Exactly two hours later, at precisely the same spot and in the same mood, I was sitting in my car, staring at the long white wall again and thinking. The street was still empty, and I got the feeling I had been moving in fucking circles lately, doing the same things over and over. I was even sure the silver rat would come around any minute to confirm my sad conclusions.

When Bobby called me in the cafe, she told me Menelaus wanted us to talk at his home. At first, I was angry at the guy for monkeying around with me, but then I thought maybe he had been busy or away. Now, I simply didn’t know what to think. I just couldn’t accept that there would be no one to answer the door or the telephone in both his house and office. It was just impossible! So, if Menelaus really wanted us to meet, why did he deliberately leave me hanging? And what was so different now? Was he just scared of something, or did he play games?

As usual in these cases, I checked the Glock in my holster—like I did the previous time—and removed the gum I was chewing. I wrapped it in paper, threw it on the dashboard, and stepped out. The mansion was still quiet, and nothing had changed while I was away. I glanced at the wall. It was about three meters high with a small ledge, and many cameras were perched on top, pointing in different directions to cover the entire area.

I slowly went to the front door and rang the doorbell twice, as I had done two and a half hours ago. For about three minutes, nothing happened. I kept waiting, but I knew no one would come—some gut feeling told me so. I pushed the doorbell button for a third time and waited for another two minutes. Then I looked up, irritated, right into the eye of the nearest camera.

Everything was so fucking weird! The doorbell was pretty loud, so there wasn’t a chance the personnel wouldn’t hear it. And besides, there had to be someone behind all these cameras, watching because otherwise, they were simply useless. Nevertheless, the door and the gate remained closed and silent. The latter was massive and made of solid steel—probably weighing half a ton, maybe even more. It could definitely resist an assault from a tank!

I rang the doorbell one last time and reluctantly strolled down the sidewalk toward the rose shrub. It was the end of March, and the plant was still leafless, but its thorny branches disguised the secret door almost perfectly. One could easily pass by it without noticing, and it took someone going in or out to know it existed.

When I reached the shrub, I stopped, uncertain. It seemed stupid to break into the house, so I hesitated for a while. I didn’t even know why I came here in the first place. Maybe I just wanted to be sure the door was locked, and nobody waited for me, or perhaps I was confused and had no idea what else to do. Well, I don’t know about the waiting, but the door was unlocked, as it turned out. When I pushed it slightly, it swung on its hinges five centimeters inside.

I stood there for a moment, still hesitating. No sign of agitation followed either into the yard or outside on the street after my intrusion. None of the cameras moved, and no one shouted or fired shots at me. No one cared! I raised my hand again and cautiously pushed the door until it opened completely. I had done this a couple of times before—the trespassing—and it had always been weird. You know you shouldn’t, but you do it because the situation determines your actions. You’re at the place; nobody else is there; the door is open, so you follow your instincts.

I remained still for a few seconds, but then, quite naturally, the situation evolved to the next logical step: I realized I wasn’t in front of a door anymore but a passage. I looked curiously into it. There was a narrow pathway stretching ahead across the large yard. It led to something that seemed to be a service section of the house, or so I gathered because it didn’t seem glamorous and showy enough to be the residence of a trillionaire. Anyway, the place wasn’t neglected either. The grass in front of it was sparkling green and carefully trimmed, and the irrigation system was pumping heated water into the pipework, which gardeners use to maintain exotic plants during the winter. The path was paved with big tiles of red limestone, and several small buildings were clustered at the end.

I hesitantly turned my head to the cameras again. There was still no sign of life there, and the street behind my back was empty, too. Eventually, I shrugged and cautiously stepped inside. I wasn’t sure at all what I was doing and, most importantly, why I was doing it, but I did it anyway. It made me feel awful because I knew that every bad idea in this world probably started with such a conclusion. After a minute or so, to soothe my qualms, I cried a shy “hello” to warn whoever might listen that I was intruding on private property. As expected, no one cared about my warning. No one sent a “hello” or “fuck off” back to me.

Slowly advancing along the path, I anxiously turned my head to the left and right. The yard that gradually rolled out before my eyes was truly spectacular. In the area where I was, I saw mainly grass and a few interestingly shaped massive chunks of gray rock, but to my right, I noticed the main house, and there, the garden really met its purpose of impressing visitors. There was a lot of greenery everywhere, and a ring of exotic shrubs and flowers followed the inner side of the wall—the same one that grabbed my attention when I peeked into the yard in the morning. Here and there, between the plants, ice sculptures of whimsical creatures were scattered, adding a surreal touch to the whole landscape. The figures glistened brightly in the afternoon light, and I could safely bet they remained in shape even in the hottest summer. It all looked like a place from a fairytale.

