Crime never slept—but unfortunately justice sometimes had to. Amaro just settled for getting very little sleep. Some of his co-workers struggled with that but it had always been perfect for him. Rest was usually much more of a struggle for him. His brain didn't seem to believe in the practice; his synapses were constantly throwing a party in his head, popping with theories and speculation. There was so much that he needed to remember during a case: names, faces, exact locations, license plate numbers, criminals records. He had to have practically memorized people's entire histories including their family trees and what their favorite food was. Those types of details, big or small, could sometimes be the keys to closing a case.
There was more information that had to be processed than some detectives could handle so they quit or never became detectives at all. Then there were the people that stayed on as detectives but they were absolutely incompetent since they couldn't keep any of their facts straight. Amaro never had that problem. Somehow everything stayed nice and orderly in his brain...at least to him, since he imagined a lot of people would have trouble figuring his logic out if they were able to take a peek inside his head. The only price for his mental prowess was the severe lack of sleep and an even more severe lack of any kind of social life to speak of. Amaro didn't really mind either of them. He found sleep a rather dull affair and he really didn't like people very much.
Inspector Amaro gained a reputation among his peers as someone that was good to work with since it usually meant that the case would be solved, but they also regarded him as too odd to go out and have a drink with. Everyone kept a safe distance from him, probably fearing what might happen if he had too good of a look at them; for all they knew, he could take that analytical gaze and learn everything about them in moments and that must have scared them. Still, whatever effect he had on his coworkers, they couldn't deny his success rate. He solved more cases than most of the department put together.
But there was one case in particular that kept prodding at the back of his brain at all hours of the night. A rich collector of antiquities, Carmine Lorelli, went missing after his mansion had been nearly stripped clean of all of those prized items. No one knew what to make of it and most investigators gave up after barely even trying to figure it all out. They declared that it was hopeless, a lost cause, and just one of the unfortunate risks of having valuables that weren't properly protected. Amaro wasn't so easily deterred from the mystery though. If anything, the colder the trail, the more interested he was in seeing where it led; it was just more interesting of a challenge than something simple and straightforward. He preferred that since it gave him much more to chew on. His frantic brain needed fuel to keep functioning. It could only survive on meager tasks for so long.
Even after the case was stored away with all of the other unsolved ones, Amaro hadn't given up. At that point, most of his peers knew that a case being put away as unsolved usually didn't mean it never would be. It just meant that it was put aside for Amaro to figure out once he had the time. This one was no different but Amaro decided to pursue it immediately, since it still kept his interest. There was no reason not to. The deeper he dug into it, the more he got the feeling that he was working on something much larger than he initially expected. Everything about the disappearance just seemed too clean. There was nothing at all to give any hint as to what happened to the lost Carmine Lorelli. In most cases, there was at least something worth noting but not this time. It was almost like it had been scrubbed clean. It reminded Amaro of some criminals hiring a fixer to make it look like nothing happened at all, but this was even beyond that. Everything in his home looked like it had never, ever been touched. Even his computer had been scrubbed clean of anything. There were no downloads, no search history, not pictures, and not even a single file to speak of. That was the definitive proof that Amaro needed. Someone was intentionally hiding something—and they were doing a very good job.
Things seemed like they weren't going to pan out as Amaro hoped. He was starting to believe that he might not ever be able to thaw out this particular cold case. He was considering giving up on it—but one fateful encounter changed all of that despair.
An elderly woman was sitting on the bench outside of the police station as he walked by on his way to his car. She looked at him curiously and then held her hand out to him. “Excuse me, sir. Inspector!”
Amaro turned around instinctively. It didn't occur to him until later that he should have realized this wasn't a normal encounter. He didn't even think about the fact that she somehow knew exactly who he was and had come there looking specifically for him. He was too distracted by what came next.
“Would you be able to walk me home? It's getting late and I get nervous walking by myself this time of night. If anyone tried to rob me...they would be able to without much of a problem. I wouldn't be able to fend them off.”
She seemed so helpless at the time but eventually he would see just how good of an acting performance she was giving. She was really nothing like that nervous, rickety old woman on the bench, but how was he supposed to have known that at the time? His exceptional deduction skills could only get him so far sometimes. And as a police officer, it was almost a rule that he was expected to help old ladies cross the street. He didn't want to have to be an escort to this woman but at least he could shuttle her in his car so it wouldn't take too much time out of his day.
“Of course, ma'am,” he said with a warm smile. He knew how to be personable. It was part of the job, even if it made him cringe inside. “It would be my pleasure.”
She followed him to his car but it took longer to get there than he hoped. Her frail little body wasn't the fastest at walking. He was even more relieved that he didn't have to walk her home. Once they were finally in the car, something about the old woman changed. She seemed to have so much more life in her, like she was much younger now than she was just minutes prior. That was another thing he should have noticed at the time but he missed it. Something about this old lady made him not think as clearly. She was very convincing.
After giving him an address to go to, they sat in silence for a few minutes but then a far stranger tone came out of the old woman's mouth. “I hope I found the right man. You are Inspector Amaro, are you not?”
