Framed by a mysterious glass sphere in a locked study, a disgraced WWII investigator must outsmart his military mentor.
The next morning, the headlines screamed Arthur’s name. “Former CID Captain, Arthur Finch, Fugitive in Krol Murder. Suspect Suffers Violent Post-War Dementia.”
The local newspapers, fueled by Garrick’s leaks to Detective Doyle, painted him as an unstable, armed maniac. His dishonorable discharge and medical blackout history were splashed across the front pages, twisted into definitive proof of his guilt and mental instability.
Arthur, hidden in the brewery’s shadows, read the words, his face grim. His credibility was gone. Utterly destroyed.
He tried calling his bank. His account was frozen. He walked to the veteran’s housing office; his voucher had been revoked. He was homeless, penniless, and wanted.
He tried reaching out to his remaining war veteran contacts, men he had served with, men he had trusted with his life. Each call went unanswered. The few who picked up hung up immediately, their voices tight with fear or disgust. Garrick’s smear campaign was working perfectly.
He saw the citywide bulletins at bus stops, his haggard face staring out from a grainy photograph. All public transit routes out of Virginia were under heightened surveillance. He was trapped.
He had become a ghost, erased from society, demonized and isolated. Every path to vindication, every avenue for help, had been systematically cut off by Garrick.
The tremor returned, a deep, persistent shaking in his hands, but he pushed it down. He wouldn’t break. Not now.
He knew what Garrick wanted: for him to crack, to lash out, to prove the ‘violent dementia’ narrative true. Or, even better, to disappear entirely.
He looked at the tiny microfilm in his hand, the list of forty names. The truth. The real story.
But releasing it now, in his current state, would only be dismissed as the ravings of a madman. It would expose the military without vindicating him, and worse, Garrick would still escape.
He had one last card to play. A face-to-face confrontation. A final stand. He knew Garrick’s weakness: his arrogance, his belief in his own untouchable control. And Arthur knew exactly where Garrick kept his deepest secrets.
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