Chapter 6: The Mark of Cain 05
After the Westland Pianist struck again, the various media outlets were buzzing with excitement for quite a while.
Although the city of Westland was a city with at least two deranged serial killers—at least two, because with public safety this bad, who knew if there was another serial killer who had been diligently grinding his victims’ bones to ashes all along, such that no one had ever discovered him?—the public was clearly more interested in the Pianist.
Albanino was well aware of this tendency in the media. If he were asked to comment, he could only say: “I know why you all think that way, but doing it that way really is so tasteless.”
The reason these people were so interested in the Westland Pianist was mainly because none of the victims he selected were good people. As long as those who considered themselves innocent believed that such a terrible fate would not befall them, they could relish such matters with great gusto.
If, in the face of the Sunday Gardener, they still worried that the fate of suddenly having their throat slit and their eyes filled with dahlias might fall upon them, then in the face of the Pianist, they had no such concerns at all. The murder had occurred several days ago, and the Pianist had occupied the front-page headlines of the newspapers for three whole days. Even now, a group of people were still arguing on social media about whether the Pianist was a vigilante—come on, what kind of vigilante would hang a living person on a wooden stake and slit them open from belly to chest?
On Sunday, Albanino was working overtime at the Forensic Bureau. He had accumulated several corpses from unnatural deaths that needed to be processed, most of them suicides, car accidents, or drug overdoses. While he was performing a craniotomy on a corpse in the autopsy room, the intern forensic doctor assisting him was still chattering away with great enthusiasm about the Westland Pianist: clearly, when it came to gossip, even forensic doctors could not resist.
“He’s definitely a complete lunatic. It’s terrifying.” Tommy, the intern forensic doctor at the Forensic Bureau, said. This red-haired young man whose face was covered in freckles gave an exaggerated shudder. “We’ve all attended the FBI lectures, haven’t we? That kind of lunatic who can only get an erection by ripping organs out of a victim’s body—”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what the FBI said in their lecture, Tommy,” Albanino said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, as he handed the bone saw in his hand to Tommy, signaling for him to open up the skull of the corpse lying on the autopsy cart. Tommy’s movements were practiced and skilled, and the air was filled with the strange smell of bone dust flying up as the bone was sawed. “The Westland Pianist is very complex. They’re only speculating that he’s a sadistic killer—nothing is conclusive until he’s caught and given detailed psychological testing.”
Many years ago, when the Westland Pianist first began committing crimes, the FBI did indeed send agents and profilers to assist with the investigation. They came many times, over the course of several years, but still turned up nothing. After Bart Hardy took over the Pianist case, the FBI stopped coming as often. Perhaps both the Westland City Police Department and the federal police eventually realized that no one could do the job better than Hardy, and no one could do it worse—either way, none of it mattered.
Tommy held the bone saw, watching Albanino pour the dead man’s brain into a container, and shook his head with a childish pout: “Just you wait. I bet the Pianist has erectile dysfunction—if anyone ever catches him.”
Albanino smiled and was about to say something when his phone suddenly rang: it was a strange ringtone, sounding like the piercing yowl of a cat in heat, startling them both. Albanino muttered something under his breath, shoved the brain in his hand into Tommy’s hands, and began fumbling to pull off his gloves.
Tommy held the basin and the slightly quivering brain inside it: “Huh?”
“It’s Officer Hardy on the phone, I need to take this.” Albanino spoke quickly. There had been no progress on the Pianist’s latest case, and Hardy had been too swamped to spare any time—he hadn’t heard from the other man in days.
Albanino walked a short distance away from the autopsy vehicle and answered the phone: “Please tell me you’ve actually caught the Pianist, Bart.”
His words might have been a bit too blunt, catching Hardy off guard for several seconds. The other party then replied awkwardly, “No, nothing… We just received a report. I suspect the Pianist has struck again.”
Albanino paused for a moment, injecting an appropriate amount of shock into his voice: “What? Isn’t he a bit too busy?”
“I don’t know—” Hardy actually stammered, “I mean, I can’t figure out what that lunatic is up to either, but the Pianist striking again is the most reliable guess right now. Al, you would never guess: Thomas Norman is dead too.”
