Rubbing his head, Wolf raised to his feet. he side-eyed the sailor who shrugged, appearing indifferent to the fact that he almost commited negligent manslaughter. The detective then turned back to the water. the pink liquid was still there, but fading slightly. It was liquified paint, specifically liquified paint from a painting in the Kenwood house. The painting had no monetary value, but was everything to the case. Mr Kenwood was found dead in his bathroom. With the door locked from the inside, and the room not having a window, suicide was the answer almost everyone got, from the younger police officers to the layman or novice reporter. Not Wolf though. from reading incident reports in between wolfing down waffles a few days ago, he realized a contradiction.
There were two photos taken over the whole twelve hours the officers spent investigating. The very first photo showed the interior of the bathroom. There was an outline sketched over the back wall showing that Mr Kinwood died slumped over the toilet. Adjacent to the sketch was the painting the whole case was centered around. It depicted a deer running through a field, as hunters shot at it. The whole scene was bathed in a purple glow to give an eerie look. In the first photo, some remnant of the paint stained the red-oak frame of the painting itself. Another photo from just ten hours later, did not depict the stain, and the frame itself looked slightly different.
With everything else in those photos being the same, it was clear that someone made an effort to change the painting specifically because it hid something. The police and public thought the death was a suicide, so the only person to even think of changing the crime scene, would have had to have been the killer. The Instant Wolf made that connection he began searching for the one person who could have been the culprit. Since he already suspected the culprit to have some knowledge of law enforcement, he made no effort to tell his superiors, and took to the chase on personal time. Even that seemed to not matter much, as when he visited the Kenwood house mere hours ago, and comforted a grieving Mrs. Kenwood, that he noticed that the painting that replaced the first one, had been placed askew, a position it most definitely was not in prior.
Realizing the trap Wolf warned Mrs Kensington from fixing it, but was too late. the bomb in the bathroom wall went off. Barely realizing the implication that the bomb was meant for him, Wolf sprinted out of the house, as a speeding vehicle stopped suddenly near the house, only to speed up once he saw it. Knowing that it was the culprit. he gave chase, leading all the way to a bridge that overlooked a massive swamp. their vehicles crashed, and Wolf after minutes of walking aimlessly, found the sailor fishing out of season, and got him to help scour for the culprit. That led them to where he was now, in a shityy situation, with a shitty sailor, and with a shitty lack of braincells apparently, as the mental energy required to spontaneously remember everything could have been spent choosing the proper items instead.
He did He turned to the rucksack near the diminutive sailor and opened it. it had a diving mask, a harpoon gun, a suitcase sized rectangular net, a diving suit, and a waterproof compass. realizing that he by default needed the diving suit, Wolf quickly stripped down and put it on. He mulled over the remaining items. The harpoon gun, while probably being necessary if he encountered any underwater dangers, would be somewhat cumbersome and could possibly delay him in retrieving the painting. The waterproof compass would be good, but he was only planning to get down and retrieve the painting, although if he went down and underwater cave, it would certainly be useful. The net would be good if the painting was trapped against something, but he felt it could be more damaging than if he were to grab it by hand. the diving mask would stop him from having to manually hold his breath, but it would be prone to leaking.
He knew he only had time to grab 2 items before going under.
Decisions, decisions.....