The Mark Of Cain 03

By the time Albarino and Olga arrived at the Westland Police Station, the milky white sunlight had once again streamed into the streets. The police station smelled like a mixture of convenience food and bad coffee, with the smell of exhaustion spilling out from bodies. The word "desperate" could be tasted on the tip of the tongue as they entered the office building.

The two of them came to deliver the autopsy report to Officer Hardy. The body with many, many types of scars took Albarino five hours. Bates had returned to the CSI lab with a dozen bags of evidence; they wouldn't see him for a while, unless he could actually find identifiable fingerprints on those pieces of cloth.

Now, the entire police station was stuffed with officers who hadn't rested all night because of the newest Pianist case. Albarino and Olga had each bought a vending machine sandwich to fill their stomachs on the way in, and now the cold crust and tasteless peanut butter still seemed to be firmly stuck to his upper jaw.

He had to admit, even at his age, he was a little light-headed after standing under the astro lighting all night with a lack of sleep; Officer Hardy, who was walking briskly toward him, looked worse – his eyes were bloodshot, and the shadows underneath them spread as threatening[1] as the pools of blood at the crime scene.

[1] 张牙舞爪, lit. bearing teeth and claws, idiom meaning threatening

"Al," he said in a booming voice; how energetic he was. "What have you got?"

"The killer removed the victim's heart, then stuffed an apple between his ribs and sprinkled a handful of wheat in his abdominal cavity." Albarino said as he shoved the report in his hand into Officer Hardy's. The photos would later be passed to the station by Bates. The poor guy took the bloody little grains of wheat with him too; hopefully he still had an appetite today.

Olga gracefully picked up where he left off: "He's chosen some interesting props, though I haven't understood why he chose them yet ... Perhaps nothing more than a straightforward statement about scarecrows? Guarding the orchards and the wheat fields? – I haven't figured out exactly what they mean yet, but yes, this looks like the case of the Pianist."

No, Albarino noted in his mind, his choices for apple and wheat were metaphorical in nature, to be used by the Pianist to make a point – which, though uncertain at this point in time, could be a verdict on the crime committed by the deceased.

It was a type of cold arrogance, putting himself in the position of God with the power to judge others, but quite fitting according to the serial killer's profile by the profiler.

But he didn't speak about his own opinion. He wouldn't be crazy enough to rush to conclusions before a real criminal psychologist; otherwise how would he face the questions? "Hey Al, can you tell us how you speculated on the inner workings of this killer's mind?" "That isn't difficult, because I can see things from the perspective of a psychopathic killer."

Forget about it. He laughed out loud mockingly in his mind; watching others misinterpret the work of another serial killer could really be a condescendingly pleasant experience.

"I don't see this whole thing as 'interesting'." Officer Hardy looked at Olga rather disapprovingly, and if Olga were one of his men, she might have involuntarily started apologizing now.

"That's because you and I don't see things from the same perspective." Olga replied, beaming.

Albarino did not want to be trapped in a pointless discussion between the two of them about morality. If there was nothing else that interested him today, he would rather go home and catch up on his sleep after delivering the autopsy report. He had to switch his morning shift with someone else because of what happened that night.

"Any more developments on your end, Bart?" So he inquired, trying his best to sound rather indifferent.

"We're recreating the trajectory of Norman's activities before he was killed. We have contacted some of the people who had contact with Norman before he was killed, hoping they can give us some leads." Officer Hardy nodded. This was probably the main reason he looked so exhausted, "They're taking statements now. Would you two like to come and hear them?"

The entire police department dealing with the Westland Pianist looked so spent, and for good reason: after all, in any sense, Big Norman – when Albarino called him that nickname in front of Officer Hardy, who reminded him with a grimace that the other man's name was Richard Norman – was a tyrannical[2] gangster in Westland City.

[2] 作威作福, abusing one's power without consideration for others.

This meant that basically all of the people he had been in contact with before he was killed were all gang members. It was not easy to persuade these people to come to the police station to make a statement. When Albarino followed Officer Hardy to the interrogation room, he saw the witnesses, who looked like they were not to be messed with, waiting to be questioned one by one.

