Chapter 16: The Metaphor of Mint 04
Albanino Bacchus lay in the small holding cell of the Westland City Police Department, a room so tiny it contained only a wooden board bed and a thin mattress. The sun had not yet risen, and only a faint, hazy white light leaked through the high window in the wall.
There was still no other progress in the case of Sarah Adelman’s murder, and the process of Albanino’s detention would obviously not slow down because of it: by now the prosecutor should already be applying for a pre-trial hearing, and when he appeared in court he would of course refuse to plead guilty. Whether bail could be granted for this kind of violent incident was entirely up to the judge’s discretion.
Now Albanino could not help but suspect that he might not see Hestal again before he arrived at the pre-trial hearing. Of course, if he wanted to, he could call Hestal at any time—that was at least a right he was guaranteed—but he suspected that even so, Hestal would only continue to mock him over the phone. This was practically their daily routine.
Although Hestal had caused all this trouble mainly because he wanted the crime scene investigation team to search his residence, Albanino had no doubt that the man was also thoroughly enjoying seeing him locked up—they both knew very well that Al wouldn’t and couldn’t be restricted of his freedom, so if he unexpectedly ended up with a few years of prison time because of some mess, things would get interesting.
Albanino had not never entertained thoughts of breaking out of prison, but now was not the time.
He was now bored out of his mind, lying on the hard bed until his back ached. Just as he was debating whether to turn over, the door to the small cell suddenly opened.
Bart Hardy stood in the doorway, his face weary, and seemingly tinged with a faint trace of shock. He said hoarsely, “Al, we need you to come out for a moment.”
Albanino said, “Huh?”
“Not released, but after all, before the formal verdict, we assume you are innocent,” Hardy nodded slowly, “…Come on, I need your help.”
—There was a corpse across from the Westland City Police Department.
After October, the temperature dropped quickly, and a pale white hue had just begun to spread across the far edge of the sky. Albanino, surrounded by several police officers, came to the other side of the road. He found it somewhat amusing that a few of them were staring at him as if he might suddenly snap, kill someone, and then run off.
Directly opposite the police station is a narrow alley between two buildings—clean, empty, and utterly steeped in darkness. Now, in the shadows between wall and wall, a woman lay. She wore a red coat, her hair was disheveled, and her cheek had clearly been struck hard. There was no pool of blood beneath her, but her chest was already soaked through with blood. Albanino had no doubt that if her clothes were removed, he would see numerous messy knife wounds on her chest.
The body had been discovered by an officer coming off the night shift. The forensic trace examiners and crime scene investigators had not yet arrived. Albanino and Hardy stood beside the corpse while other officers were setting up the cordon.
“I don’t think this is the primary scene—otherwise there wouldn’t be only this much blood. Look at these wounds; she likely died entirely from excessive blood loss.” Albanino took the latex gloves Hardy handed him and crouched down beside the body. Although he was currently, in the legal sense, a criminal suspect with restricted personal liberty, it wouldn’t hurt to use his professional expertise to do Hardy a favor. He didn’t have a probe to measure the body’s temperature on hand right now, but checking rigor mortis and the degree of corneal cloudiness was no problem. “I estimate she’s been dead for seven or eight hours. It’s not even seven o’clock now, so she probably died around midnight.”
Hardy gave a low “mm.”
Albanino seemed to understand his implication and let out a choking laugh: “You don’t think I’m the murderer now?”
“I never thought you were the murderer. Of course, it would be even better if you’d condescend to tell me what’s going on with those bones.” Hardy retorted wearily.
Albanino smiled and slowly stood up. He looked down at the corpse—the soul had already shed from this shell, so the beautiful features no longer held any meaning: “Look at these messy knife wounds and the restraint marks on the victim’s neck, the scrapes and broken nails on her fingers, these traces left from struggling… They look very similar to Sarah’s wounds—also caused by the killer pressing her to the ground and stabbing her repeatedly.”
