Chapter 102: The Notebook!

Four hours later, inside the interrogation room of Investigation Team Five.

Fletcher sat handcuffed to a chair, his body trembling as he yawned over and over again.

“Fletcher.”

Roan and Lacey walked into the interrogation room carrying a pile of items. After sitting down, Lacey fixed her gaze on Fletcher, recited the times of the four robberies one by one, and asked, “Where were you at each of these four times?”

“I...”

Fletcher’s eyes rolled around as he answered in a low voice, “I was out of town on business.”

“Really?”

At that, Lacey curled her lip in disdain. She took out the notebook Roan had just brought back, flipped it open, and showed him the contents, saying coldly, “Fletcher, we don’t have time for your nonsense. You’d better start telling the truth right now.

The words in this notebook are identical to everything those two robbers did in the four bank robberies.

And we already know you were fired from the New York docks. Your so-called business trip... heh, what exactly was that about?”

That was right. In the notebook Roan had found in Fletcher’s bedroom, several pages were filled with the exact steps of the four earlier robberies.

How to scout the target in advance, how to use prostitutes to do the reconnaissance, how to avoid the cameras after the heist so the police would never catch sight of them...

How to fool the police, stick tattoo decals onto easily exposed parts of the body, and “accidentally” let onlookers at the scene see them...

In short, the notebook contained the entire plan for robbing a bank, along with most of the problems they might encounter during the robbery and the specific solutions for each one.

From Roan’s point of view, aside from not saying how to launder the money afterward, and a few minor flaws, the notebook’s contents were remarkable.

If someone followed those instructions step by step, the odds of successfully robbing a bank would be very high.

“What did you say?”

After hearing Lacey’s words and seeing the notebook in front of him, Fletcher’s eyes suddenly bulged. In an instant, he seemed fully awake, shouting, “It wasn’t me, it really wasn’t me! It was just a script!”

“A script?”

Roan and Lacey both froze.

“Yes, a script!”

Seeing the expressions on their faces, Fletcher licked his dry lips and began speaking rapidly.

“Two months ago, my wife was in a car accident...”

According to Fletcher, after the woman he loved most died in the crash, he should have broken down and wept.

But for some reason, he simply couldn’t cry. His life went on as before, as if his wife had never existed.

After numbly dealing with her body and inviting friends and relatives to the funeral, Fletcher felt as though he were an outsider, as if none of it had anything to do with him.

Until his wife’s sister slapped him.

“That day I covered my face and drove home.”

Fletcher’s body shook as he sobbed, his hands pressed against his cheeks, tears and mucus streaming down his face. “The moment I lay down on the bed, my tears suddenly came, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop them...”

Hearing his story, Lacey frowned and tilted her head toward Roan. Roan was silent for a few seconds before explaining in a low voice, “A kind of emergency defense mechanism.

When people face a catastrophic event that suddenly drops on them and that they’re completely powerless to change, some brains will simply block it out, as if it never happened, so they can keep moving forward.

It’s very common. In milder cases, like girls who were molested as children, or like Fletcher here, who suddenly lost a relative, they’ll instinctively ignore the traumatic event until it comes back to them one day.

In more severe cases, it becomes schizophrenia. The victim imagines another person inside their head to bear the suffering in their place, while they themselves forget everything and keep moving forward.”

When Mona had earlier pointed at the computer and described the situation, Roan had already formed this suspicion, only without proof at the time.

Lacey’s brows drew together. She nodded, then turned back to Fletcher, her tone unchanged as she tapped the notebook on the table and continued, “What does that have to do with the script you mentioned?”

Fletcher wiped away his tears and continued his story.

After crying all night, he learned the next day that he had been fired from the New York docks.

After remaining silent for an entire day, Fletcher chose to put the firing aside. He had something more important to do next.

“While my wife was still alive, she once told me that by marrying me, she had lost the chance to fulfill her dream.”

Fletcher rubbed the ring mark on his finger, a look of remembrance spreading across his face.

Because of her family, his wife had been a devout Christian from childhood.

As a good girl who believed in God, she had never had a tattoo, never stolen another woman’s things, never smoked weed, never taken drugs, never gone to a strip club, never...

Never was a word that had piled up too high.

More than that, she had always had a dream: to become a screenwriter and see the stories she wrote appear on the big screens of Hollywood.

“So for the rest of my life, I’m going to fulfill, one by one, all the dreams my wife once told me about while she was still alive.”

The contents of the notebook were one of the stories Fletcher had written in order to realize his wife’s dream of becoming a screenwriter.

Recalling the image and history Mona had earlier described of Fletcher’s first half of life, Roan and Lacey both frowned, believing him halfway.

Because Fletcher still had not said where he had been when the four bank robberies took place.

Seeing that Roan and Lacey were still seated in their chairs, quietly watching him, Fletcher fell silent for a long while before finally letting out a sigh.

“When those four robberies happened, I went to New Jersey and bought some weed and powder from the Hyena Gang.

The powder you saw in the bedroom just now was what I bought from them.

At the time I only bought a small bag. I thought using it once wouldn’t be a problem, but I didn’t expect to keep buying more and more after that...”

At this, Roan’s brows rose.

No wonder Fletcher had suddenly collapsed to the floor just now; the powder had been bought from the Hyena Gang.

And the powder the Hyena Gang sold was laced with fentanyl.

The toxicity and addictiveness of fentanyl...

After hearing Fletcher’s account, the two discussed it briefly before Lacey rose and left the interrogation room.

Fletcher had said that for those few days, because he was afraid the police would catch him carrying powder on the road, he had been staying in a certain hotel in New Jersey.

She was going to check that hotel’s surveillance footage and witness statements now.

“Very well, Mr. Fletcher, for now we’ll take what you’ve said as true.”

Taking his eyes off the interrogation room door that Lacey had closed behind her, Roan turned his attention back to Fletcher and said gravely, “But the words in your notebook are exactly the same as those in the four robberies, which means those robbers must have had contact with you. They may even have been your friends or relatives.

Right now I need you to think carefully. Besides you, who else has seen the contents of that notebook?”

“That’s quite a lot, Agent.”

Fletcher gave a bitter smile, explaining that over the past four months, in search of inspiration, he had asked many friends and relatives for help with the notebook’s contents.

Some people thought he had been mistaken about them and ignored him.

But there were also those who chose to believe him. After years of knowing and helping one another, they did not believe Fletcher was that kind of cold-hearted person.

Roan frowned. After a few seconds of silence, he continued, “Among those people, who has served in the military? Any police officers? Or anyone who joined SWAT or other special units?”

“This...”

Fletcher lowered his head, frowning as he thought. After a long while, he shook his head.

“I don’t think so, Agent.”

At that, Roan’s brows rose. Just as he was about to speak, Fletcher suddenly slapped his own arm and looked up.

“Oh right, Agent, I just remembered something.”