Most of them were tall, well-dressed men with tattoos on their arms. The Norman Brothers' gang was a Latino mob, as such many of them had foreign faces. Squeezed in between these guys, who were obviously thugs, were two unruly dark-skinned girls, and ... a well-dressed man in a suit?

The contrast was a little too obvious, almost like there was a bloody human brain in the midst of a pile of coconuts – forgive his unflattering analogy. Anyway, Albarino witnessed the man, in what was presumably a hand-tailored suit or some other type of high-end clothing, standing calmly between a group of foul-mouthed guys who murmured curse words under their low voices, only to glance down at his watch every now and then. He looked like he was a bit impatient.

He was a quite handsome looking middle-aged man with neatly groomed blond hair interspersed with silver strands. He, somehow – seemed mean; his thin lips, and the combination of his light-colored complexion, irises and hair probably gave off the illusion.

"There's a gentleman who looks out of place." Olga followed Albarino's gaze and commented leisurely. "With my experience of blindly picking answers for multiple choice questions during my training at Quantico, I'd pick him as the killer."

"Olga!" Officer Hardy chided disapprovingly.

Olga gave an uncaring smile and quickly followed the other two. Albarino also wanted to laugh a little, but if he did that Hardy would have been seething in anger[3], so he tried his best to hold back.

[3] 怒发冲冠: lit. hair standing up in anger, tips off one's hat, idiom meaning seething in anger

And the interrogation process was, as Albarino thought – very boring. This time the witnesses who were brought in had contact within twenty-four hours before Norman's death, who were basically all of Big Norman's minions.

Most of them scoffed at the question, "What enemies does he usually have?", because apparently as a gangster, Big Norman had enemies everywhere. Hardy himself did not expect this question could help them find any leads, it was just a necessary process: he had already decided that the killer was definitely the Pianist. It didn't make sense to ask about Big Norman's enemies; Hardy obviously neither thought the killer would be one of these witnesses, nor thought the killer would be the dead man's enemies.

To this day, they still did not know how the "Westland Pianist" chose his prey.

But during the interrogation, one person received extra careful attention from Officer Hardy – that person was Big Norman's brother, the other leader of the mob, Thomas Norman.

"Mr. Norman," Officer Hardy asked cautiously, pressing his hands onto the desk and folding them on top of each other into a steady tower. "Where were you (formal) between eight and twelve o'clock last night?"

"With my girlfriend, the one just waiting outside for questioning, with dark hair and extra large breasts." Thomas Norman said, smirking, and made a frivolous gesture, "What, Officer? Do you suspect me of killing my brother?"

Officer Hardy stared at him. "You're not very sad about your brother's tragic death."

Thomas Norman pulled the corner of his mouth up and gave Hardy a menacing grin: "Not surprising, is it – I know how you cops handle your cases and I know what you're going to ask. So let me get this straight: yes, my brother has quite a few enemies; for how many properties we own, we have that amount of enemies. But there are those who will tell you that his biggest adversary is me."

"Are you admitting to me that you and your brother don't have an amicable relationship?" Hardy raised an eyebrow.

"If you ask anyone else, they'll say so anyway." Thomas Norman shrugged, uncaring, "My brother's a coward, Officer, and you know we've been having some disagreements with... others lately on some issues."

Officer Hardy grunted: he knew about that "disagreement". That had led to a gang fight between different factions three weeks earlier involving more than fifty gangsters; in broad daylight, those bastards who had used up hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the streets.

"Are you saying that you're responsible for the shooting three weeks ago?" Hardy raised his voice.

"No! I'm not." Thomas Norman laughed out loud, "I'm saying we had some bad blood with our 'business partners'. My brother, who handled things in a very reckless and weak manner, was going to destroy our business– So if you ask about 'enemies', some people will surely tell you that the relationship between us two has been bad to the point of incompatibility[4]; they will tell you that we quarrelled, threw things at each other, and threatened to kill each other."

[4] 水火不容, idiom, lit. As incompatible as fire and water

Hardy looked at him quietly, "But?"

