New Gods of North America.

Chapter 428 Direction
"Wayne, this was all Pastor Bazzini's idea..."

After hearing the unilateral accusation from Reverend Tyrell in just a few words, Wayne could no longer sit still and planned to quickly put an end to this "misunderstanding".

As a token of his sincerity, Reverend Tyrell handed over one of the large rings on his finger.

It is not intended as a gift for Wayne, but this thing can serve as proof that Wayne has obtained the "authorization" from Reverend Tyrell, and can make his men give up the plan after seeing it.

The plan itself was not very sophisticated. While the partners of the detective agency were not at home, a few people were hired to sneak into the detective agency, and a few more people were hired to attract the exorcists currently in Georgeburg City to chase after them.
Then when the exorcists arrived at the detective agency, hey, coincidentally, there was an unexpected gain.

In this way, the detective agency's investigation into the Church of Light might be slandered as a "dog-eat-dog" fight between heretics.
Regardless of whether the detective agency can clear itself of suspicion or not, at least during this period of investigation, people related to the detective agency should not even think about participating in it.

If the priests continue to take advantage of the situation and the cathedral does not come forward to protect it,

The "people" in the detective agency may be fine, but if their plan succeeds, whether the "detective agency" will still exist in the future will probably become a question mark.

According to Reverend Tyrell, Reverend Bazzini believes that the current investigation is a conspiracy launched by Bishop Corleone, a "northerner", against the "southern priests", and the detective agency plays the role of "accomplice".

Wayne felt that this unexpected disaster was a bit ridiculous, so he threw a message to Reverend Tyrell as he was leaving:

"I'm from Kansas City. I'm neither from the South nor the North. I'm from the West."

There is actually some truth in these words, but Wayne was just trying to get angry and say he was innocent.

As for what the other party thinks, we will have to wait until the results come out.

This was just a matter involving the detective agency. This "misunderstanding" that had already been resolved was not suitable to be exposed to the public, and it would not be appropriate to bring a large group of people with him.
Wayne got into the carriage driven by Sanders, called the agents stationed at the church, and headed straight to the detective agency.

The key point of the whole plan lies in the things used for framing. They were originally the spoils of war that were seized by the people under Reverend Tyrell when they were carrying out their mission.
The church and the Exorcist Association themselves allow the existence of some "secret treasury"-like things, which is not quite in line with the rules, but as long as the person taking the lead has sufficient status, some things can actually be "recognized afterward" or "not allowed to happen again."

But just like other so-called stolen goods, once they appear in places where they shouldn't be, and there is no one to claim them,

That can be called "evidence of guilt".

The detective agency is relatively empty right now, so if they are attacked, they might know to retreat in time, but if someone secretly comes to "deliver something", they may not be able to defend themselves.

Wayne used his imagination a little bit, for example, someone secretly threw a gold ornament with no extraordinary reaction and no obvious evil god mark into the yard.

The agents' reaction might be that if they find something, they will pick it up and keep it, waiting for their partners to confirm and deal with it.

The more I think about it, the more guilty I feel.

In the future, we need to add a clause to the agent’s manual: “No picking up things anywhere.”

Fortunately, Owl and Damon MacCready were on guard in the detective agency, and the infiltrator from the other side did not come to engage in a head-on confrontation.

When Wayne returned to the detective agency, Damon MacCready, who was guarding the roof of the barn, even poked his head out to say hello, saying that the detectives guarding the house had driven away several groups of "little mice" tonight. To be on the safe side, Wayne and the detectives checked the detective agency again, but they didn't find anything suspicious. However, they found a little girl who didn't sleep in the middle of the night and turned into a piece of meat and crawled around.

After scolding Emma a little, Wayne felt that Damon MacCready was too indulgent towards his naughty child. This phenomenon had never happened when Lina was taking care of the child before.

When the owl came back and sounded the alarm that someone was approaching the yard, Wayne drove his simple-line vision camera to look over, said "Operation canceled" from a distance, then moved closer to show the ring, and the other party seemed to retreat obediently.

In fact, Wayne had originally thought about leaving these people behind, but during the trial, he found that the guy in the lead seemed difficult to deal with. When the other party tried to activate his extraordinary ability, Wayne could vaguely sense the danger and had a feeling of being an "equally matched opponent".

So the impromptu plan of "robbing thieves" was abandoned, but Wayne took advantage of the other party's ignorance of the situation and had someone keep the things. He planned to take them to Tom Hagen for filing and keep them for himself later.

The detective agency doesn't have many extraordinary items of its own collection nowadays. Although the heretic's things are unclean, since they are the collection of Reverend Tyrell, they are probably still of some value.
After weighing and counting them, there were four objects. None of them were made of gold, but there were some inlaid with gems, and one of them looked obviously extraordinary.

Because Wayne had told Reverend Tyrell that it was just a "misunderstanding", he took the other person's things. When he was returning, he saw a team of exorcists chasing a few guys on horseback towards the detective agency, so he did not try to stop them.
But we should still be angry when we should be angry, and we can't just say "misunderstanding" and pretend nothing happened, otherwise there may be more misunderstandings in the future.

So Wayne took out a few lever-action rifles from under the seats of the carriage and lent them to the exorcists, telling them that these were more useful when chasing. He then gave them an additional reminder that the detective agency had been attacked frequently recently and that there were traps around the courtyard.

I hope the impromptu trap set by Doug and Damon MacCready doesn't blow up the exorcists...

Back in the church, Wayne took the things to show Tom Hagen, saying that he had just received a tip from Reverend Tyrell that a thief was planning to attack the detective agency tonight, and that these things were seized from the attackers by the detective agency.

Tom Hagen asked about the casualties, looked at the things, and probably guessed something. He then arranged for people to conduct a preliminary inspection and file a record, and also reminded Wayne not to get out of hand.

When Wayne went to see Reverend Tyrell again, he was upset, but he was also basically sure that this old man should have little to do with the Church of Light.
After all, the Church of Light is now being targeted by the Church of the Holy Spirit as a latent parasite. Reverend Tyrell has even become a candidate for bishop. If he is truly a heretic of light, he would not use his own private soldiers to frame others, and he should not be so "gentle" in taking action.

He would not easily expose his hidden personnel to outsiders like Wayne.

As long as it is not exposed, there will be plenty of opportunities to take action once the storm has passed.

Although his actions were indeed a bit dark, Reverend Tyrell's overall thinking was more inclined towards the "good guy perspective."

So when Wayne met him again, he first said that the matter had been resolved, and then threw out a question for him to think about:

"Reverend Tyrell, assuming that the misunderstanding tonight cannot be resolved in time and our detective agency happens not to suffer any serious damage, who do you think will be the actual beneficiary of this incident?"

In fact, according to Wayne's idea, it is basically possible to infer that Pastor Bazzini is also not a heretic of the Light.

However, since others have stabbed him in the back, even if Wayne does not hate the "knife" itself, he can't just pretend that he didn't see the person holding the knife - what if someone chooses to use a gun next time.

Reverend Tyrell, this lousy old man, is just a little "not good enough" compared to guys like Reverend Bazzini or Tom Hagen. The person who can sit in this position can't be that simple.

So he looked in the direction where Wayne had looked before, without thinking.
His gaze seemed to pass through the wall and looked towards Pastor Bazini's office in the church.

(End of this chapter)