PFC Chapter 3852 The Nameless Bat (22)
Chapter 3852 The Nameless Bat (22)
Chapter 3852 The Nameless Bat (Twenty-Two)
The car stopped on a chaotic street. The buildings were predominantly three or four stories high, bearing the marks of the Great Depression. Where the asphalt was broken, there were no paved stones underneath, only muddy dirt tracks. This proved that this place had developed into a modern city in less than 20 years. With this came chaotic and disorderly management—gangs, crime, and outlets for suppressed violence within the city.
In other cities, this would have a very distinct ethnic character: different races would have different chaotic neighborhoods. But in Gotham, it's a melting pot. People are divided into criminals and lunatics; skin color is the least important thing.
“Making a 14-year-old breathe any more air here is torture,” Gordon couldn’t help but say as he got out of the car. He pulled a pack of masks out of the car and forced them on Nimosini despite her resistance. He gathered Nimosini’s braids behind her head, put a large baseball cap on her, and then wrapped his own coat around her. After the whole process, he had dressed her up as the most distinctive “penguin” on the East Coast.
Schiller merely surveyed the building before them. Police officers were dragging out several disheveled clients who hadn't yet dressed. Some were swearing and cursing, some were vomiting, and some were trying to complete the process on their own. It was chaos, like hell.
The neon lights shone on tattooed bodies, some obese and bloated, others emaciated, covered in scars and covered in thick hair. A pungent, cheap perfume mingled with the stench of vomit from marijuana. As Schiller and his companions ascended the narrow staircase, everything coalesced into a vast net, numbing their senses and minds.
For detectives, having no clues is never troublesome. What's truly troublesome is a scenario like this: too many traces, completely disordered. Sight, hearing, smell, touch—every sense is subjected to countless stimuli, and they must sift through this massive amount of information to find the useful ones, inevitably incurring considerable mental strain in the process.
Nemosini was clearly experiencing this for the first time, and she seemed somewhat uncomfortable. Gordon assumed she was just feeling overwhelmed by the pressure, but Schiller knew: a genius like Nemosini could reconstruct the entire scene from the moment a customer entered the room based on a single hair that had fallen to the floor. Undoubtedly, it was disgusting, but to uncover the truth, she had to repeatedly replay the scenes deduced from each clue, finding anything amiss. This would be mentally exhausting.
Gordon opened the door. Schiller went in first, glanced at the body, then shook his head at Gordon. Gordon turned to Nemosini and said, "The condition of the body is significantly beyond your level of expertise. Is it alright to just look at the crime scene?"
Nimosini took a step back, but nodded anyway, and said, "May I see them in the morgue?"
“Sure. You can take a look at the wound with me here, but not the whole thing,” Gordon said. “Then I’ll still give you the pixelated photo.”
Nimosini hesitated for a moment and said, "If you let me in to take a look, perhaps I can catch the murderer right away."
“Impossible. Nemo, this isn’t good for your mental state. You look very pale. I knew bringing you here was a mistake.”
“I was just overthinking it,” Nimosini said. “You can assure me someone will give me a detailed account of what happened in the room.”
"Okay, this is my bottom line. You know, once I say this, even the most ruthless criminal can no longer negotiate with me?"
Nimosini nodded and stepped aside. The officers carried out the body covered with a white sheet. Schiller went into the house.
The crime scene was a chaotic mess: a very narrow room crammed with things, the floor so dirty it was sticky, and the ceiling covered in tar stains. The sheets and blankets were a complete mess, alcohol and drugs were scattered everywhere, liposuction tubes and syringes were piled in a corner, and needles were strewn all over the floor.
“Batman is cracking down on the sex industry,” Gordon said. “Right now, all the sex workers in Gotham are prostitutes, hiding in tiny houses and basements like these. The clients are all drug addicts at the very bottom of society. If it weren’t for the rule against disturbing crime scenes, I would have thoroughly disinfected this place before coming here.”
Schiller saw that the bodies were marked near the bed: one on the bed, one on the floor. Judging from their positions, they weren't connected. He had just come in for a look; both had died from stab wounds: one from the heart in the back, the other from the throat in the front. The former died from a stab wound, the latter from a cut. Blood was everywhere in the room.
Nimosini walked in.
She stared at the scene in the room for a moment, then turned to Gordon and said, "It's number one."
"You mean the male murderer?"
"Yes. Your men should already be keeping an eye on the female killer, but there's still no lead on the male killer. This time it was him. You'd better hurry, because after losing his Eve, he'll become even more insane, until..."
"what?"
"God no longer needs him."
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed down the stairs. A young police officer frantically shouted into the room, "Chief, Covins is dead..."
"Who?!"
"GCPD combat skills training instructor, Covins Antapoulos. He was found dead in the Gotham Police Department's training room an hour ago. Surveillance footage suggests suicide, but before his death, he..."
The young officer hesitated for a moment, looking flustered. He swallowed hard a few times before looking at Gordon and saying, "...he broke one of his ribs with a kitchen knife."