"But, I didn't kill my brother." Thomas Norman stood up pretentiously and straightened his cuffs, "Of course, I'm still quite happy that dear Rick is dead. Isn't the most self-aware part of being human the ability to die at the right time? – Now, if I'm not under arrest, I've got to go to deal with some... you know, business issues. If you have more questions, our family's lawyer happens to be on your witness list, so you can just talk to him."

The guy winked at Hardy and smugly and proudly walked out.

"Cocky bastard."

– Outside the one-way mirrored glass of the interrogation room, Albarino was watching the scene of questioning happening inside. He commented in a low voice.

"He's not the murderer." Olga shrugged and said quietly. "Look at his smug look. He's a self-centered egomaniac at best. He's certainly not a good person, but he's not a psychopathic killer like the Westland Pianist either. Of course, if the deceased hadn't died at the Pianist's hands, I'd be the first to suspect that it was him who sent people to kill his brother."

Albarino nodded in agreement as he pressed his fingertips against the cold glass and watched Hardy, who was already extremely exhausted, call the last person in. The questioning had yielded almost no results. None of them noticed where Richard Norman had gone and with whom last before he disappeared, and none of them found any suspicious people by Norman's side.

Hardy's own tiredness was showing from his slightly bent spine in his posture, but when the last person came in, he quickly sat up straight.

The last person to enter was the man in the meticulously tailored suit, and now Albarino knew why he looked so unkind: because he looked like the kind of asshole elitist lawyer who obstructed law enforcement, straight out from the television – an asshole elitist lawyer who fit the stereotype perfectly.

Look at the facts now; he had bad taste in his clients.

The seemingly courteous-looking guy sat across from Hardy, looking like a shiny flaw in the simply furnished interrogation room. Hardy's eyes skimmed over the files in front of him and asked, "Mr. Armalight, how long have you been a lawyer for the Norman Brothers?"

"About five or six years since my firm opened." The lawyer replied, leaning back slightly, settling back into his chair. He even leisurely put on a slightly polite but cold smile.

"Oh." Olga whispered.

"What's wrong?" Albarino couldn't help but ask.

"I remember who he is. His name is Herstal Armalight; I've seen him several times before when I testified in court." Olga frowned, sounding a little bit thoughtful. "Bart certainly wouldn't like this person. The cops would say he's a rather annoying guy, the typical kind who sells his conscience for money – if he even has one – and his clients are always defendants standing on trial, mostly gang members. The selling point of his firm is that they do whatever it takes to get his clients off the hook."

A mob lawyer, Albarino grunted softly; an industry that was quite developed in Westland City. After all, this city had one of the largest numbers of gangs in the country. There were countless lawyers who risked being stabbed in the back by rival gangs, assassinated, or get hit when they're already down[5], to get their clients out of jail with their glib tongues[6]. While many righteous people found this line of work disgraceful, it did make a lot of money.

[5] 落井下石, idiom, lit. throw stones at somebody stuck in a well, meaning to hit a person while they're already down

[6] 巧舌如簧, idiom, lit. have a tongue like a reed (instrument), idiom meaning that someone who has a glib tongue

Albarino had little sense of justice – if he had any, he would have chosen his hobby differently – and he had no moral qualms about mob lawyers. It was just that he felt the other had no taste in picking his clients.

After all, not all gangs were as refined as the ones in the Godfather movies. Most of them made their living from dirty businesses like drugs and prostitution, some gangs developed from prisons that are full of violence and sodomy, and some gangs – needless to say, just look at Thomas Norman's conduct. Dealing with him must be very troublesome.

But other than that ...

Now, the lawyer was saying, "I had an appointment with him at around three o'clock in the afternoon... No, I can't tell you exactly what we had been talking about; it's a principle of client confidentiality. Unless you can come to my office with a search warrant–"

Apart from that, the lawyer's tone was, as a matter of fact, very low and pleasant, with a resonance similar to that of a string instrument. Albarino's fingers unconsciously rubbed across the glass, clean enough to not exist, at the spot where the other's cheek was located.

