Chapter 146

Luke smoothly asked, “Then describe the case and I’ll see if it fits the scenario of manslaughter.”

Theodore confirmed, “A hypothetical statement?”

Luke laughed, “Looks like you learned a lot from your lawyer.”

Theodore said, “Don’t look down on black people, ever.”

Luke turned his head and muttered to Blackie, “I want to punch him so bad.”

Blacky shrugged, he also didn’t like the way a lot of black people moved around looking like I was being targeted.

The more you put yourself in a vulnerable position the more you would be looked down upon.

“It’s okay to make your hypothetical statement.”

Theodore took a deep breath and was silent for a few seconds before speaking, “That day, May 10th, I went to Malaboia High School a little after 3:00 p.m. I was there to see Josie, I wanted to tell him that I had a girlfriend, a chick who was even better than her.

Afterward I heard gunshots and ducked into the music building.

I didn’t think I’d be that unlucky, and the shooter followed me in ‘bang bang bang’ with a barrage of shots.

I was scared silly.

I knew I couldn’t just sit around and wait to die, so I started to fight back.

But I had just gotten the gun and hadn’t practiced with it before, and the recoil was really high, and I couldn’t control the accuracy of the gun at all, and I hit a student.

A white kid who played football, I loved football, I’d seen him on the field, a fast white kid.

I screwed up, that’s what happened. I just shot an innocent by mistake in a counterattack, that’s all.

I’m willing to plead guilty to the charges if you guys will give me a plea deal for manslaughter.”

“GOOD,” Luke nodded, it was good that the suspect wanted to plead guilty, and he didn’t mind closing the case as long as he could form a complete chain of evidence.

He had just found out about the suspicion of Hollip, and Theodore’s side confessed to the crime, it was always a bit unsettling in his heart.

Luke was prepared to verify it clearly, lest the case recur in the future to implicate himself.

“Name the exact time you arrived at Malaboa High School, the more specific the better.”

Theodore thought for a moment and shook his head, “I only remember it was after 3:00, I can’t remember any more precise time.”

“Your stolen Rolex can’t even keep time?”

Theodore glared at Luke, “I can’t even read a watch, are you satisfied?”

“Ask the exact time again?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anyone seen you enter the campus?”

“Of course, it’s not like I’m invisible, but I’m not a student at Malaboia High School, so they may not recognize me.”

“So there were no witnesses?”

“If you want eyewitnesses, you go find them, shouldn’t that be the responsibility of the police?”

“Did Tris Riel go to Malaboa High School?”

“No, this has nothing to do with her.”

“How could it have nothing to do with her, didn’t you want to tell Josie she had a new girlfriend? Why don’t you just bring Tris there, wouldn’t that work better?”

Theodore thought for a moment, “I haven’t dated Josie at all, I bragged about it in front of Tris, and I was worried about the lie being caught, so I chose to go alone.”

“You were carrying that Colt Python revolver?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell us about the route you took once you entered the campus and what happened after the gun went off?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Then think hard.”

“I’ve already agreed to plead guilty, so why give me a hard time?”

“No one is making it difficult for you, the prerequisite for a plea agreement is when the facts of the case are clear, if your account is not clear, the prosecution simply will not agree to a plea agreement for manslaughter. Understand?”

Theodore pinched his forehead and sighed, “I remember when I entered the school, I went straight over to the music building, knowing that Josie would be practicing her dance there, and went there early to wait for her.

But instead of waiting for her, I waited for the shooter.”

“Who all was present when you shot?”

“It was a chaotic situation, and I wasn’t sure if there was anyone else at the scene? Then I accidentally shot the white kid by mistake and I freaked out and ran away.”

“You watch a lot of football games at Malaboia High School?”

“Not really often, occasionally.”

“Do you know Hollip?”

Theodore looked a little agitated, his eyes flickering and looking around from time to time, “Seems to be a quarterback player at Malaboa High School, I have an impression of him, he’s pretty good.”

