Chapter 15: The Metaphor of Mint 03
The sky looked as though it would forever teeter on the edge of rain. Olga stood in the cold wind with her arms crossed, watching the group of CSI agents plow through the soil around the house inch by inch. She had no classes to attend on weekends, so she was completely at ease, standing there calmly and watching them fuss about.
“Do you really think he would bury the bloody clothes somewhere you could find them?” Olga asked curiously.
“Are we approaching this from the angle that Albanino really is a murderer?” Bethes asked, wobbling as he stood up, his legs numb from crouching, with a dark gray smudge of unknown origin on his face.
Olga tilted her head and looked at him.
“Alright then: if he were the killer, I think he’d be the type of killer with extremely strong counter-surveillance skills. A forensic pathologist shouldn’t carelessly leave fingerprints on the murder weapon, nor would he bring bloodstained clothes home.” Bates furrowed his brow. “He’s the best among us.”
Olga repeated in a singsong tone: “He’s the best.”
Of course, they hadn’t found any bloodstained clothes or suspicious footprints in the house, and there was obviously no blood in Albanino’s car either. Bates began to think this trip had been a complete waste—though this was also within his expectations—just at that moment, somewhere in the backyard, an investigator called out: “Schwandner, can you come take a look at this?”
Bates gave an acknowledging grunt, and Olga followed behind him all the way over: behind Albanino’s house was a small wooden shed, and judging by its rough, unrestrained crudeness, it looked like Albanino had built it himself. Some farming tools were stored in the shed, obviously because Albanino grew a row of lettuce along the base of the wall.
The investigator squatted in the small shed on a patch of damp, ash-covered ground, carefully sifting through the soil with latex-gloved hands. Seeing Bates approach, the young man looked up with worry and said, “It’s like this—we found burn marks here, and then…”
He extended his hand, holding a small, charred object with a pair of tweezers.
Bates murmured, “Bone.”
His voice was dry, as though he were trying to accept a fact he did not want to accept. Olga looked at him and asked, “Is this…?”
“I don’t know. It was burned too badly. I’ll have to take it back to the evidence lab for testing before I can tell what kind of bone this is.” Bates murmured, “Regardless, we need to give Bart a call.”
When Bart Hardy returned to the interrogation room, he saw only Hestal and Albanino sitting side by side on two chairs, looking no different from any normal criminal suspect and his lawyer.
No, though they were different in just about every way.
“Your chief just gave me a call, saying the department’s charges against you are ‘appalling.'” Hardy said wearily, heavily dropping into his chair. “And the head of forensics even came by in person just now. We had some… rather difficult conversations.”
“听起来他气得不轻。”阿尔巴利诺评论道。
“他显然非常愤怒。不知道是谁走漏了消息——网上已经有传言说韦斯特兰市法医局的首席法医官卷入了一起谋杀案。”哈代头疼地回答，”现在变成你们的法医主管要面对舆论问题了，这样下去对谁都没好处。”
“所以呢？”阿尔巴利诺懒洋洋地问。
“我们得把你羁押，直到我们确定所有对你不利的证据都不成立，或者等我们找到其他嫌疑人；我估计有记者正盯着呢，这是程序。”哈代干巴巴地说道，”阿尔巴利诺，出于保险起见，我就只问你一次：你确实没有伤害过那个小姑娘吧？”
“My God, Officer Hardy,” Hestal said calmly and dryly, his sarcasm unmistakable.
“If you keep being so frivolous in your private life, this kind of problem is bound to happen. I thought you’d have seen enough of this sort of thing in your line of work by now!” Hardy said in the tone of an overly worried old father.
“I don’t think this matter has anything to do with my client’s private life,” Hestal said in that finely packaged lawyer’s tone. “Although, yes, I’ll admit that Mr. Bax’s private life is indeed quite debauched.”
Albanino elbowed Hestal in the side while keeping a straight face and said, “I swear I didn’t kill her, Bart.”
—When he said this, his tone was indeed sincere, his fingers resting properly on the tabletop, as if this hand had not been gripping Hestal’s neck moments ago, or as if this hand had not cut other girls’ throats when holding a knife.
About half of the Sunday Gardener’s victims were female. He had no preference whatsoever regarding the gender of his victims, and there was no connection between the victims’ appearances either. Some victims had particularly striking hair color or smooth skin that deserved to be set off with extravagant floral arrangements, while most left behind only partial bones or severed limb fragments.
Albanino sat quietly in the chair, once again going over the details of his timeline from last night with Hardy, while Hestal occasionally interjected a few words as supplementary information, given that they had been together for half the night. When Albanino slightly turned his head, he could see the other’s pale blue eyes and blond hair under the bright light of the interrogation room, and in a moment of distraction, he scribbled and crossed out items on that to-do list in his mind.
The Westland Pianist, he thought—what an unexpected gain, worthy of an especially extravagant and elaborate design, but it could wait for now, to see where they would head next, and whether Hestal had arranged some other role for him in his mind.
