Chapter 78: Chapter 78 Law Enforcement Trade_1
Hearing this, Camila cracked a knowing smile, "A true former mounted officer indeed."
Aiden signaled with his eyes for Veronica to explain it to him, as she clearly knew more about the situation.
Understanding his request, Veronica began to clarify for Aiden, "A year ago, when Camila was incarcerated, the mounted police were preparing to take down the largest force in the old district, the Blood Hand Gang, with the chief personally overseeing the project. To destroy a gang, you must break each core member one by one, and Camila was on that list. Gang cadres generally carry many suspicions, but it’s not easy to convict them by due process. I guess the mounted police must have also sensed that there were dubious points in this case, but..."
"But to not waste the chance to imprison a gang cadre, the mounted police decided to have Camila take the fall for it, right?" Aiden continued.
Veronica hesitantly nodded, "The day before the body was discovered, the mounted police happened to catch Camila at the scene of a brawl. Under those circumstances, it might have been more convenient to convict her. In comparison, it would be more difficult to investigate whether it was an inside job by the Skull Gang."
Aiden was finally starting to grasp the situation.
That is to say, when the mounted police found Slyne’s son beaten to death, they didn’t immediately determine that the cause of death was the injuries left by Camila’s beating the day before, but also considered the possibility that the Skull Gang had killed the youth afterwards to frame Camila.
For the mounted police at that time, investigating the Skull Gang could be a thankless task—collecting evidence would be difficult, and even if they did get to the bottom of it, there was a high probability that a minor character within the gang would take the fall, leaving the actual ringleaders unscathed.
By contrast, prosecuting Camila was much easier, as she had been caught red-handed in the brawl, and both the arresting mounted officers and other caught members of the Skull Gang could testify that Camila had beaten the boy.
At the time, the mounted police were also specifically targeting the Blood Hand Gang to which Camila belonged, so in order to make more efficient use of the death of the young gang member, they ultimately chose to put the blame directly on Camila. After all, Camila wasn’t exactly an unstained lotus flower.
The methods adopted by the enforcers in this world aren’t always by the book.
Veronica, being an elite of the mounted police, lent credibility when she was the one relating this affair.
But this still didn’t explain why Camila herself chose not to appeal.
"So what did you gain by taking the rap?" Aiden asked Camila.
If it was a so-called deal, the mounted police let Camila acknowledge the crime without appealing, then they ought to have given Camila some benefit in return.
"Those damn cops told me that the Blood Hand Gang’s demise was just a matter of time, and that the mounted police had already scheduled plans to close in on the other leaders, and when the Blood Hand Gang was wiped out, my past crimes would likely be dug up," Camila said as she recalled the events, "But as long as I accepted the blame and served my sentence quietly, they wouldn’t pursue my case any further."
"You actually believed that?"
"I was a gang executive myself; I knew all too well the state of the gang. At a glance, we might have seemed like the dominant force in the old district, but we were barely clinging to life, like an old man with one foot in the grave. Gang intelligence continuously got leaked to the cops, with countless moles and informants planted inside. Up-and-coming gangs coveted our turf, while our top brass were busy squabbling over power..." Camila said, her face twisting into a scornful smirk, "I was in jail for half a year, and the gang was gone, quicker than I had thought."
In an effort to eliminate the Blood Hand Gang as quickly as possible, the mounted police seized the opportunity to send Camila to prison and, to keep her from appealing and causing more trouble, decided to make a deal with her.
After losing Camila, the gang’s ace fighter, the Blood Hand Gang felt even greater pressure in their conflicts with other gangs.
The police intentionally weakened the power of the Blood Hand Gang by exploiting internal gang strife to reduce their hold on the territory, and then gradually took out one cadre after another through undercover agents and informants, until the most powerful gang in the old district was completely destroyed within a mere six months.
However, in this event, there was an unexpected casualty—a youth named Beili’s mother, Slyne, convinced that Camila was the killer of her son, chose to turn herself into a zombie.
"So you’re saying, Slyne actually got the wrong person for her revenge?" Aiden asked quietly.
"Hmph, that stupid bitch, fooled to death and still clueless," Camila said with disdain.
Aiden fell silent.
In Slyne’s case file, it was mentioned that after her son’s death, the Skull Gang followed gang customs and gave her a consolation payment. However, she didn’t use the money for medical treatment but instead took it to a necromancer introduced by the cadre of her son’s gang to turn herself into a zombie to carry out her revenge.
Logically deducing, the one she found was most likely her son’s direct superior.
That is to say, the gang cadre mentioned in the anonymous letter.
In other words, she was not only deceived by the true murderer of her son but also led by them to turn into this abominable undead, undertaking a hopeless revenge.
"Should we tell prisoner 3271 the truth?" Veronica asked Aiden carefully.
Aiden shook his head, "Telling her probably won’t do any good, she won’t believe it. The basic condition for creating a resurrected corpse is to turn the soul into a complete vengeful ghost, it’s best not to assume Slyne still possesses the logic she had in life."
Aiden’s predecessor’s memories contained knowledge about undead creatures. The immortality of a resurrected corpse stemmed from hatred, a necromancer creating such a being would purify the pre-death enmity, in other words, a program for revenge against Camila was written into Slyne’s soul.
Under these circumstances, convincing Slyne that Camila was not the murderer was objectively nearly impossible.
That cadre, had done quite a ruthless job.
"What’s the name of that cadre?" Aiden asked Camila.
"Carlo Bollpo," Camila answered, "He was the one in charge of fighting with me for the territory on behalf of the Skull Gang at that time."
"Carlo Bollpo?" Veronica reacted to the name.
"You know him?" Aiden turned and asked her.
"I’ve handled his case before. He’s a high-ranking cadre in the Skull Gang, a strong candidate for the next leader. He’s real scum and very cunning. The mounted police have been investigating him, but they’ve never managed to catch him," Veronica replied expressionlessly.
"Making a name for himself, huh? When he fought me for the territory, he was just a small-time cadre. Now, it must be tough for you cops to get rid of him, probably taking a good ten or eight years, but no matter..." Camila said, a sinister smile forming on her face, "if he’s still alive by the time I get out, I’ll find a way to slaughter him."
