Chapter 502
Leitner neighborhood.
Luke led the team to the neighborhood near the home of the owner of the suspect vehicle.
He didn’t get out of the car right away and took binoculars to observe, it was a gray bungalow, the house was small in size, and the windows and garage door were tightly closed.
Luke observed the house for a while, and there was no unusual movement inside or outside the house.
He instructed the others to stand by in the car and let the two men, Blackie and Jackson, get out of the car to check the situation before deciding on their next move.
The two men got out of the car, looked around for a moment, and walked into the yard of Arnett Stone’s house, one after the other.
Black looked up to check the area and found no cameras.
Blacky first walked to the door of the house and listened, there was no movement, he gave Jackson a hand signal, Blacky checked the left side of the house and Jackson checked the right side of the house.
Blacky walked through the front door to the left side of the house and peered into the house through the glass on the left side.
The house was a bit of a mess, but there was no sign of anyone.
“Hey, what are you doing?” A sudden voice startled Kuro.
Xiao Hei twisted his head to see that there was an older white woman standing in the yard next door with her hands clasped to her chest, looking at herself with a wary face, seemingly treating him as a thief.
Xiao Hei was about to say something.”
The white amah revealed a disgusted look and threatened, “Hey, this is not the place for you to come, leave here immediately, otherwise, I will call the police.”
Blackie flashed his badge, “You don’t have to call, I’m the police.”
Jackson heard the commotion and came over as well, “Detective, didn’t see anyone in the house.”
The white older woman was a little embarrassed, “Sorry, I didn’t know you were cops.”
Black put away his badge and approached the white amah and asked, “Ma’am, do you know anyone in this house?”
“Yes, Mr. Arnett Stone, I don’t think he’s home, what do you guys want with him?”
“We are investigating a case and would like to get some information from him, when did you last see him?”
“December 21st.”
Xiao Hei counted with his fingers, today is the 25th, four days have passed, in his experience, many people can’t remember the first two days, let alone the first four days: “Ma’am, how do you remember so clearly?”
The white older woman shrugged, “I was on my great aunt that day.”
Kuro’s cheeks twitched, “Wow, a special day indeed.”
“That’s right, don’t know what you guys do but Mr. Arnett Stone is a good man and a very righteous reporter.”
Jackson pressed, “Ma’am, what TV station is he a reporter for?”
“I think he used to be a reporter for CBS, but now he seems to be an independent reporter, and every time we get together, he tells something really interesting.”
“Was there anything special about his house in the past two days? Like any other people coming in or out or noises or anything like that?”
The white older woman thought for a moment, “No.
But a girl approached him yesterday, a very pretty Asian girl who claimed to be his friend.”
Blackie pressed, “Do you have the girl’s contact information?”
“I don’t know, just that her last name is Inoue, and she was hoping that when I met Arnett Stone I could help pass it on so that Arnett Stone would call her back.
She’s very polite and I’m pretty impressed with her.”
Black made a mental note of the somewhat unfamiliar last name, “Ma’am, to your knowledge, has Arnett Stone offended anyone?”
“No, he was on good terms with his neighbors in the community.”
“He didn’t live with his family.”
“He was single.”
“Okay, thank you very much for your assistance.”
“Sir, can I ask what happened?”
“The case is still under investigation, it’s too early to tell.” Blackie said goodbye to the large white woman and returned to the car, telling Luke about the situation.
Luke decided to take immediate action after much deliberation.
Luke guarded the front door while Blackie led the team into the house from the back to search.
“There was a loud bang.
The back door of the house was kicked open.
Blacky rushed into the house with his men, “LAPD.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
The house wasn’t big, only two rooms, the police quickly finished searching the rooms and found no suspicious figures.
Luke then entered the house to check it out, he started by sniffing the smells and didn’t smell blood or disinfectant.
The room was a mess, there were worn clothes on the couch in the living room and the smell of rotting household garbage wafted from the trash can.
The drawers in the living room showed signs of having been rummaged through.
Luke had to go into the bedrooms to check them out, the larger bedroom held beds, the drawers also showed signs of being rummaged through, and there was a picture on the nightstand of Arnett Stone herself with the Statue of Liberty in the background.
