Part 101: The Golden Knife

[BGM: Somber Howl]


Alright, so, you all already know that I used to be a cop, yeah? You might not believe it, but I was a pretty good one as well. The current Chief of Police, Oliver Bowen? I came up with that guy.

He was a really good friend. That point's important for why I haven't killed the guy on my own at this point.

It was a sad and thankless job that did a number on my soul, but I did it all the same. Eventually, enough was enough for me. The job was too cruel, too thankless, too draining.

Plus, the force was slowly getting corrupt.

'Slowly'?

Alright, well, you could argue that the force has never been the shining example of justice it was meant to be, but what I'm talking about is a lot more substantive degradation.

I also knew it was not in spite of Oliver becoming the Chief of Police, but because of him. I tried to get a straight answer from him about what it was all about, but that was a failed endeavor.

At some point, it just wasn't worth it. So I quit, became a bartender, yaddah yaddah yaddah.



And that was that, until the case when Aaron Morris killed Amadeus Bowen, Oliver's brother. Due to odd circumstances, I ended up getting involved in the case. I gave important testimony at trial.

When Morris was sentenced, I thought that was that.



Until Oliver came to my bar late one night, a wreck. Well, he hadn't been great ever since his brother's death, but he was... he was different.

I was familiar with the look of desperation in his eyes. I'd seen it in criminals before. After a bit of pressing, and a number of drinks, he finally spilled.

I honestly couldn't tell you why he told me the truth that night. Enough stress had piled up on him, and he had no one to talk about it to? ...I guess he just needed to confess.

[BGM: Lucky Foot]


Whatever the case, he told me what was actually up with the force.

Apparently, his brother, Amadeus, the jackass, had been filling his head with a bunch of stupid ideas. About how he'd have better control of the police, and ergo the city, if he got dirt on his subordinates.

So that's what Oliver did. He intentionally created situations where he could get blackmail material on the people he employed, and he filled a whole file full of the stuff. Pretty scummy shit.

But not as scummy as what his brother then did to him.

Amadeus got Oliver on tape confessing to the blackmail scheme, thus creating blackmail leverage over him.

Imagine being screwed over by your own brother! That's gotta make Thanksgivings awkward.



Using the leverage, Amadeus got Oliver to hand over all the material he had already collected on his subordinates. So at this point, Amadeus had his thumb over the entire force.

But turns out that's far from all he had control over. See, this little blackmail idea from Amadeus wasn't just a spur of the moment thing. Amadeus had been creating his own little folder for quite sometime.

Being the CEO of an entertainment company, he had plenty of time to meet with big names, powerful people. Slowly and methodically, Amadeus had been dragging more and more people into his web...

I don't know the specifics of how he did it, but suffice it to say, Amadeus was doing some real sketchy shit. But it had been working for him. At this point, he had pretty much the whole city of Hightower under his influence in some way or another. He was in complete control.

And then he ended up dying. That's karma for you, I suppose.



When Oliver told all this to me, I didn't know what to say.

Mostly I just wanted to punch him. ...But that wasn't going to be effective at accomplishing anything, so instead I asked him something.

By Oliver's description, Amadeus was pretty much the actual devil. So why was he so bothered by his death?

Instead of answering my question, he took out a knife. A golden, intricate knife.

Is that–

Yeah, it's the knife I showed you the other day.



As fate would have it, Oliver would end up leaving the knife with me by the end of that night as a gift. But originally, Oliver was gifted that knife by his late father.

Oliver's dad was a craftsman, and at some point, he had gifted two identical knives to his two sons, Amadeus and Oliver. Oliver never thought much of it, but Amadeus loved it. Supposedly, Amadeus had always been a lot closer with their father than Oliver.

A funny thing about these knives is that they're outfitted with a small little hidey hole. You wouldn't know it, just looking at the knife, but like I showed you the other day it's good for holding something small.

Amadeus kept the knife on his person at all times as a sort of keepsake. And he also kept a special USB flash drive on him at all times, a flash drive containing the totality of his work.

His golden gun, his blackmail portfolio. Three guesses as to where he hid it.

In the knife's hidey hole...

Bingo! Mouse gets it in one. Makes sense, really. You keep one thing on you all the time, you keep another thing on you all the time, one thing has a slot to hide something the size of the other thing... It's kinda inevitable.

