The Innocents by Nathan Senthil (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

As Gabriel reached the middle, something rustled: a wrinkled yellow lollipop wrapper, stapled to a paper. Bright red letters on it read ‘Zesty’.

Whenever Gabriel saw this, touched this, a strong sense of déjà vu assaulted him.

No, not déjà vu. The vibe was between déjà vu and an actual memory. Akin to the sensation you got when you couldn’t remember a word or a name, but you felt it hanging at the edge of your memory, just millimeters away from your grasp.

For this reason, Zesty’s wrapper always mystified him, ever since he first came across it when he perused the notebook back in NYC. Under the wrapper, his dad had written: ‘Lolly’s lollipop cover: 1994 Thanksgiving’. No mention of where he had acquired such a significant piece of evidence from. Or why he’d kept it to himself.

Joshua’s findings about the candy were written on the next page.

Zesty belonged to a confectionery company named CORBY & HEISZ. This particular lollipop was manufactured only in two different factories—one in Oregon, the other in Maryland—but distributed to 2,036 shops across the country.

The notes ended, not having arrived at a conclusion. It was unjust to expect more. This was back in 1994, when the PDs hadn’t used computers to cross-examine monumental data.

Gabriel studied the wrapper. Again.

There was neither a manufacture nor an expiry date, and no ingredients list. The FDA wouldn’t approve any brand to retail their products with such minimal information. But the words not to be sold individually were printed on the cover. So the likely scenario was that it came from a pack.

Gabriel pulled out his phone and opened the image he had already downloaded and looked at a thousand times.

It was Zesty’s box and the ingredients list was printed on it. But the photo was not HD; hence he could not zoom in and see what they were. Google couldn’t educate him on it either.

Gabriel moved on.

He thumbed through to the last page where Joshua had summarized all of Lolly’s crimes:

1982 – 1994: 14 robberies, 21 murdered. Lolly - 14 and Red Mask - 7.

1994 – 2001: 8 robberies, 12 murdered. Lolly - 7 and Red Mask - 5.

2001 – 2008: 10 robberies, 15 murdered. Lolly - 9 and Red Mask - 6.

Note: Blue Mask never shot a gun. He manned the entrances, threatened hostages (he’s physically the most intimidating of the three), and drove cars.

The shade of the ink was dissimilar in the next lines, meaning it was written a while after the other entries were made, with a different pen.

2019: 1 robbery, 1 murdered. Lolly - 1.

1981: 2 robberies, 3 murdered. Lolly - 3.

A knock on the door distracted him. “Agent Chase?”

“Come in,” Gabriel said.

Bill tottered into the room, his crutch supporting a half of his weight.

“What are you doing?” he asked in an enervated tone.

Gabriel showed him the notebook.

“Please, tell me you got something,” Bill said, his voice cracking.

“I do.” Gabriel shot to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 30

May 10, 2019. 12:01 P.M.

The I-94 took them around Lake St. Clair, and twenty minutes later, they exited on Harper Avenue.

Gabriel was amazed by Downtown Detroit, a victim of selective reporting. The sensationalist media led many to think of the Motor City as some sort of crime-ridden, post-apocalyptic dystopia. But nothing could be farther from the truth. There were no prostitutes on curbs, flagging down cars; no sign-throwing thugs, flaunting pistols in their waistbands; no low-riders bouncing off the tarmac, blasting loud music.

Instead the sidewalks bustled with people rushing to work, coffees in hands and cell phones on cheeks.

As the Camaro entered East Lafayette Street, a ladder-like monolith passed by on Bill’s side. Gabriel hunkered down and looked at it. The awe-inspiring structure was erected in front of a multi-storied headquarters of BCBS Michigan. On the right, an even bigger edifice greeted him. Greektown Casino.

But sign-throwing thugs, low-riders, and hookers didn’t entirely disappear, did they?

Detroit had come a long way since it filed bankruptcy, Gabriel cynically thought, because the politicians had simply defeated one evil with another. Crime and poverty were cured by gentrification. It was the timeworn story with government representatives. Got a problem? Let us migrate it to some place out of sight, cover it with a blanket, and hope that it magically disappears. But in reality, the problems festered into meaner and uglier ones, which always resulted in the loss of precious human life.

“Is this our first break?”

“Could be,” Gabriel said.

“Okay?” Bill lifted his brows.

“Remember the cash van ambush in 1981? That bastard was treating himself with a lollipop even back then. And he was still sucking on the damn thing as recently as 2019.”

“At the Bristol robbery.” Bill frowned. The thinking broke a little of his melancholy. Good. “Seems like he’s used to it.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “As you know, my dad somehow got hold of his lollipop wrapper.”

“We’re gonna track Zesty?”

Gabriel nodded.

“How do we even know if Lolly’s stuck to the same brand?”

“We don’t but there is nothing else we can do right now, is there?” Gabriel said.

“No, I guess not,” Bill said. “But you don’t think he changed his preference?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“Why?”

“Let’s analyze what kind of a man Lolly is.”

Bill shrugged.

Gabriel said, “All his robberies were committed using only one method. Kill first, intimidate, then demand money. The reason behind his success is that he doesn’t deviate from his routine. Even his gun, his attire, his mask, he’s changed nothing.”

“A man of habit.”

Gabriel nodded again. “It’s possible that he didn’t switch brands.”

“I agree. There could be a slim chance at Lolly here.”

Gabriel looked at Bill, a glint in his eyes. “And a slim chance is all I need.”

* * *

Gabriel turned onto Beaubien Street and crossed