From the massive gate, a wide alley led to the garages at the northern end of the house. The latter was a three-story chateau with steeply pitched hipped roofs, tall French windows, and an exterior of smoothed square limestone. It looked pleasant to the eye and was surrounded by rockeries, flower islands, and mini groves with puddles, waterfalls, and small wooden bridges above them. The entire property seemed very tranquil and peaceful. There were no people in sight.

I nervously turned around and glanced at the door through which I entered. I had left it open, so I quietly returned to close it. Then I moved forward, furtively advancing toward the smaller buildings ahead of me. When I got there, I looked through the dusty windows. The three structures were meant for maintenance, just as I had presumed. One was a warehouse full of various tools and gardening machines; the second was used to store fuel for the numerous garden heaters and refrigerators; and the third, I couldn’t figure out what it was. It seemed full of empty wooden boxes and old furniture. Behind none of the windows did I see any form of life.

Still not knowing what to do, I slowly passed the service cluster and went to the backside of the main house, where the path ended. I stopped there for a moment by a simple-looking wooden door with a little decorative window of smoked glass, and I considered the situation. Bursting into people’s yards was one thing, but bursting into their living quarters was utterly different. It was a second level of intrusion, and they had the legal right to shoot me inside without being prosecuted. I really had to think carefully before doing such a stupid act. That’s why it took me some time before deciding to do it—a good thirty seconds, to be exact!

The room I entered next was also empty of people. Since I found its wooden door unlocked, I just presumed they didn’t have the primitive habit of locking anything in this weird house. The premises seemed like a larder, which probably led to the kitchen. It was full of food supplies, and the air smelled heavy with mold and dry rot. After listening tensely for a while in the semi-darkness, I quietly moved along to check the next room. My assumption was correct; it was really the kitchen and turned out to be empty, too. I also checked the appliances, but they were cold, and the counters were clean. No one had ordered any meals today, obviously.

It was all getting weirder and weirder! The entire house seemed unnaturally quiet. I nervously pressed my ear against one of the walls to listen for any sound the structure might conduct, but I couldn’t hear anything—voices or otherwise. There was only a steady hissing, probably coming from the heating installation. A horrible feeling suddenly rose in me, and I felt a spasm in my stomach. A place as big would demand continuous support—it was unrealistic to believe it could be empty even for a moment!

I anxiously stepped away from the wall and went to look outside in the corridor. It was dark, and after a short hesitation, I timidly tiptoed across the first floor like a cartoon character stealing into the castle of an evil monster. It was surely foolish to do such a thing, and I couldn’t compare it to anything else I had done so far. In my line of work, I had entered a few empty apartments or backyards, but I had never made myself a Rambo, ransacking such a large property, probably guarded by an army of security personnel. Yet, it seemed that the situation was determining my actions again.

Fortunately, I met no living soul on the entire ground floor, which encouraged and surprised me at the same time. I walked through a dozen rooms, whose interiors gradually changed from service to living functions, but they all turned out to be empty—there wasn’t even a bird in a cage or a fish in a fish tank in any of them. I had the feeling I was in the deserted mansion of a ghost who had died a million years ago! What surprised me even more was that the furniture wasn’t fancy or stylish but rather old and worn out. It didn’t look like something a billionaire would use. And just then, when I thought the house was all mine and I carelessly stormed into the premises at the end of the main corridor, I stopped, alarmed. I had gotten into the security room without even realizing it!

I looked around, startled. There were numerous screens on the left and right walls and a control desk with two empty chairs in between. All the screens were dead. In front of me, on a small table near the window, I noticed an opened bottle of beer, a dirty glass, and leftover pizza. Beside them, I saw an empty holster. I shivered involuntarily and swiveled to glance behind my back, listening tensely in the darkness of the corridor. There was no one there, and it was still quiet. It didn’t calm me down, though. I slowly turned around to look through the window at the garage area, but it seemed peaceful, too.

Anticipating something terrible would happen to me any second, I quietly closed the door and started back on the way where I had come from. I was quivering. When I reached the cylindrical staircase leading to the upper floors—roughly in the middle of the hallway—I cautiously stopped to look up before crossing the space in front of it. There was hidden tension in the air, which gave me the creeps. It also smelled weird here. The dark red carpet on the marble steps looked soiled, and a vertical line of narrow windows with stained glass cast misty beams of light inside the stairwell. Since I still couldn’t hear anything, I quickly moved on, heading toward the kitchen. However, after just a few steps, I stopped hesitantly.

