Chapter 273
EARLY MORNING.
Detective Bureau.
A black Toyota car drove into the police station parking lot.
Xiao Hei pulled up the handbrake, took the passenger side of the backpack ready to get off, just opened the door to see the side to drive over a gray seven series BMW.
Xiao Hei looked down at his car again and rolled his eyes, “Nasty little rookie.”
A few moments later, the driver’s door of the BMW opened and Jackson stepped out of the car, Black was about to say hello when he suddenly froze.
The passenger door opened as well, and Jenny stepped out of the passenger side.
“Evening Karma!” Blackie gave an exaggerated expression, “Jenny, why did you come in the little rookie’s car?”
Jackson was disgruntled, “Marcus, I have a name.”
“I know, Rookie.
But why did you guys come together?”
Jenny said, “We’re roommates now.”
“Wow wow …… you guys live together now?” Black pointed to Jackson and then to Jenny with a playful smile.
Jenny knew what he was thinking, “Just roommates really, Jackson was looking for an apartment and I just happened to be looking for someone to split the rent with, so, I rented him one of the rooms.”
“That’s it?” Black asked in a questioning tone.
“Yes, it’s that simple, is there a problem?” Jenny said matter-of-factly.
“OK, congratulations guys, hey.” Blacky gave a bad joke and went up the stairs.
Looking at Blacky’s background, Jackson showed a helpless look, “This loudmouth saw it, it’s equal to the whole police department knowing about it.”
“Jackson, we should stick to being ourselves, why should we care about outside comments, as long as we have a clear conscience.
It’s a fact that we live together, there’s no need to hide it deliberately.
Besides, don’t you forget, this is the Detective Bureau.”
Jackson deflated a bit, “You’re right, I just didn’t think it would be this soon.”
“The captain already knew yesterday, and as for Marcus …… just ignore him.” Jenny laughed.
The ignored Marcus ran into the office at a hundred meter sprint with a big grin, “Guess who I just saw?”
Matthew was looking down at his computer, Ramon wasn’t responding, Luke and the lieutenants weren’t there.
Black wondered how no one was there when he clearly saw Luke’s Mercedes.
“Where’s Luke?”
Matthew raised his head and pointed at the captain’s office, “The captain is in the office.”
Inside the captain’s office.
Luke was wiping the table with a rag.
The table wasn’t dirty, but he still wanted to wipe it and it was a familiarization process.
Luke was promoted to Acting Lieutenant Captain, and in addition to the change in pay and benefits, he also obtained his own independent office.
This feeling was great.
From now on, he could touch the fish with honor.
Luke wiped down all the items in the office, which was also a familiarization process.
The entire office was about a dozen square meters, and the furnishings were simple, with desks, chairs, computers, sofas, filing cabinets, and water dispensers.
This was a small independent space, so Luke was free to do whatever he wanted to do in the future.
Packed up his personal belongings, Luke sat on the office chair, I don’t know whether it is a psychological effect, I feel that this chair is much more comfortable than the chair outside.
Luke glanced at the clock on the wall, it was exactly 9:05 a.m. Although Susan had already left, there were some good rules he was going to keep, like having morning meetings.
A lot of people didn’t like meetings, but there were certain peculiarities to the police profession that required not only teamwork, but also timely sharing of information.
Luke walked out of his office with a dossier that needed additional evidence and greeted the crowd, “Guys, it’s time for the morning meeting.”
The crowd arrived at the conference room, Luke sat at the main seat of the conference table, the feeling was still very different.
Blacky sat at the bottom seat, honestly it was the first time he had ever sat here, “Where’s the lieutenant? How come I haven’t seen him.”
“The vice team took a leave of absence to rest today.” Luke responded indifferently, the vice squad, although older, usually rarely took leave.
However, he could probably guess the old man’s mind.
South of Los Angeles, Sutter Park.
An old white-haired man was carrying a suitcase, walking on the path by the river, feeling a little distracted.
There were quite a few anglers by the river, the white-haired old man would look at them as he passed by, and after walking a little further, the old man stopped, watched the river for a while, and put down the box in his hand.
He opened the lid of the box, took out a folding bench and sat down, and took out his fishing gear and slowly assembled it.
This old man was none other than Vice Captain Vince of the Robbery and Murder Division.
“Hey ……” Wen Sen sighed, feeling a little stifled in his heart.
