199 [AT] Code Breaker... 

[After Transition] 

"Mayor Tate did say he was meeting someone this evening, though I don't know the exact time of the meeting. Are you sure that is what happened, and that you didn't tell him to meet you there so you could kill him?" Harvey accuses and I feel he is used to playing good cop bad cop in interrogations but unfortunately for him he can only be the bad cop since Commissioner James Gordon isn't here to play the good cop and so I feel like this investigation is likely to get more violent before anything gets solved since without Commissioner James Gordon's good cop to hold back Detective Harvey Bullock's bad cop the rotund detective isn't likely to make many friends and people won't be happy or want to help him out which will make things worse so I am guessing I will have to carry the heavy detective on my back and run him to the finish line, Kyle Newman sputters in response to Bullock's accusation and he stumbles back as if he was hit physically by the words and his sweating gets worse with a few lines dribbling down his face from his forehead at all the faces in the room staring at him with caution as if he is undeniably the murderer and so he is quick to defend himself. 

"W-what, o-of course not! I'm not a murderer, I didn't kill anyone!" He shouts trying to defend himself but by shouting and stuttering in panic all he does is bring more suspicious gazes to himself since his nervousness makes them think he has reason to be nervous aside from being accused of murdering former Mayor Karl Tate since his words would be more believable if he said them calmly as if the statement was utterly ludicrous and not acting as if there was some truth to them, Harvey seeing that he had Kyle Newman on the ropes decides to ush forward and continue his questioning. "Oh really, you didn't kill him? Then what was that meeting about, why did he want to meet you? If you aren't going to answer then I can only assume the worst," Harvey presses trying to gather more information and I think I gave him less credit than he deserves and I was underestimating him due to his stature and general demeanour but when you look past all those flaws he has been a veteran officer of the law for over a decade in arguably one of the worst if not the worst cities in America and he has handled himself for all those years without cracking or going dirty although he admittedly has picked up some vices in his drinking, smoking and his eating but that is all justified when you work in a city like Gotham, everybody stares even harder at Kyle Newman who is suddenly surrounded on all sides and I'm not any different from them since I too would like to know the reason for his meeting with the mayor exactly at the same time that he was found dead and so with everyone staring at him Kyle is pressured into saying something and so he stutters and sputters but in the end he stays silent and refuses to answer. 

"If you refuse to answer and are just going to stay silent, then I can only assume the worst. Looks like I am right then, the murderer and culprit behind all this is-" Since seeing that his attempt to pull something from Kyle Newman didn't work Harvey decides to double down and make it look likes he has come to his conclusion that he thinks Kyle Newman is the killer in order to drag some more information out of him and find out just why he was meeting up with the deceased Mayor Karl Tate in the broadcast room and it looks like Harvey is actually getting somewhere with the frightened look that comes upon Kyle's face, unfortunately before Bullock can keep up the pressure and crack Kyle open he is interrupted before he can finish his sentence by the just murdered Mayor Karl Tate's only Daughter Karina Tate who is standing on the side lines with her fiancé whose name I have now learnt is Matthew Shaw though he looks rather calm as his fiancé starts shouting up a storm. "It isn't him, it is Shaun, Shaun Masters! With the mayoral election candidates Kevin Hale and my father out of the way, the new mayor automatically becomes him and he is now running unopposed!" Karina Tate shouts drawing the attention of everyone in the room and off of Kyle Newman who looks visibly relieved as she points at mayoral candidate Shaun Masters as she accuses him and Shaun Masters looks flabbergasted at the sudden assault, everyone now having such an obvious motive thrust into their faces now look at Shaun Masters with suspicion conveniently forgetting about Kyle Newman and giving him some breathing room. 

