Putnam Von appeared to be a simple man with not that much self-respect, and ohat was quite careless with all the records he was tasked to handle and take care of. The forms istration, application and auditing were shoved into a few folders without any categorization and arra. It took Marcus, Kevin and Tyler Khan quite a while to sort out the forms by date and type of application. And probably thanks to the slobiness of him, the application form for the rental of the ptform was not missing or damaged. Thus they were able to immediately s ahe multi-page form.

  The handwriting on the form was strange, and it was not just Marcus that noticed this. Kevin raised his eyebrow after browsing through a few pages and said to everyohis handwriting is - well - is kinda weird. It seemed a bit too deliberate.”

  “Deliberate? Meaning?”

  “Meaning the one who wrote this form was trying to fake their handwriting to look like something else, or somebody else's'.” Marcus answered with a frown, then he raised his head and asked Car Hernandez: “Ms. Hernandez, you just said this office is too . you eborate on that a little? What kind of ‘dirt’ were you expeg to find?”

  “Well - ” Car Hernandez hesitated for a short moment, then she poi the desk, specifically the keyboard on it: “Actually, here’s the first thing. The surface of the keyboard was way too . And the desktop, it seemed to have beely wiped, quite thhly so as well.”

  “Which means, you suspeeoher than Putnam was here before us looking for something, and they left fingerprints or some other kind of traces on the desk. And they decided to wipe it .” Tyler Khan nodded while scratg his jaw: “Iing - have you found anything else?”

  “The file ets, they’re too as well.” Garry Shaw sighed: “It just doesn’t fit. I’m not familiar with this Putnam Von fel, but from the arra of the stationary and furniture in this room, he doesn’t feel like the tidy type.”

  “And he’s a single man, w at a registration office, still living in the unity collective staff housing.” Car Hernandez shrugged.

  “Hey, that’s - ” Tyler Khan was about to cut Car off, but Garry Shaw interrupted him.

  “Yeah, I know the type. There are old bags of tea in his drawer, ast their best before dates and even smelled of mold.” Garry Shaw raised a small pstic evidence bag, inside which was two small semi-transparent paper bags with dried tea leaves inside. “You see, these are cheap tea bags, and they were shoved deep inside one of the drawers. So you tell, he doesn’t really seem the kind that would keep things really and . Especially the tops of the file ets.”

  Marcus looked over at the file ets made of metal that were about knee high, iheir tops were , without any visible dust or dirt. Then he looked over at the keyboard on the desk, pced just right in front of the monitor. The keyboard was quite old, the pstic had already turned slightly yellow. There were traces of cigarette ash in the cracks between the keys, aain character prints on it were heavily damaged and faded. He even spotted a few winding, curly hairs between the cracks. It appeared that aside from the upper surface, the entire keyboard was quite dirty and poorly maintained.

  “We will ake the hard drive as well. And maybe make a backup of it.” Mararrowed his eyes: “If someone is trying to hide their digital tracks, we at least o see what they did and what they wiped.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Car Hernandez scoffed, then took out ahicker pstic evidence bag: “It’s not our first days on the job, you know. But I don’t think it’s gonna be easy.”

  Ihe evidence bag was a disected hard drive, with quite a few dents on its surface, and it made crag sounds of tiny shards or pebbles when Car Hernandez shook it in the air.

  “And, it’s just left here?” Kevin asked with a curious tone.

  “Yeah, curious, right?” Car Hernandez gave Kevin a side eye and said.

  “Nothing, I just feel, this - ” Kevin thought as he spoke, trying to find the right words to get his out without sounding like an uncooperative jerk: “This looks a little too ve, no?”

  “It is indeed. But still, we try to get this to our teical team, see if they recover the data inside.” Garry Shaw sighed and shook his head: “I’ve pihem already. They should be able to get to it soon.”

  “That’s good. That’s good…” Kevin nodded: “And if you need help, I know a few very capable - ”

  “We have one of the best teical teams iire city, so I think we’re good.” Car Hernandez shook her head: “And I’m sure we’ll have updates for you in no time.”

  “But if your teical team would like to help or monitor the recovery process closely, just let them tact me, I’ll be sure to loop them in.” Tyler Khan immediately budged in to help the awkwardness: “Now, detective, Mr. Loo, sihe se is well taken care of, and we’ve got the application form already. let’s go and check out Putnam Von’s residence, shall we?”

  “That’d be great. Thank you.” Marodded, a out a short sigh.

  Putnam Von’s residence seemed much more natural for the stereotype of a man like him, even to an exaggerated extent. It was already a small apartment in a retively old building, and from the looks of the walls and windows, it was not properly and regurly ed and maintaiher. The entire apartment smelled of sweat, cheap alcohol and stale old dishes, and only had a few flickering and buzzing old light bulbs in the room. There were personal items and garbage everywhere. The three of them barely had enough space to stand in the living room, only a narrow pathway through the garbage and messes.

  Marcus treaded carefully to the interior of the room, with a little of his Qi activated and trated on his eyes in hopes of finding anything abnormal or paranormal - he did not have much of it left, so he had to ration it.

  There was nothing noticeable in this room, no signs of forced entry, no obvious signs of struggle - though it was not that easy to tell, and clear no signs of anything being rummage through.

  “What a slob.” Kevin couldn’t help but pin.

  “I personally assure you that this is no ical residence of a unity collective worker.” Tyler Khan appeared to be embarrassed as well: “Usually for those that live in the unity residential pces, there is a liness and maintenanittee to make sure that all residents adhere to certain standards…”

  “Yeah, but looks like he still has some means to make this ittee look the other way.” Marcus k down while paying attention to his surroundings to not knoything over aended his right hand below the small wooden table at the ter of the living room. This table seemed like it used to have bck paint, but it was only visible upon close iioo the dust collected on it and the tea and coffee stains. After a few seds, Marcus took out a brown envelope with some folding marks on it.

  “Something strange about it?” Tyler Khan had his eyes fixated on the folder and asked.

  “Well, just - just a hunch.” Marcus gently fttehe envelope and looked at its fold marks closely - it looked like it used to store somethiangle ihen after a brief moment, he took out his wallet and took out a bill - the regle marks on the envelope were in a simir shape and simir size as well.

  “And - someone just had this one ying around?” Kevin asked.

  “Well, let’s not assume too much, shall we?” Tyler Khan shook his head.