The Detectives' Plan/s

Observe.

The knife is literally inches away from Special Agent Barnes' testicles. However, before Subject 1 could even do anything relatively bloody to his victim, an external force had stopped him from moving further from his plan. In fact, the clip that you're seeing right now is not paused at all. Subject 1 is just so overcome with all sorts of negative emotions, energies, and feelings in the world that he quite literally stopped functioning as a human being. It felt as if the voice of that person who suddenly shouted literally just outside of his van had loosened a few of the already loose screws in his head further till it drops, stunning Subject 1 until he no longer knew how to function as a person.

Special Agent Barnes used this opportunity to struggle further without moving his body, for he's afraid that wriggling so much might cause him to hurt his own testicles on the knife pointed at it. The detective knew that voice; he knew it very well. Thus, he shouted, groaned, moaned, and mumbled while a huge ball gag was still on his mouth, locking his jaw from uttering a word but not enough to hinder him from asking for help. However, at that moment, Barnes was not at all seeking help. His effort to raise his voice with a gag on his mouth was his own unique way of warning whoever was outside of the van to run. Barnes knew that woman very well, and he knew that she wouldn't be able to do anything against Subject 1 due to many, many factors rooted from her ridiculous stubbornness.

"Sir? Sir, is everything alright in there?" The woman outside the van knocked three more times as she uttered those words.

"Yes! Just wait!" Subject 1 tried to calmly articulate, but it came out like a protestation filled with annoyance instead.

Barnes then screamed once more, stronger this time, and it seemed that whoever was outside of the van realized that something odd was happening inside. It could very well be a dangerous act, so the woman once again, with a stronger and deeper voice than she would typically use, shouted once more, which made Subject 1's hair rise further with his eyes widened.

"Is everything okay in there, sir?" The woman tried to calmly ask as she heard the muffled roaring inside of the van.

"Yes, ma'am. Everything is okay! Stop banging my god damn DOOR!"

Subject 1 realized what Barnes was trying to do and instantly suppressed him by covering his head with a thick pillow. The man knew that this wouldn't be enough to knock a person down, especially an adrenaline-filled detective, so he took a syringe lying on a small table right beside the little bed and injected the drug in it through Barnes' neck.

And at the time, the only thing he could think of is that one familiar that he could still remember among his many victims.

"Justin..." The man finally mumbles.

Before we could unravel what happened next, we must first hear a message from our sponsors.

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Now, speaking about time, maybe it's time for us to talk more about time and things that occurred in such a fast but slow day from the perspective of the detectives.

It was Wednesday, 10:56 pm when Justin left Subject 1 to torture William Barnes in his lonesome and to give his owner more space to do whatever he wishes to do without anyone's scrutinizing gaze. However, there's a more significant reason why Justin decided not to see the finale of the plan he had helped to create with Subject 1. A promise.

At 5:16 pm, two hours before the bar opened, Subject 1 and Justin went to Justin's friend, the owner of the bar, to ask for his aide in drugging William Barnes. However, we all know already that the bar owner was initially reluctant about this plan until Justin recommended that they should speak about this matter in confidentiality without Subject 1's involvement. The bar owner agreed, and when they came back, both of them explained that they "spoke" about it "intimately" as "friends" and went to the conclusion that the bar owner will definitely help them however they can. Now, none of us really followed Justin when he entered inside the bar owner's room, but I mean, come on! Even Subject 1 knows what they did without needing all sorts of tech and facial recognition bullshit. What Subject 1 didn't know is that Justin promised the bar owner for a second round later that night.

They both agreed to meet in a love hotel a few meters away from Justin's friend's bar because the bar owner's family is currently sleeping in his room, while his cousin managed the bar for him. The bar owner demanded that Justin would come to that love hotel at 10:30 pm, but he ended up arriving around 11 pm instead. The fact that Justin was late is his form of silent message that he's against them meeting ever again after this.

Consequently, Justin left the love hotel an hour after the bar owner had left. By that time, it was already midnight—Thursday. Coincidentally, that was also when Subject 1 got this early, surprise visit.

