Chapter 3: The Devil's Alibi

Chapter 3: The Devil's Alibi

Finding Damon Gables wasn't the problem. The problem was that he wasn't hiding. His name, a phantom in every official database, was listed publicly as the primary benefactor of the city’s most prestigious art museum. An appointment was secured through a polite but firm assistant with a simple phone call. It felt less like a police interrogation and more like an audience with royalty.

The address led Byrne to a different kind of high-rise. While Julian Croft’s building had been a statement of new money and stark minimalism, this was old-world power clad in modern glass. The penthouse lobby was silent, adorned with a single, massive abstract sculpture that probably cost more than Byrne's entire pension.

Gables greeted him at the door himself. The man was exactly as the name on the card suggested: elegant, timeless, and unsettlingly perfect. He wore a simple black cashmere sweater and tailored trousers, looking less like a murder suspect and more like he'd stepped out of a high-fashion magazine. His dark eyes, intelligent and piercing, held a placid depth that Byrne found profoundly unnerving. They were ancient eyes in a modern face.

“Detective Byrne,” Gables said, his voice a smooth, cultured baritone. He gestured for Byrne to enter. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I so rarely receive guests from your particular branch of civil service.”

The apartment was a masterpiece of controlled emptiness. Polished concrete floors, a few pieces of exquisitely chosen furniture, and a panoramic view of the city that made the heavens themselves look like a design choice. The air was still, carrying a faint, unidentifiable scent of old paper and dry spice.

Byrne didn't sit. He wanted to keep the dynamic off-balance, but he felt immediately like a lumbering animal in a sterile gallery. “A card with your name on it was found at a homicide scene two nights ago.”

Gables displayed no surprise. He moved to a wet bar, his motions fluid and deliberate. “Julian Croft. A tragedy. He was a promising, if somewhat aggressive, innovator. Water?”

“No, thanks,” Byrne said, his voice tight. “Where were you Tuesday night?”

“Ah, the alibi,” Gables smiled, a subtle, predatory curving of his lips that didn't reach his eyes. “I was hosting the annual benefactor’s gala at the museum. From seven o’clock until well after midnight. There are photographs. Speeches. At least two hundred of the city’s most influential citizens who will attest to my presence. My alibi, Detective, is not merely solid. It is a matter of public record.”

He was toying with him. Byrne felt a familiar surge of anger, the kind that helped him cut through suspects' lies. But Gables wasn't lying. A quick check on the drive over had confirmed his story. He was untouchable.

“This killer has a very specific signature,” Byrne pressed, deciding to drop his own bomb into the serene atmosphere. “He leaves a message in blood. He did it in 1983. In 1945. And again in 1912. The handwriting is a perfect match. Unchanged by time.”

He watched Gables’s face for a flicker of anything—shock, fear, anger. He got none. Gables merely tilted his head, his dark eyes gleaming with what looked disturbingly like amusement.

“Fascinating,” Gables murmured, taking a sip of his water. “History does have a tendency to rhyme, doesn’t it? Such a persistent story. It seems you are not just a detective, Mr. Byrne, but an archivist of my city’s darkest poetry.”

His words were a ghost of a confession, wrapped in a riddle. He wasn't denying it; he was daring Byrne to prove the impossible. He was admitting to a lifetime that stretched beyond any human measure, and he was doing it with a smile because he knew no court in the world would ever hear the charge.

“Your story is going to end,” Byrne said, his voice a low promise.

Gables’s smile widened. “All stories end, Detective. The question is whether you are a character in the story, or merely one of the readers. I do hope you’ll let me know if you decide which. Now, I believe our time is concluded.”

Dismissed like a servant, Byrne found himself back in the silent hallway, the heavy door clicking shut behind him. He hadn't laid a glove on him. He had walked into the lion’s den and the lion had simply found him droll.

Back at the precinct, the wall of his investigation had become a cliff face. Captain Davis listened to Byrne’s report, his expression growing more haggard by the second.

“So he’s a ghost with a high-priced lawyer and an airtight alibi,” Davis summarized, rubbing his temples. “And you’re telling me he’s a century-old serial killer. Sean, for the love of God, give me something I can use.”

“The forensics,” Byrne said, his desperation making his voice raw. “The M.E.’s report. The crystalline blood, the temperature drop—that’s not normal. It’s the one part of this that isn’t a ghost story. It’s physical. It’s science, even if it’s science we don’t understand.”

Davis was silent for a long time, staring at the file on his desk as if it were a venomous snake. The pressure from the commissioner’s office was mounting. He needed to show progress, any progress.

“Alright,” he finally sighed, making a decision. “I can’t authorize a task force to hunt a historical phantom. But I can sign off on a specialist consultation for the bio-forensics. There’s a man… Dr. Aris Thorne. A biochemist, consults for federal agencies on strange cases. Biological contaminants, unclassified organisms, that sort of thing. They say he’s a genius with anything that bleeds. Go see him. Either he tells you Evans is crazy and this anomaly is a fluke, or he gives you a new weapon. Either way, it’s a direction.”

Dr. Thorne’s laboratory was in a private biotech campus on the city's outskirts. It was the antithesis of Gables's penthouse—not sterile for aesthetics, but for function. The air hummed with the quiet whir of purifiers and machinery. Holographic displays showing spiraling genetic codes floated in the air.

Dr. Aris Thorne himself was younger than Byrne expected, perhaps early thirties, with sharp, refined features and intense green eyes behind stylish glasses. He moved with a silent, unnatural grace, his lab coat immaculate. His demeanor was polite, professional, and intensely guarded.

“Detective Byrne,” Thorne said, his voice crisp. “Your captain said it was a matter of anomalous biological evidence.”

“That’s one word for it,” Byrne replied, sliding the M.E.’s report across a stainless-steel table. “Read the toxicology and cellular analysis sections. My coroner is stumped.”

Thorne picked up the file, his brow furrowed with academic curiosity. He scanned the first page, his expression neutral. He turned to the second, his eyes tracing the lines of technical data. Then, he froze.

Byrne watched him closely. The change was subtle but immediate. The professional curiosity in Thorne's eyes vanished, replaced by something Byrne hadn't expected and couldn't immediately name. It wasn't confusion. It wasn't intrigue.

Thorne’s knuckles went white where he gripped the report. A faint pallor spread across his face, making his skin look like porcelain. He reread the line about "crystalline coagulation," and his breath hitched, an almost imperceptible gasp. His gaze darted up to meet Byrne’s, and for a split second, the doctor's carefully constructed composure shattered.

Behind the stylish glasses and the scholarly intellect, Byrne saw a flash of something cold, primal, and utterly terrifying.

It was fear.