Chapter 3841

The car stopped on a chaotic street. Here, the buildings were generally three to four stories tall, retaining the traces of the Great Depression era. Where the asphalt road was broken, there were no cobblestones underneath, only muddy dirt paths. This proved that it had likely taken less than 20 years to leapfrog into a modernized city. Following this came chaotic and disorderly management—gangs, crime, and the vent for the violence suppressed within the city.

If it were any other city, this place would have very obvious ethnic characteristics: different races would have different chaotic neighborhoods. But in Cat Getan, this place was a melting pot. People were only divided into criminals and lunatics; what color one's skin was was the most irrelevant topic of all.

"Letting a 14-year-old child breathe one more mouthful of this air is abuse." Gordon, having stepped out of the car, couldn't help but say. He rummaged through the car for a pack of masks and, ignoring Mnemosyne's resistance, forcibly put one on her. He gathered Mnemosyne's braids behind her head, put a large duckbill cap on her, and then wrapped his own overcoat around her. After the whole process was finished, she was dressed up as the most chic "penguin" on the East Coast.

Schiller merely sized up the building in front of them. Police officers were escorting out some johns who hadn't had time to put on their clothes and were looking quite disheveled. Some were high and cursing wildly, some were vomiting, and some were attempting to rely on their own strength to finish the process. It was as chaotic as hell.

The neon lights shone on bodies covered in tattoos, either obese and bloated or gaunt and bony, covered in scars and thick hair. The heavy scent of cheap perfume mixed with the smell of vomit brought on by marijuana. As Schiller and the others walked up the extremely narrow staircase, everything turned into a giant web, numbing everyone's senses and minds.

For a detective, a lack of clues was never a problem. What was truly troublesome was this kind of scene: too many traces, completely disordered. Vision, hearing, smell, touch—every sense was being subjected to countless stimuli, and they had to find the useful ones from this massive amount of information, for which they had to endure a great deal of mental damage.

Mnemosyne was clearly facing such a scene for the first time, and she appeared somewhat uncomfortable. Gordon thought she just felt too much pressure, but Schiller knew: a genius like Mnemosyne could even reconstruct all the actions from the moment a john entered the door just from a single hair dropped on the ground. There was no doubt that this was disgusting, but in order to seek the truth, she had to repeatedly replay the scenes deduced from every trace to find the parts that were wrong. This would make her mind unbearable.

Gordon opened that door. Schiller walked in first to take a look, then shook his head at Gordon. Gordon turned his head and said to Mnemosyne: "The condition of the corpses significantly exceeds the level you can view. Is it okay to just look at the crime scene?"

Mnemosyne took a step back, but still nodded, then said: "Can I see them in the morgue?"

"Yes. With me present, you can take a look at the wounds, but you cannot see everything." Gordon said, "And I will still give you the photos with mosaics."

Mnemosyne hesitated for a moment and said: "If you let me go in and take a look, perhaps I can directly catch the murderer."

"Impossible. Nemo, this is no good for your mental state. Your face looks very pale. I knew bringing you here was a mistake."

"I was just thinking too much." Mnemosyne said, "You promise that someone will describe to me in detail what happened in the room."

"Fine, this is my bottom line. Do you know that when I say this sentence, even the most brutal criminals can no longer negotiate with me?"

Mnemosyne nodded and stepped aside. The police officers carried out the corpses covered in white cloth. Schiller walked into the room.

The crime scene was even more chaotic: a very narrow room packed with things, the floor was so dirty it was a bit sticky, and the ceiling was covered with black and yellow marks from tar smoke. The sheets and quilts were a mess, alcohol and drugs were spilled all over the floor, liposuction tools and syringes were piled in the corner of the room, and needles were everywhere.

"Batman cracks down hard on the sex industry." Gordon said, "Now all sex workers in Cat Getan are underground prostitutes, only daring to hide in such small houses and basements. The johns are also those bottom-feeding addicts. If it weren't for the fact that I can't destroy the crime scene, I would definitely have given this place a full disinfection before coming."

Schiller saw that the position where the corpses were marked was by the bed: one person on the bed, one person under the bed. From their postures, they were not in a connected state. He had just walked in and taken a look; both died from knife wounds: one was struck in the heart from behind, the other was struck in the throat from the front. The former died from a stab wound, the latter from a slash. There was blood everywhere in the room.

Mnemosyne walked in.

She stared at the scene in the room for a while, then turned her head and said to Gordon: "It's Number 1."

"You mean that male murderer?"

"Yes. Your people should have already targeted the female murderer, but there is no clue about the male murderer. This time, he committed the crime. You had better be quick, because after losing his Eve, he will be even crazier, until..."

"What?"

"God no longer needs him."

Messy footsteps suddenly came from the stairs. A young police officer hurriedly shouted toward the room: "Commissioner, Cowens is dead..."

"Who?!"

"The GCPD's combat training instructor, Cowens Antaplos. He was found dead in the Cat Getan Police Department's training room an hour ago. From the surveillance footage, it was suicide, but before he died, he..."

The young police officer hesitated for a moment; he was a bit panicked, swallowed hard a few times, and then looked at Gordon and said: "... he used a kitchen knife to remove one of his own ribs."