“Very likely the same killer as the Sarah Adman case. But since this isn’t the primary crime scene, the body was probably dumped across from the police station deliberately.” Hardy mused. “Perhaps it’s because the news reported that we arrested you as a suspect, which provoked the real killer’s displeasure—dissatisfied that we attributed his achievements to someone else, so he’s taunting us with this abandoned corpse?”
Albanino blinked at him cheerfully: “Or maybe it’s a copycat, someone who admires me so much that they imitated my method just to clear my name.”
“Albanino!” Hardy reprimanded. He was silent for a few seconds, then slowly said: “…But regardless, that bunch of mint can’t be explained. If it was the same killer, why did the previous victim have mint on them but this one doesn’t? Is his signature changing?”
Albanino pursed his lips. It was obvious that no matter what, he couldn’t explain to Hardy that his current lawyer, for the sake of that “Mint” metaphor, had framed him for a murder and placed a bunch of mint on the corpse—he knew that as long as he put down that bunch of mint, Albanino would know he was the one who did it.
Just as Hestal had said, he had decided to join this game.
Albanino had a thousand words to say but could only hold them in. They stood in silence, facing the corpse before them as if worshipping at an altar. Meanwhile, an investigation vehicle turned onto the main road and pulled up silently beside them. Bates jumped down from the passenger seat.
He looked like Phidippides delivering news of victory to the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon. Though his expression remained reserved, he was clearly in a relaxed mood. Walking briskly toward them, he raised his voice and said, “It’s a canine!”
Officer Hardy said dully, “…Huh?”
“The bone remains in the shed behind my house came from a canine.” Albanino said patiently, apparently unsurprised. His gaze remained fixed on the corpse’s utterly destroyed face. “Strictly speaking, actually, it was a coyote. I shot it about half a month ago, skinned it, and burned the rest—otherwise its companions and birds kept sniffing around near my home.”
Hardy looked at him with a complicated expression.
“What? Didn’t you know I have a hunting rifle at home—” Albanino said innocently.
“No, that’s not the point at all! The point is why did you burn a pile of coyote bones in your backyard, and then when CSI saw them, you still didn’t tell us they were coyote bones?!” Hardy accused him, on the verge of a breakdown. God only knew how terrified he’d been when that pile of bones turned up.
“Either way, whether I told you or not, you’d still have tested them to find out what kind of bones they were, right? That’s procedure.” Albanino flashed a big grin that looked infuriating no matter how you looked at it. “Isn’t it better to give you a little surprise?”
Obviously, Hardy didn’t like Albanino’s surprise one bit, and if he weren’t currently a suspect, Hardy might have very much wanted to give him a good kick in the ass. The officer stood in place grinding his teeth for a long while, then turned his head and said to the officers behind him, “Take him back for me.”
Albanino stuck his tongue out at them.
In reality, Hardy ultimately, out of excessive kindness and eagerness to solve the case, gave Albanino special treatment: earlier in the morning, after Hardy finished dealing with batch after batch of trace examination personnel and forensic scene investigators at the crime scene outside the door, chased away the reporters, and removed the cordon, everyone squeezed together into Albanino’s cell.
This was a compromise—strictly speaking, when Albanino left the cell, he had to wear handcuffs, and the others probably didn’t want to watch him wearing handcuffs while shuffling around in front of them.
Present were the usual brainstorming trio from Hardy’s homicide team: Albanino, Bates, and Olga. The latter had come along reluctantly, clearly because of this whole Albanino mess—she hadn’t gotten a single lazy morning’s sleep all weekend.
She must absolutely despise criminals who commit murders on weekends, including the Sunday Gardener. Thinking this, Albanino couldn’t help but feel a surge of sympathy for her.
“Do suspects really have to work this hard attending case discussions? No one’s even paying me a salary,” Albanino pointed out.
No one paid him any attention. He deserved it.
“No fingerprints, no blood other than the victim’s own; also, although this victim’s nails were clearly broken to pieces while she struggled, there was no blood or the killer’s skin flakes between her fingers.” Bates reported, and as he spoke he sighed, “It’s already so cold out—summer would’ve been worse luck.”