The truth was actually not so, and Bart could certainly not know the real story. All of this was only because the Pianist had chosen a victim he had long since selected. Not striking back would have been far too boring.
Albanino smiled silently where Tommy couldn’t see.
—It was a body of water.
This body of water was located within an estate, a countryside villa for the wealthy to vacation and enjoy themselves, spanning roughly three to four acres of land. The Norman brothers had bought this plot a few years ago to escape the scorching summers.
The estate contained a genuine grove of trees, and beneath the beautiful shade, a river flowed silently: this body of water was the main reason the land was so expensive. In this season, a few fallen leaves had already settled on the calm surface. It wasn’t yet too cold, but once autumn fully set in, golden and red leaves would cover every inch of the water’s surface. For now, the clear scene beneath the water was still perfectly visible.
Something was submerged underwater—or rather, a corpse was hanging upside down beneath the surface: a wooden stake driven deep into the silt at the bottom, and a human figure nailed inverted upon it. Through the shifting, unpredictable play of light and shadow filtering through the water, the naked, ghastly pale body was distorted by the ripples into strange shapes, looking utterly terrifying.
When Albanino arrived, this was the bizarre scene that greeted him: Officer Hardy was directing the officers with exhausted frustration, trying to fish the body of unknown condition out of the water, while Bates stood on the slippery riverbank holding his camera, also directing his team of CSIs to collect evidence from the wet mud of the embankment—but both of them looked like they had no idea where to start.
Meanwhile, Olga Morozer stood a little further away, where an ambulance was parked abruptly. Near the open rear doors of the ambulance stood a person, and Olga was insistently trying to drape an orange comfort blanket over that person’s shoulders.
As Albanino walked over, he heard the person saying in a matter-of-fact tone: “I’m really fine, Miss Morozer. Instead of worrying about me, you’d be better off—”
Albanino stared blankly at the two of them. He couldn’t be blamed for this—after all, the appearance of this person before him was truly somewhat unexpected. He said in a voice tinged with disbelief: “Mr. Amarette?”
Olga looked toward Albanino upon hearing this, wearing an overly cheerful smile on her face: “Al!”
Presumably, this novel murder case had made her extremely happy. Was it because of this inappropriate behavior that she had left the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit?
And the person whom Olga had just stubbornly draped that blanket over was none other than Attorney Hestal Amarette, whom Albanino and the others had briefly encountered a few days ago in the Richard Norman case. He was now impatiently fiddling with the corners of the silly little blanket with his fingers, frowning as he looked at Albanino.
“What’s going on?” Albanino couldn’t help asking as he approached the ambulance. “I heard from Bart that Mr. Thomas Norman was also murdered, but why are you here as well?”
“He texted me last night, arranging to meet me here this morning.” Hestal said in a low voice. His face was somewhat pale, but he was largely still calm. “It was strange, actually, because this estate is where my client vacations. He generally doesn’t discuss business here. But after all, his brother died recently, and the people under them are in complete disarray. I thought he needed a more private space to discuss—”
“But by the time he arrived, he found his client had already been sunk in the river.” Olga shrugged, her tone still unbearably cheerful. Albanino could imagine why—had the Westland Pianist murdered a pair of brothers in succession? He had never done that before. This was practically a profiler’s Christmas.
Hestal looked at Albanino, his gaze still ice-cold. “I know what you’re thinking, Albanino. Although the person who reported the crime is sometimes a major suspect, I didn’t kill anyone. My dashcam can prove it.”
Yes, it was then that Albarino noticed Hestal’s car parked on the lakeside ring road. The last time he had driven with Hestal to the forensics bureau, he had already wanted to complain—this guy actually drove a Rolls-Royce Wraith. It was so disgustingly wealthy it made his teeth ache.
“I never suspected you of being a murderer, especially not of killing your employer. Really.” Albarino smiled.
“Is that so?” Hestal gave him a fleeting glance, making no effort to hide his distrust. “A few days ago you were still scolding me for being indifferent to corpses.”
Albarino really wanted to say, your other employer is dead now too, and I haven’t seen you get all that worked up about it—but what came out of his mouth was not that: “Isn’t that right? You’re still wrapped in a blanket.”