“How are you guys related?”

“We’re not related, I just know him.”

“I thought you guys would be close?”

“I don’t know what gave you that illusion, but you thought wrong.”

“The last time I went to your house, I found a picture of you on your desk wearing the number 9 rugby jersey, that would be Hollip’s jersey, I heard that he would only give it to someone close to him, how did you get it?”

Theodore’s forehead showed fine beads of sweat, “I remember one time when Malaboa High School won a game, and Hollip was so happy he took off the jersey he was wearing and threw it into the stands, and I was lucky enough to pick it up.

He might have gotten a good price for it later when he became a football star.”

“Where’s that revolver you were using?”

“I threw it overboard.”

“Nice place to dispose of the murder weapon, huh?”

“Thanks for the compliment, can we make a plea deal now?”

Luke also wanted to close the case, but the problem now was that no murder weapon had been found, there were no eyewitnesses, and the course of action was not clearly described, there were still quite a lot of doubts in this case.

“You said you were attacked by a gunman in the music classroom?”

“Yes.”

“Describe the shooter’s appearance?”

Theodore visibly froze, “He was wearing a mask, a hat and gloves, I couldn’t see exactly what he looked like, and I I was so nervous I can’t remember anymore.”

“What kind of mask?”

“A clown mask.”

“Describe it carefully.”

“It was one of those clown masks you see all the time, and I was too nervous to see it.”

Luke turned the pen in his hand, as soon as he asked for details Theodore couldn’t say, either he was hiding something, if he hadn’t experienced it first hand, or of course, it was possible that he was too freaked out to remember it himself, as he said.

“That’s it for the transcript for now.”

“Do we have a plea bargain?”

“I’ll provide your confession to the prosecution, and if they see no problem with it, a plea deal can be reached.”

“How long will I …… get?”

“You should ask a lawyer, not me.” Luke finished and left the interrogation room.

After leaving the interrogation room, Black followed up with, “Are you really going to give that confession to the prosecution?”

“No, I’ll give it to the captain.”

“Do you think this kid is lying?”

Luke asked rhetorically, “You should know better about him, don’t you think?”

Black frowned slightly, “I think there’s probably something going on here.”

“What is it?”

Xiao Hei stroked his chin and said with a serious face, “Two possibilities, one possibility is that he was threatened, and another possibility is that he was helping someone to take the blame.”

“You don’t think he’s a murderer?”

“I’ve seen too many people like him, who worship freedom, scorn the law, and live from day to day with no long-term plans at all.

If they weren’t pushed to the brink of extinction, they would never take the initiative to confess to a crime, he’s too proactive, so proactive that I’m a little embarrassed.”

Although Blackie was average in his ability to investigate cases conveniently, he knew the black community better.

“Then are you inclined to think that he helped Hollip take the blame, or was he threatened?”

Blackie rarely showed a serious expression, “It’s hard to say, or it could be both, I think we should go meet Tris, that woman definitely knows more than we do.

Trust me, a black punk like Theodore can’t hide things in bed.”

“Listen to you.” Luke patted Black on the shoulder and the two of them made a trip to the captain’s office before driving to Theodore’s house.

Neither Theodore, nor Tris’ brother had implicated her and had been released.

It was already a bit dark when the two drove to Theodore’s house.

The car was parked in front of Theodore’s house and Luke stepped down from the passenger side.

Not far away were two black men smoking cigarettes looking over at Luke.

Luke also craned his head to stare at them, pressing his right hand on the butt of his gun until he turned away from the two men looking at them a little furtively.

Black smiled, “Don’t be so nervous, these punks wouldn’t dare mess around with me.”

“I would like them to mess around, just so I can try my marksmanship.”

Xiao Hei was a bit surprised, “So ferocious.”

“There is no need to be polite when dealing with these scum.” This truth Luke understood in his last life, just that in his last life he didn’t shoot as casually as he did now.

