Shadow Empire

Chapter 821 The Governor's Anger
After getting up and washing up in the morning, the governor habitually went to the restaurant and sat down.

The cook in the kitchen started cooking this morning's breakfast only after seeing him sit down.

Breakfast for poor families is often just to fill their stomachs so that the labor force in the family will not feel hungry before lunch.

But for rich people, their breakfast, lunch, dinner, any meal, is for enjoying delicious food.

Food that has just been cooked is definitely better than food that has already cooled in terms of taste, smell and other aspects.

What the governor has is time, and he can afford to wait.

No one will praise him for "good work" and encourage him to keep it up for arriving at his office early.

No one would say "he should come earlier next time" just because he is late for his office.

So when he eats, he really enjoys the food, not just eats to fill his stomach.

While waiting for breakfast, the governor, like other politicians and most men in the family, would choose to read the newspaper.

On the cart in front of him, there were more than twenty newspapers. All the newspapers that could be collected in the entire Indeno State were placed here.

But the order in which the items were displayed today surprised him a little. "Didn't The Wave arrive?"

he asks.

Generally speaking, the newspaper "Inspur" will be placed at the front, and he will basically read "Inspur" first.

As governor, he has passed the stage where he needs to clearly state his position and attitude. As a true "ruler", his position is the main position, and his attitude is an attitude that people cannot resist even if they do not follow him.

So he would not choose a newspaper that was the mouthpiece of the Socialist Party, nor a newspaper from the Liberal Party camp, but rather The Wave, a neutral, objective narrative newspaper.

But it's not here today, not at the forefront.

His butler was standing not far from him. "Master, I suggest you take a look at page 4 of the first newspaper first."

The governor looked back at the old butler. They grew up together and trusted each other very much.

The two looked at each other for a moment, about three or four seconds, and then the butler lowered his head and looked away, so as not to be disrespectful.

The governor was not a man who liked to change his habits, but there must be a reason why the butler did this.

"Okay, I believe you." He picked up the first newspaper called "Defender Daily". God knows who came up with this name, Defender?
What to defend?
free?

Or dish cooking?

These people really don't know how to come up with names. They are obviously from the Liberal Party camp. He didn't have much hope for the content of this newspaper, although he didn't know why the butler strongly urged him to take a look at the fourth page.

When he turned to the fourth page, he just glanced at it casually and was attracted by the title -

"White or Black?"

Bold and large the headline makes it look more like a front page headline than a fourth page headline.

He looked back at the front-page headline of the newspaper and realized that there was something wrong with this guide.

So he patiently looked down, and the more he looked, the more serious his expression became.

The report stated that of the 44 highway serial killers caught in Indore in the past 20 years, they confessed to about 1,431 murders themselves.

There are also approximately three thousand murders that they were unwilling to admit to or that they did not admit to in the early stages of the trial.

But in the later stages of the trial, when the final verdict was being made on how much they would have to pay, they suddenly admitted that they were responsible for more than 3,000 murders.

The author of the report said that some people previously believed that these serial killers wanted to avoid being sent to the gallows or the electric chair, so when they were about to be sentenced and executed, they would confess to some of the atrocities they had committed in order to buy themselves more time.

In fact, this can also be done in the legal process. As long as the case is one that the prosecution does not know about, the prosecution will re-investigate and collect evidence to clarify the entire case.

Generally speaking, this can postpone the execution date of a criminal by two or three months.

More than three thousand murders, enough for these people to die of old age in prison.

But the reporter said that he learned from some investigations that some of the crimes might have been committed by these criminals only after their deaths.

At first people didn't notice this problem, but reporters became curious about these cases and he began to research.

He found some clues from some cases.

Just as the governor was curious about what clues he had discovered and what the whole thing was about, the newspaper suddenly mentioned the unit that solved these cases.

They were all from the State Police Highway Police Team and the State Police Criminal Case Team. It seemed like there was no problem. The highway killer was caught by the highway police, no problem.

However, the reporter found a very bizarre angle to look at these things. He was just giving examples, just examples!
The examples he gave were so good that the governor couldn't help but read them out silently.

"...a certain police chief in charge of the road section police station. Since he was promoted to police chief, he has solved two highway serial killer cases, one in... and one in...."

"The two criminals murdered more than 350 people on the highway in total, of which more than 60 were confessed by them. The rest were only confirmed to be their crimes at the end of their lives, or even after their death."

