Chapter Fifteen - Watkins the Tormentor

  I had many questions, and all of them went along the same line. Watkins, that douchebag, had to be behind these things. Why do I think that? Well, aside from him being a massive prick, Detective Roosevelt was his personal detective and right hand – I doubt that a dignified individual like him would go to that harbor on his own volition. Even then, I still do not know why he was there. Regardless, I needed to find out that reason, and also why there is someone hiding key knowledge to MC-13. In my long years as a detective, never have I thought that the grounds for investigating would be the building of the DPD itself. It is rather comical, knowing that wool is being pulled over my eyes by my own allies.

  “Watkins! You swine – why did you send Roosevelt to his death?”

  The confrontation was on, and I was determined to get the answers I am looking for right from the source, in his very office where he sat.

  The chubby director glanced nervously from his computer. “Ah! Detective Vince Capleaf, what brings you here – unannounced and uninvited?”

  “Cut the bullshit, I know you got Roosevelt killed – all because you interfered with my case!” I accused him.

  “What are you insinuating…?” He feigned ignorance.

  As he always did, he spoke in the slowest and most painful pace imaginable. It made this conversation especially hard to hold, because it allowed for my rage to boil over a longer period of time. And his manner of speech and exaggerated gestures are not the only factor to that – this absolute tool is actually pretending to not know what happened to his closest colleague.

  “Detective Roosevelt died two days ago at Good E’s – the place where I was headed to investigate! Why did you send him there?”

  He looked at me with a pained expression. “Look, Vince, there are some things that… are not within your understanding.”

  “Of course there are! I am sick and tired of you as a whole! Not only are you the least likeable and hideous person I have ever met, but now you have the audacity to tamper with my case – when you yourself assigned it to me?”

  His only way of replying to that was his dumbfounded face, which somehow still retained enough dignity to hold some authority. It took every single cell in my body to not deck this guy in the face.

  He rolled his eyes after a moment. “Vince, calm down – I’m sure we can talk this out calmly.”

  “Then, fucking, talk.”

  “I know that you are upset, but you are in no position to be talking to your superior like this- “

  “You cretin! You lost that privilege of being my superior the moment you decided to hide things from me.”

  That’s right. Watkins must be the insider – no one else but him would have access to classified information on a case like this. Not only that, but his guilt is already slipping through his flimsily made defense.

  “Vince, please, sit down and be calm about this.”

  Screaming at him endlessly won’t achieve anything, so I obliged. “Go on, tell me why you thought it was necessary to get Roosevelt to go to a place where a rampaging killer was.”

  He wiped his sweating forehead. “Vince, I don’t know what you want to hear from me.”

  “Do you want me to repeat it? If your third grade listening comprehension isn’t enough, maybe I can write it down for you, hmm?”

  “If I understand this correctly, you are saying I sent my right-hand man, Detective Roosevelt, to die?”

  “Bingo! Do you want a cookie for that brilliant show of deduction?”

  He seemed as if his soul was drying up. I will not be letting him wriggle his way out of this, I need the answers more than ever, and if he has any, I will shake them out of him.

  He let out a deep sigh. “I am afraid that I have no clue what you are talking about. Please leave my office, now.”

  What a funny joke. Is his plan to deny any and all existence of what he did two days ago? If that is the case, maybe he should start with putting Roosevelt’s badge off the table.

  “Please – if you think I am that gullible to listen to you, you wouldn’t have given me that trophy this year. Now, be a good boy, and tell me what you did with Roosevelt. That badge on your table is sticking out like a sore thumb.”

  He frowned, and then continued while slowly putting the badge in the desk. “I assigned Detective Roosevelt to a simple investigation of a case I am working on.”

  “Hah, you still work on cases? What are the chances that your case ended up in the same exact place as mine did?” I heckled him maliciously.

  His jaw visibly dropped. “What? Are you telling me… you actually made progress on MC-13? Incredible, Vince.”

  “How many times did I mention ‘my case’ already? Save the ass-kissing for later, now tell me what you know.”

