Chapter 103: Worried? The One You Should Be Worried About Is the Other Person!
"Dr. Wolfe, aren't you coming back to the precinct to interrogate him?"
Detective Amy Santiago asked in surprise.
"We won't get anything out of him."
Chuck shook his head. "Check his whereabouts and residence ASAP."
"Got it."
Detective Amy Santiago, now completely convinced by Chuck, immediately agreed.
"That's right, boss. I'll handle the interrogation, and you investigate his whereabouts and residence,"
Jake said with a sarcastic grin.
"..."
Amy Santiago, still unable to resist her partner's antics, was annoyed.
The burly man with the buzz cut was cuffed and taken back to the NYPD's 99th Precinct. Chuck and Detective Amy Santiago went to investigate the man's residence.
"What's our next move?"
Detective Amy Santiago got into her car and instinctively looked at Chuck.
"The Four Seasons,"
Chuck replied from the passenger seat.
"Why?"
Detective Amy Santiago asked, skillfully driving from the convenience store to the Four Seasons.
"He smells like their toiletries,"
Chuck said calmly. "Four Seasons brand amenities."
"You picked up on that?"
Detective Amy Santiago exclaimed. "I didn't smell anything, and even if I did, I couldn't identify it."
Chuck remained silent.
He'd heard this kind of amazement his whole life, and he didn't feel the need to explain.
Detective Amy Santiago glanced at Chuck, somewhat understanding his quiet nature. She hesitated for a moment, but after driving in silence for a while, she still felt uncomfortable with the quiet.
She'd previously partnered with Jake, bickering almost constantly throughout entire cases. Back then, she'd found him too loud and obnoxious.
But now, she found the silence too awkward. Moreover, she was deeply curious about Chuck, so after a while, she finally broke the silence and tried to make conversation. "Right now, I just hope the tech guys at the station can crack his phone ASAP so we can get more useful intel."
Chuck nodded silently.
"Aren't you worried?"
Detective Amy Santiago couldn't help but ask. "I mean, this guy obviously knows you. I don't think it's just because of the lottery thing."
"No,"
Chuck shook his head. "The one we should worry about is him."
"..."
Detective Amy Santiago always thought she understood Chuck's confidence and directness, but she kept discovering new levels.
Right!
Homicide detectives, who deal with criminals daily—serious criminals at that—may appear carefree, with their constant banter, gossip, and betting pools.
But the pressure is enormous. This is New York, after all. No one knows when a gun might be pointed at them and lights out.
Even for a skilled detective like her or a cocky young detective like Jake, death isn't the worst possible outcome.
Even detectives like them, so accustomed to danger, would be terrified and unable to sleep or eat if they were targeted by a savage criminal like the buzz-cut man.
But when Chuck, a mild-mannered, academic doctor, talked about this situation, it was the opposite: the one we should worry about was the criminal?
Yet, after hearing this, despite her internal eye-rolling, she subconsciously felt that it might actually be true.
"How can you identify scents so precisely from that distance?"
Detective Amy Santiago didn't want to hear any more of this humble-bragging. It suddenly occurred to her that Chuck hadn't even gotten close to the buzz-cut man. She glanced at Chuck in the passenger seat, then at herself.
She'd seen a 1974 Italian film where the protagonist could identify a woman by scent. Her father and seven brothers were all cops. Growing up in such a police family, she found the military-trained hero quite appealing, leaving a lasting impression. She couldn't help but wonder.
"Hey,"
Chuck said simply.
"What?"
Detective Amy Santiago was startled.
Chuck didn't offer any explanation. Silence returned to the car.
After a moment, Detective Amy Santiago's professional instincts finally kicked in. Her face flushed, and she no longer dared glance at Chuck, staring straight ahead, focusing intently on driving.
Four Seasons Hotel.
"Holy shit!"
After showing her badge, getting the key from the front desk, and opening the buzz-cut man's room, Detective Amy Santiago, who had recovered her composure, couldn't help but curse.
There was no other way to react. It was too luxurious.
She really couldn't reconcile this kind of room with a murderer. She had never stayed in such a room herself.
Is contract killing really this profitable nowadays?
Chuck didn't gawk as much as she did. He glanced around the room and walked directly to a corner of the bedroom. He opened a concealed compartment and pulled out a suitcase.
"There's a hidden compartment?"
Detective Amy Santiago hurried over to look. She learned something new and said in amazement: "How did you know..."
Then she couldn't say anything more. She stared at Chuck in shock as he opened the suitcase and revealed its contents: "Jesus Christ!"