That is when he fully came to realize that she was sitting outside of police headquarters for a much more specific purpose. He should have seen it before. He turned to her and it was like he was seeing a different person in the passenger seat. She wasn't just some old lady worried about getting lost or getting home safely. There was much more to her than that. She was some kind of vastly intelligent creature wearing the wrinkled skin of an aging crone. That was what it felt like. There was something else—something much more threatening—behind those eyes.
“I am,” Amaro said. “so I assume you want me to help you with something more than helping you get home, is that right? Well, ma'am, I do have a desk and an office that you're welcome to come to if you need my assistance. We would just have to make an appointment. My work is very busy right now as I am in the midst of a rather challenging investigation—”
“I know,” the old lady said. “You are looking into the disappearance of Carmine Lorelli. That's part of the reason I came to you.”
Amaro raised a curious brow. Was this going to actually be good for his case? Did she really know something? Was this finally a lead that could catapult him to some answers and to the truth behind this entire mystery?
“Oh? Do you have information pertaining to my investigation then?” He tried not to sound too hungry for it but it was making him very excited and possibly even more curious. He couldn't get too anxious just in case this was some kind of trick or another one of the many dead-ends he had run into.
“I do, yes, but I have to ask you some questions first.”
That was unusual. In most cases, he was the one conducting the interviews and trying to get some answers. He supposed he could humor her for now though. If it would lead to more clu
es about Carmine Lorelli’s disappearance, then he would answer a few questions to satiate the old woman's curiosity.
“Do you enjoy your work?”
“I do, yes, very much. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. Tormenting myself as a career has never been something I've been willing to work. If I'm going to work, I'm going to do something I legitimately find enjoyment in.”
“I have heard that you are quite exceptional at your job too. You have an amazing track record and I assume a genius intellect.”
Technically, he did but he wasn't the kind of person that liked to brag about it. Intelligence shouldn't be needlessly flaunted around after all.
“So is this enough for you?” the old lady asked. “Or is there more to this world that you want to see? Don't you ever want different kinds of mysteries to solve?”
He had thought along those lines before. There were times when the cases he was put on didn't quite do enough to quench his thirst for solving a difficult problem. Most of them were too easy and he didn't get all that much satisfaction out of those. It was only rarely that he ever do something that actually stumped him, that actually challenged his capabilities as a detective. The vanishing of Carmine Lorelli was one of those rare instances but those kinds of mysteries didn't come to him nearly often enough.
“At times,” Inspector Amaro conceded. “But I think that comes naturally for any human, no matter what job it is. We all want more and we all imagine what that would be like. It's just human behavior. We crave progress and improvement. We all want to rise as high as we can, but so few of us ever make it past the first few steps.”
12
THE CREAKING SEAT
Part of Nina wanted to let Purdue know about her meeting with the mysterious Old Lady but she knew him long enough to know how he would react. He wouldn't take it very well. He would get anxious, worried, and would probably beg her to reconsider. He was already so caught up in his own paranoia that she didn't want to just make it worse. This was an opportunity she had been given and it was up to her and her alone how she wanted to handle it. Was it dangerous? Yes. Risky? Absolutely. The rewards from this, though—what she could learn about their enemy—was potentially essential to ever having a chance of beating them.
So for now, she was going to play along and act like she was legitimately interested in the possibility of joining them. She could play the new recruit for as long as she needed. If that lying inspector and his old mistress wanted to let Nina get so close to their secrets, she wasn't going to stop them. No, she was going to let them spill all of their secrets right to her. All they were really doing by showing her anything was giving her a chance to study their weaknesses and that could be very helpful to Purdue and the Order of the Black Sun down the line.
He wouldn't like that she was meeting the Old Lady in secret but he could thank Nina later when her decision was beneficial in the end.
They were walking inside of a building now; she knew that much even with the blindfold on but Amaro removed it just in time for her to see a door open in front of her. A room appeared past the swinging door.
There was a woman sitting by the window, her rocking chair creaking beneath her as she swayed. Her hair was gray, tied tightly behind her head in a bun. She wore a long black dress with white trimming that reminded Nina of some sort of nun. She didn't acknowledge her visitors at first, not until Inspector Amaro knocked his knuckles against the door frame to signal their arrival.
The Old Lady didn't move in her seat, except for shifting her head just enough to see who was in the doorway. Nina could see more of her face and saw that it was chiseled with wrinkles. Her eyeballs were yellow and worn, like it had seen too much in her long lifetime. She wasn't just old, she was practically ancient. When she smiled, she showed brittle yellow teeth that complimented and matched her eyes. The smile, despite looking broken and worn like the rest of her, was warmer than Nina expected it to be.
This was the dreaded Old Lady that had disturbed Purdue so much? The same woman that had driven him into a state of paranoid terror? At first glance, Nina immediately felt disarmed by the frail old lady. Maybe she had expected too much from her—like some demonic fiend that was wearing an old lady's husk, or some sort of behemoth of a woman who would beat Purdue to death with her cane. It was suddenly hard to see the image of the Old Lady that Nina had built in her mind since hearing about her but she knew it didn't look anything like the woman in front of her sitting by the window. That much was certain.