The defense lawyer also had the right to review all evidence related to his client’s case. They piled the crime scene photos and autopsy reports across the table. In the photos, the beautiful woman in red appeared with a hideously swollen face, rendered in microscopic detail—utterly devoid of elegance. Albanino imagined Hestal half-kneeling beside the corpse, planting false fingerprints on the murder weapon, trapped within the small circle of light cast by a dim streetlamp.
And now Hestal was gazing down at those photos, looking at a part of the work he had created with his own hands, his gaze calm and utterly devoid of pity—as if this matter truly had nothing to do with him.
The bright white light of the interrogation room fell from above them. Under this kind of lighting, Hestal’s eyelashes appeared almost silver.
Certain white, tiny asteraceous plants, he thought, picturing in his mind the scene of those blossoms cascading down from between the other’s hair. Perhaps yarrow—”Achilles’ herb.” Achilles, in grief over the death of his dearest friend Patroclus, ignored all dissuasion and killed Hector to avenge him. Legend had it that when he was wounded on the battlefield, he used yarrow to heal his own injuries.
Hestal raised his eyes to look at him.
Albanino tapped the tabletop lightly with his knuckles, watching how his eyelashes and eyelids cast a dim shadow over the blue of his irises, the mottled flecks of pigment and radiating striations making the color look especially magnificent. Albanino wrote a new line on his list: larkspur and blue cornflower—of course, the most traditional choices never go wrong; or perhaps blue forget-me-nots, whose small clusters could be paired with the white flowers of yarrow; or else irises—though harmonizing those larger blooms with other varieties was a challenge in itself…
“Albanino?” Hestal frowned and raised his voice. “You’re not listening to us, are you?”
“Barely listening,” Albanino replied with a provocative smile. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
Hestal gazed at him gloomily.
Just then, Officer Hardy’s phone let out a notification sound. He glanced down at it and froze.
“Bart?” Albanino asked sweetly.
Bart looked up at him, his gaze gloomy, a hint of disbelief in his eyes. He said in a low voice, “Word came from Betes. He said traces of something burned were found in the tool shed behind your house, and something like bone remains was found there too.”
Hestal glanced at Albanino again. There was no trace of surprise on the other man’s face at all—he was still smiling.
“What’s going on here, Al?” Hardy asked good-naturedly, though he sounded like he was grinding his teeth.
“For some reason, I now feel that no matter how I explain it, it will be hard for anyone to believe me.” Albanino mused with a smiling face. “At this rate, even I’ll start to suspect that I really did kill someone—so how about this: you just handle the case according to procedure. In any case, let’s wait until the test report comes out before saying anything else.”
Hardy glared at him, looking like he wanted to punch him in the face. He was clearly angered by this lazy attitude. They had always worked together seamlessly, which had made him overlook for a long time just how infuriating Albanino could become when he was being confrontational.
He stood up abruptly, completely abandoning any attempt to continue this conversation: “Fine. I’ll wait until the test report comes out before talking to you again. Before that, I’m willing to give you and your lawyer another ten minutes or so to talk, and then I’ll have someone take you to a cell.”
Albanino raised an eyebrow: the temporary holding cells at the Westland City Police Department were not particularly comfortable.
But he didn’t make any further demands—otherwise, he definitely would have genuinely angered Bart. Hardy trudged out heavily, leaving only two people in the room. The small red light on the surveillance camera blinked like a ghostly eye, watching them.
Albanino calmly waited until the surveillance camera’s light went out again, like a tiny extinguished candle flame. Only then did he ask, calm and composed, “Is this what you wanted to see?”
He believed that Herstal’s ultimate goal was not to send him to prison through a clumsy frame-up—even if he used the excuse that he’d had too much to drink that night, it wouldn’t work. As a lawyer, Herstal was well aware that the evidence in this case was insufficient. As long as Albanino was willing to hire a good lawyer, he would likely be acquitted.
And most importantly: he hadn’t killed anyone, after all. As long as the real murderer was caught, Albanino could immediately prove his innocence. While the true culprit was still at large, any frame-up could never truly be foolproof.
So framing him and sending him to prison was merely done in passing. If it worked, Hestal would of course be glad to see it happen; if not, he probably wouldn’t force it.
Albanino guessed that for now, Hestal was still more interested in finding out what those crime scene investigation team members could dig up from Albanino’s home: the Sunday Gardener. The corpses presented to the public were mostly incomplete—he would excise certain parts of the bodies according to his needs, and those fragments had never been discovered by anyone. How exactly did he dispose of those corpses? Did he bury those remains deep underground, able to fall into peaceful sleep only when lying atop them? This was a question many people had pondered.
Perhaps the Westland Pianist was no exception. If someone’s mask of sin could be stripped away through such a simple frame-up, Hestal would probably enjoy a scenario like that.
Sure enough, the man looked at him with that ever-unwavering mask of contempt and sharply retorted: “Is this all your level amounts to?”
Albanino watched him, somehow detecting a trace of indignation even in his voice, as if Albanino had truly disappointed him.
Albanino fell silent for a moment, then genuinely laughed at something in Hestal’s tone: “If you’re so interested in the things in my house, there’s no need for all this, you know? All you have to do is say the word, and I’d even be willing to show you myself.”
