A Confession For Persephone 02

"The gunman's name is Mark Jones." Officer Bart Hardy said, now that the office building had been cleared out and they were standing in the mess inside the police line. The injured employee had been taken away by ambulance, and there was now a large patch of drying blood left on the floor. "He had a bit of a disagreement with that employee of yours, didn't he?"

Herstal, one of the owners of the A&H law firm – his partner, Mr. Holmes, was now on a business trip to Europe and couldn't help with this sudden mess in any way – was standing next to Officer Hardy.

Both he and Albarino had stayed behind to make statements. There was another forensic pathologist and crime scene investigation team working at the crime scene, but both Olga and Bates were nowhere to be seen; apparently it wasn't necessary for these elites to show up for a shooting like this.

"That was probably more than six months ago ... but I don't think that qualifies as a disagreement." Herstal recalled, frowning slightly. "Six months ago, Mr. Jones' daughter was prosecuted for armed robbery, and Davis from our firm – the employee who was shot – was acting as the defense attorney for the defendant. The evidence in that case was clear. There wasn't much to say, so Davis pleaded guilty for Mr. Jones' daughter in order to get a lesser sentence for the girl."

"Did Mr Jones disagree?" Albarino asked.

Herstal pulled out his eighth grunt in response to the question. "Jones thought his daughter was forced to commit the crime by that boyfriend of hers at the time. He wanted Davis to plead not guilty, but obviously the jury wouldn't see it that way – in the end Jones' daughter only got three years in prison, which was the best result we could get."

"Even if that would have caused Jones' dissatisfaction, it wouldn't have led to the consequences it has now, would it? Besides, you did say that it was six months ago." Albarino asked in a completely confused tone.

At that moment, Hardy's phone rang; someone had sent him a message. He looked down at his phone for a while, then said, "I know why: Mark Jones's daughter died."

Albarino said, "Huh?"

"She died in a small riot at the women's prison. A total accident which happened a week ago." Hardy said.

"That explains it: the despairing father couldn't accept his daughter's unexpected death and had to blame all of it on my staff. He wouldn't take any responsibility for her death himself anyway." Herstal said coldly and stiffly, not trying to hide the hint of disdain in his voice.

"Anyway, that's all we need for the statements for now. From what I've seen, there's not much suspense in this case." Hardy said flatly. Half of his mind was probably still hung up on the cases of Sunday Gardener and Westland Pianist, so he was very reluctant to take this case on. He waved his hand and asked the officer on the side who was writing down the statements earlier to show the clipboard in his hand to Herstal. "Please take a look at it. Sign at the bottom if there's no problem with that, and we can leave."

Herstal took the clipboard and the pen in the officer's hand. He frowned after writing only one letter: "This pen is out of ink."

Albarino grunted absentmindedly, grabbed out a pen from the pile of paper on the desk next to them, then tossed it to Herstal: "Here."

Herstal raised his right hand and caught the pen nimbly with a clear snap, much more agile than he was at dodging the bullet. Albarino stood against the desk, watching with a half-smile[1] as he signed his name on the transcript and returned the clipboard back to Officer Hardy.

[1] 似笑非笑, idiom, resembling a smile but not a smile

Interesting. Albarino digested every move this lawyer made in his mind, filing them away to separate categories.

This crime scene was simple and the details were clear. Now that Hardy's officers had documented almost everything they needed, Albarino watched them take down the police line – Tommy had been texting him using many[2] emojis with unknown meaning, asking why he hadn't come back to work yet. This was embarrassing; he had thought he'd make it back before the end of his lunch break.

[2] 好几天, lit. many days. exaggeration.

Just at that moment, Hardy's phone rang again.

Being a detective was always busy – maybe for Hardy, it was "so busy that he was drained both mentally and physically"; understandable, since he was assigned to two serial killer cases which had never been solved before. He picked up the phone with a serious look, and then it became more and more grave as the other unknown party spoke.

"It's not that simple," he said to the few people present after hanging up the phone. "Mr. Armalight, did you know that the employee of yours, Davis, also has a daughter?"

"I've heard of her; she's like eight or nine years old?" Herstal frowned. He could already make a rough guess as to what was going on. "What happened to her?"

"Our officers tracked down Mark Jones. He didn't panic and fled all the way to Mexico after shooting someone else." Hardy grimaced, clearly anticipating a haggard amount of work in the future. "He somehow found his way to Mr. Davis's house – obviously, he stormed into the other man's house and kidnapped Davis's little daughter."

Albarino thought for a moment and said, "Before Jones shot him, he shouted to Davis, 'You will suffer the same loss as I had'..."