"What, don't be ridiculous! That is absurd, there is no way I would kill two people just to become the mayor!" He shouts trying to defend himself and now sweating just as much as Kyle Newman was a few seconds ago and then he realising how Kyle Newman got out of it point s at someone else in the room coming up with a possible reason for them to be the murderer and so begins a game of hot potato with people just pointing at each other and accusing each other which inevitably starts a lot of arguments and screaming contests and so Harvey and his subordinates are now busy trying to calm them down and I am juts relieved that no one is pointing a finger at me though I suppose that is because I really don't have a reason to murder the dude and the other person in the room who isn't actually getting accuses is actually Doctor Alex Nichols who just watches the chaos in awe and she has lived her for a while so for no one to suspect her for any reason must mean that she is most likely innocent since nobody thinks her to be the culprit, with them all arguing and knowing that they will take some time to calm down I decide to busy myself by looking at the picture I took of the musical score left at the crime scene on my smartphones since I believe there is some kind of hidden meaning in it and I believe it is probably some sort of coded message left by the culprit and so I analyse it and look at the sharps and flats on the screen which refer to the black keys on a piano as they are symbols for a half step up or a half step down which I feel is important as the keys might just reveal something new. 

"Come on, hurry up and do something! Hurry up and catch this murderer Detective Bullock, otherwise more people are going to die!" Karina Tate bellows like a mad woman right into Harvey Bullock's face as she points behind her at Shaun Masters who is dumbstruck with how much this woman believes him to be the murder and dumbfounded at how to prove himself innocent, Bullock just stays silent as she screams like a banshee into his face not paying her any attention and not about to arrest someone on her say so and I find myself respecting his restraint because I would be unable to deal with such a banshee screeching into my ears at close proximity which is why I'm glad I'm further away from everyone in the back of the room where I analyse the music score and finally discover something. "You know you are next." I speak aloud garnering the attention of everyone in the room with my voice breaking through the chaos and rendering everyone silent as they turn their gazes towards me with anger and confusion in their eyes at the words I just spoke that are very ominous in the ears of everyone considering the two murders that happened consecutively in the last two days, yet even with everyone angry at my words no one says anything as they just stare at me cautious of just what the meaning behind my words are and though Harvey is confused at my words he shows a weird amount of trust towards me by staying silent and allowing me to speak which I suppose is because of my fake relationship with the Commissioner's daughter which is weird in and of itself but I am not going to question it at this very moment. 

"Once you figure out the key to this code, it becomes quite simple. The culprit has assigned the letters of the alphabet to the keys of the piano in order from left to right including the black keys that come between the white keys, in doing so they have written the corresponding sounds as a musical score. Reading the sheet music left at Kevin Hale's murder according to the assumption that this is the code, we get 'You Know You Are Next', do you see?" I finish to all of their shocked gazes with Harvey giving me eyes of amazement, they all wait shocked at what I have just revealed and I pay attention to all of their faces but none of them give anything away since they are all showing the same shocked faces. "Haha, as expected of the Commissioner's future son in law. Since you have figured that out, then what does the musical score written upstairs in blood mean?" Harvey questions in excitement equating my reveal and intelligence as natural because he believes that I am Barbara's boyfriend and believing that such a smart girl wouldn't settle he assumes she would date someone with an equal amount of intelligence to her which I suppose he is correct about since I am just as smart if not smarter than her but ignoring that for now, I get to doing the request he just gave me and swipe to the photo I had just taken of the bloody musical score upstairs. 

"Ok, let us see then. Using the same code as the one we used before, it says 'The Hellfire's Grudge Is Settled', whatever that means." I tell them to which Harvey nods his head for some reason while the rest of the room tries to digest what I have just said, while others try to make sense of what was just said two people in particular react to what I have just said with them being Shaun Masters and Karina Tate who both lean in with shock as Shaun Masters and Karin Tate both say something. "Th-The hellfire's grudge? Could it be? The pianist Aaron Kane who burned himself to death twelve years ago along with his family?" They say linking the words with the fire that happened twelve years ago, someone else at the back of the room understand what they mean and hops onto the bandwagon drawing the attention of everyone in the room to himself. "Yes, it is him. I knew it, he is alive. My god, AARON KANE IS ALIVE!" 

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<AN> I now have a Pa treon up and running and when a chapter is ready it will go up on Pa treon first so please take a look. Some support from you guys would be appreciated and motivate me.

Currently 34+ Chapters.

(www.pa treon.com/GutsyRipper)

A special thank you to my patrons Stormrall, Turtle, Matthew Laird, Sage Honos, Darth Bane, Marcus Lane, frank ivkovich, Alex, Jermaine Koster, Ethan Fuentes, Shane Town, Hisham and Eric Baker. Thank you for the support.