Case: Peter-pan

It's not because I Don't trust you (1)

  Alberu had been working on the pile of papers in front of him since the sun hadn't even risen yet, till it was about to sink back to the horizon. But no matter how long he had been working on it, there doesn't seem to be much difference to the stack on the list of things he needed to do.

Knock knock

"Come in," Alberu voiced out, the pen on his hand still busy signing the documents that needed his approval, "The doors' open"

He was sure it was probably one of the assistants bringing him more paper work anyways, so he didn't really care nor greeted the one who just entered his office.

"Hello there Alby~"

The voice took the trance out of Alberu's focus and brought it entirely to the new individual in the room.

"Aunt Tasha?" Alberu stood up, putting his pen down to the tabletop

He hadn't been able to see his aunt for a while since she was busy dealing with a task he gave her, so seeing her could only meant two things. Either the case was finally solved, or it had been another failure. And between the two possibilities, he truly hoped it's the former than the latter.

"How is it? Did they find something?"

Tasha's face scrunched to a nervous expression, and that was enough to tell Alberu about the answer. "Another failure, they couldn't find anything on this 'Peter-pan' person. Not just that, there has even been another victim just right under their watch."

"...Another?"

"Yea," Tasha pulled out one of the brown envelopes she was holding and gave it to her nephew. "But I think it's better if you don't look at the pictures of the crime scene."

Alberu didn't really listened into his aunt's advice and immediately took a look of what was inside it.

A profile picture of a child that couldn't possibly be older than 6 years old. Next to it was his name, his age (which was apparently 8 years old), his gender, home address, guardians' names, and... the location of where he was found with the speculated time of death.

Alberu sighed heavily, his hands shaking a bit.

This was the sixteenth victim already.

Sixteen!

In the span of six months.

And this one doesn't seem to have a quick painless death like the others, if what the reports said was true (which is most likely so since the one inputting the data was a professional).

His stomach was ripped open and his left eye gouged out, probably because of the tree branches that poked out and couldn't stop him in his fall from that tall building. Some of his entrails even could be seen hanging by the branches and--

"Ugh..." Alberu winced, holding his stomach with his free hand when he saw the picture of the... child. He quickly put the paper facing downward towards the table.

The case at the start of this chain of murders were first thought to be mere accidents or some recklessness on the kid's part. But as time passes, and the number of incidents increasing, it was fairly obvious it wasn't the case.

They had already had a late start in their investigation, and now no one, even the elite investigation forces were able to crack the code and catch the perpetrator.

"That's why I told you to skip the pictures, jeez"

Tasha took the paper from her nephew's hands and put it back to the brown envelope.