Paint the town red

Chapter XXXIV

The next morning I was greeted not by an annoying alarm or by thunder, but by two messages sent literally one after the another. Yesterday, during my walk, I warned Max that I'd come to work a little later today, as I had to settle a couple of things outside the precinct, so I'd afford to wake up an hour later. But, apparently, my plan wasn't destined to come true.

I hadn't really opened my eyes yet, but my hand was already reaching for the bedside table to take my phone from there. With one eye, I only looked at the names of those who interrupted my sleep, but as soon as I saw the names of Esteban and Logan, I miraculously woke up. I immediately sat up in bed and opened the messages from the experts. Both Sargeant and Ocon asked me to come to them as soon as I was at the station. After their message, all the rest of the sleep disappeared, so I immediately got up, took a hasty shower and changed clothes.

I immediately went to the door, but Yuki from the kitchen shouted to me that breakfast was already on the table. To my "no time", he said: "The next breakfast will get into you, and it's better to do it through your mouth!".  He's not a fan of wasting groceries, and I can perfectly understand him. But I didn't want to stay any longer, so I said goodbye to my neighbor and walked briskly to the station.

I wonder what they both found? Is there finally a clue that can really bring at least some result? It's just that otherwise I don't understand the reason why they both insist that I go to their offices asap. On the one hand, I'm very interested in finding out who our mysterious killer is, but on the other hand, I'm afraid that it may be someone I know. I've gone over everyone I could cross the road like that a hundred times, but every time I tried to get a rough idea of a suspect, it was a big fiasco.

I immediately remembered my map with the zones and that someone had changed the addresses in order to deliberately remove certain points from the zone. This would definitely be done by someone from the police, someone who understands what zoning is and what is being done with it. So the theory that the perpetrator is a cop is getting stronger with every finding I make. If I take a look my zones, then at the old addresses both the store and one house remain in the zone. But if I create a zone with "new" addresses, then both the store and the house remain outside it. And whoever corrected the addresses knows for sure about the zoning and that it'd be a pointer to the area of the criminal's search. Someone knew this, and deliberately changed everything to throw us off the right course.

While I was thinking about all this, I didn't even notice how I got to the station. I decided not to go into my office, but immediately went to Logan, and on the way I texted Esteban and asked him to come to the American's office as well.

When I reached Sargeant's office, I knocked and opened the door. He nodded at me and waved me to come over to the computer. Logan wanted to tell and show me something, but I asked him to wait a couple of minutes until the Ocon came to his office.

As soon as I finished my sentence, there was a knock on the door and a second later our long-awaited guest entered the office. He was surprised that I asked him to come here, but I promised to explain everything later.

"Well, what did you find there?"

They looked at each other, then Logan shrugged his arms and turned to the monitor.

"Well, since the office is mine, then I'll be the first to show my findings."

I nodded, and Esteban and I looked at Logan's monitor. He opened a hidden folder with a couple of clicks, then launched the video player. We saw a guy slightly shorter than me, dressed all in black and whose face was hidden by a deep hood, approach the site. He was holding an object in his hands, then he threw something in the trash. But then he patted his pockets and reached into the trash can, took out something that looked like keys, shook them, took off his hood and calmly went to the station.