But see, here's the thing – something happened that Amadeus Bowen didn't account for.

He was killed. And something happened that Oliver Bowen didn't account for, either.

[BGM: A Bite That Persists]


That knife went missing from the crime scene.

What?!

I don't recall hearing about this detail.

Yeah, obviously this wasn't a problem Oliver was eager to bring up to the public. But no matter how much he looked, he couldn't find the knife anywhere.

He couldn't find it anywhere in Aaron Morris' house, either. Aaron claimed to know nothing about it. But of course, Aaron also claimed he was innocent.

Oliver was confident that his guys had found the culprit. But Oliver was also nervous about the missing knife.

That night that Oliver was drunkenly confessing to me, the knife was still missing. To his knowledge, no one on that file had been blackmailed recently, including him of course. But if anyone ever found that USB flash drive...

...It could be disastrous.

Yup.



The whole thing was pretty fucked.

...Anyways, that's what Oliver told me. The reason the force came down so decisively on Aaron was probably because they wanted to settle the matter definitively. Meanwhile, Oliver would handle the search for the knife... privately.

Flash forward a few years, he's kept in touch, said the knife still hasn't shown up. Then, this kid – who's obviously a fucking kid – tries passing off this phony ID on me.

Turns out, this kid's name is Brian Morris. And he's pretty pissed at my part in convicting his dad.

I don't really feel bad about any of that. I just did my part, spoke the truth.

I did have a reason to feel bad though, and that's because I now knew a lot more of the truth – and had done pretty much jackshit with it.

Anyways, I let him blow off some steam by ranting at me, and then I send him on his way. He swings by a few more times, never for any real point. Our relationship gets marginally better. We play a game of darts at some point.

And then I stop seeing him for a while.



And then, one night, I'm closing up shop when I hear a noise behind me. I might've been off the force for a while, but my instincts weren't totally shot. I wasn't gonna let a kid completely ambush me.

So I turn around just in time to look Brian in the face, which caused him to hesitate from shooting that taser. I was unclear as to what exactly he intended to do, but I knew his expression well.

It was that of a man about to do something very reckless... and very stupid.

I tried to strike up some of the rapport we had previously had, but he was... different. At one point, he mentioned how 'me and my friend Olly would pay for strangling the justice system'. So... he clearly knew more than he did when we had previously met.

I was unclear how much more, but he knew more. Still, I tried to get a straight answer out of him, and he continued to act weird. He talked about how it was 'his right' after everything that had happened. He was saying it more to himself than me.

And it was at this point I knew that something wasn't right. This kid was in over his head. On a hunch, I asked him if somebody had given him the idea for this, whatever 'this' was. If someone was helping him.

In response, he shot me with the taser. ...But before passing out, I got a look at his face, and I knew the answer.



The fuck?

So... Dog, what are you saying?

I believe he's implying that the 'Jade Emperor' was not Brian alone.

Well, I didn't think that yet. It was only how he reacted when I pressed him about the encounter while he was explaining the rules that I felt something was off.

He spoke as if he hadn't even remembered the incident.

Hold on a second. Are you saying that voice wasn't Brian?

But I thought the guy on the screen was Brian!

The person on the screen was most certainly Brian. I would recognize that tattoo anywhere.

Although, considering the getup he was in...

[BGM: Dance of the Snakes]


I'm not saying I have all the answers. Didn't then, don't now. But I was definitely suspicious. Something wasn't right.

And something wasn't right with the people who were there. The two standout cases being Mouse and Dragon. You two are right – there isn't a good reason for either of you to be there. So I was on the lookout.

Then, at the end, when I saw Dragon dragging Snake away from the group, I had a feeling that was the first move.

So impulsive, that one.

I already apologized, you fuckwad! How long are you going to be on this?!

It's just still surprising that you'd believe such a blatant lie. I mean, someone like me? Funding a gang like the Scorpions?

The Jade Emperor must have been transmitting hypnotic powers through those speakers.

Fuck you!

Well, my point stands that the person behind this clearly manipulated Dragon into getting into a fight alone with Snake.



First things first, I got Bunny to gather everybody up in one spot, where people could all see each other.

Why'd you do that again?

Not important right now. Next, I ran after you and interrupted the fight.

I didn't have time to let things run their course, so I used the taser I found earlier in the gym to put you both to sleep.