It must have been the long years of lawyer work that gave the other man's face this cold, detached sharp color. A coldness that curled up in the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and between eyebrows, resided on his unsmiling lips. Albarino had a sensitive taste towards the word "beauty", so he had to say: the lawyer himself had a handsome face, but the toughness emitted from his whole being buried this handsomeness, like a sperm whale swallowing plankton in the sea.

The consequence of that was, perhaps the lawyer Armalight did look imposing, but it made others ignore his looks; when he came close in proximity, people would pay their full attention[7] to deal with him, in fear that this person would make you a victim of his unscrupulous game.

[7] 打起十二分精神, lit. pay twelve parts of attention to something

This lawyer, perhaps was troubled by this sort of thing, or at least this trait has affected his life: he didn't have a wedding ring on his finger, and probably only had a bunch of colleagues who mutually deceived each other[8]. He could not open his heart to anyone. In terms of his personal condition and wealth, it was probably a big pity.

[8] 尔虞我诈, idiom, lit. you hoodwink me and I cheat you

– His eyes, on the other hand, were quite a bright azure blue, so blue it was almost ironic.

Albarino thought... Perhaps, when such a person closed his eyes, when his soul flew away from his shell, people could finally ignore his own temperament emitting from his nature. When his haughtiness and life were completely extinguished in the most terrible and irresistible way, the audience could really look at his face without the meaningless evaluation of character, and the boring instinct to seek out the advantageous things and avoid those that brought him harm.

Neglecting beauty was definitely a crime, and Albarino Bacchus never minded helping people to open their eyes.

"Richard happened to mention to me that there were no additional arrangements for that evening, in which case he should have stayed in his own private villa ..."

The blond hair of Mr. Armalight was intermingled with a fair amount of silver hair, glistering in the bright lights of the interrogation room. He was clearly a clear-cut representation of the kind of "mature men" most girls would like. Albarino stood in the unlit hallway and wondered if the color of those strands of hair would fit with a background of white textured plants.

Heart-leaved cowslips and white lobelias, "Diamond Frost" euphorbia, white summer snapdragon. The empty heart from the merciless body should be replaced by a bouquet of lilies as irony, or daffodils: a metaphor of Narcissus. The corpse, with faded ghastly white skin, would be lined with the twisting branches of silver ponyfoot, as his coffin and hibernating bed.

– Under the moonlight, all of it would seem as if it was covered in frosty white in the dark, looking like a glittering moonlight garden.

He stared at the other man's face for a moment, then thought this idea, which suddenly flashed through his mind, was surprisingly good. The other's lips opened and closed, and Officer's Hardy's pen had already jotted a number of lines of notes in his notebook. Obviously, Albarino did not listen to a word of that.

Of course Albarino would want to kill the lawyer he had only met once. For a man like him, that was no surprise. In fact, he was that kind of person – he did what he wanted, whether that was changing sexual partners to his heart's content, or driving a car that was far too flamboyant to a crime scene for a forensic pathologist, even saving or killing others; these were all the same.

But no, he couldn't – he was good at dealing with the sudden visit from the gods of inspiration. One always had a vigorous desire to express oneself at this specific time, but he couldn't. The incident of the Westland Pianist killing Richard Norman had not come to an end; he had to teach that condescending[9] murderer a lesson before he could begin to carefully conceive his new work.

[9] 目中无人, idiom, lit. seeing no one in one's eyes. Arrogant, condescending, describing a person with their nose in the air

Waiting was a virtue, too. Rushing to start one's work always ended in misfortune.

Albarino silently made a mental note of this Herstal Armalight in the notepad of his mind, the second item on the to-do list.

As for the Westland Pianist – he had a plan in mind.

Author's Notes

1. Quantico: in this story, it refers to the U.S. FBI National Academy in the U.S. Marine Corps Base, in Quantico, Virginia, which is the site for FBI agent training.

Additionally, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is also located in Quantico.

"The harmonious daily life mini theater for psycho serial killers"

Al: I think you are suited to join my artistic creation.

Herstal: ?

Al: Because I guess you are more good-looking dead than alive.

Herstal: ???