Faced with Harvey's complaints, Constantine remained completely calm.
Countless people had blamed him like this before, but that didn't mean he felt even the slightest bit guilty.
On the contrary, he could always find another reason to justify himself.
"Oh? So now something I happened to overhear is somehow my fault?"
Constantine spoke indifferently.
"But if you'd actually listened to me from the beginning, you would've used that evidence to threaten Karl a long time ago."
"Why wait until he had a chance to make the first move?"
"But... there was only fifty dollars in there. It's practically meaningless."
Harvey Dent lowered his voice, clearly still struggling with the idea.
"Even if we used it, Karl would never be convicted over something like that."
Constantine sighed bitterly, looking thoroughly disappointed with Harvey's stubbornness.
"You keep obsessing over the fifty dollars."
"Didn't I already tell you? We could've put a few thousand dollars into the notebook ourselves."
"Then we'd put it back where it belonged. Nobody would've seen us do it, and afterward we could've prosecuted him."
"That's illegal!"
Harvey Dent shot to his feet, shouting angrily.
"That's obviously planting evidence!"
"We can't use illegal methods to achieve our goals. Otherwise, how are we any different from the people we prosecute?"
"We aren't!"
"That's the line we don't cross!"
Constantine found Harvey's inflexibility rather exhausting.
Still, he'd anticipated this situation from the beginning and had already prepared another solution.
"Fine, fine. You win."
Constantine spoke with exaggerated righteousness.
"We absolutely won't plant evidence."
"But I guessed that Karl wouldn't let this go so easily, so I left him a little trap."
To Harvey's surprise, Constantine walked toward a corner of the room and pulled an ornate doll from the shadows.
He placed it in front of the computer and gave it a firm tap.
The previously idle monitor immediately changed.
A detailed surveillance image appeared on the screen.
"What... is that? A surveillance device?"
Harvey Dent stared in surprise.
He couldn't understand how two devices with no visible connection between them could somehow transmit recorded images to the computer.
"Hmph. Don't worry about the details."
Constantine sounded completely humorless.
"Whoever Karl sent was obviously highly skilled. An ordinary surveillance camera would've been useless against someone like that."
"So I prepared something special to record everything that happened inside this office."
In reality, Constantine had simply sealed an undying supernatural entity inside the doll and projected everything it witnessed onto the computer.
Catwoman's stealth skills might have bordered on the supernatural, but she had no ability to perceive this kind of occult presence.
As a result, everything she'd done had been recorded.
Harvey Dent carefully watched the footage.
A woman dressed like a black cat slipped into the office, effortlessly bypassed every layer of security, and even leisurely flipped through a magazine in the room before leaving with the evidence.
The entire sequence looked like a textbook example of professional theft.
Harvey was secretly astonished.
"How did you record all this?"
He looked at Constantine in surprise.
It seemed he was finally beginning to understand the hidden talents of his deputy.
No wonder Karl had sought this guy out in the first place.
Constantine really did have some impressive tricks.
"That's not the important part."
Without even raising his head, Constantine hurriedly saved the magically compressed footage onto the computer.
"Didn't you keep complaining that we didn't have enough evidence to convict Karl?"
"Well, now we do."
"The only piece of evidence that disappeared was Karl's copy, and now we also have video footage of the thief committing the crime."
"In other words, if we find this thief, we can use her to build a case against Karl."
"Stealing evidence is a very serious crime, after all."
At that moment, Karl had no idea how much trouble he'd created for himself by sending Catwoman out on that little errand.
After the acquisition was completed, the media finally learned what had happened and sent reporters to interview him about his purchase of the broadcasting company.
Karl, meanwhile, wanted to use the interview to promote his new company.
Naturally, he happily accepted the invitation.
He arrived at Gotham City's largest television station and settled into its spacious, immaculate studio.
The longer he looked around, the more convinced he became that the broadcasting company he'd just purchased was complete garbage.
At least here, twelve cameras were filming him simultaneously.
His own company couldn't even guarantee the three most basic camera setups: wide shot, medium shot, and close-up.
"Mr. Karl, what made you decide to buy a television station?"
The attractive female host smiled sweetly.
For some reason, Karl's reputation as the "Arkham Stallion" seemed to have spread even more widely than his reputation as a detective.
The television station had specifically arranged for this glamorous host to conduct the interview with him, and the heated look in her eyes made Karl distinctly uncomfortable.
"Well, how should I put it?"
Karl began speaking fluently.
"I spent several months undercover tracking the Joker."
"But when I came back, I discovered there wasn't really a place for me in the police force anymore."
"I figured my career as a police officer might be coming to an end, so naturally I had to start planning for the future."
As he spoke, Karl casually dumped all the blame onto Loeb.
The dead man certainly wasn't going to stand up and defend himself.
"Then, by coincidence, an old broadcasting company in the Arkham District was on the verge of bankruptcy."
"I grew up listening to that station's programs."
"I really didn't want something remembered so fondly by so many people to simply disappear into history."
"So I decided to do something about it and contribute something back to the community."
The female host frowned slightly at the shameless story that only Karl could have delivered with a straight face, but she continued with the interview.
"Mr. Karl, may I ask where the money for such a purchase came from?"
"After all, buying an entire television station certainly isn't cheap."
"Most of it came from some business income I'd accumulated over the years, along with a bank loan."
Karl smiled.
"And while we're on the subject, the generous institution that agreed to finance me was Sionis Bank."
"They believed in my vision for pulling the company out of decline."
(End of Chapter)
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