There was a lonely door to my left, which I had passed on my way here but failed to notice. It probably didn’t matter because the room would be empty like the others, but something made me want to check it out. It was the only one on the ground level I hadn’t tried. I nervously reached out my hand to turn the lock very carefully. The door swung in slowly, revealing a small room behind with a simple-looking interior. It consisted of a table with a chair, a wardrobe, a dresser, and a bed. In the bed, a naked girl lay with her hands handcuffed to the bars of the bed’s head. She was dead.

I recoiled, surprised, and anxiously looked around. Then, I quickly stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. I found no one else inside but the girl. The curtains were drawn, and the room looked gloomy. Except for the furniture I noticed at the doorway, there was another chair by the wardrobe with a pile of clothes, a dusty suitcase in one of the corners, and a small crucifix on the wall above the bed. Even before getting closer to the girl, I already knew who she was.

With my legs numbed, I reluctantly stepped toward the dead body. It lay in an unnatural pose, with the head tilted to one side. The victim seemed to have been strangled because there were bruises on her neck, but aside from that, there were no other signs of violence or rape. I touched the girl’s left wrist. There was no pulse, and the flesh still retained some warmth. Although waxy, it hadn’t stiffened yet, which was natural because I had seen the housemate alive only two and a half hours ago. She was the Filipino in the sexy black uniform. I checked her back, too, and it had the marks of lividity. Her fingernails and lips were pale, and her eyes were wide open, with her fear still frozen. Her eyeballs seemed somehow sunken into her skull, though.

I quietly walked to the chair to check the pockets of her clothes. In one of them, I found an ID card with biometric data, and on the card’s face, there was a printed photo, under which it read, Bituin Anna-Maria Gonzales. I turned my head to glance at the body. Seeing someone’s picture when they aren’t alive is always weird! The girl looked so beautiful when I saw her at the rose shrub, but her beauty now bore the ugly marks of death. In twenty-four hours, she was going to look creepy and almost unrecognizable.

I put the card into one of the pockets for the police to find it and walked out of the room. I doubted that whoever had done this was still in the house. Under the circumstances, the silence made perfect sense now, and I felt there would be more of this sort on the second floor. My body was tense and rigid when I walked up the stairs, and my right hand held the Glock tightly, just in case. I slowly turned on the landing between the two levels, and right after that, I had to stop again.

There was another dead body on the steps, face down. It was a man this time. His hands were spread aside, his nails desperately clawed into the red carpet, and most weirdly, his pants pulled down. He had a gun wound in his back, and that was most probably the reason why the staircase had looked soiled to me a few minutes ago on the first floor. The carpet’s red texture was soaked with blood, although not too much. The Filipino’s stepvan lover wasn’t lying flat, and his position had prevented it from spilling out.

I checked on the victim, puzzled. The man was in the same condition as the girl downstairs; only the signs of lividity were on the other side of his body. They both had died approximately at the same time and hadn’t been moved. Something didn’t add up, though. The circumstances were too weird. Why were the man’s pants pulled down, and why were the hands of the Filipino cuffed? Clearly, the guard couldn’t have fucked and killed her and then shot himself in the back on the stairs! So whoever murdered them both had obviously tried to insinuate something. I could actually think of only one person who would have such crazy thinking—Marty Cork—but what his motive for this double murder would be, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. Their deaths simply made no sense.

With my heart still booming, I cautiously climbed up, following the steps to the second floor. There, I found another long and dark corridor stretching ahead, almost identical to the one on the ground level, and further up, the staircase led to the third floor. With a bad feeling in my gut, I looked around. The second door on my right was left ajar. A narrow strip of light was oozing out of it, and tiny dust particles were slowly dancing in the beam. Suddenly, the weird smell I first detected downstairs felt more intense here, and like in a dream, I moved toward the place to push the door open.

Initially, I saw nothing strange in the room. There was a desk in the middle with some papers on it and an empty chair with its back turned to me. On the right of them, the entire wall was taken up by shelves, which were full of old paper books, and the wall in front of me and behind the chair and the desk was a huge French window with a splendid view toward the garden and the magnificent sculpture of a frozen waterfall. Weirdly enough, the garden didn’t seem as lovely from here as it was when I saw it down in the yard. It looked rather sad and disturbing, but I guess it was just the murky interior of the house that made it so.

After a few moments of hesitation, I let my Glock go through the doorway first and followed behind. Unlike the housemate’s room, this was empty of people, with no signs of disorder. The papers on the desk seemed carefully arranged as if someone had worked on them just a minute ago, and then they went out for a short walk or a cup of coffee. There was also an armchair by the fireplace on my left, a bag of golf clubs in the corner between the window and the bookshelves, and a pair of sports shoes beside it. I assumed I was in Menelaus’ study.

