Law America, the Devil's Agent

Chapter 74 The Emergence of the Victim Group

Early in the morning, Link arrived at the law firm's office from his room at the Xidu Hotel.

Costello's encrypted email arrived in the early morning three days after their conversation at the library.

Link was momentarily impressed by its efficiency.

In his experience, American bureaucracy is notoriously slow, especially when it comes to things that directly affect one's own interests.

This phenomenon is even more pronounced among parish bureaucrats compared to those in the United States federal and local governments.

But now, Costello has responded within three days, which is completely unexpected by Link.

But the thought that this A0I religious figure could be associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne and hit it off immediately struck him as a kindred spirit.

I imagine they are quite capable and responsible.

Link rushed back and had to put aside other cases to start following up on the content it brought.

Before me was a compressed, encrypted attachment with no sender's signature and no email body.

Following Link's instructions, Celine used a laptop without internet access to unzip the files. Link glanced at them briefly and was slightly alarmed.

This scanned PDF is short, but its content is concise and to the point, yet contains a tremendous amount of information.

Each page is shockingly heavy.

If this were published in gossip news or relevant professional media, it would definitely cause a huge uproar.

This is the right of key personnel within the church, and it is also the trust that Costello placed in Link.

The responsibility behind the leak of this information is enough to crush a middle-aged man who has been sitting on the sidelines in the church's investigation office for more than a decade.

Link printed out the document, in duplicate.

Kona, who had arrived early, put down her breakfast and sat opposite him, already holding a red pen and sticky notes.

Only a desk lamp was on in the office, the blinds were closed, and the only sounds on the floor were their breathing and the rustling of papers turning.

"This is the list of clergy members of the Sacred Heart Church who have been the subject of internal complaints over the past five years, provided by Costello."

Link spread the first page out on the table: "This righteous believer has given me more details than I expected."

Each name is followed by a complaint summary, the date of the complaint, the complainant's initials (before they were redacted), and the final decision of the AOI (Agency Information Center).

Kona opened her own copy, her gaze sweeping over the first few items on the first page from top to bottom, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

"In the 'Conclusion of Handling' column, seven out of ten cases say 'Insufficient evidence, case not accepted,' while the remaining three say 'The complainant withdrew the complaint.'"

All complaints ultimately lead to the same result—nothing gets resolved.

Almost none of the complaints get past the preliminary review stage, never even reaching the threshold for formal case filing.

"Is it because you can't even touch the threshold?"

They absolutely forbid you from touching them!

  

In this era of ever-expanding religious influence, do you expect them to conduct internal self-examination and self-correction in their pursuit of religious self-determination?

Link pointed to one of the lines, where a complaint number was marked and a note enclosed in parentheses by Costello—

"The complainant has withdrawn the complaint."

There is another line of even smaller text in parentheses, in Costello's handwriting:

Before withdrawing the complaint, the complainant told investigators that someone had conveyed advice to her through the principal of her child's school.

"This is the same plot development as Martha's."

It seems that the victims of Sacred Heart Elementary School are not just the Martha family, but a group of people.

The so-called self-examination and self-correction has lost its supervisory ability and has begun to pose a systemic threat and suppression.

The reason why those people in the Sacred Heart Church are so arrogant is that they are confident they can keep everything a secret.

Secondly, the parish's self-purification system has died. For the sake of their religious image, even if they go astray, they believe that someone above will suppress everything.

He turned to the second page of the list, took a red pen from the pen holder, and began to annotate each item.

"The first appearance of those black figures in Alex's painting is in late September."

The clergy's robe has three to four buttons, and the collar stands up.

The robe's tailoring is clearly not the suit or casual wear that teachers often wear, but rather a ceremonial garment used during Mass or a Roman-collared robe worn in daily life.

This is a crucial clue, greatly narrowing down the scope of the population that needs to be investigated.

In other words, the people we're looking for within the Sacred Heart Church system are primarily clergy who have direct contact with Alex during Saturday and Sunday church services.

Kona took out Alex's paintings from her folder and arranged them next to the list in chronological order.

"The first painting appeared in the last week of September."

Black figures began to appear, and the mouth of the little blue figure was painted over.

The second image is from mid-October. The figure is closer to the little blue man, and the fingers begin to touch the little man's shoulder.

The third image, from early November, shows a large number of red and black vortexes appearing on the screen, and the blue figure's body showing torn cracks.

The fourth one is the one he drew in your office, which is the first to show clear details of the clergy's robes.

He added the buttons and the collar style himself.

"The timeline matches up."

The Sacred Heart Primary School calendar shows that boarding students take the school bus to Sacred Heart Church for worship every Saturday and Sunday morning and return to school in the afternoon.

Alex is a boarding student; he spends every weekend at church.

Link turned to the third page of the list, his pen pausing on a name: "September to November, which is exactly the full period from the start of the fall semester to the middle of the semester."

If these injuries occur during weekend worship services, then the frequency is approximately once a week.

It lasted for at least two months.

Kona circled all the clergy members directly associated with the Sacred Heart Church on the list in red pen.

"There are a total of six clergy members from the Sacred Heart Church stationed at the primary school. Four of them are responsible for daily religious classes, and two are specifically responsible for weekend worship and religious counseling for boarding students."

These people have all appeared on the list.

Their complaint records—

Four people have been complained about at least once, and two people have been complained about more than three times.

Her pen stopped on one of the names: "This person, Costello's notes state that the complaint involves inappropriate contact with a minor."

The conclusion remains that there is insufficient evidence.

His complainant had provided A0I with photos of his child as evidence, but the photos were lost during the archiving process in the final stages of the trial.

Will it disappear?

I think it was the Sacred Heart Church that used its powerful authority and ability to destroy and ruin his family's records. Link silently mocked himself, but when he looked at that name, he fell silent for a few seconds.

"Lost————"

How could a complaint attachment marked as "sensitive material" be lost in the church's internal file management system?

Does Costello know about this?

"The notes were written by him."

He added a sentence to this line: "After the complainant withdrew the complaint, their spouse called the AOI to request a reopening of the case, but the call was not recorded."

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