Blackie laughed, “Man, ever since the last time you hit that suspect at the garage, you’ve been getting more and more confident in your marksmanship, and I’d say it might be an illusion.

In the past, your shooting skills were not as good as mine, and last time was most likely just a coincidence.

We could have a warm-up match sometime, the gambling kind.”

Luke bristled, “You’d lose by your underwear.”

Blacky thought Luke was bragging and was unimpressed, “Thank you for being so kind and knowing to leave me with a pair of panties.”

Luke stopped, “Stop talking shit and knock.”

“Knock knock ……”

“Who’s out there, the old lady is pissed off and on fire right now, if you don’t want to get your ass kicked get out of here early.” Tris’s scolding voice came from the house.

“Cluck ……” The door opened.

Tris stared with wide eyes as if she was going to spit out fire, “It’s you two assholes again, what do you want? Even catch me together?”

Xiao Hei said, “Tris, don’t be so angry, we came to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about between us. You guys can go, I never, ever, ever want to see you again.”

“What about Theodore? Do you want to see him?”

“You’re the ones who took him away from me, and you have the nerve to say this?” Tris’s voice choked, “I don’t know what to say, you guys are the devil, you took my brother, you took my boyfriend, and now you’re taunting me.

My life has been ruined by you guys, I’m going to be homeless again soon, I don’t even know what I’m going to do from now on, are you satisfied?”

Luke squared his shoulders and said, “Tris, don’t be hostile to us, we’re here to help you and to help Theodore. I’m sure you should know something, if you want Theodore out sooner, let’s talk.”

Tris was silent for a long time and stepped aside.

Luke and Black entered the house and looked around out of habit.

The two sat on the couch.

Tris clasped her hands in front of her, “If there’s anything you guys want to talk about, just say it. If you say something more useless, I can’t promise I won’t throw you guys out.”

Luke got right to the point, “Were you with Theodore on May 10th between three twenty and four in the afternoon.”

Tris said coldly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s important to Theodore, it’s about whether or not he’ll go to jail.”

“Then why don’t you guys go ask him? He should know better himself.”

“Of course he does know, we’ve already asked over and got you here to verify his statement.”

Tris sighed, “I already said that last time.”

“You did say that, but the time we captured at the gas station was 2:40 p.m. Theodore had all the time in the world to get back to the school to commit the crime, so where did you go after you left the gas station?”

Tris lowered her head and scratched her forehead hard with a torn look.

Luke urged, “You’re the only one who can save Theodore if you tell the truth.”

Tris raised her head and took a deep breath, as if she had made a decision, “We were coming back from Highway 1, and Theodore received a ……” Tris’ words came to an abrupt end, and her eyes looked in the direction of the window, revealing a look of horror.

Luke whipped his head around and a dark shadow flashed by the window.

He drew his pistol and rushed straight out of the house.

Luke reached the door, the black shadow had fled into the distance.

Black followed suit and shouted, “LAPD, stop immediately.”

It didn’t do much good, the black shadow ran even faster.

“Be careful, this guy might have a gun.” Luke said and chased after him.

“FUCK, those pesky niggers!” Blackie cursed and followed.

Both sides once again started a chase.

It was getting darker and darker, making the chase difficult.

Fortunately, the two Luke’s had already been to this neighborhood twice, and had one arrest experience, and knew the surroundings better, so they didn’t let the suspects escape.

Suddenly, the black shadow pulled out a gun from his arms and waved his hand to shoot without looking back.

“Bang Bang!”

Although the accuracy was insufficient, Luke and Blackie didn’t dare to be careless.

Luke also shot back.

“Bang!”

A single shot hit the suspect’s right arm.

“Ah!” The other party let out a cry of pain, and because he ran too fast, he directly fell to the ground and rolled a few times, blood flowing all over his arm.

The pistol also fell to the side.

Xiao Hei was shocked.

With an unbelievable face, he looked at Luke.

At night the light is dim, originally affects the shooting hit rate, and the other party is still in front of the fast running, in his place, nine times out of ten can not hit.