“This blanket definitely wasn’t something I asked for. Clearly Officer Hardy thinks I’ve been left with severe psychological trauma after witnessing a murder scene. He must have forgotten what kind of lawyer I actually am.” Hestal snorted.
“But I imagine even a lawyer like you doesn’t often encounter a situation where all his employers are killed within a single week.” Albanino pointed out. The other shot him an annoyed glare. “Hestal, even for you, this has been a rough day, hasn’t it?”
Obviously, a day spent witnessing a crime scene is rough for anyone—that went without saying. Hestal glanced at him, the corner of his mouth curving into a subtly sardonic angle: “Since when did you start calling me by my given name?”
“Just now. Because we’re not in the morgue right now, and I intend to flirt with you.” Albanino said with an affected sweetness, leaning back casually against the side of the ambulance door. “Want to grab coffee with me later?”
“Not today,” Hestal said with a sharp wag of his finger, perfectly imitating the tone Albanino had used in the morgue that day, “and preferably not at the crime scene either, Dr. Bax.”
“You two are adorable.” Olga commented without a trace of bias, “Of course, it would be even more perfect if you didn’t do this inside the cordon.”
By this time, Hardy’s men had finally, through the unrelenting efforts of the officers, dragged the body up from the water. The corpse, which had already begun to bloat from soaking, was immediately surrounded by a swarm of CSIs, looking like vultures descending on carrion.
Officer Hardy shouted from not far away: “Al!”
“Alright.” Albanino smiled slightly and lifted the survey box in his hand. “Let’s stop the small talk here. In any case, I’m glad to see you here today. It would be even better if next time it weren’t next to a corpse.”
Hestal looked at him, not even attempting to conceal his cold snort.
Now, the already-dead Thomas Norman lay coldly on the ground. He had previously been hung upside down on a wooden stake driven into the water, completely naked, his feet overlapping and nailed to the wood with a long spike—it looked excruciating.
When he was underwater, his whole body had been suspended upside down, and his full appearance was obscured by the rippling water. Only when he was pulled up did people discover just how gruesome his face truly was: aside from the pierced feet, Thomas Norman’s chest—roughly the same spot where his brother had been impaled by the wooden stake—also bore a mangled, bloody hole. That hole was stuffed full of red flowers. Beyond those large, vivid blossoms, there were also soft branches bearing tender red buds, their leaves carefully stripped away, dangling along the edges of the wound. After being fished out of the water, everything was dripping wet, and those flowers looked like strings of blood droplets.
The strangest part was that a pair of goat horns had been placed among the dead man’s pitch-black hair, fixed firmly in place by some unknown means. A wreath was twined between the horns, and a great number of long, slender, tender branches cascaded down from his hair. The buds were the color of blood. But beyond that, the wreath was also interwoven with many small pinkish-white flowers with five petals.
Albanino knelt on the damp earth beside the corpse, unconcerned that his knees were gradually soaking through with mud and cold river water. Betters stood beside Hardy, reporting the progress the scene investigation team had made so far.
“When the killer placed the victim underwater, he must have left footprints on the riverbank, but he was very cautious—the footprints have all been destroyed by him.” Betters was saying with a frown. “We’ve collected all the materials, but I doubt there’s anything of value among them.”
“That bastard is too cunning,” Officer Hardy agreed. “Damn him.”
Meanwhile, on the other side, Albanino reached out to examine the deceased’s jaw: “Rigor mortis has not yet begun to subside, but the livor mortis does not fade when pressed; because of the water, the body’s core temperature can no longer serve as a criterion for judgment. It is now nine in the morning—he must have died last night, and very likely has been dead for over twelve hours.”
To be precise, it was 8:49 last night—the moment Albanino drove that knife into the chest of the Norman family’s new heir. The man who had been so unlikable in the interrogation room widened his eyes in terror, blood surging from his chest, all shrouded beneath the blurry veil of night.
When he opened his mouth, a horrifying, garbled gurgle came from his throat, and he gasped: “You—why did you—”
Ah, he must have recognized Albanino—after all, Albanino had spoken with Thomas Norman about the matter of signing documents.
“Rest assured, I am absolutely not murdering you because you refused to go to the Forensics Bureau in person to sign the authorization letter.” Albanino answered him quite amiably, though given that this might be the last few words he would ever hear in his life, it was hardly something to be grateful for.
