Adventure in the World of Crimes

3.23 Down to Two

"Guess you are not really joking when you said you have a loooong list of suspects,  are you?" Martin asked while the paper crumpled paper that Reign had been using as her reference to the case were on his hand, the paper was in the lengthwise paper and he had three lengthwise paper in his hand which lies, note very organized, the possible mafia and murderer of the Mafia Fiasco Case which was what written on the very top.

"Who said I am? That is what I am seeing in the movies, they analyze, collect information, organized, and writes them in one paper so the process of identifying who the suspect is will be easy." She explained, sitting on the single couch across him with a glass of apple cider in her hand as she crossed her leg and elegantly sipped on it, with a pinky finger raised.

"Are you sure it was from the movie? Ain't it from your agency's tips?" He implied without straightly looking at her, his eyes were fixedly focused on the paper. "The Themis Agency, Miss Agent?"

Reign placed the drink on the glass table, unbothered by what he said. They were already in her hotel room, the one near the Rampage Agency, and it was already morning, nine o'clock to be exact. Her manager came back to the mansion at midnight, it was only to fetch her and send her back home, they didn't spend the night there, same goes with Manager Karen who fetched the vloggers. Photographer Geoff was not with them when they came back, only Jeremy who had a grim face as soon as he went out of the car they were in.

His expression was explained by Manager Betty as the transferring of the share wouldn't happen until next year, that was what the old man's request which the bodyguard didn't know because he was not with the old man in meeting the lawyer before.

Thankfully, they were already done talking when they arrived and already scheduled their discussion about the suspect with Martin going in her hotel room so they could talk about the suspects more privately, and so that ended up to what they were at the moment.

"Mister, when I accused you of being the culprit, I have pieces of evidence, it was not mere accusation without bases, which accumulated an explanation to not lead with misunderstanding. However, you are telling me that I am an agent without anything at hand aside from the fact that I love mysteries, you shouldn't generalize, Martin, not all agents are inclined with mysteries, and you should stop with your delusion that I am. an agent because I am not, end of discussion without any further explanation."

Martin chuckled at her long defensive speech, he put down the papers and slowly nodded, "Okay, but I actually have basis as you asked me to have." He fixed her seating position, crossing his legs and arms as he rested his back on the backrest of the couch. Reign raised his brow and mirrored his position and stared back at him like they were having some sort of a face-off.

There was no way she would back down.

Martin uncrossed his arms and raised his pinky finger, "First, your tattoo," He took his phone which was on the table, and pressed something on it for a while before showing it to her, it was her picture in a bikini, he zoomed in on the part under her chest which where her tattoo was. Then he changed it to another window tab which seemed like a Wikipedia or something source of information.

He read it, "The trusted agents' distinction from the others were the small tattoo— a weighing scale of justice in particular, on their part of their body, usually in the most hidden part, which signifies their agency's logo."

Reign's eyes squinted as she looked at Martin, she took her own phone and searched for the information about the Themis Agency's agent, and there she saw it showed on the result. She took a screenshot of it and sent it to Dale, this kind of unauthorized information was not allowed, especially that it was misleading.

She searched for something on her phone and was her time to show it to Martin, it was a picture of herself being tattooed by a tattoo artist who was also a part of their agency, a tattoo artist by day and an agent by night, she was also the one who tattooed the other top agents. "I believe I can freely choose which design I wanted to embed on my body, but this is me for the receipt that I was mot part of that agency and I got this tattoo by this artist, you can ask her if you want. And no, I've seen agents on the television without a tattoo, so that already debunked your first point. What's next?"

"The second is when you asked Freya last night about the letter. You are making sure that I am the one who sent your agency the letter and not Freya so you can trust me." He answered, looking at her intently as if what he said was the reason for her to tell the truth.

But instead, Reign rolled her eyes, "That is to make sure that you are really telling the truth. That was one of the ways I think because someone's name was involved."

