The Crime Leveling System

Miles’s Last Investigation

After the car stopped, Victor opened the door and got out, immediately being hit by a wave of heat. The afternoon sun in Las Vegas felt like a dull blade — not rushing to cut you, but slowly wearing away at your patience. The three-storey detached villa before him did not match his memories of the Miles family home. He had lived with his father since childhood; his parents had divorced early on. Their life wasn't exactly poverty-stricken, but it certainly wasn't affluent either.

Looking up at the house, Victor had a surprisingly practical thought: Do private investigators earn that much these days?

Claire walked ahead, seemingly sensing his confusion, and began to explain. Her voice was hoarse from crying, yet she struggled to keep it steady. 'This is my mother's house. After she left it to me, I realised it was too big for me to live in alone, so I invited Miles to move in. But he's always out and about, rarely staying here. Most of the time, it's just me.”

'This is my mother's house. After she left it to me, I found it too big to live in alone, so I invited Miles to move in, too.” She paused at this point, as if afraid the sentence held too many unspoken family burdens. 'But he's always out and about, spending little time actually living here. So most of the time, I'm the only one here.'

Victor listened, then turned his head to glance at her. His question came bluntly:

'Did your mother dislike Miles?'

Claire faltered for a moment, her expression fading. Rather than immediately defending Miles, she simply shook her head softly and said, "My brother and I have different fathers."

Victor didn’t press further. Other people’s families were often more complicated than the cases themselves, and it was best not to dissect complicated matters at the doorstep.

Inside the villa, the silence was deeper than its exterior suggested. The rooms were immaculately tidy, the floors gleaming, and the air carried faint scents of cleaning products and flowers — an orderliness that could not have been maintained by a single man. They took the lift to the third floor, where Claire led him to the innermost room. The moment the door opened, Victor instantly recognised it as Miles's bedroom rather than the 'memorial corner' Claire had arranged for him.

The first thing left behind when someone truly departs is never a portrait, but disorder.

The room was large yet not empty. Old photographs hung on the walls — some team photos from games and others blurry snapshots from road trips. Opposite the bed stood a whiteboard still bearing unearthed mind maps and hastily drawn arrows, as if its owner had merely stepped out temporarily, poised to return and add the next deduction.

The bookshelves were overflowing with volumes ranging from detective novels to legal texts, police department yearbooks to criminal psychology studies — every conceivable subject. On the opposite side, stacks of videotapes and an old projector were piled high. The entire room felt like the 'mind' of someone who had seamlessly woven life and work together.

Claire pointed towards a pile of organised documents and bags in the corner, her voice hushed as if afraid to disturb the room's lingering warmth. 'Victor, these are things your brother left for you. Take a look. I'll get you something to drink.” Victor nodded and said that ice water would suffice. Only after Claire had turned away and the door had closed softly did he truly approach the pile, crouching down in front of it.

On top lay a letter. The envelope bore no stamp, yet the recipient's name, Victor, was written clearly. The phone number and address were complete; the address was still Luna's residence. It was sealed and ready to be posted.

Victor stared at the envelope for a moment, a strange emotion suddenly welling up inside him.

Letters inherently carry a sense of time lag, and an unsent letter from the deceased felt like a hand forever frozen in mid-air.

He confirmed that the envelope hadn't been opened before pulling out the letter inside. Miles's handwriting wasn't particularly neat, but it carried a forceful energy, much like the cheerful enthusiasm in his voice.

The letter itself was brief, dispensing with formalities. Reading it felt as familiar as having Miles himself standing across from him. Miles reminded Victor of their promise that he would keep an eye on matters concerning Victor's father when the chance arose. Later, leveraging connections he had cultivated, he had bribed someone in the Los Angeles coroner's office to obtain partial records of the death.

Miles wrote that something about the autopsy photos had struck him as off, and that the coroner's report was flawed. He had tried to track down the coroner who had performed the autopsy, but the man had resigned and disappeared shortly after Victor's father died, as if he had been erased from his life entirely. The next few lines of the letter gripped Victor's heart: 'Your father's death was suspicious.'

Victor, I've found that coroner. He's in Las Vegas. I've got him cornered. By the time you receive this letter, I will probably have pried the truth out of him.

After reading the letter, Victor didn't move immediately. The room was quiet, broken only by the faint hum of the air conditioner. He suddenly realised that, in his previous life, there really had been someone like this — someone who could remember an old promise between friends for years; someone who would genuinely dig up the truth for you. Miles wasn't just talking; he was doing it. But precisely because he was doing it, this letter had become a final testament.

Victor carefully folded the letter and tucked it away before turning his attention to the other documents. Most of these pertained to his father: summaries of his work style during his time at the police department, an analysis of his professional relationships, and a list of individuals connected to his final case. There were also forensic reports and crime scene records. Though diverse, the materials were meticulously organised, indicating that Miles wasn't merely gathering information, but had already begun his own investigation and constructed a framework for his deductions.

