Chapter 222
Metzker’s Bar.
After a busy day during the day, a little drink at night was one of life’s great pleasures.
As soon as Luke entered the bar, he immediately became the center of attention.
This was something he had thought of long ago, not only to satisfy the curiosity of the public, but likewise to satisfy the curiosity of his colleagues before this matter could be considered completely over.
Luke smiled and greeted his colleagues in the police station, there were envy, derision, and congratulations, and he accepted them all.
As the protagonist of today, he had to face everything with the mentality of a strong man.
After chatting with the other colleagues, the people from the Robbery and Murder Division’s Squadron 1 got together, and Reed and David also came.
David proposed, “Give us a closer look at the Las Vegas shooting, everyone is curious, especially about the shooter, this guy is definitely a sick and ruthless man.”
Luke laughed, “I’m LAPD, not lvpd, do you think they’ll let me in on the case?”
The lieutenant said, “Then tell me what you know, I want to hear it too.”
“OK,” Luke nodded, and then, described the shooting incident again.
After listening to it, the vice squad laughed, “You kid can be considered to have offended the Las Vegas police so badly, don’t want to travel to Las Vegas anymore.”
“There’s nothing special about that place besides gambling.” Luke was obviously a little offended.
Xiao Hei which pot is not open, “Did you gamble a few times in Las Vegas this time, did you win?”
“STOP! That’s all there is to talk about on this topic.”
Blacky bristled, “I know the answer to that.”
Luke had a little drink and made small talk with the crew, then drove home.
A golden nest is better than one’s own doghouse, or one’s own bed is comfortable to sleep in.
Blackie exited the bar, eyeing a few of his coworkers, and was about to think about who to get a ride from when his cell phone rang.
Xiao Hei glanced at his cell phone, “Hey, Reporter Jones, can I help you?”
“There’s a gray Ford to your right, that’s my car.”
Blackie took a look at it, smiled, and walked over to the car, greeting Ripari Jones in the driver’s side, “Hey, beautiful, can you give me a ride home?”
“Get in.”
Blackie got into the car, “Thanks.”
Pari Jones took out two stacks of bills, “This is for you.”
Blackie took the bills and smiled, “Good cooperation.”
“Not too pleasant for me.”
“Why?”
“You knew Luke was the officer who subdued the shooter?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have taken your information for nothing, and I would have paid the informant’s fee, but you sold it to another station, and that makes me sad.”
Kuro rubbed his nose, “I thought you didn’t value the information very much. Besides, it wasn’t entirely up to me, Luke was the boss and I was just following his orders.
If I hadn’t fought for it, he might not have even considered working with you.”
“The news behind it, is he not letting you tell me?”
“That’s not true, he just said that he told me not to get emotionally involved, and that I could contact other TV stations, and the highest bidder would win.
In terms of price, the other TV stations are indeed more sincere than your TV station.”
“How much did they offer you?”
“Forty thousand dollars.”
“I can give that price too.”
“But you said at the time that you were only willing to offer twenty thousand dollars.”
Parley Jones said helplessly, “Is money the only thing we can talk about between the two of us?”
Xiao Hei squeezed his eyes, “Don’t be angry, I still have a bottle of fine red wine in my house, we can drink while talking about something else.”
The following morning.
Xiao Hei’s house.
Early in the morning, Luke received a call from Xiao Hei asking Luke to pick him up from work.
Luke didn’t know where this kid got the courage to say this.
Luke went there anyway with a curious mind.
When he got to Blacky’s door, Luke saw a gray sedan parked outside the garage and shook his head.
“Tick-tock ……,” Luke honked his car horn.
It didn’t take long for the door to Blackie’s house to open and he and a woman walked out of the room.
Luke instantly recognized the woman, Parley Jones.
Parley Jones took the initiative to greet her, “Hi, Lieutenant Luke, we meet again.”
Luke smiled, “I thought we would meet, I just didn’t expect it to be here.”
“We’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on, BYE,” Parley Jones greeted and gave Black another flying kiss before driving off in the gray sedan to go first.
Luke shook his head, “Don’t tell me you called me here today just so I could see this.”