He smiled happily, feeling his heart beating joyfully.
“You are a gift,” he said.
Officer Hardy gave Albanino and Bates room so that their kneeling posture while examining the body would not be so uncomfortable. He looked at Hestal standing not far away and asked, “Mr. Armalite, when did you receive the text message that Mr. Norman sent you?”
Hestal walked forward a few steps; shouting back and forth across several meters was truly too impolite. He did not appear to be afraid of the corpse, nor would he rashly get too close and contaminate the evidence, so Hardy did not stop him. After the lawyer came to a stop, he checked his phone and said, “Last night at 10:13.”
“Interesting,” Olga pointed out. “By that time the victim should already have been dead for good. Was it the killer who sent you the text message?”
Albanino pulled the phone from Thomas Norman’s pocket and unlocked the screen using the dead man’s already cooling fingers. He generally liked to arrange these corpses in public places; an exhibition was meant to be seen by everyone.
But this time it was inconvenient. He had tracked the other man all the way to this estate, where he had been meeting a lover, before he found the chance to kill him. Bringing the body back to some lake in the city to settle it down would have been too difficult. This hunt had been a whim, a bit rushed, and now he could only make do.
Then, letting one specific person see this piece wouldn’t be so bad either. He thought this as he smoothly flipped through his contacts and found the lawyer’s number. Letting the next prey see the beautiful remains left by the previous prey, while still completely unaware of their own future fate—it seemed romantic enough, and he could accept that.
This was a gift—both for the Westland Pianist and for Hestal Amarette. Two birds with one stone.
With a bloodthirsty smile on the gardener’s lips, he happily pressed the send button.
Hestal apparently calculated the time in his head, then agreed with Olga’s point of view. Frowning, he said, “If Dr. Bax didn’t misjudge the time of death, that should be the case.”
“I’m quite confident about that, but I think there’s one more thing.” Albanino used his gloved fingers to probe the wounds on the deceased’s feet. The lacerated flesh showed no trace of blood, appearing exceptionally pale. He paused, then similarly examined the terrifying hollow cavity in the deceased’s chest. “—This time, the killer probably isn’t the Westland Pianist.”
Olga interjected with considerable certainty: “It’s the ‘Sunday Gardener,’ isn’t it?”
Officer Hardy blurted out: “What?!”
Because obviously, the speculation that “Westland’s two most famous serial killers successively chose the same pair of brothers as victims” was even crazier than “the Westland Pianist killed a pair of brothers one after another.”
“Look, none of the wounds on the corpse show any vital reactions. It’s obvious that the killer only cut his belly open and sewed it back up, then nailed him to the wooden stake after he was already dead. This doesn’t look like something the Pianist would do, and there’s no piano string ligature mark on this victim’s neck either,” Albanino said. “I’m going to take the roses out now. Beates, give me a hand?”
Beates grunted in brief acknowledgment, and the two of them dug the soaking wet flowers out of the massive wound in the dead man’s chest. While Beates took the red flowers away to bag them, Albanino reached his hand into the bloody mess of the corpse’s chest cavity and scooped out a handful. When he pulled his hand back, there were damp traces on his fingertips: some particles of soil.
Albanino stuffed that soil into the dead man’s chest, almost at the position closest to the heart, then began decorating it with flowers on top. This was a delicate job, because he would later have to hang the corpse upside down, and the bouquet needed to be sturdy enough to hold together until his colleagues at the police department fished the body out of the water.
Those flowers, not yet fully bloomed, were as vividly red as blood—and in a metaphorical sense, they were indeed meant to represent blood. The Westland Pianist would see it, he thought, and then the other would understand what he was doing.
The Pianist was someone who truly enjoyed splattering blood everywhere; it was the most direct expression of his cruel desires. But Albanino did not like it.
The other would understand the sharp mockery he intended to convey. Albanino smiled, using his fingers to toy with those delicate, vibrant flowers, their soft and fragile buds brushing against his fingertips.
I have read your meaning. Those people at the police department did not understand—only I understood. I know what you are expressing, but frankly speaking, I do not appreciate it. You wasted a corpse that should have belonged to me.