“But this pattern alone already tells us a lot. Let’s go ahead and boldly assume these two cases were committed by the same killer.” Olga said, reaching out to tap a few photos of the victims that Hardy had tossed onto Albanino’s bed: “It’s easy to see—they were about the same age, all had dark hair, and all were wearing red clothes when they were killed.”
“If both cases were committed by the same person, then he should be selecting targets according to the same set of rules.” Bates said slowly.
Albanino cut in: “And the killer injured their faces during the attacks.”
“Yes, we know the killer had a knife, but before killing the victims he beat their faces with his fists. That’s a behavior with a strong venting element, not to mention the overkill when he was stabbing them.” Olga spoke slowly, one hand propping up her chin in boredom. “The sexual connotations of stabbing—you all know them well enough.”
“The two victims discovered so far have no direct connection to each other, so he saw the shadow of someone else in those victims and vented his pent-up rage on these innocent girls.” Albanino concluded.
Olga glanced at him lazily: “It’s also possible that you were the one who killed Miss Adelman, and the second case happening was just a coincidence.”
“Hey!”
She stopped joking, wiped the smile from her face, and sat up a little straighter.
“So, what we’re looking for is a white male,” she tilted her head, her voice soft and slow. “Both of those women were in their early thirties. The killer wouldn’t be younger than them—probably between thirty and forty. The killer lives here in Westland, and he probably doesn’t have much money—the drinks at the ‘I Quit’ bar aren’t expensive, and that’s where he picked up Sarah. The killer might have an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife who’s the same type as the victims—pale skin, dark hair, maybe someone who really liked wearing red.”
Olga paused, frowning slightly. When she was thinking, her eyes didn’t seem to rest on any one of them, but her gaze still burned with an indefinable excitement.
“He takes out his failed relationship on his victims. The stabbing is to vent his desire, and destroying their faces is to humiliate them.” She continued, “But he doesn’t direct that anger at the person who actually started it all—he can only take it out on others… Either that woman left him and went somewhere he doesn’t even know, or she filed a restraining order to keep him away from her.”
“He also has a car,” Bates added. “I just received feedback from the officers who’ve been reviewing the surveillance footage: a white van was parked at the entrance of that alley sometime after two in the morning. It was too dark to make out the body from there, but there’s a strong possibility that’s how the body was dropped off. We haven’t identified the model yet, but we can start by checking driver’s license records.”
Albanino stretched his aching back with feline languor and spoke up: “The way he treated the victim shows a great deal of rage, and if he really chose to provoke us because of those news reports… I think he’s a very impulsive person. His counter-surveillance skills won’t be very strong. And people like that usually have a history of violent offenses.”
“I suggest we look into whether there have been any other cases of women in red clothing dying,” Olga added. “He’s been committing crimes too frequently lately. It doesn’t feel like this is his first time doing something like this.”
Hardy nodded, clearly ready to go arrange for officers to investigate, but just before he left the room, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“Albanino,” he said in a low voice.
Albanino looked at him.
Hardy frowned, looking deeply worried. “You know your situation, right? There’s no evidence on Sarah Adelman’s body that points to anyone else. Even if we catch the suspect in the second case, as long as he refuses to admit he killed Sarah Adelman, the two cases can’t be investigated together. In that case, I think the prosecutor will still prosecute you as planned… After all, your fingerprints are on the murder weapon.”
Albanino sized him up, then laughed.
“Of course, so I’m counting entirely on you.” Albanino said easily, his tone sounding as if he truly wasn’t troubled at all. “My life is in your hands, Officer Hardy.”
“We’ve made progress.” Hardy said, standing at the small window of the cell door.
Albanino lay lazily sprawled on the bed, deigning to glance at him. “What is it?”
“First, we identified two earlier cases of unnatural death: young women with dark hair, killed by stabbing, wearing red clothing when they died.” Hardy said. “Both of these cases occurred before Sarah Adelman was murdered—one was over half a month ago, the other over a month ago. At the time, because their valuables had all been taken, the officers in charge of these cases treated them as robberies.”