"Unfortunately," Herstal nodded, indifferent, "what he expressed was obviously a literal threat."

Eventually Albarino hurried back to the Forensic Bureau, nearly an hour late for his afternoon shift, but still having to endure Tommy's incessant concerns. Tommy was an enthusiastic young man; too enthusiastic, in fact.

"I didn't think you could even go out for lunch and encounter something like this!" Tommy yelled, eyes sparkling, "How was it Al, are you okay now? Were you nervous when it happened?"

He said this while he was helping Albarino cook a nameless body's pubic symphysis so that the age of the deceased could be determined by peeling away the bone's surface. In reality, this was not Tommy's job, because physical work was usually done by forensic assistants, and Tommy was a forensic pathologist intern.

He appeared here just because the forensic pathology supervisor thought that he was a very talented young man, hoping that he would come into contact with some homicide autopsy work earlier. If he only did intern work, he could only deal with those bodies which have died of accidental natural causes. So, when Albarino has a corpse with specific characteristics of an unnatural death on hand, he would call Tommy for help.

Currently, Tommy was in front of a body which had died recently. In other words – very fresh, not too decomposed, so that the autopsy room was filled with an indescribable smell of flesh; many intern forensic pathologists who had just begun to work here couldn't stomach their lunch because of this smell.

Tommy had become very skilled at doing this, but because he had not yet reached the required number of autopsies, he had not yet gone to the forensic certification exam. Albarino estimated that he would have to intern, at least until the end of the year.

– It was only because he was a newcomer who was not even qualified in forensic pathology that he was so interested in what happened to Al.

"It wasn't as thrilling as you think, Tommy." Albarino replied, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "You'll encounter all sorts of unexpected situations once you're certified."

"Not every forensic pathologist has the opportunity to participate in the field investigation. The usual cases only let the field investigators go to the crime scene... I do not want to spend the rest of my life just sitting in the office, reading the field investigation report." Tommy wailed.

He was right: forensic field investigators are responsible for completing the field investigation report. Forensic pathologists only need to read the investigation report and field investigation report in the office. Some people who had been a forensic pathologist for several years had not encountered the special cases in which they must personally conduct the field investigation.

So, the gaze Tommy looked at Albarino with was always full of deep jealousy – Albarino could not help but suspect that before the young man aspired to become a forensic pathologist, he had probably watched too many movies and TV shows. He thought that forensic pathologists could go to the crime scenes everyday, even kicking down doors to arrest criminals.

"What other interesting things have you encountered?" The young man asked, spiritless.

Albarino gave him a small smile: "Once, I nearly delivered a baby for the wife of the deceased, right at the scene of the crime."

"I don't think that's really in the realm of the usual emergencies anymore." A flat voice behind them commented.

Tommy almost jumped up in fright at the sudden appearance of the voice, and nearly threw the freshly cooked, wet, pubic symphysis out of his hand. Albarino recognised who the owner of the voice was; when he turned around, he saw Herstal Armalight standing in the doorway of the autopsy room, cracking open the door restrainedly with his hand. He was peeking in, like he would leave if someone told him he couldn't enter.

"You are?" Tommy's voice was shrill as he gripped the hemostat and at the sudden appearance of the voice in his hand.

"This is the lawyer I was telling you about," Albarino nodded, then turned to Herstal, "Herstal, this is Tommy, the forensic pathologist intern – say, how did you get in here?"

"The lady at the front desk on the first floor gave me directions; as soon as she heard I was coming to see you she let me in on my own." Herstal raised an eyebrow, a slight malicious harshness in his voice, "She also said – allow me to quote verbatim: 'Every time someone comes to see Al, it's a different girl. I didn't expect it to be a guy today.' "

Tommy couldn't hold back a burst of explosive laughter. Albarino glared at him; the young man shrunk and went back to stripping the soft tissue from the pubic symphysis with a hemostat.

Albarino thought about whether he should take the time to explain what the "different girls" were all about, but when he thought about it, there didn't seem to be much to explain – because he was sure he and Herstal wouldn't get that far, although things had now developed far out of his expectations.

He followed his heart; of course, if the cops explained, "his heart" was the key to law enforcement's failure to catch the Sunday Gardener. He treated each of his creations differently: some merely brushed passed[3] him, and then he killed them to display them in the public eye a few days later; others he silently stalks for months – like Richard Norman in his original plan – before deciding where they should belong in his work.

