abcnovels
Chapter 78
Chapter 78
Chapter 78: Chapter 12 Civil Servants
When Zach and Alice returned from the Grande’s mill, a somewhat old car had been parked in the front yard of the Grande Funeral Home. This is the public servant Wells’ car. Zach patted Alice, who was still a little nervous, and walked into the office by himself.
Alice was embarrassed to refuse James’ request, but the decision was still in the hands of the vampire. He only allowed Alice to ‘look’ at Chris stored in the mill under his watch. It was impossible for him to completely hand Alice into James’ hands.
But James was disappointed, Alice did not see anything useful, but restored the suicide scene. When James saw Alice threw herself in Zach’s arms, trembling while narrating the whole process of a stranger’s suicide a little by little, he was struck by guilt. Zach taught him another lesson.
Wells in the office was running out of patience. Louise poured him the last cup of coffee and was relieved when she saw the two finally returned.
Wells still did not waste time and directly handed over the search warrant from the court. Zach glanced at it. Anthony apparently had given some instructions. The Land Planning Bureau only had the right to check it and could not bring it out and copy it. It could be regarded as inheriting the obligation that was once public information, and also protecting the right of private property.
But this also meant that the hapless civil servant would need to stay here for a while.
Zach smiled and put down the search warrant and signaled that Wells could start, but he also didn’t give him a hard time again. “You can tell me what exactly you want to check, and I can help you reduce some of the workloads.”
With a sullen face, Wells moved a pile of materials on the desk, and said coldly, “All of the buried in the past ten years.”
Zach nodded and took out a few files from the documents box. Because they had a very unpleasant start, Zach didn’t expect this civil servant to have a friendly attitude, but he also didn’t want this guy to stay here for a long time: “You can be more specific, cemetery sections, ethnic group, etc.”
What Zach said was already very obvious. It was not worth paying attention to those corpses that had already completely decomposed. For the reconstruction of the old cemetery, it was nothing more than building a memorial hall, and transferring tombstones. Those who had been buried recently or would be buried soon would be much more troublesome, moving the cemetery, changing the method of burial, or directly paying compensation, this was what Barton City had to do.
And because of the special environment of Barton Western District, there would be entirely two different ways in dealing with this problem. Those at the top of Barton were obviously more valued, and the things recorded in the funeral records would be used as a reference for the City of Barton to pay compensation.
Wells glanced at Zach and said a number. Zach understood that that was the money spent on the funeral. This was a very realistic dividing point. Above that number, it was people whom Anthony did not want to offend, and below that number, it was the servants of these people. The files were divided again.
As Wells began his work, the atmosphere in the office eased a little bit. Zach divided the information into categories according to the request of Wells. The closest to Wells are the people with the richest and important background, the further away from him, the less important they were.
Wells’ brand-new work notebook was soon filled with information, and he often took out his camera to take photos for backup.
“How come you do this alone?” After the atmosphere eased, Zach began to try to lighten up the mood.
Wells gave Zach a blank look. “We are very busy.”
“Oh.” Zach nodded: “Most people should be over Ford’s place, right?” Zach made a reasonable guess. After all, Barton’s largest funeral home is Ford, and the cemetery near Passing District is just one of the cemeteries they have.
Wells hesitated for a moment, “Mhm, it’s a mess there.”
Zach thought of the scene he had seen in Ford’s cemetery and guessed that probably Ford’s headquarters would be messier. Zach smiled in understanding. It seemed like he should use this opportunity to mend his relationship with the civil servant: “Grande Funeral Home is still young, and we still have a lot of things to learn. The problems that Ford exposed are also lessons for us, so…”
“No need to explain.” Wells clicked his tongue and glanced at Zach: “I know you just don’t want to have trouble in the future. I was too impatient to wait for your call.”
He was a reasonable civil servant. Zach had a satisfied smile. With a search warrant, if someone came to Grande in the future, Zach could use the Barton Court as an excuse.
After gaining understanding, Zach began to use gossip to lower Wells’ guards: “How is Ford now? Our Grande received some stones donated by them last month. Now looking at them like this, we feel sorry for what is happening to them right now.”
In Wells’s mind, Zach’s image has completely fallen into a guy gloating over someone’s misfortune. The Grande Funeral Home got a lot of attention recently because it owned the only burial cemetery in Barton. Now it was estimated that not many rich people in the Western District agreed to cremation, and some tombs of the rich family would even be transferred to Grande’s cemetery. So Zach would soon receive a decent income, and it would be paid by the city government!
But now that he understood Zach’s personality, he could get along with the owner of Grande, and it was also helpful to his work, so he just followed his topic. “Very bad, many people are demonstrating, saying that they will sue Ford Funeral Home.”
Zach did not expect to be so serious: “The court won’t accept it, right? After all, that cemetery has nothing to do with Ford now.”
“Of course not. Public and private have already been separated. If you want to sue, you will also sue the city government.” Wells rolled his eyes, his face darkened, and it was obvious that the Barton Land Planning Bureau was one of the public’s agencies that people blamed on.
Zach raised his eyebrows: “As far as I know, the only site currently under construction is Ford’s cemetery in Passing District. The compensation measures have already been announced, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with.”
“Yes.” Wells snorted coldly, “It’s not too difficult for the city government to deal with. But those people’s complaints! Those things will enter our archives for permanent preservation!”
Wells was like a talking machine that had been switched on by Zach, he began to complain about what happened when they were dealing with Ford’s cemetery. Not only did people file the complaint, but this civil servant had also been beaten up by angry citizens in the cemetery…
Zach listened quietly, there was already a trace of other things in his eyes. Zach felt lucky. Among the mainlines analyzed by James, now in his office, sat an unfortunate guy who once worked there. The Gale couple relied on the sixth sense of witchcraft, James relied on the analysis of a detective, the vampire, the vampire relied on hypnotizing eyes.
“Wells.” Zach used his name to attract the attention of the civil servant. When he looked up from the document, he was firmly attracted by the two red lights: “You worked in the cemetery in the Passing District before, but have you heard of a man named Chris?”
“Chris? The guy who committed suicide when he got engaged?”
“There shouldn’t be any intersection between you, how did you know him?”
If Wells answered that he read the news in the newspaper, then Zach would not continue to ask, but-
“Through chats. I heard that he was a thirty years old virgin and urgently needed a girlfriend.”
“So, do many people know that he wanted to find a girlfriend?” Obviously, this ‘wish’ reached the ears of Papa Midnight’s recruiter.
“Yeah, it has already been spread out from the cemetery.”
“How about you? Wells, do you have any wishes that have been spread by others?”
“Does this even need to be said?” Wells stared at the red light in front of him, as if the answer was very obvious: “My colleagues and I want to change to a more promising job!”
“Well, good luck to you.” Zach still looked at Wells: “Now, tell me what you know, and the names of everyone who knows Chris ‘Wish’.”
“…”
Zach took out his pen and paper and began to write down names.
The contract of Dead Apostles was constructed strictly according to the people’s ‘requests’ and ‘give’. Papa Midnight satisfies people’s requests, and then people complete the work given by Papa Midnight. Someone was collecting these ‘requests’ and then sending them to Papa Midnight.
The target of the vampire, whose method was different from those of the Gale Couple and James, was also Papa Midnight’s recruiter.