Even though he proved that he was not the culprit, she didn't really like confiding her identity to her, it's not like she was still skeptical of the man, she just didn't like to.

"Fine." Martin breathed out, "Agent or not, as long as you would help me protect my friends, I don't care. Let's discuss about these people on your list." He said, leaning and putting the papers flat on the glass table in between them.

"First, Mr. Koto, let's cancel him out, aside from the fact that he was already dead, he was also a nice man to everyone since we were kids and Sana was still alive up to now," He said and took the ballpen on the side and canceled his name out through an X.

"Your name too, if you'd like." She suggested, looking through his nails.

"Yes, of course." The vlogger replied, he read his description first before he canceled his name too. "Next, my friend was out of this too."

"No, sir. You have to have an explanation for me before you cancel a name out of my list." She said sternly, her brow raised as her arms crossed, "Why would you cancel Freya? She's a photographer, had a grudge towards her ex-boyfriend, Gregory, for cheating. She might not be the mafia because Stephanie was the real victim but she might also be the killer behind Gregory's friend,"

"She's our friend-"

"Shut it, you can't tell to me the reason, 'she's our friend, she can't kill him, she can't even kill a fly, she's an angel.' shut up! Everyone has another personality that only ourselves know." She added, rolling her eyes at his ridiculous start or explanation.

"You really have this problem of not listening entirely to someone talking to you, don't you realize?" Martin asked, glancing up at her blankly, he sat properly with the pen twirling in his hand, "As I was saying, she's our friend, she conducted the party which where we are supposed to have for him if you didn't see the point, she still values him as a childhood best friend even if their romantic relationship has sunken and Greg's attitude was bad. She was busy all day preparing, she didn't even go to the hotel personally as I did. She does photography but she doesn't own a polaroid camera, she may be a woman with a bad attitude but it wouldn't go as far as killing someone."

"Why did they broke up? And you were suspecting before that it was Caitriona and her boyfriend Dwayne who killed Greg, right?"

Martin nodded, "Yes, but I actually asked them about it, why they were on the floor near Greg's, and their answer was they wanted to talk to him, and also hit him once for hurting Caitriona too, but yeah, it was the mafia, whoever is it among this list." He looked at the paper, then back to Reign, "So, can I cancel now my friend?"

Reign just motioned him to do whatever he wanted to do, he fiddled on her phone as she was exchanging messages to Laura who had finally gone free from her task, and asking her information about how was her best friend, Dany. She saw him canceled three names: Freya, Caitriona, and Dwayne.

"What about your manager? Aren't you going to cancel her name?" She asked, putting down her phone, and closed her eyes. She slept late last night and she had woken up early today that was why her head was hurting a little. "Who else are there?"

"It's Manager Karen, Photographer Geoff and Jeremy. We should cancel my manager out, aside from the fact that the mafia is a man and she is obviously a woman, though she was the manager of all those victims, our manager is nothing but a kind-hearted old woman who didn't deserve the blames and hates she received from everyone, especially us. We were blinded by the usual scenario that the last person the victims were with was their killer, that's why we blame and bully her before. But yeah, she was not the murderer, all she did is to provide our needs and protect us."

"I should have recorded that." She remarked as she fixed her sitting position. "Among the two, who do you think was the murderer?"

"I don't know actually, both have the possibility of being the murderer. As far as I could remember back when I witnessed the mafia in the room, he is a buff like you said, as tall as Jeremy." He said with a lot of thinking. "It is also possible that it's him seeing how obsessed he was with Mr. Koto's wealth."

"You think so?" Reign dubiously asked. That was not what her description upon having watched the CCTV from the fifth victim's murder. The mafia did have the buff body but he was a little smaller than Jeremy.

Reign took her phone again when it beeped, expecting a message from Laura but instead got two messages from Dale.

"The first caption with a man says, "My blood-related brother." Then the second in the diary says, "Jeremy is a mad man."