Luke went to another bedroom, this bedroom has no beds, it should be for office use, there are tables, cabinets, whiteboards, and many documents scattered on the floor.
Luke picked up the papers on the floor to check them out, they were all news reports and information.
Luke felt that this place should have been broken into.
Jackson came over, “Captain, I found a thousand dollars in cash in a cabinet in the other bedroom.”
Although the identity of the deceased could not be determined until a DNA test was done.
But from the evidence available, it was likely that Arnett Stone was the owner of the shredded body.
Taking into account the occupation of the other party, it is likely that he was investigating something he should not know before being silenced.
From the situation at the scene, the murderer had probably come to Arnett Stone’s house and taken away relevant information and evidence.
The priority now was to find the reason why Arnett Stone had been silenced.
“Marcus, you are responsible for finding the Asian woman named Inoue.”
“Jenny, contact Arnett Stone’s family and ask them to come to the police station for DNA identification.”
“Okay, Captain.”
Luke stayed at the scene and waited for the tech team to survey the scene.
The tech team had collected some of the homeowner’s biopsies and would match them to the crushed body when they returned.
When the technical team finished exploring the scene, Luke brought all the information from the house back to the police station.
At this point, although the identity of the deceased could not be determined yet and could not wait forever, Luke could only follow the clues to continue the investigation.
Inside the First Squadron office, the information and documents brought back from Arnett Stone’s house took up two tables.
The lieutenant shook his head, “This is going to be busy.”
Luke said, “There’s a good chance that the secret of Arnett Stone’s murder is hidden in these documents.”
The lieutenant bristled, the greater likelihood was that valuable information had been taken by the killer.
The Vice Squad didn’t expect much from the documents, but they still had to look at them, that’s how investigating a case is, even if you know that most of what you’re doing is useless, but you have to do it anyway.
Viewed the information, did not find clues, shows that you are dedicated.
Information inside the hidden clues, you did not view, that is malpractice.
Just at this moment, Matthew used the computer to connect to the projector: ”Captain, I followed your instructions and drew the roadmap of the suspect vehicle between March 21st and March 23rd.
The suspect vehicle left Arnett Stone’s neighborhood at 7pm on the 21st.
It traveled from the community driveway onto Lelvin Street, after which the car continued in a southerly direction and disappeared into an area with no cameras.
Just after 11:00 p.m. on the 22nd, that suspect vehicle reappeared in a roadway with a surveillance area, traveling in the direction of the Los Angeles River Bridge.
Afterwards, it once again returned to the neighborhood of Arnett Stone’s home.
After remaining in the neighborhood for approximately one hour, the car once again left Arnett Stone’s neighborhood and drove into an unsupervised area, and the vehicle was not seen again.
I notified the neighborhood patrol and asked for their assistance in locating the suspect vehicle.”
Luke nodded, his eyes fixed on the projector, Matthew said it simply, but with Luke’s knowledge of the case, he was roughly able to analyze the course of the case.
This driving map should be divided into two nodes, before the night of March 21st, it should be Arnett Stone himself driving, after that Arnett Stone was killed, the murderer drove Arnett Stone’s car to the bridge of the Los Angeles River to dump the body, and then drove to Arnett Stone’s house to take away the documents.
From this analysis, the place where Arnett Stone was killed should be in the area where the car disappeared on the night of March 21st.
Luke then opened his computer and scrutinized the location where the car disappeared on the night of the 21st, and the location where the car reappeared on the night of the 22nd.
The scene of Arnett Stone’s murder would be the area around these two locations.
Luke studied the area carefully, zooming in on every building ……
Eventually, he selected a target, the Roget’s Slaughterhouse.
Luke instructed, ”Matthew, investigate the information about this slaughterhouse and send it to my cell phone.
Everyone else pack up and leave in five minutes.”
In a Ford SUV.
Jackson sat in the cab and drove, wondering, “Captain, how do you know there’s something wrong with this slaughterhouse?”
“The way the killings are done.
It’s not easy to process a body into mincemeat, first of all, there has to be a cooler big enough to freeze the body so that it can be used to cut a flat blade with a machine.
