The Last Option
Chapter Forty-Five: More than a Psychopath

Late in the afternoon, Scanlon entered Captain West's office with a folder in his hand, which, as he always did, he threw on the desk.

"The dead man in the house has been identified," he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the office door. "His name was Rodolfo Bertoni, and he was a distant cousin of the Benelli brothers. He collaborated with them from time to time in some job, but nothing permanent. His occupation until recently was to act as a representative of a friend of Brazilian origin named Joao Fernandes organizing illegal fights. They made good money with that." "Do you think Fernandes was with him in that house?"

"It's possible. They were inseparable companions, and since noon today no one has seen Fernandes. He is missing."

"They found our killer and went after him, but he surprised them, killed one and took the other, most likely to get information out of him."

"On the streets they know who the killer is, but no one dares say his name," Scanlon said. "They prefer to keep it to themselves to see if they can replace him for the reward. By the way, have you talked to this Randall guy yet? Is he the one offering the reward?"

"Not yet, but I'd venture to tell you it's not him," West leaned back in his chair. "According to our friend Sullivan, his former employer once told him that his cousin and sister were very greedy, especially him, this Randall, whom he was very wary of. He's now the owner, along with the deceased's sister, of the family business, and so far they remain convinced that Nathan Hicks and his wife were killed in a failed kidnapping attempt."

"Maybe he wants the murderer to pay for what he did and is offering the reward so we can replace him faster, since there is always someone willing to rat on someone else for money."

"I repeat, I don't think it's him, as he doesn't seem the type of person to be on the lookout for such things."

"And if we consider again the hypothesis that it wasn't a failed kidnapping, but a contract killing disguised as a kidnapping? Maybe he had him killed to keep everything for himself, as he's now, and is offering that reward to throw us off the scent."

"Why would one person, who owns a multi-million dollar company with two other family members, seek to murder one of the other two to keep what is his? That is, there are only three people who are the owners, not many, and they must have plenty of money left over. If this hypothesis was viable, then Rebecca Hicks would also be dead, don't you think?"

Scanlon lifted his shoulders.

"Maybe there's a deeper reason we haven't wanted to investigate," said the detective. "You've always told me that you can't rule out any hypothesis unless you have firm evidence on one that forces you to discard the others. You have suspected the chauffeur and so far we have found nothing to link him to the death of his former employer, rather he was greatly harmed by his death." Scanlon looked at his boss with a surprised face at what he was thinking; curiously, West also thought the same thing.

"Do you think it's our driver offering a bounty, wounded, and seeking revenge for the death of his benevolent former employer?" West asked his detective.

"If it's him, where would he get the money? My informant called me recently and said he hadn't been able to get the disposable's number yet, but he did replace out that the reward was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I don't think our driver has that much, unless Hicks gave him a lot of money, which I don't think he did."

"He gave him a luxury apartment and a BMW."

"Yes, but I don't think he gave him that much money."

West thought for a few seconds.

"I think we have a new hypothesis, where our friends Randall and Sullivan are somehow involved in everything that's going on. Despite my suspicions about the driver, we never wanted to investigate him more closely, as well as Randall, but I think it's time we did it. We haven't had any more concrete leads so far anyway, and that bothers me a lot. Maybe with them we'll get to the bottom of all this."

"Remember, too, our friend Sullivan knows who the killer is. Maybe this is a way to make him come out, and he is succeeding, if he was the one who was in that house where Bertoni died and Fernandes was taken. The only thing that doesn't add up is, if he is the one offering the reward, where would he get the money to pay for it?"

"You investigate him; look into his finances again to see if he has the money to pay the reward. I'll investigate Randall and the family. Maybe, as you say, there's something else we're not considering."

At that moment, the intercom on West's desk buzzed. He immediately picked up.

"West," he said, and then listened intently to what was being said through the device. After a few seconds, he hung up the receiver.

"Fernandes was found," he said. "He's dead. Let's go."

The two policemen hurried out of the office.

Almost an hour later, they arrived at the crime scene. Joao Fernandes was sitting and tied to a chair, naked. He was almost completely covered in blood. After observing him carefully, West looked around. The coroner was still collecting samples while another detective was taking pictures of the body and everything around it. Pausing, the coroner approached them.

"I've seen it all in my nearly thirty years of service," said the coroner, a man of medium height and about fifty-five years old, "but this is another level of sadism. Whoever did this is a very dangerous and disturbed psychopath.” "All psychopaths are disturbed people," West clarified.

"I agree, but I don't know if you understand me, captain, whoever did this, apart from being a psychopath, is also a monster, an animal, capable of going beyond."

"How was he found?" West asked. "This area is very intricate, I saw tracks from a car, but it must have been difficult to get it in and out of here."

"He was found by a couple of hikers about half an hour ago. A boy and his girlfriend. They weren't going to go this way, but she was feeling sick and they came this way to get out faster. Of course, they didn't see anything. Scared, if the killer was still around, they hurried to notify the authorities when they got some signal on their cell phones."

"His ears were ripped off?, Scanlon asked, taking a closer look at the corpse.

"Not only his ears," said the coroner, "which were cut off with a handsaw; he also tore off part of his scalp with the same saw. He cut off his eyelids complete with eyelashes and pierced his eye with a screwdriver, emptying it; he pulled out his teeth, broke his collarbones, pulled out his fingernails and toenails and then crushed his fingers with a hammer, making them burst; he cut off his testicles and penis, which we still haven't found, he fractured his knees... Shall I go on?" "Jesus Christ!" Scanlon muttered. "He took his time, and because of the location, no one must have heard his screams."

"You can also see a lot of water spilled," continued the coroner, "which means the poor guy passed out with each torture and he woke him up again to continue."

"Cause of death?" West asked. "Well, apart from everything he did to him, he didn't bleed to death. Heart attack?"

"I wish it had been that, he wouldn't have suffered so much when he died. From a mark I found under his rib cage, I'm guessing the killer drove a screwdriver into his heart, hammering it, but I'll know that for sure when I open him up." "Damn!" Scanlon exclaimed, truly horrified. "You're right when you say the bastard's more than a psychopath!"

"I told you," the coroner turned his back on them and returned with the body.

West and Scanlon let the coroner get on with his work and went to their car.

"If he's our killer, more dead people will continue to appear," Scanlon said as they were getting to the car. "Anyone who replaces him trying to collect the reward will suffer the same fate as Fernandes and Bertoni."

"And when the press gets wind of it, there will be panic among the population knowing that such a killer is on the loose," concluded West. "We must hurry up, my friend, before this gets out of hand."