He has been a police officer for more than forty years, but now he is still only a vice squad, Luke that brat can be his grandson, but he has ridden on his head.
To say that there is no opinion, that is definitely unrealistic.
He is also aware of his own age to be promoted the possibility of very small, and even if promoted is not very meaningful, even if it is not Luke as a captain, but also from the outside to transfer a new captain.
However, after understanding, his heart was still a little short of the mark.
If a person can be rational all the time, it can only show that you don’t care, once encountered the things you care about, the same will have emotional fluctuations.
Today was Luke’s first official day on the job, and the vice squad chose to come fishing.
He felt that this would make his emotions a little calmer, and also avoid being unable to control his emotions to tear Luke down.
All in all, it was better for everyone.
Vince’s fishing skills weren’t great, he had been net busy all his life and hadn’t had much time to fish, drumming for half a day before hanging up the bait and flinging the hook into the river.
Looking at the calm surface of the lake, he felt his emotions gradually smoothing out.
“Hey, it’s biting.” A man’s voice came from the upper reaches of the river.
Vince twisted his head to look and saw an old Mexican man standing up, grasping the fishing rod with both hands and recovering the line.
It looked like he had caught a fish.
The old Mexican man also turned his head to look at Vince.
In Vince’s eyes is naked showing off, this can still be tolerated?
Is not just fishing a fish? As if anyone would not like.
Vincent is not willing to show weakness, began to fish with all his heart.
After a while, the fish drift suddenly sinks, Wen Sen pulls the rod while shouting, “Fish on!”
Wen Sen yanked up the rod and caught a palm-sized small fish, although it was a little small, but it was better than nothing.
Vince threw the small fish into the basket, re-baited it, and flung the rod into the river.
Vince swept a glance at the old Mexican man and muttered darkly, “Tied.”
Time passed by, and Vince caught two more fish, but none of them were very big.
The old Mexican man over there also caught two fish, the two old men didn’t communicate, but there was a vague feeling of rivalry.
“Hey baby, come to daddy.”
The old Mexican man stood up and gripped the rod hard, looking like he had caught another fish.
“FUCK!” said Lieutenant Vince, a little depressed about how he was a little faster than he was every time.
“Ow ……”
The old Mexican man yelled, his hands looked like they were burned, and he dropped the rod straight away, rolling and crawling towards the distance, shouting, as he did so.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell was that!”
“The old man runs pretty fast.” The vice squad was a little puzzled, this is to see what, scared fishing rod are thrown away.
The old Mexican guy ran so far away that he could no longer be seen.
Vince was a little curious, slipped and walked over, looked at the surface of the river, did not find anything ah?
Afterwards, he picked up the fishing rod on the ground and tugged hard, it was heavy, like a big fish biting, but it didn’t feel like a fish.
The fishing line was hard to retrieve and the lieutenant could only drag it upward with force.
Gradually an object surfaced, and even though the vice squad was mentally prepared, they were startled.
The fish hook hooked a female corpse, no clothing, skin like white paper, further up actually no head.
Half an hour later.
In a black Ford Explorer.
Luke was sitting in the passenger side, he didn’t expect a case on his first official day on the job.
“This old man really knows how to find trouble.”
Blackie snickered, “Do you think it could be the vice squad seeing that you were promoted too quickly and causing you some trouble, could he be the real murderer!”
Luke laughed, “Then if I solve the case, get the credit, and sit in the captain position, the old man must not be mad.”
Blackie nodded repeatedly, “That’s right, that’s how it’s played out in the movies.
Originally I wanted to watch a movie with Julian tonight, but it looks like it’s out of the question again.”
Luke said, “You’ve been in good shape lately.”
“Of course, I’m going to be a father, I have a gym every day now, go to bed early and get up early, you need a good body to raise a family.” After Blacky finished speaking, he seemed to remember something.
“Hey Luke, guess what I saw this morning?”
“An alien ship landed in LA?”
“No, I’m being serious, I saw Jenny riding to work in Jackson’s car, the two of them live together now.
There’s definitely something going on with those two, even if it’s okay now, it’s going to happen sooner or later, it’s a proper office romance.
Originally I didn’t want to be nosy, but you’re my partner and the captain, I thought you should know.”
“Oh yeah? That’s amazing.” Luke said lightly.
Blackie gave Luke a look, “You knew?”