I believe I am better. I will show it to you.
Albanino frowned as he examined the dirt on his fingers, seemingly unable to figure out what it was. He placed the blood-stained soil into an evidence bag as well, then continued examining the corpse’s head. He observed the pair of goat horns for a moment, then let out a huh.
“What is it?” Officer Hardy asked.
“Quite unsettling. The killer drilled holes at the base of the horns, then sewed them onto the deceased’s forehead with thread.” Albanino said with his head lowered, carefully parting the deceased’s hair with his fingers to show everyone the skin covered in densely packed stitch marks. “But there are no signs of congestion or swelling either. It looks like it was also sewn on post-mortem.”
Hardy frowned. “Although the killer clearly didn’t torture the victim while they were alive, these details are far too similar to the Pianist’s previous case.”
He used similar needle and thread to sew the ram’s horns onto little Norman’s forehead, just like the scars on his brother’s abdomen.
If he would normally use ram’s horns in his designs, he would rather dress the deceased up as Pan. Of course, he hadn’t anticipated things would turn out like this, nor that he would actually be so unlucky as to collide with another serial killer in his choice of victims.
—But he liked a challenge.
“I don’t see any other serial killer besides the Sunday Gardener who’d stick flowers on a dead body,” Bates had returned by now, and he raised his voice as he walked to point this out to the others. “I don’t know what those red flowers were earlier, but the ones on the deceased’s head look like apple blossoms.”
Just then, Olga suddenly let out an “Ah!” that startled everyone.
When they looked at her, she was staring blankly at some empty space ahead, her mouth hanging open foolishly. A moment later, she suddenly jumped up—actually jumped up, nearly stepping on Bethes, who had just squeezed over.
“I’ve got it!” she blurted out, waving her hands exaggeratedly, as if trying to materialize her thoughts in midair. “Thomas Norman’s case really wasn’t done by the Westland Pianist! It must be that the Sunday Gardener read the theme of the Pianist’s previous work and wanted to send him a message—!”
“Wait a minute?!” Hardy shouted with a frown, looking as if he was about to go crazy. “How did we even get onto this topic?”
Albanino staggered to his feet, watching Olga’s flushed red face with great interest. His legs had gone somewhat numb from kneeling, and were still covered in mud. As he limped along the last stretch of the slippery riverbank, he accidentally stumbled, but fortunately Hestal, who was standing at the edge, caught him by the elbow just in time.
“Please be careful.” Hestal’s brows were tightly furrowed, though Albanino noticed that he was actually still directing most of his attention toward Olga.
And now Olga was gesturing wildly with her hands: “The Pianist’s works have a theme, but none of us realized it before! However, the press conference released the details of Richard Norman’s murder, so when the Sunday Gardener read the reports, he must have realized it too—the theme the Pianist’s murders are trying to express is ‘Cain’!”
There was a moment of silence among the group, and then Albanino let out an ah.
Albanino said, “I understand.”
“Then please explain it. I don’t understand at all.” Hestal let out a snort that seemed quite irritated. This person must have categorized all sorts of snorts, to be used for different occasions.
“A convoluted metaphor,” Albanino said. He saw Olga nod encouragingly at him, so he spoke slowly, deliberating as he went. “Cain was the son of Adam and Eve, a tiller of the soil, right? The Pianist dressed him up as a scarecrow in the fields, then stuffed a handful of wheat into the wounds on his chest and abdomen—the grain of the field was the burnt offering Cain presented to God after his harvest, but God did not accept his offering, so he grew jealous of his younger brother.”
Officer Hardy stared straight at Hestal. “Last time in the interrogation room, you mentioned that Thomas Norman was more capable than his older brother, and so his older brother was jealous of his younger brother.”
Hestal nodded with difficulty, seeming somewhat surprised. “Yes, that was widely known among the people around them.”
“But jealousy of his younger brother?” Hardy couldn’t help asking. “That’s his crime? Is that why the Pianist killed him? Isn’t the Westland Pianist the type to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth when he’s tormenting his victims?”