  His demeanor changed to a more sincere one. “No, you don’t understand. If you actually put a dent in that thing, then…”

  His speech stopped, as if he had to take some time to calculate the rest of it. But it seems like I got somewhere by telling him that. Perhaps he would care to admit to his wrongdoings?

  “Unbelievable. To think that you got so far in such a little amount of time – you really are a miracle worker, Vince. No one but you would reach to this extent.”

  “Are you actually surprised, or are you just spinning lies like the vermin you are?” I mocked him, somewhat confused of his behavior just now.

  “Then, I do have something to tell you about that day, about Detective Roosevelt’s death. And with it, my part in your case.”

  As he slowly regained his composure through more accolades, I knew that his next words would be even less believable. Luckily, in that perfect moment, Sylphie barged into the office, holding the final nail in the coffin that is titled ‘Jonathan Watkins’.

  While I was busy arguing with this troglodyte, Sylphie was actually assigned a special task of retrieving Roosevelt’s note from the evidence room. We needed it in this intervention so that Watkins would tell us the truth, filtered from any of his filthy lies.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  He gasped. “T-that note! You devil– “

  “Sylphie says ‘hi’, Director.”

  She slowly shuffled over to where I sat, pretty much triumphing over Watkins with each of her tender step. In her hands, she held the exact thing we needed – the note of Detective Roosevelt. And on her face, a grin that shook the whole corpulent body of the director displayed itself proudly.

  He shrieked out at Sylphie. “You! That note was supposed to be- “

  I interrupted him. “Save your words, for I cannot handle any more of them. Let the note do the talking.”

  Sylphie handed me the note, making sure to do it as slowly as possible to drive that sight into Watkins. As for him, I saw the horror welling up in his eyes as he realized he was done for. No amount of description could accurately capture the fright bursting from both of his large round eyes. He was going pale and reddening up at the same time. In our perspectives, he started to look more like an oil painting than a living person.

  I unfolded the note and began reading it out loud.

  “To whomever this note may concern,

  I, Detective Roosevelt, have been assigned by Executive Director Jonathan Watkins to a mission quite like no other before. This note serves to express my deepest doubt regarding this decision, and also to question the authority of the director himself.

  Jonathan Watkins has instructed me to go to the Misult City harbor to scout a particular warehouse that you may have found this note in. His decision seemed haphazard and most illogical, and so I desired to make my amends with him in this last message.

  If you found this note, continue with the notion that Jonathan Watkins is responsible for my death as a result of mismanagement, or putting his own benefits in front of ours.

  In these last few days, the director became filled with anxiety regarding the infamous case that Detective Vince Capleaf has taken on, MC-13. I believe that this mission from which I may never return, took shape from the vestiges of Jonathan Watkins’ deep paranoia.

  Please, do with this information as you will.

  Roosevelt”

  It turned out that it was more of a letter than a note, but it certainly hasn’t failed to amaze. This is exactly what I needed to hear and see to make Watkins quake in his boots. That letter brought me back to the cases I worked on with Roosevelt. Just as that message was written, that is how he operated. Punctually, fluently, and straight to the point. It is a real shame that a valiant detective like him had to perish at the hands of a criminal scum, and also Watkins.

  “Sylphie thinks that the Director should admit his guilt,” she said, gazing straight through him.

  What our solid accusation resulted in is the man before us making a wide variety of bodily sounds in a sick cacophony of despair. We both watched in anticipation as he frothed, seethed, and salivated over his table. It was a very grotesque scene depicting a man at his breaking point. But, for the sake of the investigation, and for the sake of everyone’s sanity at the precinct, Watkins the Tormentor shall be broken.

  “Am I right to assume that you admit to getting this hero killed? Or are you just doing this for fun right now?”

  No response. He kept howling and gasping, extending the already comical scene even further. I did not know if I should be laughing, be concerned, or be glad. Either way, this is a sight worth seeing.

  He finally uttered some words. “Ugh, that demon...!”