“And then?” Albanino asked in that restrained, rather interested tone of his.
“Then we brought these two cases into consideration as well, and cross-referenced the areas where these incidents occurred to narrow down individuals who fit the profile and owned a white van,” Hardy said. “One person came up as the strongest suspect—his name is Bob Landon, thirty-eight years old, currently out on bail pending trial for charges of violently assaulting his ex-wife. All these incidents occurred after he was released on bail.”
Albanino asked, “His ex-wife…?”
“Early thirties, black hair, wore red in every photo she posted on social media—she likes that color.” Hardy revealed a sharp, hound-like smile. “After divorcing her ex-husband, she applied for a restraining order because she accused him of constantly stalking her. Even so, after the restraining order took effect, she was still stabbed three times by Bob Landon. She’s only just been discharged from the hospital recently.”
This made Landon seem highly suspicious. As Albanino was pondering this, Hardy continued, “We’ve already sent officers to his home—as long as we can catch him, as long as he admits to Sarah Adman’s case as well, we’ll be able to release you very soon.”
Albanino kept smiling. He thought for a moment, then said, “Then, I’d like to request another phone call to my lawyer now, if that’s all right?”
When Hestal received that phone call, he was trapped at a boring cocktail party full of people in suits, surrounded by cheap smiles and hollow pleasantries. The man who had cornered him in a seemingly solemn conversation was privately involved in some smuggling business, and the fellow laughing along with his every word ran an underground fight ring.
Hestal saw through it all with perfect clarity.
The sudden ringing of the phone at least gave him an excuse to extricate himself from this boring small talk. He made his way to the edge of the venue, standing by the terrace door where there were slightly fewer people, as sticky threads of rain began to fall outside the window once more.
When he answered the phone, he heard the cheerful voice on the other end say: “Mr. Amaret.”
“Dr. Bax,” Hestal replied with a frown. “What are you calling for?”
“Because you are my lawyer, and now I have some new information I’d like to share with you—Bart has already permitted it.” Albarino answered with a smile. “After all, I have the right to share the latest developments with you.”
“Go ahead,” Hestal said dryly. His intuition told him that the other party had nothing good to say.
“Another case happened today. Another woman in red was killed, and the body was abandoned right across from the police station—of course, you’ve probably already heard about it. Anyway, Bart and the others suspect this case can be consolidated with Sarah’s case: it’s very likely that because Sarah’s case was pinned on me, this killer decided to make a move and provoke the police.” Albanino spoke slowly, and Hestal could hear the sound of his fingers tapping slowly on some desk surface. “And if they keep investigating along that line of thinking, they’ll naturally discover a new suspect who fits the profile.”
Hestal was silent for two seconds, then said matter-of-factly, “Even so, there’s no evidence in Miss Adman’s case that directly points to anyone other than you.”
“Exactly.” Albanino answered from the other end. “But they have a new suspect now. If he admits that Sarah was…”
Hestal interrupted without hesitation: “Then, those bones found behind your house—”
“They’re coyote bones, what did you think they were?” Albanino said with a smile, his voice softly lowering, as if recalling a very amusing story—perhaps it truly was, to him. “A coyote accidentally wandered into my territory. I suppose it didn’t mean me any harm, but I’ve never liked strangers prowling around my land… Besides, if I’d just let it be, who knows how things might have turned out later?”
“So you killed it,” Hestal said slowly.
“I took my hunting rifle and shot it behind my house. The bullet entered through its snout and came out behind its ear.” Albanino spoke gently, his sweet trailing tone almost like reciting poetry to a lover. “I’d never cut open an animal like that before—I was completely at a loss. I gutted it in front of my fireplace, burying my hands in its abdominal cavity to pull out the organs—its innards were still steaming hot, Hestal. When I did it, I felt as though my hands were buried in a river of blood.”