[3]擦肩而过, lit. brushed pass someone's shoulder, meaning a brief, short encounter

And there were some, very few, maybe two or three in the past decade: he would sleep with them, usually a messy one-night stand in a bar; he would spend one short night tracing and measuring the bodies of these men and women with his hands. Then he withdrew from each other's lives as all one-night stands usually do, killing them three to six months later; the police have not linked them to him to this day.

For Herstal Armalight, at first, had a sharp and distinct image in his mind of where he had decided to place the other person in this world. But as he interacted more with the other man, he began to wonder if the position he had first envisioned was really right for Herstal... He needed more contact with him; risky but interesting.

To put it ironically: it was because he was an artist who had high demands of himself.

It was also at this point that things seemed to have changed, unforeseeably:

Not because of the gunman named Jones; Albarino was not even a little bit interested in a broken and desperate man, but – when Hardy went to the scene of the crime to take statements, Herstal, in order to assist in the investigation, asked someone to get the security footage at the time of the incident. The security camera in that large office has a good view, recording the whole incident from start to finish.

He watched the footage again and was even more certain: the posture that Herstal made subconsciously when Jones shot him, the left side of the body reflexively leaning forward, his left hand raised, as if to shield his cheek. How vulnerable that looked, how intuitive–

At that time a strange realization rose in Albarino's mind. He thought, this person may actually be left-handed.

This shouldn't have mattered; the world was full of left-handed people, but it was in that moment which made him on guard.

He recalled the scene of the Gardener's crime. Officer Hardy questioned why the Westland Pianist would see the older brother's envy of his younger brother as a sin, and Olga said at the time, "Thoughts in his mind really aren't crimes, of course, but what if Richard Norman has once put his thoughts into action? A failed assassination?"

None of them really thought about it at the time, but now Albarino realized that there was something not quite right in that – the Westland Pianist liked to reenact the crimes his victims had committed on the victims themselves; the way they died must have been a crime they had already committed.

He didn't have to go through the trouble of setting up a crime scene to express the emotion of "envy". That was not his style, or, that was not even his criminal signature.

In other words, for the Westland Pianist who was the kind of killer with a strong desire to exercise control. When he dressed a victim as Cain, the greatest possibility was that the person did literally try to murder his brother.

So Olga was probably actually correct that Richard Norman really did plan the murder of his brother. That's why the Westland Pianist, who knew about this, made Richard Norman the victim of his own dramatic murder.

But if this was true, it begs another question: the criminal profiling they did for the Pianist before may have been done in the wrong scope. Since the victims the Pianist chose all had criminal records, some of which not even been released to the public, they suspected that the Pianist might be someone working for the police. Yet, assuming Richard Norman had tried to murder his brother, the police hadn't heard any whispers about that.

So the Pianist might not be a police worker at all – the scope might even be narrower; the Pianist might really be someone in the Norman Brothers' mob, or else he shouldn't know something so secretive.

So, now the root of the problem was...

Albarino's eyes fell on Herstal Armalight, the mob lawyer with a cold and polite mask on his face. Albarino still couldn't forget the gaze he showed when he looked at that corpse: it wasn't the gaze of examining someone who was once alive; it was the gaze of examining lifeless flesh.

The average person would not notice that; perhaps, this was simply the instinct Albarino had for sensing people of the same kind.

Simply put, the question was this: Was it possible that Herstal, the mob lawyer who probably knew countless dirty things about the Norman Brothers, the guy who likely hid the fact that he was left-handed, was the Westland Pianist?

In fact, he actually fit the profile: Herstal was between thirty-five and forty-five years old, wealthy, his job as a mob lawyer gave him access to all sorts of undisclosed crimes, and most likely left-handed. Most importantly, he was probably the only one that knew of the possible "Richard Norman tried to murder his brother" incident, which fit the profile.

Now Herstal was also looking at him, not avoiding eye contact, obviously oblivious to the thoughts he had spinning in his mind. He shook the transparent bag he held in his hand earlier, which apparently contained those glass tupperware containers from Albarino earlier – he was carrying the bag in his left hand now, because he had to open the door with his right just before, which was damnedly reasonable. The man was either actually not left-handed, or he was a master of disguise with great willpower.

"I'm going to visit Davis in the hospital. He hasn't woken up yet, but I've heard that his wife is there. After all that's happened, we have to talk after all." The lawyer said, still seemingly incredibly calm. "Just giving this back to you on my way there; you left it in my office."

"Leave it on the desk over there." Albarino replied. He obviously didn't mind leaving the food containers temporarily in the autopsy room at all. He hoped that Herstal wouldn't mind when he brought food to Herstal again after this. "By the way – if you have time tonight, Olga invited me out for drinks. Do you want to come?"