“A thought in one’s heart certainly doesn’t count as a real crime. But what if Richard Norman had actually acted on his thoughts? A failed assassination? Or perhaps the Pianist believed that while Richard Norman was guilty of countless crimes, being jealous of his own younger brother was the greatest sin of all?” Olga speculated. “Of course, both of them are dead now. Probably no one will ever know the truth.”
Hestal frowned, silently gazing at the corpse lying on the ground.
“What about the apple used to replace the heart?” Bates couldn’t help interjecting.
“The symbol of original sin, I suppose,” Albanino said. He was still staring at Olga when he made this deduction. To his surprise, she was still smiling, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Humans ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, and thus sin came into being, and everything that followed came with it. In Byron’s verse drama *Cain*, doesn’t Cain say—”
“‘Since that tree was planted, why was it not planted for him? If it was not planted for him, why place him near the tree, and furthermore let it grow at the center of the garden as the most delightful one of all?'” Hestal suddenly picked up the latter half of the quote Albanino was about to recite, his tone calm and even. He looked more composed than before.
“What a surprise, Hestal.” Albanino blinked and gave him a small smile.
“I think that’s roughly the idea.” Olga nodded approvingly. “In any case, the Sunday Gardener must have understood the Pianist’s intent, and he responded.”
Officer Hardy swallowed dryly and pointed at the wet corpse lying on the ground: “So, the Sunday Gardener killed Thomas Norman, and then arranged him—”
“Arranged him into ‘Abel,’ a similar theme.” Olga said briskly, “Richard Norman’s body was impaled upright on a wooden stake in the apple orchard, while his younger brother Thomas was impaled upside down on a stake in the water. I suspect the Sunday Gardener used the water’s surface to represent a mirror, so that the younger brother’s corpse is essentially a kind of reflection of the older brother’s corpse—similar yet not entirely the same: the ram’s horns on his head represent the flocks Abel tended, the apple blossoms still refer to the forbidden tree of Eden; and those red flowers and long branches bearing red buds represent blood—Cain killed Abel, and Abel’s blood flowed from the wound in his chest—”
Herstal suddenly grabbed Albanino’s wrist and lifted his hand slightly: Albanino’s glove was still stained with blood and a few grains of dirt.
“The Sunday Gardener stuffed dirt into Thomas’s wounds, that is, into Abel’s wounds,” Herstal said in a low voice, giving Albanino a deep look, “‘The earth opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. Now you are cursed from the earth’…”
“You keep performing this well, and I’m afraid Bart is going to hire you.” Albanino teased with a smile.
“So what the hell is this about?” Officer Hardy couldn’t help but growl. “The Pianist killed someone, and we in the police couldn’t figure out the theme he was trying to express by killing—but the Sunday Gardener figured it out. Not only did he figure it out, he’s going to kill someone too, to tell the whole world that he figured it out… What exactly is he trying to do?”
Olga let out a dry laugh and spread her hands. “I don’t know why he’s doing this either. To show his appreciation for the other’s work? Or to prove that facing the same theme, he can express it with more aesthetic beauty than the Pianist? Or maybe he just genuinely wants to shout across the distance to the Pianist, ‘I understand’? Either way—he’s sending a message to the Westland Pianist.”
She scanned the quiet crowd. For some reason, she wasn’t as anxious as Officer Hardy. Perhaps if you simply didn’t care about the lives of the dead, you wouldn’t be anxious at all—just like the inside of Albanino’s mind.
In this regard, Hestal was right as well. He had said to Albanino before, “The living and the dead do not represent the same meaning. This one before me—means nothing to me.”
Olga shrugged easily, delivering a final verdict on those wandering in some dark corner of Westland City.
She said, “Apparently, the two most terrifying serial killers in Westland City have begun to notice each other.”
Note:
[1] The timeline of this article is set in 2016, so all the car models mentioned are ones that were on the market before 2016.
The author originally wanted Hestal to drive a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, but unfortunately that SUV wasn’t released until 2018, so he had to drive a Phantom instead (though I actually still wanted him to drive a bigger car). The starting price of this car is around 215,000 pounds—a luxury for the wealthy.
And the red Chevrolet sports car that Albanino drives is actually a fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro—the same car as Bumblebee in the *Transformers* movies—priced at around thirty thousand dollars, quite frugal and practical, a family-friendly choice.