Luke only fired one shot to hit the other party, and still hit the arm, too powerful.

Coincidence?

Monked?

Or the shooting skill has become better.

Xiao Hei couldn’t figure it out, he remembered that Luke’s shooting skill used to be very bad, even worse than him, how come he was suddenly so dense.

Luke put away his pistol, and instructed Xiao Hei on the side, “Cuff him.”

“I’m shot, I’m shot, I need to go to the hospital, you guys can’t cuff me.”

“We can.” Black took out his handcuffs and instead of cuffing the suspect’s hands, he only cuffed his left hand to the bars.

Luke put his pistol in a Ziploc bag.

Blacky seemed to remember something and turned to Luke and asked, “Did you just hit him with one shot?”

“Are you starting to worship me?”

“Uh, how can I say it? Maybe …… a little bit.” Blackie gestured with his index finger and thumb.

Luke laughed, “Don’t be embarrassed, there are more people who worship me, be confident.”

“Why did your marksmanship become so good?” Blackie was a little envious and curious.

Being a police officer in Los Angeles, marksmanship was the number one means to save one’s life.

“I’ve been practicing my marksmanship with Ramon lately, he’s a good coach and has helped me a lot.” In fact, Luke also used the precision card, otherwise it was difficult to hit the black man running in the night, the difficulty was too high.

“OK, buy me a drink tonight, I can pass on some of your experience in marksmanship, but right now we need to talk to this guy.” Luke finished crouching down and observing the black suspect’s wound, his arm oozing blood outward.

“Ah!” A wailing sound came out of the black suspect’s mouth.

Blackie took off his jacket and wrapped his sleeve around the location of the gunshot wound to help stop the bleeding.

Luke sat down and lit a cigarette, “Why did you assault the police?”

“I didn’t assault the police, I was just shooting at the sky in, getting ready to scare you guys off.”

“What were you doing at Theodore’s house just now? Planning to climb in through the window and rob it?”

“No, you’re making a false accusation, I was just trying to look in the window.”

“Look at what?”

“I heard that the man of this family was arrested, I was afraid that the woman of this family was sad, so I wanted to comfort each other.”

Hearing this explanation, Luke smiled, “You are really kind, why did you run?”

“Because you guys chased me.”

“Are you talking off the cuff to me?”

“No, you guys got it wrong, I’m not a bad guy, I was just looking by the window, I didn’t do anything, and I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I swear.”

“What’s your relationship with Theodore?”

“Never mind, I don’t know who Theodore is either? I just heard that the man from that family had been arrested. Wanted to comfort his family.”

“Heard from who?”

Black suspect: “I can’t remember, probably someone in the neighborhood, I have quite a few friends.”

Luke wasn’t buying his bullshit and was about to try further when Black cocked his head and gave Luke a color and the two stepped aside to talk.

“What do we got?”

Blacky raised his chin and whispered, “See that tattoo on that guy’s arm?”

“A black skull?”

Blacky looked certain, “That’s the mark of the Skull and Bones Gang, this kid is most likely a gangster.”

Luke recalled, “Skull Gang, sounds like something familiar.”

Blackie reminded, “The Skull Gang is the biggest gang in the neighborhood, and the area of Malaboa High School is under this gang’s control.”

Luke thought briefly, “You think the Skull and Bones gang is involved in the shooting?”

“I don’t know, but their people have been involved in the case, so why not ask? In my experience, there’s no chance they’ll have some leads the police don’t know about.

This guy’s in a gang, he’d be afraid to talk out of his ass, and it’d be hard to pry him away.

And even if we pry his mouth open, we may not know much.”

Luke nodded, in the whole Heist and Murder Division One Squadron Blackie was the one who knew the most about gangs.

“Can you contact the boss of the Skull and Bones Gang?”

“I can try.” Blacky sounded a little uncertain, “But it’s best to go back tomorrow, meeting at night is not a good idea.”