"Interestingly, the person responsible for solving these cases has always been a certain sheriff himself."

"When mentioning a certain sheriff, we have to mention another interesting thing. The sheriff owns two villas in Red Rock City that are worth more than 70,000 dollars."

"He also owns shops, luxury cars, and various investments. He lives a very luxurious life."

"A certain sheriff and his wife both come from ordinary families and have no business experience."

"The reporter found through some materials that a certain sheriff's wealth increased dramatically twice, just before and after he solved two highway serial killer cases."

The governor's first thought when he saw this was that the wealth accumulated by these two serial killers was embezzled by the sheriff.

He didn't care too much at this time. He just felt that the sheriff's approach was a bit rough, but completely understandable.

In fact, this is not an easy thing to do if you want to return the money to the victim.

It is difficult for the federal government to come up with a distribution plan that satisfies everyone, and they are not very clear about the family situations of some victims, which they also need to understand and investigate.

Sometimes the expenditure on police force is a heavy expense. For example, some cases are found and some are not. How to divide the money?
If the people in front are satisfied, will the people behind be satisfied?

Some families are in more difficult situations, and some victims' families have reported funds that clearly exceed the amount they have. These are very troublesome and can easily create conflicts.

So in general, the police will assume that the property is returned to the public.

It’s not that the money is handed over to the government, but that the police station keeps it in its own slush fund.

He just thought that the sheriff was greedy and embezzled the money that should have been kept in the police station's slush fund.

But then, as the reporting angle continued to deepen, he increasingly found something wrong.

There was also some evidence during this period, such as some individual victims claiming that they were robbed by police on the interstate highway.

There is also a large amount of evidence to prove that highway police extort passing vehicles on interstate highways. Their style of behavior is not at all like that of police officers who uphold justice and people's safety. They are more like those evil gangs and bandits!
In the second half, the reporter raised a question: so many people go missing every year, disappearing on interstate highways, if we attribute their disappearances to serial killers based on the frequency of these disappearances.

Then the federal highways are almost all filled with serial killers, and they simply can’t handle it!

He might kill someone on a certain road in the morning, then drive hundreds of kilometers to another place to kill someone in the afternoon, and then rush back in the middle of the night to continue killing.

They are the busiest people in the world. Even if the wheels of their cars are running at full speed, they have no time to stop and rest.

But did they really kill these people?

Or was it that someone else was assuming their identities, operating these illegal operations on the interstate, using the reputations of serial killers to conceal their own crimes?

The governor was no fool, and he immediately linked the two completely different groups in the report together: a sheriff and a highway serial killer.

The report did not explicitly point out this possibility, but it gave people endless room for imagination. Even the governor couldn't help but wonder how likely it was that the police committed the crime.

He put down the newspaper and looked at the second one. The butler bowed slightly, and his attitude was very clear.

He picked up the newspaper and turned to the bookmarked page.

This newspaper is not very well-known, but they write very directly -

"Some police officers said that highway police may be suspected of serious criminal offenses"

It introduces the road blocking incident that has caused a lot of controversy in recent times, and directly reveals the essence of the incident.

The police robbed the gangs, which led to retaliation from the gangs and escalated the conflict. The police became anxious and simply blocked the road in order to catch the criminals.

The report used a lot of uncertain words.

It uses a lot of ambiguous words like "maybe", "probably", "if", "perhaps", but its content still makes people feel real and exciting.

At this time, the cooks had already taken the food in front of him away and started cooking the second portion of food.

"What do these reports mean?" the governor put down the second newspaper and asked the butler with a serious face.

The butler kept his head down and looked just ahead of his toes, and said softly, "It's true."

The governor's voice was a little off, "What is true?"

"The reports that the police were suspected of engaging in a conspiracy, which led to the road blockage, are true."

It was like the governor didn’t understand!

He stared at the butler for more than ten or twenty seconds, his eyes gradually becoming sharper, and he brought enormous pressure to the butler.

But the butler always maintained his attitude that these things were true!
The governor shook his head. “These people are so outrageous!”

If the data given in the report is true, it means that the number of innocent deaths caused by interstate highway police over the years is far greater than that caused by those killers!
What the hell… He thought of the title.

"White or Black?"

At this point he was already a little restless, and he also felt one thing, that is, someone was pushing these things to be exposed.

These two newspapers, which are not very famous and may not have high sales, are just their tests.