Hestal felt his throat go dry, and he did not utter a single sound.
“I skinned it, left some of the meat—perhaps it wouldn’t taste very good, but I didn’t know what to do with it,” Albanino said softly. “In the end, only the innards and bones were left. I didn’t know how to deal with them, and I was afraid of attracting other predators sniffing around my territory, so I burned them and smashed the bones into small pieces… that way nothing would be left behind. I planted some vegetation on the remaining fragments, you understand.”
Albanino was still talking, his voice dropping extremely low, almost as if it were roughly licking across his earlobe. He asked, “That is everything that happened to that coyote. What kind of story were you expecting to hear, lawyer?”
“I only wanted to hear your prediction about your own future. The coyote was never something I cared about.” Hestal gazed at the drifting rain. He paid no mind to Albanino’s provocation, but the image still surfaced before his eyes: Albanino kneeling before his prey, both hands buried in its abdomen, from fingertips to elbows soaked in steaming hot blood. “You know full well—if they never catch that killer again—”
“So I’m still the prime suspect in Sarah’s murder, and the prosecutor will still indict me,” Albanino said. “That’s the problem I’m trying to point out.”
Hestal remained calmly silent.
“The Westland City Police Department has already sent people to arrest him, though I highly doubt he’ll still be there waiting.” Albanino spoke cheerfully, and that sharp delight in his voice was chilling to hear. “Hestal, if you want to make a move in the end, I’m afraid you’re running out of time. At times like this, I’m always very curious—you’re someone who can seize an opportunity, aren’t you?”
Hestal frowned. “Mr. Bax, are you implying—”
If the suspect that Bart Hardy was trying to catch ended up dead, then naturally no one would be able to confirm who actually killed Sarah Adelman. Albanino would have a hard time escaping, and in the end, he would obviously have no choice but to stand trial.
But he just hadn’t expected that this fact would be brought up by Albanino himself.
“Aren’t coyotes all meaningless to us? Don’t you want me to become the butterfly you pin down?” Albanino laughed, his airy, breathy voice brushing past Hestal’s ear. “Do you hear the sound of time passing, Hestal? Time won’t stop for you—tick-tock, tick-tock…”
“Where do I stand in this story of yours, you coyote?” Hestal retorted sharply.
“Don’t be impatient,” Albanino replied, his voice so lighthearted it hardly seemed like that of a man trapped in a cage. “I haven’t yet determined your position, Mr. Armalite.”
The unrestrained amusement in his voice made one want to personally wipe it away. Hestal’s lips twisted into a cold sneer, and then he hung up the phone without a word, offering no farewell.
He stood there for a moment, then walked toward the host of the banquet.
—He needed to find himself a graceful way to take his leave.
Note:
[1] According to American law, the procedure for Albanino’s current case is as follows:
After the police determine that Al is a suspect, they apply for an arrest warrant to arrest him, and then conduct an interrogation—which is the content of the previous chapter.
Cases involving major violent incidents, and even possibly carrying a death sentence or life imprisonment, generally require the prosecutor to apply for a pretrial hearing (though in this story’s setting, this state does not have the death penalty). The main content is that the judge will ask whether the defendant pleads guilty, and the judge will rule on whether bail is allowed. Both the defendant and the defendant’s lawyer must be present at the pretrial hearing.
(A pretrial hearing is not a mandatory stage of the bail procedure, because when a criminal suspect or defendant meets the conditions for being granted bail, the judge does not need to hold a hearing and may directly decide on bail.)
In Al’s case, bail requires consideration of the severity of the case, the danger the suspect poses to others in community life, and other such matters. If bail is allowed, then after paying the bail amount, Al can temporarily go home. To put it plainly, bail money means, “I guarantee that even if I am not detained, I will return on time to attend the court hearing and absolutely will not run away.” The bail amount varies according to the severity of the charged offense. For a suspect like Al, who is estimated to be charged with second-degree murder, the bail amount would be quite large.
At the pretrial hearing, the formal trial date for the case will also be set.