Victor pulled the photograph of the corpse from the bottom of the file folder. The man in the image lay on a cold autopsy table, his skin slightly pallid and his back pierced by eight small, densely clustered bullet holes. Victor's pupils visibly contracted in that instant — having handled countless corpses in his past life, he recognised the signature pattern of gunshot wounds all too well. When bullets spin at high velocity into the human body, the entry point is often small; the real tearing occurs internally. Caliber, angle and distance all leave their mark on flesh.

He brought the photo closer. Soon, an image formed in his mind: a gunman standing no more than five metres behind his father. The victim was completely unprepared and probably didn't even have time to turn around before the gunman fired eight shots in rapid succession. Given the distance, entry points, and manner of firing, it didn't resemble a firefight; it looked more like an execution.

In fact, it resembled someone with poor marksmanship and a hot temper deliberately killing someone they knew.

No wonder Miles had mentioned issues with the autopsy report. An experienced coroner examining such wounds would immediately suspect that the victim had been shot in the back at close range. Yet the police concluded that it was a line-of-duty death, with the killer being killed by other officers during his escape.

The whole story sounded neat and respectable. But once the photo entered the picture, that respectability began to peel away like cheap paint.

Victor's memories of his father were already somewhat hazy, and the emotions belonging to his father had not been transferred intact to him. However, photographs don't lie, and neither do corpses. Miles didn't obtain these files by chance; he must have invested considerable time, money and resources.

Victor pulled out the medical examiner's file again, committing the photos, name and résumé to memory as firmly as loading bullets into a chamber.

Just then, there was a soft knock at the door. Claire stood there, holding a glass of ice water. The door wasn't closed, yet she knocked first, as if to remind the occupant. 'I know this isn't my private space. I respect that.'

Victor was somewhat surprised by this sense of propriety; she hadn't rummaged through his things without permission or peered in. Nor had she feigned concern only to ask, 'What did you find?' She simply brought the water and waited for him to take it.

'Thanks.' Victor rose to take the glass. As the ice-cold water washed down his throat, the stifling sensation in his chest, caught up with the heat and the old case, finally eased a little. Setting the glass down, he looked at Claire, his gaze considerably more serious than when she had first entered.

'Claire, what exactly has Miles been working on lately? How much do you know?”

Claire shook her head gently. Her eyes were still red, but she met his gaze without flinching. 'The private detective business is all about privacy. He hardly ever discussed his cases with me. If not for this incident, I wouldn't have gone into his room to sort through these files.”

Her gaze drifted naturally to the file folder, and her expression shifted to genuine wariness for the first time. 'Victor, do you think my brother's death is connected to what he was investigating?' She asked directly yet cautiously, as if afraid of the answer yet compelled to ask.

Victor paused for two seconds before choosing honesty. 'Not necessarily. If Miles had been certain that these files were the cause of his trouble, he might not have left them for you to pass on to me. But I can't draw conclusions yet. I need to examine more evidence first to confirm exactly what role the coroner played.'

Hearing this, Claire felt even more tense. 'If it really is connected to these files, does that mean I'm in danger too?'

She wasn't stupid; her reactions were sharper than most.

Victor nodded, then shook his head. 'It's too early to say. If Miles only found someone and didn't have time to investigate further, his death might be unrelated. But if he did uncover something crucial, then both you and I might already be on someone's radar.'

Claire pressed her lips together, her fingers tightening unconsciously as if to stop herself from trembling. She didn't cry or flinch, but asked earnestly, 'What can I do to help?'

Victor looked at her and suddenly realised how much she resembled her brother: both were outwardly fragile but had an inner resolve. He wasted no time in laying out the next plan.

'Take me to see Miles's body.'

The Las Vegas Police Department's Forensics Division wasn't too far away. Victor looked up the address and immediately set off with Claire.

Neither of them spoke much on the way.

The heat of the city rolled outside the windscreen, yet the car felt weighed down by some invisible force. Claire clutched her bag, her gaze fixed on the window, while Victor drove intently, replaying the photo of the body and the letter's words over and over in his mind.

He was no longer satisfied with reviewing others' compiled files. He needed to see the body himself, to see the actual wounds and to find out exactly how Miles had died.

Soon, a square, expressionless building came into view. It had none of the warmth of a hospital or the authority of a police station — just cold, precise order, like a box designed solely to preserve the dead and their evidence.

After parking, Victor didn't get out immediately. Just as Claire reached for the door handle, he bent down and took an unmarked M1911 pistol out from under the driver's seat.

Claire visibly froze, her astonishment almost impossible to hide.

Victor offered no explanation, merely taking the g*n in hand and methodically inspecting the magazine, slide, and safety. His movements were as calm as someone adjusting their tie before stepping out of a car.

He knew that today's visit to the morgue might not lead to trouble, but he also knew that those who truly lived long did so not by luck, but by never letting their guard down when it mattered most.