Herstal paused in his movement of heading towards the table and turned back to look at Albarino with an expression of utmost disapproval, raising his eyebrows.

"Come on, I'll get really mad if you pull the 'interpersonal distance' thing again." Albarino said in a completely not-angry tone, putting a smile on his face which the girls ate up the most, although he had no hope that the other would give in. "Seriously, we're probably friends, after we got shot at by the same gun, right?"

Tommy did his best to conceal himself in the corner, as if that public symphisis was actually really captivating. He pricked up his ears to hear them both speak.

Herstal was silent for a moment, silent long enough that Albarino began to wonder if the other man had put himself on the other's killing list if he really was the Westland Pianist.

He would not give up this suspicion – he would find a way to confirm it. There was nothing to lose for him; if the other party wasn't the Westland Pianist, he was still his prey.

Then Albarino realized that he was actually hoping that this person was the Pianist, because he realized the fascinating thing about this fact.

Honestly, no one in their right mind, when they suspect someone they know to be a serial killer, would keep being over enthusiastic towards someone, like he was doing– but he really couldn't help himself; it was in his nature to make the already crazy things even crazier, even when he's already the Sunday Gardener.

As Shakespeare said, "And you all know, security / Is mortals' chiefest enemy"[4].

[4] Original quote in Chinese was "Security / Is mortals' chiefest enemy", but the full 2 lines are quoted here just because it looks better; it means "Overconfidence is man's greatest enemy".

And the other – perhaps the not-yet unmasked human being, the indescribable murderer, the lurking monster – looked him straight in the eye, and did not object to the word "friend" in the end.

"If it's not too late when I get back from the hospital," Herstal compromised. "You can give me the address first."

It was a little after 8 p.m. Olga was sitting at a table drinking one of her favorite pink cocktails. Aside from the fact that the bar's name is "I quit"[5] and the cocktail was called "Fuck Deadlines", it was a very pleasant sight.

[5]The name of the bar is "老子要辞职" ; 老子 is a very humorous/rude/arrogant way of referring to oneself, literal meaning "father" or "old man"

It really surprised Albarino that Herstal would actually join them, walking through the rows of dancing lights in a custom-made suit as if he'd never been in places like this in his life – maybe he actually hadn't.

Then this guy insisted on drinking non-alcoholic fruit juice in a bar like this, just because he drove here and had a client to meet tomorrow. However, since this was a bar where no one below drinking age was allowed, the name of the drink was – and can only be – "I have a small dick"[6].

[6]The name of the drink is "我有个小鸡鸡", where "小鸡鸡" refers to the penis in a childish way.

– The wide-eyed look on Herstal's face when he ordered that drink was very unforgettable.

They may have gotten into this situation out of some unexplainable bad humor on Olga's part, but no one could really criticize her anyway, although she was, as Albarino said, very annoying. Fiddling with his glass of beer, Albarino asked, "How's that employee of yours?"

"Not doing so well, his heart stopped once on the way to the hospital and he's still in the ICU." Herstal watched him quietly from the edge of the glass. "But at least he doesn't have to endure as much as his wife; the poor woman was completely devastated after her daughter was kidnapped as well."

Poor woman – he said, injecting just enough pity into the lightly drifting syllables before the words ended. In such dim and noisy surroundings, Albarino couldn't be sure if it was completely faked or not. The man frowned slightly, looking worried enough.

Albarino thought about the question he had asked the other man earlier in the day, before he was interrupted by the sudden sound of gunfire.

– You don't feel anything at all about what you've done, do you?

"There's nothing else we can do in this case," Olga replied amiably, "it's clear enough who the kidnapper is. As soon as Bart and the others can find his hiding place ... They have set up checkpoints at all the entrances and exits of the city. The surveillance system is also very advanced; if the kidnapper left, the police department will find out."

"But the girl could also be already dead. You should know that in my line of work, with how many criminal cases we have taken; I know the probability." Herstal pointed out calmly.

"It's true, there's a lot of bad things that can happen." Olga nodded reluctantly, "Or there's a chance we'll never find them again, and they'll just disappear from our view forever."

Herstal frowned, not moving a sip of the drink in front of him. In fact, after seeing Herstal's work environment, Albarino could not imagine him drinking in this kind of place. He said, "What does the police department usually do? For those kinds of cases without any resolution?"

Albarino gave a light smile, an expression which was devoid of contempt, therefore only seeming somewhat cold and merciless: "Put them in a corner of the archives forever to gather dust, and then bring them out to mourn when someone thinks of them – just as they do with the victims of the Westland Pianist and the Sunday Gardener."