“No, I had other things on my mind.” Blackie finished and got into Luke’s passenger side, then pulled out six stacks of green bills from his bag, “The money I got from selling the news for this time, I think it’s better to give it to you before I go to work, after all, I don’t have a car right now either.”
Luke took the six stacks of dollars and gave two more back to Blackie, “This is yours.”
Blacky smiled and only took one wad of bills, “Give me these and that’s enough, I got more than just money this time.”
“See.” Luke didn’t say anything else and drove straight to work.
On the road, the two of them had a chat, Blackie looked a little excited, a look of hot love.
Luke lazily ignored him.
Although Xiao Hei’s personality was unreliable, he still had a bottom line in his work.
“Buzz.” Both of their cell phones rang.
Xiao Hei took out his phone and looked at it, “The captain sent a message in the group, there’s a new case, let’s rush directly to the scene of the crime.”
“Where?”
Twenty minutes later, the two of them, Luke and Xiao Hei, arrived at the crime scene.
It was a white middle-class neighborhood, and the smell of burning could be smelled from a distance.
One home had been burned down, but luckily the neighborhood houses were spaced far enough apart that it didn’t spread to the other homes.
The two of them got out of the car, their feet were muddy, the surrounding area was smoldering, and the house had been completely reduced to rubble.
Luke scanned the area, “Captain, what’s the situation here?”
“Last night, the residence caught fire, the fire was so intense that when the firefighters arrived on the scene, the house was already largely burned down, and they suspected to have found a body inside the house.”
“Was it the owner of the house?”
Susan shook her head, “According to the surrounding neighbors, the house has been vacant and the owner doesn’t come back to stay often.
The homeowner’s family has been notified and they are on their way.”
Luke observed the perimeter of the house as well as the crowds that were looking around.
It didn’t take long for the forensics and tech teams to arrive on the scene as well, entering the ruins to survey the scene.
Luke wasn’t idle either, the ruins of the house were muddy and any evidence visible to the naked eye was presumably burned.
He turned his attention to the crowd of onlookers.
A fire of this magnitude was most likely man-made, and in his experience, some psychopathic arsonists liked to re-enter the scene and admire their masterpieces.
Luke and the others began to walk the surrounding crowd, asking them if they knew anything about the fire.
These onlookers were neighbors in the community and they were very angry about the fire.
A house on fire affects the peace of the entire neighborhood, and since an arsonist can burn your house today and my house tomorrow, people are still enthusiastic about it.
But they don’t know much about the situation, and almost all of them arrived at the scene after the fire.
Most of the neighbors said that the fire spread very quickly, there should be the presence of accelerants and other items, in other words, it is likely to be arson.
Just then the forensics guys came out of the scene, still carrying a charred black object on a stretcher.
Luke wrinkled his nose and caught a whiff of barbecue, unlike normal barbecue, the smell of barbecue caused some nausea, and his stomach flipped with his breakfast.
“My mom’s farking oil ……,” Blackie burst out again, his eyes glaring, “Is this a human being?”
Although it was charred, the head, limbs and torso still retained a human shape.
Susan asked, “Coroner Sheila, anything?”
Coroner Sheila said, “The scene was completely destroyed, first by fire and then by water.
The water from the ruins of the house is at my ankle position, and a preliminary autopsy in this situation would be difficult to complete, so we can only bring the body back to the Detective Bureau for an autopsy.
What can be determined now is that the deceased should be a woman.”
Just at this moment, a BMW car parked next to the car, a man and a woman walked down from the car, straight to the crime scene this side of the intrusion.
A patrolman stopped the two, “STOP, the front is the crime scene, it’s already under martial law. Lean back.”
The man’s eyes stared at the ruins and said, “My name is Mastin Cage, what was burned down was my house, even buy Karma, how could this happen.”
The woman next to him was also anxious and jumped to her feet, “How could this happen, I told you to rent out the house a long time ago, but you preferred to keep it.
If you had rented it out earlier, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”
“FUCK, will you do anything else but complain? You should be glad the house wasn’t rented out right now, things would only have gotten worse if the tenant had burned to death as well.”
Luke heard the commotion and walked over, “What’s your business?”
“My name is Mastin Cage, I’m the owner of this house, you guys called me to come.”
