Chapter 68: Chapter 68. Lost Traces (Part 2)

 

Putnam Von appeared to be a simple man with not that much self-respect, and one that was quite careless with all the records he was tasked to handle and take care of. The forms of registration, application and auditing were shoved into a few folders without any categorization and arrangement. It took Marcus, Kevin and Tyler Khan quite a while to sort out the forms by date and type of application. And probably thanks to the slobiness of him, the application form for the rental of the platform was not missing or damaged. Thus they were able to immediately scan and seal the multi-page form.

 

The handwriting on the form was strange, and it was not just Marcus that noticed this. Kevin raised his eyebrow after browsing through a few pages and said to everyone: “This handwriting is - well - is kinda weird. It seemed a bit too deliberate.”

 

“Deliberate? Meaning?”

 

“Meaning the one who wrote this form was trying to fake their handwriting to look like something else, or somebody else's'.” Marcus answered with a frown, then he raised his head and asked Carla Hernandez: “Ms. Hernandez, you just said this office is too clean. Can you elaborate on that a little? What kind of ‘dirt’ were you expecting to find?”

 

“Well - ” Carla Hernandez hesitated for a short moment, then she pointed at the desk, specifically the keyboard on it: “Actually, here’s the first thing. The surface of the keyboard was way too clean. And the desktop, it seemed to have been recently wiped, quite thoroughly so as well.”

 

“Which means, you suspect someone other than Putnam was here before us looking for something, and they left fingerprints or some other kind of traces on the desk. And they decided to wipe it clean.” Tyler Khan nodded while scratching his jaw: “Interesting - have you found anything else?”

 

“The file cabinets, they’re too clean as well.” Garry Shaw sighed: “It just doesn’t fit. I’m not familiar with this Putnam Von fella, but from the arrangement of the stationary and furniture in this room, he doesn’t feel like the tidy type.”

 

“And he’s a single man, working at a registration office, still living in the community collective staff housing.” Carla Hernandez shrugged.

 

“Hey, that’s - ” Tyler Khan was about to cut Carla off, but Garry Shaw interrupted him.

 

“Yeah, I know the type. There are old bags of tea in his drawer, way past their best before dates and even smelled of mold.” Garry Shaw raised a small plastic evidence bag, inside which was two small semi-transparent paper bags with dried tea leaves inside. “You see, these are cheap tea bags, and they were shoved deep inside one of the drawers. So you can tell, he doesn’t really seem the kind that would keep things really neat and clean. Especially the tops of the file cabinets.”

 

Marcus looked over at the file cabinets made of metal that were about knee high, indeed, their tops were clean, without any visible dust or dirt. Then he looked over at the keyboard on the desk, placed just right in front of the monitor. The keyboard was quite old, the plastic had already turned slightly yellow. There were traces of cigarette ash in the cracks between the keys, and certain character prints on it were heavily damaged and faded. He even spotted a few winding, curly hairs between the cracks. It appeared that aside from the upper surface, the entire keyboard was quite dirty and poorly maintained.

 

“We will need take the hard drive as well. And maybe make a backup of it.” Marcus narrowed his eyes: “If someone is trying to hide their digital tracks, we at least need to see what they did and what they wiped.”

 

“Yeah, about that.” Carla Hernandez scoffed, then took out another thicker plastic evidence bag: “It’s not our first days on the job, you know. But I don’t think it’s gonna be easy.”

 

Inside the evidence bag was a disconnected hard drive, with quite a few dents on its surface, and it made crackling sounds of tiny shards or pebbles when Carla Hernandez shook it in the air.

 

“And, it’s just left here?” Kevin asked with a curious tone.

 

“Yeah, curious, right?” Carla Hernandez gave Kevin a side eye and said.

 

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“Nothing, I just feel, this - ” Kevin thought as he spoke, trying to find the right words to get his concern out without sounding like an uncooperative jerk: “This looks a little too convenient, no?”

 

“It is indeed. But still, we can try to get this to our technical team, see if they can recover the data inside.” Garry Shaw sighed and shook his head: “I’ve pinged them already. They should be able to get to it soon.”

 

“That’s good. That’s good…” Kevin nodded: “And if you need help, I know a few very capable - ”

 

“We have one of the best technical teams in the entire city, so I think we’re good.” Carla Hernandez shook her head: “And I’m sure we’ll have updates for you in no time.”

 

“But if your technical team would like to help or monitor the recovery process closely, just let them contact me, I’ll be sure to loop them in.” Tyler Khan immediately budged in to help the awkwardness: “Now, detective, Mr. Loo, since the scene is well taken care of, and we’ve got the application form already. let’s go and check out Putnam Von’s residence, shall we?”

 

“That’d be great. Thank you.” Marcus nodded, and let out a short sigh.

 

Putnam Von’s residence seemed much more natural for the stereotype of a man like him, even to an exaggerated extent. It was already a small apartment in a relatively old building, and from the looks of the walls and windows, it was not properly and regularly cleaned and maintained either. The entire apartment smelled of sweat, cheap alcohol and stale old dishes, and only had a few flickering and buzzing old light bulbs in the room. There were personal items and garbage everywhere. The three of them barely had enough space to stand in the living room, only a narrow pathway through the garbage and messes.

 

Marcus treaded carefully to the interior of the room, with a little of his Qi activated and concentrated on his eyes in hopes of finding anything abnormal or paranormal - he did not have much of it left, so he had to ration it.

 

There was nothing noticeable in this room, no signs of forced entry, no obvious signs of struggle - though it was not that easy to tell, and clear no signs of anything being rummage through.

 

“What a slob.” Kevin couldn’t help but complain.

 

“I can personally assure you that this is no way a typical residence of a community collective worker.” Tyler Khan appeared to be embarrassed as well: “Usually for those that live in the community residential places, there is a cleanliness and maintenance committee to make sure that all residents adhere to certain standards…”

 

“Yeah, but looks like he still has some means to make this committee look the other way.” Marcus knelt down while paying attention to his surroundings to not knock anything over and extended his right hand below the small wooden table at the center of the living room. This table seemed like it used to have black paint, but it was only visible upon close inspection due to the dust collected on it and the tea and coffee stains. After a few seconds, Marcus took out a brown envelope with some folding marks on it.

 

“Something strange about it?” Tyler Khan had his eyes fixated on the folder and asked.

 

“Well, just - just a hunch.” Marcus gently flattened the envelope and looked at its fold marks closely - it looked like it used to store something rectangle inside. Then after a brief moment, he took out his wallet and took out a bill - the rectangle marks on the envelope were in a similar shape and similar size as well.

 

“And - someone just had this one laying around?” Kevin asked.

 

“Well, let’s not assume too much, shall we?” Tyler Khan shook his head.

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