Inside the suitcase was a disassembled sniper rifle, unmistakably professional assassination equipment. The sight of it sent a cold sweat down her spine.
That burly, buzz-cut man, armed with just a pistol, had briefly overwhelmed an entire ESU team. If they hadn't caught him off guard and unprepared, and the arrest had taken place here instead, she couldn't imagine the horrific bloodbath.
"He's a professional hitman!"
Chuck said calmly, setting aside the sniper equipment and searching the room for other evidence.
In another bag, he found the victim's notebook and a large stack of scratch-off tickets.
Chuck began flipping through the victim's notebook.
"Lottery tickets, just like you said!"
Detective Amy Santiago struggled to tear her eyes away from the terrifying sniper equipment and focused on the pile of scratch-offs.
"You were right!"
"Not entirely,"
Chuck shook his head as he flipped through a notebook filled with mathematical formulas.
"What did you find?"
Detective Amy Santiago couldn't help but lean in to look. Then, her eyes glazing over, she tactfully looked away and asked directly.
Americans suffer from various allergies, like peanut allergies, which are extremely common. Consuming foods containing peanuts can be life-threatening.
These are actually consequences of an overly sanitized lifestyle.
Everyone has allergies to certain things, but aside from those that are inherently severe and unavoidable, other allergies become largely harmless as people age and build tolerance.
However, if someone maintains complete avoidance from the start, severe allergies naturally develop.
Detective Amy Santiago now felt she had developed an allergy to mathematics.
"Detective Peralta was right. The killer known as John Snape is indeed connected to the math treasure hunt,"
Chuck said.
Detective Amy Santiago understood. The name John was clearly an alias—police used it for unidentified bodies. It was a pretty lazy pseudonym.
"Detective Peralta was right?"
Detective Amy Santiago refocused on the main point and said with a sneer, "Lucky guess!"
"Yes,"
Chuck nodded.
It was obvious Jake was just trying to mess with Chuck, which was why he'd pushed the math treasure hunt angle.
"How did you figure that out? It's in this notebook?"
Detective Amy Santiago asked curiously.
She glanced at it, seeing nothing but mathematical formulas—not a single clue that would be obvious to a normal person.
"This is the victim's notebook. It contains his calculations for exploiting mathematical vulnerabilities in scratch-off lottery tickets. He could use the serial numbers on the scratch-offs to increase his winning odds to 80%. Using this method, he could win millions before the lottery company even noticed,"
Chuck explained.
"Oh, that's the same technique you described at the station,"
Detective Amy Santiago nodded.
"No,"
Chuck shook his head. "My method increases the odds to 87.5%."
"..."
Detective Amy Santiago's eye twitched. "Are you saying you just glanced at it and not only spotted the vulnerability, but your calculations were better than the victim's painstaking work? Is that even humanly possible?"
"Anything's possible,"
Chuck said calmly.
"But how could you do that?"
Detective Amy Santiago was completely baffled.
"I'm a consultant for the American Gaming Association,"
Chuck said concisely, returning to the victim's math notebook.
"..."
Detective Amy Santiago paused, stifling a groan as she processed Chuck's words. Suddenly, she understood.
Chuck was a consultant for the American Gaming Association. The reason for these consulting gigs—getting paid to do nothing, then demanding more money when they did work—was because Chuck had initially scared the hell out of lottery companies.
It was reasonable to assume that, compared to the victim, Chuck was the ultimate expert in identifying mathematical vulnerabilities in lottery systems.
Thinking about it this way, while still somewhat incredible, it did have some logical basis.
"And then what?"
Detective Amy Santiago, having worked this out, suppressed her discomfort at Chuck's casual flexing and got back to business. "What does this have to do with this John Snape killer and the math treasure hunt?"
"Nothing directly,"
Chuck shook his head.
"...Dr. Wolfe!"
Detective Amy Santiago felt her usual professional composure slipping and suddenly felt frustrated.
"The notebook doesn't just contain mathematical calculations for the scratch-off lottery vulnerabilities,"
Chuck replied with a look that suggested she was interrupting and jumping to conclusions, explaining, "It also contains mathematical work for the treasure hunt."
Detective Amy Santiago choked at Chuck's expression. She took a deep breath, suppressing her urge to ask how this connected to the killer. She imitated Chuck's emotionless yet concise style, "Continue."
Chuck glanced at her and nodded. "The victim's first three levels matched ours, but the fourth level was different."
(End of Chapter)
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