“Let them in.” Luke beckoned, signaling the patrolman to let them in.
“I’m Lieutenant Luke of the Robbery-Murder Division, this case is being investigated by our Robbery-Murder Division, Squadron One, what’s this lady’s name?”
“This is my wife, Larina Cage.”
“Both of you, can you tell us a little bit about the house?”
Mastin Cage said, “We bought this house in 2016, it’s two floors up and down, there are five rooms, three toilets, and the decorations and furnishings were carefully chosen by us.
We have other properties in Los Angeles, so we don’t usually live here much.”
Luke asked, “Who stayed here last night?”
Mastin Cage said, “Like I said, we rarely stay here.”
“What about the others?”
“What other people?”
“Is there anyone else staying here besides you guys?”
“No, the house has been vacant except for me who comes back to visit occasionally.”
Luke continued, “We found a charred body in the house.”
“A burnt body!” Mastin Cage wore a shocked expression.
His wife’s face fell in shock, “What did you just say about a corpse?”
“That’s right, exactly what you heard. So, I want to know who was in the house?”
Mastin Cage’s wife said, “That can’t be right, our side of the house has been empty and unrented, there can’t be anyone in the house.”
Luke said, “Ma’am, didn’t you just hear me? We’re from the Robbery and Murder Division, and if it was just a normal fire, there’s no need for us to rush to the scene.”
“FUCK, how could there be dead people!” Mastin Cage’s face became very ugly.
“That’s what I’m going to ask you guys, we’re not only investigating the cause of the fire now, but we’re equally investigating the identity of the deceased.
You, as homeowners, don’t know who the house is for?”
Mastin Cage’s wife said, “We really didn’t give it to anyone to live in, could it have been a vagrant?”
“It was a woman who was burned to death.”
Mastin Cage’s wife frowned slightly, “Got a picture? I’d like to see them.”
Luke opened the photo so she could view the picture of the dead man, but upon seeing the charred, suspected human object, “Ah!”
Mastin Cage’s wife screams in horror, “This thing died in our house? F***ing hell, that’s horrible.”
Now that he’s seen the photo, Luke presses on, “Do you recognize this person?”
Mastin Cage’s wife replied, “She’s burned to a crisp, how could I possibly recognize her.”
Mastin Cage asked, “Lieutenant Luke, are there any witnesses?”
“There are.” In fact, technically, the surrounding neighbors came over after the fire and only saw the aftermath of the burn, not the before.
But in Luke’s experience, it was best to say there now.
Luke continued to ask, “Gentlemen, people were burned to death in your house, not likely to be your acquaintances, can you guess the identity of the deceased?”
“Can’t.”
“I can’t either.
The husband and wife shook their heads one after another.
“Have you guys offended anyone lately?”
“No,” again in unison.
“Have any strangers ever stayed here before?”
Mastin Cage’s wife shook her head, “No. This is our family’s private property and we don’t rent it out, so why would we give someone else a place to stay.”
“Have you been threatened or heard any talk of arson?”
“No.”
“Does anyone other than you and your wife have a key to this house?”
Mastin Cage’s wife answered dryly, “No.”
For his part, Mastin Cage didn’t answer, and Luke looked at him as if he was a little hesitant.
Luke then had Ramon and Jenny give a statement to Mastin Cage’s wife while Luke left Mastin Cage behind.
Luke said again, “Mr. Cage, does anyone else have a key to this place besides you and your wife?”
Mastin Cage nodded and whispered, “Don’t let my wife know, I did give someone else a key.”
“Who did you lend the key to? What was your relationship? Why did you lend the key to each other?”
“It’s a friend …… We occasionally come over here to meet, in order to avoid being seen by the neighbors, I gave her a key, she came over here can directly enter.”
“Was she in the house last night?”
“We didn’t meet last night and I don’t know if it was her?”
Luke flashed the picture again, “Is this who you said it was?”
“Even if it is, I …… don’t recognize it at all, hurry up and take it away.”
Luke charged the photo, “What’s her name?”
“Gail Thompson.”
“Why did you make an appointment to meet here?”
Mastin Cage looked again at his wife in the distance and whispered, “She’s my lover.”