“No.”
“You must know something, you’re my partner, I can tell.”
Damn you, you get smarter when it comes to things like this.
Black asked, “They really have something?”
“Stop gossiping and drive.” Luke cried a little, those two people are also, why are they so careless.
Soon, Luke led the team to Suter Park.
The river has been surrounded by a cordon, there are a lot of onlookers around, a dozen or so patrolmen are on the scene to maintain order.
A white-haired old man stood by the river and greeted, “Guys, I’m sorry we meet again today.
My vacation is fizzling out and you guys are coming out for some sunshine.”
Luke swept around and noticed a humanoid object covered in a body wrap not far away, “Lieutenant, what’s the scene?”
“Captain? Captain Luke.” The lieutenant called out twice somewhat uncomfortably, muttering, “Looks like I’ve got a lot of getting used to.”
Luke ignored the old man’s broken voice and waited for him to follow.
The lieutenant thought for a moment and pointed not far away, “I’m on vacation today and I’m going to come to this park to fish, so I’m going to sit in that spot.
And in the spot next to the corpse, there was an old Mexican man fishing, the two of us didn’t talk but formed a kind of healthy competition.
We started fishing about nine o’clock in the morning, and when we got to about ten thirty, the old Mexican man suddenly yelled out, and seemed to be frightened by something in the river, and even threw his own fishing rod away.
I went over to where he was fishing, pulled the rod up, and found a mutilated body hanging from it.”
The lieutenant pointed to the shrouded body bag on the ground again, “I had the patrolman carry the body to shore to avoid it being washed away by the river, very strange body to look at.”
Luke looked over, only to see that the coroner, Sheila, had lifted the shrouded body bag, revealing the body underneath.
A female body without a head, there were quite a few wounds on the body, judging from the skin color it should be a white woman, and judging from the decomposition of the body, the time of death should not be too long.
This is only Luke’s intuitive impression, the specific circumstances have to be forensic to determine.
After understanding the general situation, Luke began to arrange the task.
Raymond and Jenny were responsible for questioning the crowd to see if there were any other witnesses.
Jackson was responsible for taking the fingerprints of the deceased to see if he could use the fingerprint detector to determine the identity of the other party.
Blackie with a patrolman was in charge of taking statements from the old Mexican man who had been fishing.
The tech team also dispatched officers to dive to the bottom of the river to collect evidence.
Luke and the vice squad stayed at the river to continue their investigation.
Luke squatted down and observed the current, “Did you see anyone suspicious while you were fishing?”
The vice squad thought for a moment, “There have been people swimming in the park, but no suspected body dumpers were found. And looking at the decomposition of the body, it should have been dead for a while.”
“Lieutenant, you have more experience in handling cases, have you encountered any cases of headless corpses before?”
Vince shrugged, “Of course, but it’s been too long and I can’t remember. I only remember that it should be a gang vendetta, the target is usually a male, rarely a female is decapitated, the nature is completely different.”
Luke walked along the river for a while, searching for clues that might have been left along the river, but didn’t find any suspicious items.
After a while, Jackson approached and reported, “Captain, the dead man’s fingerprint data was not matched successfully.”
“I see.” Luke responded, the female victim was decapitated and the fingerprint information could not be traced, making it difficult to confirm the identity of the deceased at first glance.
Twenty minutes later, Blackie also came over, “Captain, we gave a statement to the old man of Mexican descent, his statement was the same as the vice squad’s description, he was terrified by the headless female corpse and couldn’t provide any valuable clues.
Prayed to God the whole time.”
The vice squad laughed, “That old man was scared shitless at the time, he should have nothing to do with this case, and, I don’t think this should be the first dumping site.”
“How do you judge that?” Luke, even though he became a captain and his position was higher than Vince’s, still respected him, at least the surface work had to be done.
The lieutenant pointed to the sides of the river, “This river is a branch of the Los Angeles River, the bottom is all concrete-built aqueducts, and the topography of the river is relatively flat, so as long as there are no falling weights on the bodies, they could have drifted with the current.
The river is a dozen miles long, and anywhere upstream could be a dump site.”
Luke showed a thoughtful look, the deputy team’s words gave him a wake-up call, according to this speculation, if the time of the victim’s death was known, and the flow rate of the river was measured, would it be possible to backtrack to the approximate dumping site.