Inspector Amaro took an uneasy step into the room. Despite how fragile the old woman looked, Nina did notice that he already seemed very nervous by just being in her presence. There had to be something off about her to inspire that much fear from someone like Inspector Amaro, who seemed to be unfazed by just about everything. “I'm sorry to disturb you ma'am, but you asked to speak with Dr. Nina Gould. I tracked her down, convinced her to give us a few minutes of her time, and I am pleased to tell you that this young woman beside me is the very same Dr. Gould. She has agreed to speak with you after all.”
“What a nice surprise,” the Old Lady said with her pleasant smile. “Come closer, child. Let me get a better look at you.”
Nina glanced to Inspector Amaro who waved her on. The Old Lady might not have been exactly what she expected, but Nina knew better than to completely lower her guard because of it. She approached slowly. The rest of the room seemed to fall away as she stepped closer to the waiting crone. The Old Lady's smile remained on her wrinkled face and she looked so happy to see Nina that Nina couldn't help but offer a polite smile back.
“Dr. Nina Gould,” the Old Lady said. “I am so delighted to meet you. After everything my children told me, I had to see the legend for myself. You have made quite a name for yourself with all of your many adventures with that Purdue man. Yes, quite inspiring.”
The Old Lady put a hand on each side of Nina's right hand, bracing it. Her skin felt like sandpaper and her touch was so cold that it sent a chill through Nina's body. Given how old she was, it was a surprise that she wasn't just a corpse at this point—she probably would be someday soon. She looked up from her rocking chair with so much admiration, like a proud grandmother.
“You have made a name for yourself too,” Nina said with some uncertainty. She had to choose her words carefully. She didn't know a thing about this woman or how she might react. For all Nina knew, this frail woman could snap at the drop of a hat and turn into something very dangerous. “You're pretty much all Purdue has been talking about lately.”
“Ah, yes,” the Old Lady giggled like a child. “I hope I'm keeping him up at night.”
It was like she knew very well that she was. Purdue definitely hadn't been sleeping well lately and that could certainly be attributed to his fear of his invisible nemesis that was lurking about in the shadows—this old woman looked like she could barely hold a cup let alone concoct a plan for world destruction. She was the stuff of nightmares for Purdue, but now Nina couldn't imagine ever being that afraid of this old lady. Sure she was somewhat unsettling, but that was only because of how different she was than the stories that had been told.
“But we don't need to talk too much about David Purdue. That rich man gets enough attention as it is. And now that he's in charge of the Order, I imagine he's letting all of its members attend to every want and whim he has, is that right?”
For someone who didn't want to talk about Purdue, the Old Lady certainly had a lot to say about him. Whoever she was, she talked about Purdue like he was someone she knew personally, even on an intimate level. And she mentioned the Order without batting an eye. She obviously knew all about the Order of the Black Sun as well. So that part of Purdue's theory wasn't wrong. She may not be an obvious monster—or even a monster at all—but she did have vast knowledge and a long reach, just as Purdue feared.
“You seem to know all about me,” Nina said, wanting to ease into whatever conversation this was going to turn into. “But I know very little about you...about a
ny of this really.”
“Ask away, my dear,” the Old Lady said. “What would you like to know?”
“Your name, for one,” Nina said. “It's only proper to introduce yourself to a stranger, isn't it?”
“I suppose it is,” the Old Lady said. “But for my protection, I remain nameless until someone can be trusted with my name.”
“Nameless?” Nina said with a snort. “Just like your group. You guys have a real problem with names?”
“Names are dangerous,” the Old Lady said. “And we are cautious.”
“I thought I could ask whatever I wanted?”
“I did not say that, child.” She turned to Inspector Amaro. “Donatello, bring this poor girl a chair. Immediately. We have so very much to discuss. There is so much you need to be made aware of, things that I can't let you not know for a moment longer.”
Inspector Amaro did as he was told and left the room, bringing another chair a moment later and placing it beside the Old Lady. Nina wasn't used to seeing the detective be so dutiful. Usually he seemed to be playing his own game, like a game of chess by himself. He was usually so in control, dictating all conversations and plans that he was part of. But in her presence, he seemed so small, insignificant even. He was just a cog in a machine that the Old Lady built and Nina still wasn't sure what that machine could do exactly, or how big it was—and she was scared to find out. This whole group was still a complete unknown to her, despite being smack in the middle of their lion's den.
Nina sat down in the chair that had been placed beside the Old Lady's rocking chair. The Old Lady still looked so pleased, like she had been waiting for this moment for a long time. She reminded Nina of her grandmother from when she was a child. Her grandmother always looked at her with so much joy, expectancy, and pride. The Old Lady had those same looks in her eyes as she studied Nina's face beside her. Nina wasn't exactly sure what she had done to earn the admiration of this woman, but it gave her a mixture of pride and unease.
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