"God used Adam's rib to create Eve." Mnemosyne said very calmly, "You took away his Eve, and he wants God to give him another Eve."

"This is truly crazy!" Gordon said through gritted teeth, "Hurry! Back to the police station!"

This time, Schiller and Mnemosyne did not take the police car again; they just drove a regular car back to 125, and arriving at the same time as them was the food Schiller had ordered from a private kitchen restaurant.

Schiller took the takeout back into the house, helped Mnemosyne take off her thick coat, and let her take a shower. When the girl, with her wet hair, started eating the reheated dinner with Schiller, she brought up today's case again.

"He is using their weaknesses to manipulate them. If Adam is a police officer at the station, then he might have a record of bribery or framing. And Eve was targeted by gangs. They had dirt in the hands of the Eden Killer, so it's not strange at all that they would help him kill."

Mnemosyne drank her soup in small sips, and then she discovered that Schiller's eating habits were almost exactly the same as his: they never mixed several dishes together to eat, but 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 fishing out all the meatballs in the soup, drinking the liquid first, and then eating the solids.

"You are also an autistic patient." Mnemosyne said, "Who on earth came up with the good idea of letting you be my guardian?"

"Batman." Schiller said, "Maybe he just felt that you have the same talent as him. And ordinary people like Gordon can't do anything but sympathize with you. He felt that I would be your kind, so he sent you over."

"But you are not. We two are diametrically opposed. If Batman has reached the pinnacle in this regard, then he wouldn't be unable to see that."

"He just felt that I would be more patient with children." Schiller said, "And in fact, that is indeed the case. Compared to adults, I am more willing to interact with children."

"Even if I am a mentally ill patient who would hold a knife to threaten others? An autistic child who looks aggressive and very manic?"

"Yes. Even if you are a very typical spectrum child, dealing with you is much easier for me than dealing with adults."

"You are truly a weirdo."

"Keep that opinion." Schiller said while slowly cutting his steak, "Especially keep your disgust for psychoanalysis. Don't be curious about this subject at any time. You will become a good assistant to Batman."

"Miracles have never appeared in my life, so I am not interested in you and your psychoanalysis. I just want to know now, what exactly is the motive of the copycat? Will you make a miracle descend again for this question?"

Schiller shook his head and said: "Trust James. He will always be able to catch the murderer."

"Then there is never any hope." Mnemosyne lowered her head. She leaned back in her chair, but her hands were still resting on the edge of the table, thinking in this slightly awkward posture.

"Today's case was not done by a copycat, but by the male prisoner who has already been caught. After he realized the female prisoner was caught, he completed his final work, and then used self-mutilation and suicide to pray for God's mercy. I can guarantee that James won't get anything from him and that woman."

"Why imitate the Eden Killer? I think this won't be a very complicated question. His work interfered with the police's line of sight, leading to the victims adding up to double digits, and the idiots at the GCPD still thought there was only one murderer. Perhaps this is his goal. But why does he want to interfere with the police?"

"If one cannot realize that the murderer is not one person, then one cannot deduce that they are being manipulated, and thus cannot expose the Eden Killer behind it. Could this be a copycat case directed and acted by the Eden Killer himself to hide his tracks?"

"If so, he would be a very seasoned killer, quite well-versed in murder, and also knows how to mislead the police. He is very cunning, and at the same time very confident. But now that the two murderers he manipulated have both been arrested, what is he going to do?"

"Why do you think he wants to kill?" Schiller suddenly asked.

"Good question. The motive is very unclear. I can only attribute it to some kind of perverted hobby of his. There have been many prostitute hunters in history; they think their motives are different, but in reality, it's all because they are psychopaths."

"Do you think the Eden Killer is one too?"

"I don't know." Mnemosyne looked very confused, "If he were a psychopath who takes pleasure in hunting prostitutes, then he shouldn't manipulate others but do it himself. But if he is not a pervert, why must he do these things?"

"Remember what I said?"

"Those ramblings of yours?" Mnemosyne looked up at him and said, "I don't see any factual basis. Whether it's the photos or the scene, there is nothing to support your guess."

"Yes. But assuming this is the truth, what would you think of?"

"If he is manipulating others to commit such cases in order to learn and understand... what is he using to watch?"

Mnemosyne stood up from her chair with a "whoosh." She ran to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and dialed.

"Hello? Gordon, it's me, there's a camera on the corpse, right?"

Gordon, who was standing in the evidence department listening to his subordinates' report, was speechless with shock at this moment, because the small transparent bag he was holding contained exactly a micro-camera—just searched out from Cowens' corpse.

"That's not a live-streaming camera; it should have stored the video footage of the other party killing. The Eden Killer will want it; he will find a way to recover the camera."

Gordon was stunned and looked down at the evidence bag in his hand.

"He chose Cowens, which proves he has a way to recover the camera on him, even after he is dead. This proves he still has his people in the police station. Send someone to guard the evidence department, and you will be able to catch this mole. Don't give him a chance to commit suicide."

Gordon was speechless. Mnemosyne's tone and attitude reminded him of the bat-monster who often appeared silently in the corner of his office.