Solving for Myself

Chapter 8: Too Many Clues

Stella continued working for the rest of the day, hoping Carson would come around and help but alas he never did. She now found herself doing work for two and it was frustrating so she decided to stop and order some of her favorite pleasure foods, unaware of the danger to come. When her food arrived she brought it in, sat it on the table, unboxed it, and stared in awe; it had been years since she had eaten genuine strawberry shortcake and shepherd's pie. She immediately pigged out, eating half of each and deciding to save the rest for later before getting back to work.

A few minutes later whilst sorting,Stella began to feel funny, in fact, she had never felt this way before. As she tried to struggle to the bathroom, everything went all hazy before she collapsed to the floor with a thud. Hearing this, Carson came out of his room and rushed to the source of the sound to find her collapsed and convulsing Violently. He quickly dashed back to his room, reached under his bed, and grabbed a special poison control kit he kept under the bed for himself. He immediately took out a vial of Naloxone; an antidote used to treat Opioid overdoses and to his surprise, it began to take effect on her.

His hunch had been right; she had overdosed on opioids but where did it come from? she had no death wish. It didn't take him long to smell the food on the kitchen counter and immediately draw suspicion to it. Upon further analysis of the strawberry shortcake and shepherd's pie, he found that both were laced with acetaminophen and diphenhydramine in staggering levels. This wouldn't just make Stella feel high, it would in fact kill her if not given the right treatment but luckily for him, his kit could handle poisons far more potent than that. Stella's vitals were stable but Carson still asked the chief to send over a doctor and a mobile medical vehicle.

The doctor arrived after 30 minutes, filtered the remaining toxins out of her system, and gave Carson the proper instructions for her recovery before leaving. He told Carson that while she was out of imminent danger, she might be sick as a dog for a while and that the symptoms may even mimic a cold. While he was happy that Stella was going to live, he was now put in an awkward spot of having to play Nurse to a woman he may or may not have potential feelings for but nevertheless, he was going to do what he had to do.

Carson walked into the living room with the box of evidence and sat on the sofa across from the one where the woman lay. He sifted through the files slowly but he found his focus kept shifting to Stella. He eventually got up and sat at the kitchen counter and sifted through the papers and that's when he found his big break, in fact, the information had been carefully buried. The first file he found was from the crime scene of the 10th victim which contained a ring that had the church's 8-Armed crest on it. The smoking gun linking the church to the crimes was found at the 42nd crime scene in the form of a ceremonial blade.

The notes with the file include images of a Freemason symbol carved into the bottom which the previous detective concluded was for deception. What the murderer didn't count on was that the previous detective would break a cardinal rule and tamper with evidence by having the knife disassembled. The file noted and had a picture as well that showed the inside of the hilt had the company's name: "Bernardo's Steel Works. Carson did some digging and found out that a few months after this report was filed which was a year ago, the company suddenly vanished as if it were a cover. Carson dug further into the file and found that following this report, the company was probed by local law enforcement. While they refused to speak, their files were taken but most of the ones recovered were edited or unusable and the ones detailed in this file had been sabotaged as well.

Carson was nearly at a dead end until he noticed an unusual file that looked so insignificant that it shouldn't have been included at all. It was labeled quality control and inside, hidden in cryptic at the bottom was the order for the ceremonial knives. Carson had to do some decoding but he uncovered the information completely which showed that the blades were a custom order of 2000, placed by the CEO of "Jungle". The blade at the crime scene matched the lot number and was tied to that order however that's where things got sketchy. The shipment of the blades were declared lost when the plane they were carried on, had a cargo door blow out resulting in the loss.

Carson dug through the FAA files and NTSB records and found no mention of an accident on that flight by the pilots, air traffic control, or anyone else, there wasn't any repair logs either. This was highly suspicious as all accidents must be reported to each of these agencies by law and there would be no reason to cover up the accident as the plane and items were insured and no collateral damage was caused. This led Carson to believe that the false report was filed to prevent the tracing of the blades while also complying with laws that require all items to have identification numbers. He also concluded that the governor helped fake the incident and wave off anyone looking to probe deeper.

Those knives were ordered under the rouse of being sold on the jungle website, declared lost, and sent to the church who uses them when killing. They probably knew someone would fuck up and lose a knife so they went through all this without expecting the police to delve deeper despite the pressure. It was a major breakthrough and enough to tie the church to at least one of the murders if they could get past the corrupted officials who would cover it up and have them all silenced.