“God created Eve from Adam’s rib,” Nimosini said calmly. “You took away his Eve, and he wants God to give him another Eve.”
"This is insane!" Gordon said through gritted teeth. "Hurry! Back to the police station!"
This time, Schiller and Nimosini didn't take a police car; they simply drove back to 125 in a regular car, arriving at the same time at a private chef restaurant that Schiller had booked.
Schiller took the takeout back to the house, helped Nimosini take off her thick coat, and let her take a shower. As the girl, with her hair still wet, began to eat the reheated dinner with Schiller, she started talking about the case from earlier that day.
"He's manipulating them by exploiting their weaknesses. If Adam were a police officer, he might have a history of bribery or framing. Eve, on the other hand, was being targeted by the mob. It's not surprising that they would help the Eden Killer kill people because they have something on them."
Nimosini sipped her soup, and then she noticed that Schiller's eating habits were almost identical to his: they never ate several dishes together, but rather ate them one by one in order from beginning to end; when eating a single dish, they also liked to separate the ingredients that could be separated, such as scooping out all the meatballs from the soup, drinking the liquid first, and then eating the solids.
“You have autism too,” Nimosini said. “Who came up with the brilliant idea of having you as my guardian?”
“Batman,” Schiller said, “maybe he just thought you had the same talents as him. And ordinary people like Gordon can’t do anything but pity you. He thought I would be one of you, so he sent you here.”
“But you’re not. We’re complete opposites. If Batman were truly exceptional in this regard, he wouldn’t be oblivious.”
“He just thought I would be more patient with children,” Schiller said. “And that’s true. I’m more willing to interact with children than adults.”
Even if I were a mentally ill person who would threaten others with a knife? Or an autistic child who appears aggressive and extremely manic?
"Yes. Even if you are a typical child on the spectrum, it is much easier for me to deal with you than with an adult."
"You're such a weirdo."
“Keep that mindset,” Schiller said slowly, cutting his steak. “Especially keep your aversion to psychoanalysis. Never be curious about the subject. You’ll be a great sidekick for Batman.”
"Miracles have never happened to me in my life, so I'm not interested in you or your psychoanalysis. All I want to know now is what the copycat's motives are. Can you bring about another miracle on this question?"
Schiller shook his head and said, "Trust James. He'll catch the killer eventually."
“Then there’s no hope at all.” Nimosini lowered her head. She leaned back in her chair, her hands still resting on the edge of the table, thinking in this slightly awkward posture.
"Today's case wasn't committed by a copycat, but by a male criminal who has already been apprehended. After realizing the female criminal had been arrested, he completed his final work and then prayed for God's mercy by self-harming and committing suicide. I guarantee James won't get anything out of him or that woman."
"Why imitate the Eden Killer? I don't think it's a very complicated question. His work distracted the police, resulting in double-digit numbers of victims, while the GCPD idiots still thought there was only one killer. Perhaps that was his purpose. But why would he want to distract the police?"
"If we can't realize that the killer isn't a single person, we can't deduce that they're being manipulated, and therefore we can't expose the Eden Killer behind it all. Could this be a copycat case orchestrated by the Eden Killer to conceal his tracks?"
"If that's the case, he'd be a very seasoned killer, well-versed in murder and knowing how to mislead the police. He's extremely cunning and confident. But now that both of the killers he controlled have been arrested, what will he do?"
"Why do you think he killed someone?" Schiller suddenly asked.
“Good question. The motive is very unclear. I can only attribute it to some kind of perverted hobby. There have been many prostitute hunters in history who believed that their motives were different, but in reality, they were all psychopaths.”
Do you think the Eden Killer is one too?
“I don’t know,” Nimosini said, looking confused. “If he’s a psychopath who enjoys hunting prostitutes, he shouldn’t manipulate others; he should do it himself. But if he’s not a psychopath, why would he do these things?”
"Remember what I said?"
“What nonsense are you spouting?” Nimosini looked up at him and said, “I see no factual basis for it. Neither the photos nor the scene itself supports your speculation.”
"Yes. But assuming that's the truth, what comes to mind?"
"If he manipulated others to commit such crimes in order to learn and understand... how did he do it?"
Nemosini jumped up from her chair. She ran to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and dialed.
"Hello? Gordon, it's me. There was a camera on the body, right?"
Gordon, who was standing in the forensic department listening to his subordinates' report, was speechless with shock, because the small transparent bag he was holding contained a miniature camera—which had just been found on Cowens' body.
"That wasn't a live-streaming camera; it must have stored footage of the person committing the murder. The Eden Killer would want it; he would try to retrieve the camera."
Gordon paused, then looked down at the evidence bag in his hand.
"The fact that he chose Cowens proves he has a way to retrieve the cameras from him, even after he's dead. It proves he still has people in the police department. Put someone on guard in the forensics department, and you can catch this mole. Don't give him a chance to commit suicide."
Gordon was speechless. Nimosini's tone and attitude reminded him of the bat-like figure who often appeared silently in the corner of his office.