"Speaking of the Sunday Gardener," Olga said slowly, looking curiously at Herstal, "Herstal, why do you think he chose you?"

"Why do you all think he 'chose' me?" Herstal asked back with a frown, his voice a little stiff.

"Because he never minded who his works were displayed in front of; he chose public places indiscriminately and didn't care who saw them first." Olga said in a very light tone, setting the empty cocktail glass on the bar, no sign of drunkenness in her eyes. "But this time, he texted you, and he consciously chose you to be the first viewer of his work, as if he had opened a private exhibition for you – the implications are very different. "

And it was at this moment that their other companion at the bar, the chief forensic pathologist of the Westland City Forensic Bureau, the actual Sunday Gardener, suddenly realized: he had chosen to show Herstal the body, who still ignorant of his future, to hint at the other's ending as his prey, but if his deduction was true...

If his deduction was true, he was directly provoking the Westland Pianist himself.

The Pianist should have been able to see that Thomas Norman's corpse was a provocation towards him, using a similar theme but the exact opposite technique – rather, Albarino was certain that they both looked down on each other's modus operandi, so the Pianist would not have misunderstood the provocation – what if he had, by the unexpected turn of events, shown the piece directly to the Pianist himself?

Then he would have hit the jackpot.

Albarino smiled secretly in the darkness, while Olga asked: "Are you important to him? Herstal, I suggest you really think about it – is there someone around you who could possibly fit the profile of the Sunday Gardener?"

The lawyer's lips opened and closed, not knowing what he wanted to answer, while Olga gazed at him curiously. It was at this time, too, that Herstal's cell phone rang, interrupting them.

Herstal slid wordlessly off the stool, apologized quietly to them, and went to answer the phone; while Albarino looked at Olga and asked, "Seriously? You really think the Sunday Gardener is someone around him?"

Olga Molozer was an interesting lass, a good friend, but in necessary situations, Albarino felt that there was no harm in sacrificing that.

"Just asking," Olga glanced at him lazily. "Things have come to a dead end, and desperate times call for desperate measures[7] – but I suggest you don't tell Bart I asked that. If he knew that I thought about the problem from that perspective, he might think I've lost my professionalism completely; I'd like to continue working as a consultant for the police department."

[7]急病乱投医, literally "have urgent illness, desperately find doctors to heal"

Olga had previously mentioned that she was a consultant for the police department because it gave her permission to access all the case files on the Sunday Gardener and the Westland Pianist, a subject she wanted to write a book on later. If they all could survive unscathed until the time Olga envisioned comes, Albarino wished her success on that.

But now, assuming – just assuming – that the three people sitting here now were really the former BAU profiler, the Westland Pianist and the Sunday Gardener respectively, and that they are drinking strangely-named alcoholic drinks and beverages together, that would mean that around 80% of the future was not going to turn out as they envisioned; it would be crazier, more twisted, and perhaps, darker.

It could also be more fascinating. Albarino silently lowered his eyelashes; he was willing to make a wish for this possibility that could potentially exist.

No one knew what he was thinking at the moment, and Herstal had returned, and he really did look like an unsmiling, upright gentleman. His brow was furrowed, and the news he brought back was shocking.

"Officer Hardy called me," he said, "Martin Jones has reached out to them, and he wants a ransom for Davis' little girl."

Albarino nodded: "It's not impossible, he needs money to escape – with what I know about Bart and the others, the police will agree to that, right? Then, they'll conduct an arrest when the ransom is paid?"

Herstal nodded: "Yes, but ... apparently, Martin Jones suggested on the blackmail call, asking me to go to a designated location to pay that ransom."

Author's Notes

1. Pleading guilty, is the defendant claiming guilty in hopes of getting a more lenient punishment. (It could be pleading guilty by acknowledging the prosecution's accusation; or disagreeing with the prosecution's accusation, but confessing that the defendant is guilty for another crime).

Pleading not guilty is the argument that the defendant does not constitute a crime at all or does not constitute the crime charged by the prosecution.

2. The sex and age of the deceased can be determined by looking at the bone surface of the pubic symphysis. Boiling the pubic symphysis allows the muscle tissue, cartilage, and periosteum on the bone to be more easily stripped away.

3. "And you all know, security / Is mortals' chiefest enemy" – Shakespeare's Macbeth.

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

Al: That guy asked the Westland Pianist to go and hand him the ransom; I've never heard of anyone requesting such a demand.