Paint the town red

Chapter XLVII

It's been a few days since Max was taken into custody, so when I woke up this morning, there was still a part of me that was hoping that it was all a bad dream, and I'm gonna wake up and everything's gonna be okay. But I opened my eyes and plunged into the harsh reality - my friends are dead, and my is the one who lover killed them. Of course, the final point will be set by the results of the examinations, which are about to be ready. The experts said they'd provide a full report in the coming days, "presumably on Tuesday," so most likely they'll already be on my desk.

All my free time, I tried to occupy myself with anything, just not to return to thoughts about work. Yuki seems to have gradually begun to return to his normal state, although I'm sure that the news of Max's involvement in Pierre's death has greatly upset him. He tries not to show it, but I've told him many times that he doesn't have to hide his feelings and emotions in front of me, but he says everything's fine. I don't believe him, but I won't press him either.

Today is Tuesday, which means that today I'll be one hundred percent sure of Max's guilt, and tomorrow ... tomorrow there'll be the first interrogation. Since the arrest, I've never seen him, although the officers said that he asked me to come. I refused all the time because I'm not sure I can think rationally in his presence.

I got out of bed, took a cold shower, then had a quick breakfast and left before Yuki woke up. Now I have a new habit: I text my neighbor every morning. Maybe he doesn't need it, but I think it'd be nice for anyone to get a few words of support in the morning, especially in a situation like ours right now.

On the way to the station, I went to the nearest coffee shop, where I bought myself a large glass of strong coffee, because I've a lot of work to do. And yet I was right: when I entered the office, there was already a thick paper folder on the table with reports from both Logan and Esteban, and several other experts from other laboratories. I sat down at my desk, sipped some coffee and opened the first folder - reports from Logan. He conducted an examination of gadgets from Max's house and found a lot of interesting evidence. Links to suspicious websites and forums were found in the browser history on the laptop, where high-profile cases were discussed and many users fantasized about the "perfect murder". According to the report, Max spent a lot of time there, but never left messages, moreover, he was always there as a guest, and didn't create his own account. In addition to such forums, Logan found many links to sites where people share their experiences of remote hacking of various devices, including mobile phones and computers. I immediately remembered that Sargeant had found traces of hacking into the gadgets not only of all the victims, but also mine. Reading the report further, at one point I even chuckled and thought that if Max wanted to kill me too, it definitely wouldn't be difficult for him to track my movements and plans, because I keep a lot of personal things in my phone.

While conducting an examination of Max's mobile phone, Logan found a couple of hacking programs. Maybe that's why he often spent time with his phone? Speaking of his phone, I completely forgot about the numbers and messages that I photographed on my phone. Luckily, Logan took care of that and identified both the number owners and translated the messages in the chat rooms I'm interested in. As it turned out, one of the numbers belonged to Max's attending physician, and it was he who most often called and wrote to him. In the reports, he asked to return for treatment in the Netherlands, but Max persistently refused and assured the doctor that he was being treated here. But when he was asked to contact his new doctor, Max refused. Of course, because he had no new doctor.

The chat with his sister didn't arouse suspicion, because there was a normal conversation between brother and sister. And as I was reading their messages, I was wondering, does she even know that Max is sick? And who in his circle knows?

When I finished reading the report from Logan, I took the next folder - "Report from the Department of Physical Research." Esteban sent them the shoes that the officer found in the garage to do a soil analysis and match it to the crime scene samples. As expected: "The examination of the soil from the shoes of the alleged criminal revealed a full match with the samples found at the crime scene. This confirms that the shoes used by the perpetrator are likely to belong to the same place where all four crimes were committed, which in turn strengthens the link between the suspect and the crime." I wasn't even surprised while I was reading the expert report, because I was already ready for such results.