I quietly walked to check the papers. They were nothing important—just some personal letters, the content of which told me nothing. There was no computer around or any sort of communication device, and the situation was the same inside the drawers. It made sense because this house’s owner was secretive, and he probably wouldn’t leave important documents or unsecured gadgets outside his office. I also noticed a few pictures in frames on the desk, and one caught my eye. I recognized Menelaus on the CSS with some Couloong officials. He seemed to receive an award there—maybe because of his company’s role in establishing close relations between our ex-colony and the aliens. In the photo, I saw many Martians in military uniforms, and the atmosphere was festive, with placards and banners everywhere.

By the way, the Couloongs looked quite funny among the people, and it was all like a scene from a puppet show. The green men are actually very small creatures—about a meter and a half—and are literally green. Their faces resemble our frogs to a point, with huge eyes and big mouths, which are kind of disproportionate to the size of their heads. The rest of them is a slender body with four short legs and four long arms with eight fingers each. I had seen them before, but here, next to humans, it struck me again how ridiculous their appearance was.

In another picture, I noticed Menelaus posing with a Couloong man in a military uniform. They stood in the middle of a golf course on the red planet, which looked more like an open-cast mine, having clubs in their hands. There was a bilingual dedication on the back of the photo, and the English version read, “To my dear friend, Menelaus, with a wish that he should be more patient with me next time when we play this wonderful Mars game!” After I read it, my eyes involuntarily slipped toward the desk, where one of the letters was written in the same alphabet as the Couloong version of the dedication. Then I slowly turned around, puzzled, and looked at the bag of golf clubs in the corner. The pictures and the letter clearly implied that DuPont had cultivated very close personal relations with the aliens.

I put the picture on the desk and wondered whether all this might have something to do with the events that had led me here. I couldn’t think of a possible connection, but since Sharon and Marty’s game was definitely related to Menelaus’s business, maybe there was. Perhaps I just didn’t have enough information to see it yet. I had just withdrawn my hand from the photo and looked around for anything else worth exploring when a weird object on the fireplace mantel caught my attention. It was a black metal thing, and it seemed strangely familiar. Only part of it was visible behind the armchair, which was positioned with its back toward me. At this moment, I suddenly froze, terrified, because my gaze drifted to one of the armrests. A human hand was resting there!

With my legs numb again, I cautiously walked closer, still holding the gun in my hand. I had terrible anticipation, and it was confirmed very soon. Menelaus Henry DuPont—the owner of Global Transportation Service—was sitting nested in that leather armchair with his head hanging lifelessly on his shoulders. His skull was hideously smashed, and a loathsome red-grayish mass had trickled and dried up all over his face and chest. I quietly cursed at the sight of it. I had obviously come too late to meet the guy; he was already in another world.

Still shivering, I forced myself to retrieve the handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket, and while using it, I turned his head a little bit. It was definitely Menelaus. Then I let it hang again and kneeled to take the man’s forearm. The guy had been dead for more than four hours—the lividity was in full swing, and rigor mortis had already kicked in. The flesh had no detectable warmth, and his skin was purple and felt sticky. It was disgusting even to look at his corpse, let alone touch it.

I slowly rose back and looked around for a possible murder weapon. Then I suddenly remembered the black object on the mantel, which I somehow forgot about, and used the handkerchief to take it. It was a solid black wrench, one of its ends covered with dark blood. As I said, it seemed familiar to me, but since I was so profoundly shocked, it took me nearly fifteen seconds to grasp the reason. My unexpected revelation struck me right after I heard some weird noises downstairs and trotting feet, and a few moments before, two big fellows in police uniforms burst angrily into the room. A police inspector in plain clothes followed them soon, and it all happened so fast that I didn’t even manage to move a finger. On top of that, they knew exactly where I was. They came straight to Menelaus’ study without lingering anywhere on the way.

As if in a dream, I looked at them, dazed. Then I glanced at the dead body in the chair, then at my hands still holding the bloody wrench and the gun, and at last, my eyes involuntarily slipped to the left toward the window. In the middle of the garden, behind the beautiful waterfall sculpture, I recognized someone’s legs sinisterly sticking out from behind the frozen streams. They probably belong to the gardener, and a pair of garden scissors were thrown beside them. Finally, I turned my head toward the cops.

They stared at me from a few meters with the guns in their hands pointed at me, and the inspector behind them silently followed with his eyes all the places my eyes had just visited. When his look returned from the gardener back at me, his expression clearly said, “For god’s sake, Murphy! Was this man here not enough for you?”

I remained silent, still afraid to move. I was simply unable to think of anything else but the terrible loss the gardener behind the waterfall might have suffered if he was really killed with such an enormous pair of scissors. It was actually why the garden had seemed so sad to me when I first came into this room. From my position by the desk, I couldn’t see the victim right away, but the perspective here was slightly different, and it was enough to notice what I had only suspected back then.

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