“So we’re laying all our cards on the table now?” Hestal clicked his tongue softly.
“…If that’s what you want,” Albanino replied ambiguously, gently.
Hestal stared at him intently, like someone aiming at an elk among the pine trees in a winter snowfield: “From beginning to end, I don’t understand why you would do this—because I can solve the problems I face without anyone’s help; if you knew me well enough, you would know that I am not willing to be at a disadvantage. I think it wouldn’t be rude to mount some appropriate counterattack in response, right?”
Obviously, “an appropriate counterattack” referred to the fact that after he placed a skull on Hestal’s desk, the other party immediately framed him for a murder case. Clearly, the Pianist was not grateful for the Sunday Gardener helping him kill a witness.
Albanino felt it was best not to remind the other party that Olga had already come extremely close to the truth.
“Perhaps, because after all, I’m a very tolerant person, and I haven’t felt too angry about it; this might be somewhat different from certain… vindictive behaviors of yours.” Albanino replied. He had also stood up. He was slightly taller than Hestal, and not being looked down upon by the other party was still quite nice. “You said you don’t know why I did this. In that regard, I can try to explain it to you.”
Hestal looked at him, his body taut, exactly like a leopard that could launch an attack on its prey at any moment.
“As I said before, I follow the metaphysical guidance of my Muse, exploring the position where you ought to be.” Albanino traced the other’s taut lips with his gaze, answering in a low voice, “So on one hand, I do want to decorate you to the best of my ability—”
“Decorate.” What a restrained choice of word. Hestal let out a cold laugh, knowing full well that the other’s idea of “decorating” was essentially equivalent to “slitting your throat and planting flowers in the wound,” at best incorporating some artistic flourishes—but for the person already dead, that was obviously no improvement.
“But on the other hand,” Albanino uttered the remaining words in a low murmur—it was a sight his friends had never witnessed, his pupils like enormous voids capable of devouring a person’s soul, looking dark and sinful—”I also want to pin you down on this interrogation room table and fuck you until you cry—I confess to you, I’m torn, Mr. Amaretto.”
Hestal wanted to say something, venomous words sharp as knives caught in his throat, because the very next second the door was knocked twice—neither lightly nor heavily—and a police officer pushed it open, undoubtedly holding handcuffs in his hands. This sudden intruder silently dissolved the words he was about to utter. The officer had clearly heard of Albanino’s name and status, and so now looked extremely awkward.
Albanino clearly did not care at all; he simply extended his hand and obediently let the other man cuff his wrists. Hestal had seen what that hand looked like holding a scalpel, so he had to admit that the current scene seemed so strangely, incongruously wrong.
“Also, one last thing I have to say, Hestal.” Albanino would say without even raising his head, the delight in his voice so excessive it was revolting, as if he did not feel at all that he was currently imprisoned. “Although I obviously have no chance at the autopsy for this case now, I did still look at some of the crime scene photos—objectively speaking, that bunch of mint placed on Sarah’s chest was arranged really poorly, don’t you think?”
“If you did not always say such nonsensical things, our communication might be somewhat more valuable, Mr. Bax,” Hestal commented coldly.
The young police officer was clearly baffled, but Albanino did not mind. He walked slowly toward the door, and before leaving he added one more entirely unnecessary remark: “It is just like the case of Richard Norman in relation to the Sunday Gardener. I believe in his heart he must hold the same view regarding that ‘Cain’ metaphor, otherwise he would not have gone to the trouble of running off to kill Thomas Norman.”
He heard Hestal’s undisguised gasp of annoyance.
Albanino glanced back at him and flashed him a brilliant smile.
“…brutally murdered this woman. A source within the WLPD has indicated that Albanino Bakes, the chief forensic examiner of the Westland City Forensic Bureau, is a prime suspect in the case. Currently, Mr. Bakes has been summoned for questioning by the police…”
This news was playing in a fast-food restaurant by the street whose hygiene standards were absolutely subpar, and almost no one was listening to the announcer’s wooden, monotonous voice. A listless employee busied himself behind the counter, the air thick with the smell of fried food and cheap meat.
Two or three customers sat behind greasy tables, swallowing their decidedly unappetizing lunches. A burly fellow in a plaid shirt and gray trousers sat at a table in front of the television, picking the slimy, wilted lettuce out of the burger in his hands.
At some point, his hands had stopped moving, and he was looking up at the television with its less-than-clear picture quality: it was displaying a mosaic-censored image of the victim, the beautiful woman’s lips still curved upward in the photo, while the host was offering some commentary about love troubles and negligent homicide—not particularly professional, but then again, this was a local TV station that hardly anyone watched.
“The witness stated that they had an argument at the bar that night…”
The unremarkable-looking man stared at the photo of the Chief Medical Examiner shown on the screen. In the photo, the young man was smiling at the audience, completely unaware.
The man didn’t seem to notice that the salad dressing was already dripping down his fingers. His brow furrowed tighter and tighter, as if he had seen something filthy.
Finally, he clenched his fingers in irritation, pushed his chair away forcefully, and stood up.