Now, you see, the reason why we don't have anything to show regarding Justin's activities with the bar owner is that I didn't really send anyone to follow Justin. I just think that doing that was irrelevant to this presentation. However, I did ask one member of my team to follow Justin once he went to the love hotel but prohibited him from entering the establishment itself. He was only there to record when Justin came and when he left.

However, what I did extensively researched was Special Agents Barnes and Callahan, especially Callahan. Not because we think that she's a threat, but because we believed that her side of the story would prove to be necessary for telling the full story. Thus, I did. I sent five of my best men, along with ten new recruits to follow Callahan in the shadows or in the deep crevices around them. This was both used as a training and to keep an eye on the detectives, but our priority was still Callahan.

They reported that at 5 am, Wednesday, Callahan spoke with Barnes about her displeasure in working with the rest of the police officers in Salem because she thought that they wouldn't be able to fully aid both of them in solving this case. Such arrogance of hers was the reason why Barnes refused to work with Callahan that day and decided to work with the police force of Salem. Embarrassed but still very much determined to do her bidding, Callahan immediately scoured the entire town for the rest of the day to gather information from the public.

This proved to be tiresome work because, apparently, both detectives have no lead that would help them solve this case quickly, but they do have a plan; both detectives just can't agree with each other and decided to split up impromptu.

Around 7 am, Barnes had already gathered everyone in the Salem police force to give everything they knew about the case, no-holds-barred, and to voice out any opinion they may have with no reservation. Barnes allowed everyone to speak and recorded all of them systematically by categorizing each statement in different subcategories. At the same time, Callahan was busying herself inside of a fast-food restaurant, arguing with herself whether she should buy the breakfast meal or the gigantic burger. She decided to buy the burger, but to her detriment, as she ate and started chewing on that humongous burger on a bench outside of the restaurant, she realized that she couldn't eat all of it and threw the rest of it in the trash.

Around noon, Barnes had already made a complete spreadsheet about all of the victims in the case. He also managed to collect all of the data regarding the missing people in Salem and concluded that at least two of the five missing people in the past two years were a victim of the Oregon Butcher. He also noted that a woman named Eleanor Jameson and Chris Walker might be one of the Butcher's victims, for Barnes pointed out that both people had physical qualities that made them aligned with the rest of the Butcher's victims. The rest of the police department agreed that Eleanor might be one of such victims, but most of them were quite reluctant to believe that the Butcher might target a man. Barnes argued that it is possible since the Butcher was already recorded to have raped and assaulted a man before.

Meanwhile, at 8 am, Callahan had been snooping around town, trying to ask literally every person she had encountered if they had seen anyone suspicious in their town. All of them said different names, and her first attempt pretty much didn't get her anywhere. She decided to change her questions to the people around town; instead of asking suspicious people, she asked if there were anyone around whom they considered as a model citizen with an upright attitude that they liked a whole lot. Most of them spoke about the same seven people, one of those is Subject 1's name. 

At around 1 pm, Barnes had already concluded that all of the Butcher's victims had some sort of contact with him. Thus, this proved that the suspect had been in the town for quite a while before his murder spree. This, in turn, made it even more unlikely for Chris Walker to be a victim because he was a known eccentric who rarely speaks with anyone in town. Barnes still holds firm, however, stating that both Eleanor and Chris are still a probable victim. Barnes also noticed that the area wherein they discovered the bodies of the victims were around the northeastern district of the town. Surely enough, most of the Butcher's victims lived around the northeastern part of town other than Justin Philips and Patricia Miller, who both remained as the most enigmatic of all victims. The special agent also revisited their most significant lead—the blurry CCTV footage of the suspect when he attacked Patricia Miller and Justin Philips. He also decided to call three police officers in Salem who had a few background knowledge about making facial composite to create a graphical representation of the suspect using that tiny lead they had. After a few hours, all three of them gave the federal agent the art that they had made. None of them looked like Subject 1 at all. Nonetheless, Barnes decided to focus on these new developments.

