Chương 195: The Detective Four

Several weeks ago. This case wasn't going anywhere fast. And that was... not unexpected. Cases that stretched on for a while happened. A good quarter of those he'd been on had been this way; situations that took a while to untangle, suspects that disappeared, anything to do with politics. A few times, early in his career, he'd almost lost everything when he had correctly pointed the finger at the true perpetrator of a crime, and it turned out that they were politically well-connected.

Later on, his 'bravery' in doing a good job had earned him some amount of protection. There was a lot to say about the nobility of the many cities away from the capital, but those truly in charge understood the need for checks and balances on rampant corruption and crime, and he was one of those. At some point, the buck needed to stop, and those in power too, needed something to fear. He had rented out an office, one just across the street from the city's police headquarters.

It hadn't come cheap, and the office itself wasn't anything special, but that was fine. He had an expense account for this kind of thing, and if he didn't use it, it would just be lost. At the moment, he had three tables set out across the room, going from left to right. Each had a stack of papers spread out across it. This was the sum total information he had on the three impacted noble families. So far, the links between them were... tenuous at best. So he'd started looking for motive elsewhere.

He had a smaller stack on the famous Ratesco's Union. That stack had come from the police station right across the street starting after his meeting with the police chief the day prior. Standing before it, he grabbed a few of the pages that had been stapled together and leafed through them. Arrest reports, with dates and times and reasons for arrest--though the latter was often left blank. There were names and potential motives as well. These went back nearly a decade. The Union had been around for a while, then.

He shifted through other papers. Some news reports, some complaints. The latter were mostly from factory operators, managers, and owners. The largest of these was from some seven years ago. A factory near what was now the centre of the city slums. The factory had been a chemical plant that had been established some twenty years prior. It was owned, in part, by the Ditz family, as well as a conglomerate of three other noble families from City Nineteen and one investor group from City Eighteen.

The factory, the Ditz Petrochem Plant C, turned products of the Ditz dungeon into raw chemicals that were then shipped to other, local factories. He frowned as he looked at the reports. That was all there was on it. A very brief overview of what the factory did, but lacking much detail. What wasn't lacking details were the protests. Ratesco's Union had convinced the workers at the plant to form a coalition to demand certain things. What things weren't listed in the report.

All the report listed was an increasing number of complaints. The first was of Union members talking to factory workers, then accusations of trespassing, then some altercations with plant security. Finally, accusations that the union was trying to subvert the plant, steal ownership, steal trade secrets, and generally interfere with work. The plant had been lost in a fire which they had accused Ratesco's Union of starting. Several of his skills were ringing alarm bells.

There was more to this story than the bare bones of this report. But what? Was the Union worse than what was written here? Or was it the people making the complaints to the police that were the issue. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He suspected a bit of both. Especially as he looked at the attached arrest records and noted that several factory workers had died in altercations with the police, and several members of the union as well.

A few cops had been injured, two firefighters passed away in the fires. Lots of locals were forced to move away and there were lots of injuries from chemical inhalation. He worked his jaw. This wasn't too uncommon. The nobility and the growing industrialist class genuinely disliked unions for a host of reasons. There was always some amount of animosity there. Was there a link between the Union and the recently deceased nobles? His gut said that there would be.

That didn't mean that they were necessarily antagonistic, however. Still, the chief of police thought so, and that meant that he had to at least do his due diligence and look into the matter. He glanced up on hearing a creak by the door. His hand slipped down to his waist, but the knock was familiar.

"Detective Mallory, sir? Are you in?"

"Officer Smithson, is that you? Come on in, the door's unlocked," he said. The door opened and in came the young officer, moving backwards as he held onto a case full of papers.

"Was told to bring these in from the department, sir."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Copies of our files on the Rats. The chief had some of our secretaries working overnight to get all of this copied over for you," Smithson said. He looked around, spotted a clear space on one of the desks, and placed the box down with a thump.

"There ya go!"

"Thank you," the detective said. He moved over and pulled the lid off the box. Within were neat stacks of paper sitting in standard file holders. They even had small labels separating them by year.

"This looks like a lot."

"There's a lot to say about the Union," Smithson said.

"They've been the police's number one enemy for a while. We're kind of in a bit of a quiet moment with them right now, but it'll flare back up eventually."

"I see. Have you had run-ins with them?" he asked. Smithson shook his head.

"No sir. I wouldn't mind sticking my boot up a few union members behinds though!" The young man grinned, then scanned the room. Each one of the tables had a small, half-folded paper on them with the name of each noble family on it.

"This probably doesn't go on the Milo family table. Sorry for disorganizing you."

"It's no problem," Mallory said.

"Sometimes reorganizing things leads to some interesting connections. This is going to be one of those cases, I can feel it."

"Complicated?"

"The killer covered their tracks pretty well. And enough time passed before I arrived to cover up the rest. Now I have to work backwards. Follow the money and the motivations. If you ever get into detective work, you'll see this kind of thing come up often enough." Smithson nodded.

"I bet! That must be hard. I don't even know some of these families. The Milos... they're the asparagus family, aren't they?"

"The what?"

"Have you ever had any?" Smithson asked.

"Asparagus? Yes, of course. It's a staple vegetable," Mallory said.

"Oh. Right, probably more common in other cities, I guess. Anyway, the Milos control all of it here. Made it really tough for normal folk to grow, but it's not like they can't just grow potatoes and carrots or whatever, right? And the Milos delivered quality stuff. Anyway, the union was really annoyed by that. Protested it a bunch, but it never went anywhere." Mallory glanced over the files. Would he find anything about that in any of these files?

Animosity between the unions and the industrialists was a fact of life, but the root causes for it could be quite different from case to case. And if he didn't understand the why, then how could he expect to unravel the rest of the mystery?

"That might help explain a few things. Thank you, Officer Smithson."

"You're welcome? Wait, how did I help?"

"When you're local to somewhere, you sometimes pick up details that someone from outside might not notice at all," he explained.

"Tell me more about the Union while I sort through these, would you? Unless you're too busy?"

"I can spare a minute or two. Though there's not too much to say. They keep messing with us. A couple of years back they even bombed some patrolmen right on the streets... nothing lethal, just things to embarrass the force. It's a cat and mouse game, really." Mallory nodded along even as he started to sort through the papers Smithson had brought over. It painted a picture of a long, drawn out conflict, with neither side really gaining on the other.

The police would stamp out, arrest, and beat some members of the union only for more to pop up from the woodwork. Few leaders were arrested, and fewer violent actions resulted in anything positive for the force. Mallory was starting to see the bigger picture, now, and he wasn't sure he liked it very much. 🍄︎🍄️🍄︎