We already know this part!

I'm being thorough. And stop yelling, I'm standing right here.

Anyways, luckily the two of you had already input your actions, so I just dragged you to the nearby side exit in preparation. When the game ended and the neck braces all came unlocked, I did the honor of taking them off for you.

Then when I returned, I realized that Mouse, the other person of interest, was gone. I chased after you and was able to catch you just before you walked head first into that trap.

Again, thank you for that.



Anyways, at this point I was putting two and two together. Dragon, Mouse, and possibly Snake were all being targeted. You were brought here to die.

For that main reason, alongside a couple of other things, I brought you to this little safehouse.

To keep us safe, right?

Yup.

And you're so certain this 'co-conspirator' of yours exists?

I'm not all 'so certain'. But I'll say this. Mouse, after I knocked you out, I knocked on the door to Brian's “base”. ...And I didn't get a response.

Huh?

Maybe he was playing coy...

Or maybe the explosion wasn't the thing that killed him.

[BGM: Silence]


Dog's words hung heavy in the air. If what he was suggesting was true... I already knew part of this story, but when he laid it all out like that, I couldn't help but feel we were part of something much larger.

I must say though, it seems like whoever's behind this nefarious plot went through an awful lot of trouble to eliminate the three of us, even if they blundered at the very end. For what purpose would they be so incensed to kill us?

I have to imagine it's related to the murder of Amadeus Bowen. I mean, I don't know why exactly, but that seems to be the only real connection between the three of us, right?

Yeah, seems to be.

I'm less concerned as to why they were trying to kill you three. It's more about the murders you don't commit.

Like jazz. Or mahjong, for that matter, but I digress.

Anyways, why not just execute the whole lot of us? Seems like the way they went about it all was rather inefficient.

I thought carefully. I knew the case very well, at least in the abstract... After all, my dad had obsessed a lot about it. He truly believed that Aaron Morris was innocent. I never actually thought he was right, what with all the evidence, but... with everything Dog had said, I began to reconsider.

Was there something more to this that we had missed?

[BGM: Dog Days]


Well, so long as Aaron Morris was the only person who could have stolen the master card from Amadeus Bowen's wallet, I suppose it's pointless to worry about such things.

I wonder... is that really the case?

You're wondering that? Weren't you the one who gave the testimony to that effect?!

I did. Like I said then, Amadeus dropped his wallet on the floor at some point, the two left, and Aaron came back in to get it for him. Aaron could have taken the master card then. However...

However?

At one point before he dropped his wallet, Amadeus went into the bathroom. He was pretty sloshed at the time. Perhaps someone swiped it from him then.

Really? Why wasn't this a bigger deal?

Well, he still had his wallet on him when he left the restroom. The prosecution argued that while it's possible that in his inebriated state, Amadeus might have been stolen from...

However, it was unreasonable to think a pickpocket could have taken the wallet, looked through it, taken the master card specifically, and then put the wallet back in Amadeus' pocket without him noticing.



Especially considering he just took a piss at a urinal.

When you put it that way, it does seem difficult.

As you probably know, after going to the bar, Aaron took Amadeus back to their workplace and Amadeus slept in his personal office. The security tapes may have been messed with, but that only extends to the actual day of the murder. So no one came in and stole from him when he was sleeping.

Right, right.

Yeah, I don't know much about it, but it seems like Aaron definitely fucking killed Amadeus.

And honestly? Good for him.

Dragon!

She actually has a point.

Oh?



As detestable as violence is as a rule, there are certain situations where they may be morally permissible.

Depending on to what extent of Amadeus' crimes Aaron was aware of – specifically, if he knew how compromised the police state was – it's reasonable to conclude that murder was the only affordable option.

I do not wish to condone murder, however, I find it hard to imagine the punishment matched the crime, as it were.

Snake was right. From what Dog had told me, Amadeus was a monster. Someone who needed to be slayed. You could have sympathy towards the person who killed him. However... someone that atrocious surely attracted powerful enemies. If you viewed the case not as a disgruntled employee lashing out at an abusive boss, but as the assassination of a person who was tantamount to a crime boss, there was suddenly a whole new lens to look at the case through.

Far more care, intent, and planning could be pinned to the killer. And there were certainly unresolved mysteries in the case.