At noon, Callahan had already visited all of the ten people whom the community had deemed as an outstanding member of the town other than four people who either moved out of town, was not at home when she came, or, in the case of one person in her list, had an unknown address. In fact, no one in town seems to know where that person lives. That person is Subject 1.

Barnes had asked the police officers of Salem if any of them knew a place where a person could meet a bunch of people around the northeastern part of Salem. Most of them talked about how people around there liked going to a mall, a marketplace, and a bar, which Barnes frequently visited because of an underlying suspicion he had regarding the place by the time he first saw it. Around 2 to 3 pm, Barnes had phoned all family members of the Butcher's victims. All of them agreed to give accounts as accurately as they can. Most of them agreed that these people liked going to the bar other than Laura, who, as her husband said, is always at home. Barnes, at this point, was already impatient and, perhaps it was due to the three cups of coffees he had already downed that day alone, asked if Laura would disappear every night whenever he's asleep. Laura's husband hung up the phone by the time Barnes asked that question. After smoking two cigarette sticks, he decided to assume that Laura would visit that same big and popular bar in the northeastern part of Salem every night when her husband was asleep. At this point, the only ones who rarely went around that bar were Patricia Miller and Justin Philips, who both remained a mystery to Barnes.

At 1 pm, Callahan spoke to three of the families of the Butcher's victims: Carol's parents, Laura's husband and two children, and Jean's children. Callahan asked if any suspicious people are snooping around these women before their unjust death. Carol's parents said that there's a lot of such suspicious people since they're running a business, Laura's husband could not name anyone at all that might pose a threat, and Jean's children could not possibly think of anyone suspicious around an old lady. Callahan then asked if there's anyone who has been awfully close with these women before their death. The families spoke many names, and among all of those were three identical names; one of those is Subject 1's name.

Barnes had requested time and time again to have a police officer visit Justin Philips' home. After four visits, the police officers he sent would say the same song time and time again, "Justin Philips was not at home." "We knocked several times, but no one answered." "We spoke with the landlord, and he said that he hasn't been visiting his flat for weeks. "He's not there." Thus, around 5 pm, Barnes revisited the report regarding Justin and concluded that he was indeed assaulted by the Butcher... But it is also a fact that he didn't die. Besides, if Patricia and Justin were the enigmas of this case, then Justin was an even greater enigma just for the fact that this victim lived. Not because he escaped, but because he was deliberately spared by the Butcher. Barnes decided to assume that Justin was an accomplice to the crime, but the federal agent chose not to tell anyone about his inference, for he has no evidence to back it up. After all, they ignored his suggestion that Chris might be a victim. Never again, he says.

At 3 pm, Callahan had pretty much just scoured the entirety of the town to ask anyone at all if they knew where Subject 1 was living. Of course, Callahan wasn't going around town saying the name, "Subject 1." However, you must understand that I cannot say his name here until we agree that we wish to hire him. Anyway, none of the people that Callahan interviewed gave her any useful lead, until someone vividly said that he heard from a friend that Subject 1 was living in a large van somewhere outside of the town. However, that person was unsure because he only heard it from a friend. Callahan then went on to verify this claim by finding who made that claim in the first place. Around 4 pm, she found out that that person who claimed that Subject 1 was living in a van was Carol's cousin, who was now managing Carol's business. Carol's cousin verified this claim, saying that he heard his cousin talking about that guy living in a van somewhere because of how infatuated the woman was to this guy. Carol's cousin then apologized to Callahan for not saying that fact earlier, for he thinks that it was irrelevant and that he doesn't know where that van was located precisely. At this point, Callahan is just asking herself how stupid the townsfolks were for not being wary of a guy literally living in a van outside of their town. She then marched on to find where that van was. Around this time, Barnes was smoking all alone in his lonesome, trying to think about solving this case and contemplating if he should call his partner, Callahan, to ask about the development of the situation on her side. However, Barnes decided not to do it instead and continued snooping around all the information he could find in the police office after snuffing the fire off his cigarette.