Once they get the results they want, The Wave might report it next.

Even if he gave the green light and The Wave did not report these cases, would the media in other states be so considerate of the overall situation?

Would a heavyweight newspaper like the Federal Post report this?
These are terrible troubles!

Once public opinion starts to ferment, no matter how he behaves, this stain on him cannot be washed away.

He stood up and planned to call the lieutenant governor, because the lieutenant governor had always been in charge of matters related to the State Police Department.

But just in time the cooks came over with the food, and he sat back down.

You have to finish your breakfast.

He did not "thank" the cooks, not even the housekeeper.

In fact, sometimes some people always fantasize about the emperor's golden hoe. They believe that people in the upper class will be very civilized and polite. They will accept services from their servants and say thank you when the service is completed.

They always imagine these upper-class people to be very wonderful, but they don’t actually know that to these people, servants are not even considered human beings!

So they don't show any gratitude at all to those who provide them with services, which is what they should do.

The masters have paid their wages and no longer owe these people anything. In addition, their status is too low, so the higher up the society, the more obvious the class gap can be felt.

Although he was very anxious, the governor still maintained his composure. He cut or picked up the food in a very standard way, but he was a little faster. He didn't have that much time and energy to spend on breakfast today.

After eating a little, he left the table and went to the study instead of the office.

Soon the deputy governor picked up his phone. He didn't say anything, but started to scold him.

"What the hell are you hiding from me?"

The deputy governor sounded particularly innocent on the phone, "I don't know what you want to say. What can I hide from you?"

The governor was furious. "Get the hell out of here right now, find a newspaper, and open your useless eyes to read it for me!"

"If it weren't for the newspapers reporting these things, I wouldn't even know that such a big thing had happened!"

"Your state police department is like a gang of gangsters. They are actually doing highway robbery and murder of passing drivers!"

The deputy governor was shocked and nervous as if he was hearing about this for the first time. "My God, I really didn't know these things happened. Wait a minute, I'll go see if there is the newspaper you mentioned."

Listening to the obviously panicked words of the deputy governor, the governor became a little uncertain.

He wasn't sure if the deputy governor really didn't know or was just hiding the truth.

After a while, the deputy governor appeared at the phone again.

“Oh my God, I don’t know these things!”

"You know me. My work schedule is very full every day, and I have to attend some social activities every week. I don't have time to arrange these things for them!"

"I was deceived too, Governor. I will find out the situation and call you later!"

Hearing the deputy governor's words, the governor couldn't make sense for a moment, but in essence, he didn't believe that the deputy governor didn't know anything.

However, the most important issue now is to suppress this news and prevent it from becoming a huge scandal during his tenure. At the same time, he also wants to see who is behind this!
Once a scandal of this level begins to be discussed federally, no matter whether it is a sheriff, state police chief, or lieutenant governor, they are far less troublesome than him as the governor!

People will not hold a specific person in a certain link accountable, they will directly hold the governor accountable and criticize him for how he manages Inden State, which may even cause him to lose a lot of public support!
It's like if a section of road is not cleaned well. People won't say, "So-and-so in such and such group in such and such department of such and such company can't even sweep the ground clean. It's so rubbish." People won't say that.

They just say "such and such company" is really garbage.

After hanging up the phone, the governor sat in the chair and thought for a while before he stood up and asked the butler to prepare the car as he was going to the office.

He still has a lot of work to do, as well as waiting for the deputy governor's response and figuring out who is going to embarrass him!
On the other hand, after the deputy governor hung up the phone, he called the chief of the state police department, and the call was answered almost the moment it was connected.

"Come to my office."

The director of the state police department soon came to the deputy governor's office. Looking at this subordinate who made him passive, the deputy governor really wanted to rush over and slap him hard in the face.

"The governor just called me and some newspapers have started reporting on your shit."

"It's just that the scale of the reports right now isn't that big, but you know, once this kind of thing spreads, it won't be controlled very soon!"

"Once public opinion starts discussing this matter..." He fell silent here.

After about a minute or two, he continued, “Matthew’s men can’t be saved, and you also need to be mentally prepared on your side.”

When the director heard this, his expression changed again and again. On the surface, he said that the deputy governor was saying that Matthew could not be saved, but in fact he was telling him that he could not be saved.

Even though the director didn't want to put the portrait on his face, he showed an extremely ugly expression after trying a few times.

(End of this chapter)