Solving for Myself

Chapter 3: An Unlikely Suspect

The next morning, Stella woke up confused; she was at her computer last night so how in the hell did she get all the way into her room? It took her a few seconds before she started blushing really hard because she knew that he had carried her to her room. She gave herself a few seconds to calm down, before getting up and heading back to her desk. When she walked into the room, Carson was already at his desk working hard however upon seeing her, he smiled and said"Good morning Miss...please take a seat, there's much to discuss".She nodded and sat over at the meeting table and was joined by Carson a minute later".

He looked at her with a frown and said"We're not dealing with a single perpetrator...we're dealing with a group of individuals here. Stella looked at him confused before he showed her several pictures of the murder scenes, and the autopsy reports for each. Each murder victim after examination was found to have a pentagram written on their arm with invisible ink that only appeared under black light. This pentagram wasn't the ordinary one that many widely knew, this one had an 8-armed Egyptian deity in the middle and the symbol was very similar to Stella. She looked at him before darting over to her desk and returning with 6 pictures of people draped in hooded robes with that symbol on it as well as the previous detective's reports.

Stella said"The report detailed that these members belong to a Cult which to the public was known as the "new Hindu church" which was a cover. The church had this 8-armed figure as its crest but it wasn't inside of a pentagram. Due to this, the church could never be incriminated...the evidence on the victim's arms was dismissed as gang tattoo and the case was slowly pushed under by officials". Carson said"The last two detectives went to investigate the cult's activities at their complex out in the woods and never came back. A case was opened into their disappearance but was closed and labeled as dereliction of duty.

Stella looked at him and said, "So we established a relationship but what's the smoking gun that led you to believe the cult is organizing these murders?" He flopped papers down and said"These reports are eyewitnesses seeing these masked figures walking the streets the same nights of the murders and some testify to seeing the man a few minutes before the murders. However, the biggest piece of evidence is these videos on the internet of the church talking about inviting others in and"cleansing this lost generation of their sins and purging the world of false love".

Carson continued and said"They don't publicly speak it but they are heavily against LGBT as stated on their websites. However, the last bit of evidence was filmed by a drone someone accidentally flew over the sight...it showed footage of these masked figures headed in the direction of the church but since the footage wasn't completely incriminating and the drone was flown in their area without permission it wasn't used and in fact it was ordered to be deleted, however, the last two detectives recovered it before the user removed it". Stella said, they also did some digging and shortly after that accident, the owner of the drone was almost killed in a house fire and moved out of town. When asked why he was leaving by detectives, he simply said"his company had transferred him to another branch but they found no evidence of it in his texts or emails or phone log history so something scared him off".

Carson looked at Stella and said, "I think our first task should be to dig deeper into why these investigations were so brief and why potential evidence was glossed over because it seems like someone bigger is protecting them". Stella smiled at him and said, "Agreed, it's rather odd that sooner or later, they didn't start to suspect the church and move to investigate anyway". Carson said, "Well I'll let you get into that...I'm going to make some coffee and brunch".Stella rolled her eyes, went back over to her desk, and got onto her laptop. Thirty minutes later, Carson came back with two plates of scones and sat one down on Stella's desk before heading to his own. Stella looked at him and said"Thanks but I don't like sweets in the morning".

Carson smiled and said, "I thought you might say that so I cooked up some oatmeal for ya...it's in the kitchen on the stove". She said"Thanks but that will have to wait...I found the information on who buried those investigations". She looked at Carson with a frown and said"The reason those investigations into the footage, the sightings, and the disappearances were called off was because of the mayor and the governor. They said and I quote, there's no evidence tying these folks to these crimes...It's mere coincidence and hearsay and I will not stir up drama and have citizens feeling unsafe without proper evidence. The people including the local PD should mind their business and focus on other matters and leave the rumors to my office; after all, we are better equipped and have government-level detectives and intelligence".

Carson sighed and said, "That's why the department put just us two on the case and did it secretly huh?" Stella said"There's no doubt they probably have someone watching and ready to ice us like the last two"He nodded and said"The evidence I sifted over from the previous detectives also detailed that the governor's office at the request of the mayor, called off government assistance by downplaying the threats so we're definitely looking at someone in the government influencing things on behalf of the cult".Carson smiled and said, "well since we are federal investigators not tied to any one state, then I guess we'll be going about this solo".