At exactly 7:16 pm, Barnes decided to leave the police department and dismissed the rest of the people whom he called, saying that they should rest for now, for they will be doing the same thing again tomorrow. He then went to the bar where most of the Butcher's victims frequently visited, not to investigate, but to unwind, just as he usually does in the past few weeks that he had been handling paperwork with Callahan. Now that they are both authorized to do whatever the hell they want in the town, his partner decided to go in her own way by throwing going around town randomly out of her distrust for the Salem police force. Barnes sat on the bar as usual while thinking about how much he loathed his partner's arrogance but still could not go on to hate her because of how good she is in her job. He didn't notice the two customers that were already sitting in the bar--no, it was more like he didn't care. That was when Subject 1 sat beside Barnes. At first, the federal agent was entranced with how much he liked the man's thick eyelashes and eyebrows, smooth lips, slender body, and green eyes--oh god, especially his green eyes. However, Barnes also noticed the haughty smile in the bar owner's face along with how he was glaring at Barnes as if he was trying to say something, but not to Barnes. The federal agent decided that he didn't want whatever they were planning, so he tried to go away when he saw the man sitting a few feet behind him, looking at them intently with unblinking eyes. Yes, he knew who that person was; he had been looking at that person's face for half a day now--no, he couldn't possibly forget.

Thus, at 7:23 pm, Barnes decided to stay. And the rest... Well, you already saw for yourself.

Meanwhile, at the same time, with sweat covering all over her body, Special Agent Callahan was walking all over the town, trying to find that damn van without success. However, for some reason, she wasn't feeling tired, so she decided not to go home yet. Instead, she left the town to try finding where this van was located, all alone, in a place she had never been in before. Callahan decided to call her partner around 8:48 pm, but Barnes wasn't answering even after seven missed calls. Callahan decided to drop it instead; she had reflected on her behavior earlier, and maybe her partner was offended by the way she worded what she had said earlier regarding the Salem police force. All that Special Agent Callahan ever wanted to say is that both of them would have had a better chance of dealing with this case if they were together. No, now that she had thought about it, that kind of thinking is still flawed and stupid. That was when she decided to go home, but there's only one problem.

She was lost.

With her phone's battery at 16%, her partner not answering her calls, and her arrogance causing her not to ask for any contact details of any police officer in Salem, Special Agent Callahan who was terrible, terrible, terrible when it comes to direction had concluded that she was lost.

With quick steps, she tried to retrace her tracks.

9 pm. She only saw nothing but mountains and grasses and darkness.

10 pm. Her phone battery finally dropped to 0. Seeing that she could literally not see any source of light at all, no matter where her eyes wander, Callahan's feet fell, causing her to break down. The fact that she had walked throughout the town of Salem for the entire day was finally taking a toll on her. Not to mention that the last thing she had eaten was that huge burger earlier that morning; she didn't even finish it! Now, she's beyond famished! She felt like she would pass out anytime soon with no help in sight.

11 pm. Callahan finally decided to move along with her flashlight while the rustling sound of wind and the deafening cries of the cicada as her sole companion. Shadows started to form all around her, but whenever she would move her gaze towards the direction of those moving entities, Callahan would see nothing but more trees and darkness. To be fair, those things were probably just one of our new recruits getting sloppy, or maybe Callahan is just losing her mind.

And then it happened, 12:16 am, while walking all over the darkened mountainside, Callahan finally saw a ray of light. She ran towards it at full speed, finally done with walking throughout the darkness, sensing that her flashlight was finally about ready to fail her with the fact that there's literally a serial murderer prowling the town, Callahan was already about ready to go home. Seeing that ray of light was her only solace.

Finally, she saw the town. Finally, she's back.

However, the only thing that greeted her was a lone van sitting amid the embrace of nature's tight embrace, spewing its light throughout the darkness all around.

"Oh my god," Callahan mumbled, slowly closing her flashlight and dumping it in her pockets. "I finally got you."