Those who choose this method of killing are either perverts with special psychological needs.
Either that or they have a convenient disposal tool.
Judging from Arnett Stone’s occupation, he should have been killed for offending some people, so the murderer killing should be the second case.
It would be difficult for an ordinary family to fulfill both requirements, and disposing of the body in this way would instead be more troublesome.
But a slaughterhouse is different, ready-made cold storage, ready-made cutting machines, very suitable for disposing of corpses in this way.
There will be no blood left behind when it’s done, it’s easy to clean up the scene, and at the same time, it will be difficult for the police to identify the body, which will make the investigation more difficult.”
Jackson also felt that Luke’s analysis made sense and subconsciously asked, “Then why did Arnett Stone go to the slaughterhouse?”
Luke shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe there is a big secret hidden there.”
Half an hour later, the police arrived at Roget’s Slaughterhouse.
The gate of the slaughterhouse was closed, according to the clues that Matthew had found out, the slaughterhouse had filed for bankruptcy more than a month ago and had suspended production.
However, in recent times, the slaughterhouse had a record of using electricity at night.
This point instead confirmed Luke’s guess.
Luke led people to block the slaughterhouse’s main gate, while Ramon led people to guard the back door.
Looking in from the gate, the slaughterhouse was empty and looked a bit run down, and there was no sign of anyone.
For safety’s sake, the police still sent a drone in the air camera reconnaissance.
The drone captured the entire slaughterhouse and found no human activity.
Luke then led the men into the slaughterhouse’s outer yard, where the plant’s doors were locked and the windows and doors were closed, so the drone had no way of filming the inside of the plant.
Porter climbed outside the windows of the plant and looked through them to see what was going on inside; the plant was divided into several areas, and he saw no signs of personnel activity either.
However, because there was a visual blind spot, he couldn’t be completely sure, he still needed the police to enter the factory building and search.
After making the preparations.
Luke ordered to enter and search inside the plant.
Blackie opened the lock of the factory building door, pushed open the door, and the police entered the interior of the factory building to search.
Luke didn’t enter the first time, but sat at the back, alert to the surrounding situation.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
With a loud confirmation.
Luke’s heart also relaxed.
A few minutes later, the interior of the factory building was searched, and no suspicious people were seen, and no obvious bloodstains were found.
Luke also entered the interior of the plant and searched it, the first thing he checked was the cold storage, which was intact, with traces of recent use.
He then saw the meat cutting machine, which was electrified and ready for use.
Of course, these guesses were just that – guesses – after all, it was normal to have such equipment in a slaughterhouse.
The forensic and technical teams then arrived at the scene.
The forensic doctor, Sheila, directly had the knives and gears of the meat slicer disassembled, and Sheila used tweezers to pick up some of the minced meat tissue for a closer look.
“Yes, it’s human tissue, and this should be the first crime scene.
It’s the first time I’ve seen a murder weapon of this size.” Sheila looked a little frazzled and seemed to be thinking about how to transport it back to the police station.
From the east side of the plant came the echo of Mary, “Captain Luke, I’ve got something on my side.”
Luke followed into a room with simple desks and chairs, he frowned, vaguely smelling a chemical odor.
Mary pointed to a blue dumpster.
“We found some discarded wires in the dumpster, four timer boxes, the box with peroxide, the outer packaging of acetone lacquer thinner ……”
With Mary’s words, Luke’s face grew more and more stony with a bad feeling, “Someone’s making a bomb here?”
Mary shrugged, “I don’t know if he made it or not, but these materials do make bombs.”
Luke sighed, “I see, let’s see if we can collect the biopsy material.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do that without you telling me.”
Luke reviewed the known clues of the case in his mind.
Arnett Stone was supposedly investigating some big story, tracked down the slaughterhouse, saw the killer making a bomb, was accidentally discovered by the killer, and was brutally murdered.
Arnett Stone had been killed.
The murderer has escaped.
The purpose of the killer’s bomb-making is unknown for now.
But it certainly won’t be used for charity.
Luke took out his cell phone and called Reed directly, if the bomb couldn’t be traced in time, the whole of Los Angeles would be in a state of emergency.