Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 149 Evaporated
As night fell, Milo escorted Enid back to the city.

He returned to the law enforcement office, intending to retrieve the case files from the archives.

Charles had said that the disappearance of the seven law enforcement officers from the Criminal Investigation Department was classified as confidential. What Milo wanted to access was Maggie Green's death file. Whether she died accidentally or was murdered, there was a record of it in the law enforcement department's files.

But the archives administrator told Milo:
"The girl's case file has been transferred to law enforcement headquarters; it's not on file in our archives."

Although the administrator spoke very cryptically, Milo still understood what he meant.

If it's just a case file transfer, the law enforcement office must have a record of it. The lack of a record cannot be due to negligence; it can only mean that the record is not allowed.

In other words, Maggie Green's death was also classified as a confidential document and kept in the archives.

……

First, Charles provided information that the disappearance of the seven law enforcement officers was related to the Finich Manuscript, which in turn was connected to the Gus Society. Maggie's death, a member of the Gus Society, was also classified as a secret file, thus connecting the entire chain of clues.

To be more assertive, Milo could even conclude that the disappearance of the law enforcement officer was directly related to Maggie's death.

However, this inference still needs to be verified.

Milo initially intended to seek confirmation from Rebecca, but then he recalled Charles's constant setbacks as a fellow chief of law enforcement, so he simply went directly to the law enforcement headquarters to find Nero.

……

"You just closed a big case, don't you want to take a break and catch your breath?"

After listening to Milo's request, Nero looked at the young man in front of him with a puzzled expression.

"Well, compared to helping neighbors find their missing pet cats, I prefer to investigate these more complicated cases."

Milo didn't beat around the bush with Nero; he stated directly that he wanted to view the files.

After all, by this point, although he and Nero could not be said to know each other inside and out, they had at least grasped some of each other's secrets, and there was no need to hide things from each other as before.

"wait a second."

Nero walked out of the office, a cigar dangling from his mouth and leaning on his cane.

About ten minutes later, he returned with a file in his hand, closed the office door, and then spoke:
“I know Charles has come to you, but don’t rush to conclusions. I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s necessary for colleagues to keep in touch, especially since one of the missing people is his brother. He has every reason to do so.”

Nero tossed the dossier onto the desktop.

"I just didn't expect you to find the clue so quickly."

As he spoke, he took a large puff of his cigar, slowly exhaling thick smoke from his mouth and nose, and explained:
"I think you can probably guess that because I come from Icom, the higher-ups in law enforcement like to hand me some strange and unusual cases. Usually, these are the kind of cases that can't be solved in less than three to five years. I have several such cases on my hands right now, and just thinking about them gives me a headache... One of them is about that manuscript fragment."

“Fenicchi,” Milo blurted out.

“Yes.” Nero wasn’t surprised that Milo knew about the item; he simply nodded calmly.

"To be honest, I had never heard of this name before I took on this case. If I had known that taking on this case would cause so much trouble, I definitely would not have taken it."

"Did the higher-ups send you to find the Fenich manuscript?"

Milo narrowed his eyes. His mind instantly became alert.

Milo knew one thing perfectly well: why he was looking for this manuscript.

If there are other people in the world who are eager to find this manuscript, then there is a very high probability that they are also clairvoyants.

Nero said the case was a task assigned to him by higher-ups. Could this be interpreted as the existence of clairvoyants within the higher echelons of the law enforcement system?
Thinking of this, Milo's heart involuntarily quickened.

……

“No, to be precise, it was the law enforcement system that received a request and ordered me to find this manuscript.” Nero suddenly shook his head:
"To be honest, the source of the information is very vague. What I heard was that an agency in the Miskatonic River Basin made a request to the law enforcement system, but I don't know which agency it is. At the time, it was said that the manuscript fragments had flowed into the territory of Nanwei City through black market channels. The other party claimed that it was a very important document and hoped that the law enforcement team here could help find it."

"Miskatonic Basin".

Milo has heard this tongue-twisting place name more than once in the past two days.

Enid mentioned that Gus, the founder of the Gus Society, once visited a school in the Miskatonic River Basin as an exchange student for academic discussions. The occult origins of the association's passion may lie in that basin.

"It seems you know a lot of information."

Nero opened the sealed file folder, pulled out the documents inside, and tossed them to Milo:
"Alright, since you've come to me, it's not fair for me to keep using the classified information to fob you off. Anyway, you already know pretty much everything, so take a look for yourself."

“I thought you were a rule-abiding person.” Milo raised an eyebrow, took the document, and began to read it.

“You must have misremembered. I didn’t say follow the rules, I said utilize the rules,” Nero corrected Milo.

……

A few minutes later.

Milo slammed the cover of the classified file shut: "So it really is a missing person?"

“What else did you think?” Nero replied calmly.

“I thought your leadership was afraid of being held accountable, so they concealed the deaths of seven law enforcement officers,” Milo said bluntly.

“You little brat…” Nero tapped Milo on the air with his index finger.

The file contained very little information—the law enforcement system learned through special channels that the final buyer of the Fenich manuscript fragments was Ethan Field, the former president of the Gus Society. However, after the seven officers from the Criminal Investigation Department went out together that time, they never returned. Along with Ethan, Maggie Green also disappeared.

"Why is it written so vaguely? No battle, no bloodshed, just vanished into thin air? Not even a single eyewitness has been found? What about the other members of the Gus Association?" Milo found the contents of the dossier unclear.

"The truth is, to this day, no one knows what happened that night." Nero shook his head helplessly.
"Classifying this case as confidential was also the order of my superiors. I'm still upset that seven of my men have inexplicably disappeared... As for the other members of that Gus Association, they're just a bunch of clueless kids who don't know anything. I interrogated them one by one, but I didn't get a single valuable clue."

"How could so many living people just vanish into thin air? Even if they died, there should be bodies..." Milo was a little confused.

"Not only were there no bodies, but the law enforcement team conducted a thorough search of the area surrounding the crime scene for five days and five nights. They couldn't find the seven men's personal equipment, weapons, or even Will the Smoker's cigarette ash. It was as if everyone had never existed; they vanished overnight."

Nero blew a puff of smoke towards the ceiling:
“Those Gus Society kids kept rambling on and on during their interrogation, saying that the missing people were abducted by evil spirits from the tattered pages and that they would never come back… Sigh, I still don’t know how to explain this to the families of the Seven.”

(End of this chapter)