motives are beyond humanity, and his methods are beyond reason. And it fits, too – the man has yet to make a mistake, it seems. Back at Trelton Hotel, everything went according to plan. The Face successfully ambushed Howard Ritter, and then left with no confrontation. Just as it was many times in the past, the Flawless left behind no trace that could lead back to him. The cunning criminal even has someone else to do his work for him. The scope of this case needs to be answered. The case file read: one hundred seventeen counts of serial murder, plus the one from yesterday. A hundred eighteen murders in the span of three documented years. That is about one murder every nine or ten days. There is no way a human could be this deranged to do such monstrosities. It confirms the theory of multiple people even further, as no one has the capacity to do that much. It is unthinkable, rather, it shouldn’t be real.

  The Flawless has dedicated his life to serial killings. Three years of the same action almost every week. Not only that, but there is also no visible benefit for doing that. Most killers tend to kill because of said benefits. It is also those killers that then get caught effortlessly. However, this case is different. There is no benefit, and the criminal behind it is unpredictable. For this, I ask the question – how do you proceed from here?

  I am not at the stage where I can act before the killer, I can only follow his trail and hope it leads somewhere. However, a criminal aware of his trail can tamper with it, and make it lead to false directions. In this case, I was left with only Linda Miller, a lead that only led to more questions. There is also Sylphie Moore, my Assistant Detective who seemingly appeared out of nowhere to aid me in my hunt for the Flawless. It feels like I am trapped in a cage and laughed at for amusement.

  There is only one thing I can do, and that is to hope. Hope that I can encompass the entirety of the case into a proactive mind. The Flawless is, well, flawless, and I have to think of him that way. I cannot assume that a mistake will be made on his part. A perfect criminal does not operate like that, they will go through many different options and determine the one with the least casualties. Instead, I have to think better, act better. I have to perfect myself in order to meet his match. I have to be the Flawless in order to apprehend the Flawless.

  That is not the whole truth, unfortunately. Me reaching the same state as him will only lead to a stalemate. It would result in an endless goose chase that will take years to finish. How can I beat him, then? In my years as a detective, the job was always simple. Track down the culprit, find evidence to their doing, and deliver justice to them. But now, and with all the other mind-boggling cases of the past, the job is different. I cannot progress without understanding everything. If I forget one thing, an entire branch of possibilities becomes lost in an instant. There is no room for error. None.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  A harrowing possibility came over me. Failure, and the notion of losing. I would lose everything I came to have and then sink even lower than ever before. My career would end, and I would lose the reputation of being the best detective. All that, just because of expectations I could not meet. Wherever I am, it is expected that I succeed. The moment that rule of thumb fails, the whole system falls apart. The people will relish the day that Detective Vince Capleaf gets dethroned, and I fully accept that. I am not a good person, nor did I ever try to be one. I am a detective, and enemies are a given. I am a good detective, and envy from others is a given.

  In the middle of my rumination, I was interrupted by a person standing in front of me. I was glancing at the floor at a low angle, so I only saw the details gradually from bottom to top. White boots, white trench coat, and a delicate face wearing glasses, with white hair on the top of all that.

  Her voice spoke out to me. “Needy, inane, and truly slothful.”

  “Faust. How do you keep finding me in the most random places?” I was surprised by her ability.

  “I have a sixth sense for your tendencies to not do what you are supposed to be doing. Today, that is you not being at work, it seems.”

  “Give me a break. I did enough today, I went to investigate Linda right after I left your lab.”

  “And that is valid reason to not go to the remaining four hours of your job?” She berated.

  Four hours? A quick glance at my watch revealed that it is now ’14:02’, meaning that I have been sitting here for approximately an hour and twenty minutes. It appears that I was deep in my thoughts for quite a while.

  Faust continued her barrage of words. “Regardless, I had to be an errand woman for you yet again. A letter for you - here,” she handed me a normal-looking letter.

  “A letter? From whom?”

  Her reply only resembled an agitated grunt, followed by pointing at the letter in my hands. Faust is not much of a talker, and when she does, you would rather have her silent.

  As I inspect the letter, I find that there is no sender, only a recipient. I used to receive many fan letters back when I still tried to keep up a good public appearance, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

  “There is no sender on this, where did you get it?”

  “It was on your door, quite literally on it, as in taped to the door.”

  “So you’re telling me you leave that lab of yours sometimes?”

  “When I have to do your job – yes,” she mocked.

  “Well, thank you either way. Whoever sent this doesn’t understand the postage system of our country, I suppose. We use mailboxes here, this barbarian probably doesn’t know that.”

  As I unravel the contents of the letter, I grow surprised. There is only a sheet of paper with a single sentence in the center of it.

  “Your presence has been made. We will be watching with our watchful eyes.”

  What is this? Someone must be playing a prank on me. That is what I would have thought if the message wasn’t so sinister and specific.

  Faust glances at my letter. “That is unusual.”

  “It sure is! Who the hell would send something like that?” I cried out.

  Is this MC-13? Is the opposition declaring that they know about me? If that is so, then they are working quick. It’s only been one day since my appearance, and they already got information on me?

  “Faust?”

  “Doctor Faust,” she corrected.

  “This might be correlated to MC-13. No one would send such a cryptic message for no reason.”

  “Is that a fact? Or perhaps a demented hypothesis?” She kept mocking.

  “If we go by the assumption that it is related to my case, then the man behind it got in touch with me in less than a day. Is the postal service even that fast?”

  Faust gave me a concentrated look. “It certainly isn’t, you are correct to assume that.”

  “Now that I think about it, it is Saturday today. The post office is closed.”

  This letter is more peculiar than initially assumed. The Flawless is aware of my existence, is that what the letter is trying to say? I have a hard time believing that this is from the man behind everything. He pretended to deliver a letter on a Saturday. Not only that, but the crude method of delivery just screams that this isn’t from the killer. This just isn’t how the Flawless operates.

  “This is but a sad excuse for impersonation,” she posed a theory.

  “I don’t think it’s impersonation. MC-13 isn’t a publicly disclosed case. No one should know about its existence.”

  She sighed. “What did you get yourself into, Detective Vince?”

  “Beats me,” I shrugged in response.

  Out of all possible things this letter could signify, out of everything happening around me right now, this is yet another element of surprise.