  I couldn’t tell exactly what he was referring to, but he seemed to focus his attention to Sylphie. I suppose he is just seething that she brought the note to me before he could destroy it. However, I still needed him to talk, more precisely, I needed him to show me the information about the hidden clues. His guilt is pretty much proven, but what remains is to find out why he did what he did.

  “Watkins, hate to interrupt you, but you still need to tell us why you did any of this,” I said in a sarcastic tone.

  He gurgled for a moment before replying to me. “Vince, you – you! To think that you would fall to- “

  “Alright, I didn’t ask for an essay. Tell me why you did it, why you sent Roosevelt to the warehouse.”

  He watched me with eyes full of anger, still frothing at the mouth. “I am not telling you… you have no right to be doing this!”

  “Quite the opposite, actually. I have the means to make you talk. If you don’t tell us your reasoning, we’ll just have to make do with your hidden file on MC-13.”

  He audibly gasped, now visibly frightened. “h-how, do you know?!”

  “Shut it. The point is – I do know, and you might want to start spilling the beans, because my patience is running out with you.”

  There is only one thing I need to get him to say to end this foolish interrogation, and it is that he is involved in MC-13 in some way. Watkins was quite literally incapable of forming a coherent sentence in his current state, and so I had to help him out.

  “Watkins, you have ties to the perpetrator behind MC-13, there is no other way for you to have reasonably done any of this.”

  Given that we had to hear his word, we could only wait for him to return back to a normal functioning person to do so. Both me and Sylphie stared at him, the man who was still in the middle of his raucous episode, not paying a single thought to the world around him. It seemed to take several minutes for him to calm down, and in those several minutes, I started thinking about what could have made him this agitated. I know that this pig is a horridly choleric individual, but not even he could be reduced to a state of this ineptitude.

  Finally, somewhat coherently, he spoke. “I-I… cannot say.”

  “Dammit Watkins! How many- “ I stopped myself.

  Is he trying to claim blackmail? Even though he said nothing of value, that single jumble of words he sounded provided a most plausible theory. Watkins is a cowardly scumbag, however, even he, in the past, had something to prove that he was a detective. There is a certain reason he became Executive Director, and it could very well relate to his past before I even became a detective.

  He mumbled some more. “I-I will not say anything, b-but… you can take that file. Promise m-me to never disclose what you did today.”

  “What’s in there?” I ask, kind of interested.

  “Take it, and l-leave. The s-safe is open. I don’t want to hear f-from you ever again,” he pointed towards his safe.

  Sylphie interjected. “Sylphie will retrieve it for you, Detective,” and headed straight to it.

  Watkins cried out. “N-no! You must- “

  “Shut up already! Watkins – you feeble excuse of a man, stop fucking yelling like a baby and accept the sound of the noose tightening around your neck.”

  He was very distressed, but I could not gather why exactly. If the blackmail thing is really true, then it could be possible that this file contains information on the Flawless himself. This means that Watkins has done something with MC-13, and I am excited to find out what.

  “Now then,” I spoke towards him, “it is time you finally get some of that ‘divine retribution’ as they say.”

  “Y-you can’t mean…!”

  “The Statute of Disapproval.”

  This was my method of finally getting rid of Watkins. It is a statute that states that the detective precinct can decide to proclaim disapproval of its director, and thereby remove him from the position of a director. If a majority of the detectives agree on its signing, it will immediately become of effect. There was never a time when this was needed, but in order to do the DPD a favor, I think it is high time to finally put it to use.

  “You can bet that most of the detectives a floor below us would be eager to sign this thing. You are not exactly a god-given leader to us, and we won’t miss you or your incessant bitching.”

  Watkins began his usual ordeal that I have gotten accustomed to, his frothing at the mouth and wailing like a fallen-over baby. Luckily, Sylphie returned to me in that moment, holding the file in her hands.

  “There, Sylphie has confirmed the file’s contents,” she happily informed.

  “Thank you, Sylphie. And thank you too, Watkins. You may want to start packing your bags already.”

  With my closing words to Watkins, we turned our backs to him and began walking out of his pompous office. We got everything we came for, and a distraught Watkins as a bonus. This day could not have gone better.