Chapter 5 - The Dead Commisar

Peter Recnig was the unfortunate Commisar who always liked to arrive early to the office.  He was at his desk reading the daily reports when the Artesians stormed the building and kicked the doors and found him.  They dragged him into a conference room and in front of live cameras executed him with a shot to the head.  He barely had a few minutes to compose himself.

There was nothing remarkable or surprising about Peter and even less so his role as chief of agriculture.  Gustafson was thorough and had every possibility, every angle investigated, re investigated and nothing.  They thought it might have been a hit job, perhaps he was hiding something about the wheat yields, but none of that made any sense.  The more outlandish the theory, it was investigated.

In the end, even the agents were frustrated and closed the investigation as there was nothing but simply a murder by the mad men in the Artesian movement.  The Artesians had recorded the evidence and had the murder weapon.  They kept the case file open for a full eighteen months before concluding it was simply a murder.  Peter was just a nice guy at the wrong place and at the wrong time.  An unlucky and unwilling participant.

I chose to not pursue this any further and returned Karl's case file to Gustafson.  I still felt troubled and openly admitted to him that while I had seen more than enough to reach the same conclusion as everyone else, I just felt a nagging pain in my gut that something wasn't right.  Gustafson also agreed and he felt that way for years and did everything in his power and office to find what it might be and he too came up empty.  He then ended the meeting by asking if this would conclude my inquiry in Karl Knutmudsen's death and I said yes and he bid be good day.

Without anything else to go by I didn't bother to reach out to Michael or John and did cease my investigation and resumed my duties as a Commisar.

How bizarre, why would they wait three years to tell me all of this?  That was a nagging feeling and I wondered if this was all intentional by Gustafson's part to have someone keep looking?  He didn't seem the type to play these sorts of games, but I had spent the better part of a decade and decided enough time had passed and had nothing to gain by all this.  Goodbye Karl.