Headline News
Daniel, Peggy, Ermen, Rose and even Samberly all got to work to catch Raphael Lewis' killer. At first, they found her annoying with all her questions and seeming disregard of her personal safety. Didn't she know that what she was working on was dangerous and life-threatening? As the days rolled by, she was able to prove her usefulness and ability to catch up with them. Even as they ordered her to stay in the headquarters, she insisted on coming with them to operations, personally interviewing suspects and witnesses, taking pictures of crime scenes and helping them with whatever documents they needed.
On Daniel's part, he realized that the only way he could be an older brother to Ermen was to keep her both close enough and far away. This plan of action didn't sit nicely with him but he knew he had to do it. She was not ready to take back a brother into her life but he also knew he could no longer leave her alone again. He promised to himself that he would never lose her again and he was alright if all he could be to her, for now, was a colleague. He hoped and prayed that one day, she would let him back in her life as her beloved older brother.
One day, while bringing Peggy back home from work, he said: "Hey, I need to tell you something important."
She looked at him and said: "Daniel, what is it? Is there anything wrong?"
He breathed a long sigh and replied: "Remember when I told you about my long lost sister, Ermen. Well, she joined us in our investigation. Ermen Carreira is my sister."
Peggy was speechless for a moment but continued: "Are you sure? How come she hasn't recognized you? What will you do now?"
"Peg, I want to go up to her and tell her I know we're siblings but I can't. We all hurt her and I don't think she's ready to take me back into her life as a brother. I just want to keep her close."
She tapped him on the shoulder and replied: "I'm so sorry. I wish I could do more for you." They then spent the rest of the car ride in silence.
In the middle of the night, Daniel's telephone rang. He considered this a huge annoyance but answered it anyway because he assumed they could be important. His hunch was right. Dr. Samberly was able to restore the fingerprints found on the victim's doorknob and was able to compare it to records of Communist operatives on American soil. One man in particular matched to the dot and that was enough evidence to catch him as the murderer.
Immediately, he called Ermen and said: "Ermen, we found out the identity of the killer. I'll meet you in the SSR office." He then jumped off his bed, changed into decent clothes and rushed to his car to drive there.
In 30 minutes, the entire team had a plan. Daniel and Peggy would enter the house at the back, find any other criminal activity and locate the suspect. He was known as Aidan Heinser, pretending to be a recent German immigrant with a buy-and-sell store on the other side of the town who frequently travelled for work. Although all of his papers, routines and life was unremarkable and almost normal, there was a few holes they forgot to cover which made him undoubtedly the spy. There was no records of his birth certificate, life prior to migrating to America and the names of his parents and immediate family members.
The rest of them would be stationed in the front, only entering the house when given the go-signal by Daniel. Rose and Dr. Samberly wanted to come with them but they knew better than to let that happen. Aside from the fact that someone still needed to physically man the desk, there was still a lot that needed to be done in the lab. Specifically, the fingerprints all over his apartment still needed to be examined and filed. They still needed to know whether Aidan had an accomplice.
The operation and the mission was a resounding success even if it happened on short notice. They were able to arrest Aidan for murder, recover more evidence of criminal activity, keep the public safe and even get a confession from him all without casualties and injuries among the SSR men. Daniel and Peggy honestly couldn't believe their luck. They assumed they would be working on this for a few weeks to a few months, not just for a few hectic days. They also wondered how they were able to handle this while bringing along, or as they said, babysitting, a untrained, nosy civilian.
Ermen's article in the newspaper was also a hit among the people. To say they were horrified was an understatement because everyone was talking about it. It was just unbelievable that in a country where Free Speech and Democracy were cherished values, people could still be killed for reporting the truth. Another thing that equally horrified people was the fact that some of the big and powerful would pay a large sum of money just to kill somebody else if they considered them a nuisance and pesky for reporting on thing they don't like. It looked like it came straight from a dystopian novel.
Aside from obtaining Justice, this article gave Ermen a career advancement. The very next day, Editor John proposed an offer to her. Even if she was very young and just fresh out of college, she would be promoted to Chief Investigative Reporter of the paper. She accepted it without hesitation and nearly cried leaving the office. She just did it; she beat the odds that everybody in her past gave her.
In the SSR office, Daniel was thinking and thinking and staring off into space. Even if their investigation on Raphael Lewis was done, he needed a way to keep Ermen around. The SSR had no need for a journalist but...they needed more agents. Suddenly, a point of inspiration entered his brain so he took his typewriter and wrote a letter to her. He was going to try to hire her as an SSR agent.