Chapter 3 Sunday, May 1

Police Lieutenant Kelly Lynch O'Shaughnessy parked her patrol car in the public parking lot on Clash Street, climbed the ramp to the boardwalk, and looked up at the ornamental piers of Ronin's Wharf to the north.These low piers continued to where the first waves of the sea broke away.It is the gloomiest time of the year at this time of year.The wooden scaffolding and entertainment decks have to wait until after Veterans Day weekend, when tourists start returning to the city. She crossed the sidewalk to the opposite side, then down the steps, down to the sand.A group of policemen were discussing something at the scene of the crime, and the newly appointed policemen wore yellow raincoats and dragged their nets back and forth on the beach to search.

Today's weather is gray and hazy, and quite unseasonably cold.She felt the sand get into her shoes and bent down to take them off.Looks like the pantyhose is out of the question, but walking in the sand in high heels is really hard. She was still wearing her church clothes, a silk blouse, a green wool skirt, and a dark blue plastic poncho with "Police" emblazoned on the back.In an emergency, she had to leave the girlfriends who were with her in church. A metal flashlight was tucked under her arm, and a hand-held radio hung next to the pistol at her waist.There were noisy conversations on the intercom, the voices of forensic technicians shouting from the boardwalk, and the voices of the police in the parking lot.Police found the suspect's car there.She stood for a moment, then pulled her feet out of the cold sand.She walked down the boardwalk and looked to the side of the drainpipe, where the criminal investigators were conducting on-site technical analysis, and someone was holding up a camera to take pictures of the scene.The drainpipe was at least three feet high, and it was difficult to step over in a skirt.She was thinking about how to find a way to cross over.

"Report sir, the site investigation is complete." A police officer came over and reported the situation to her through the drain pipe. She nodded, "What clue did you find?" "It looks like the victim was trying to hide behind the drainpipe halfway through the run," he continued, pointing forward. "That's where the blood ends, and you can see it very clearly if you walk over there. There's Remnants of some drugs; lots of handprints, probably left by the victim. Also, some hair, so long," he held out his hand, about a foot longer. "There's a lot scattered on the ground."

"Very good, thank you." After listening to the report, O'Shaughnessy took out a box of nicotine quit smoking gum① from his pocket, took out one piece, put it in his mouth, and then walked down the drain pipe into the sewer. "The rank of lieutenant, shit isn't it." Russell Dillon said, shaking his disgusting bald head, "I've been taking that selection test since 91, and I've never heard of a woman who was left unattended in the top two Those who stand out in the selection examination." The police officer who reported to O'Shaughnessy just now was named Doug McGuire. After hearing Dillon's words, he sighed softly and continued to scribble something in his notebook.

"That bitch has a good network. The mayor is covering her because of her father's face. Do you think I was born yesterday and don't know the inside story?" Dillon said, lighting a cigarette and taking a puff. McGuire looked up from his notes and said. "Her essay is better than ours. You have to admit that she is very smart." "Smart? Great, maybe you think she's smart. We're not that easy to fool." "Nobody's fooling you, Dillon. I know her, we've been working together." "No, Mike, you're working for her, not with her. I see, she just kicked you out of your nose, and you don't have the guts to take her down."

"Get what? She's better than me, I'll admit it. That's the end of the conversation." Dillon looked at him and shook his head. "No way, you are not patting, are you?" He shook his head and took a step back. "Holy shit," he laughed, "it's like having two boobs dangling in the men's room, and everyone is so dumbfounded that they forgot to wipe their butts. Not counting me, of course. Above Always promoted on his own terms. That's the reality. Women will always do better than us working people." He put on his hat and continued. "Tell her just say I said it, it's one bastard for another. Maybe she'll be interested in it."

"Tell her yourself if you have the ability." McGuire spat contemptuously. "Yeah, fine, maybe I will. See you later, officer—!" He said sarcastically to McGuire, his appearance seemed to convey some kind of hint, he grasped what others didn't know The secret of love. O'Shaughnessy walked forward shivering in the cold night.She smelled rotting wood covered in seaweed and barnacle carcasses.She held the torch above her head, and scanned it from her feet to the end of the drainpipe.Sewage dripped from cracks in the planks overhead and made a hollow ticking sound in the gutters.

It's not easy, she thought, sitting in church with her girlfriends an hour ago, and now she's in this damn place again.This often happens recently, I have to come out after staying with my girlfriends for a short time, and I often have to do this in the middle of the night.But she also knows that these jobs have earned her a promotion.It also earned her the respect of the men and women in the police station who ran out day and night.This respect does not come easily.Of course, this feeling doesn't last long.When these men are old, they may not even remember that O'Shaughnessy was a lieutenant.

The drainpipes are covered in graffiti, mostly initials, dates and expletives.There was a crack at the bottom of the pipe, allowing the sewage to create a small channel in the nearby sand.There was a deep stain on one side of the pipe, followed by a handprint smudge.Mike said a dog found the scene.This could be the crime scene.She saw blood stains left on the pipe wall on the ground.The victim must have been planning to hide here to avoid the murderer. O'Shaughnessy probed back and forth near the handprint, trying to imitate the scene of the crime.She placed her feet where the female victim's feet might have landed, then leaned her head as hard as she could toward the drainpipe.There was a large stain on the wall of the tube above her head, it looked like the girl had put her hand here, and the place was stained with blood from a wound.

Smashed beer cans lay at the other end of the drain, along with bottle caps and shards of glass. She turned the beam of the flashlight to check around the drain pipe several times, and found some blood splattered on the wall of the pipe, as well as some stains, which might have been left on someone's clothes.This is where the murderer passed when he dragged the victim back. O'Shaughnessy shone the flashlight down again and picked up a red hairpin from the ground.The metal edge of the clip was rusted and looked like it had been abandoned here for a long time, and she threw it away.To her left, some scrap cinders and a pile of broken boards, with some nails scattered on the ground.

She turned her head to look at the beach, and there was a pale light in the sky.McGuire and the others stayed there, sitting cross-legged under the lamp, his yellow raincoat shining brightly against the pale morning light.She saw him lift the walkie-talkie to his mouth, and a cloud of white mist circled over his head. Everything seemed louder in the sewer, the gurgling water underfoot, the footsteps of passers-by overhead, and the sound of her bare feet stepping on the sand. The fog made her arms and clothes damp, and her stockings were torn by sawdust on the floor.Suddenly something flashed under the front pipe.She knelt down to shine a flashlight closer and dug out of the sand a women's gold wristwatch.The body of the watch is not dirty, and it looks new. It is an expensive watch.Someone must have put it here on purpose.Is it intentional to wait for someone to discover it? She turned off the flashlight, lifted the skirt to her waist, stepped over the pipe, adjusted the skirt, and turned on the flashlight. Walking forward, the sand pile began to rise gradually, and after walking a dozen steps, she could only walk forward with her waist bent. There was a conversation on the intercom, but she ignored it.She was thinking about the scribbles on the water pipe wall: LCMR Building, 94 Champey Road, Ellison loves Christie, EP loves FS, Gerald and Bella in dog days, BH is a silly ×, neurotic Sue, cocaine…… Who would spend so long writing and drawing in this sewer?Could it be the junkies, she thought?Also, did the victim walk into the sewer by himself? It never occurred to her that there were people lingering under the boardwalk.She grew up in Wildwood, partying on the beach.She even went for a stroll at Ronin's Wharf with her girlfriends.But if she had known that there were such a group of people in the sewer under her feet, she would never have come here to play.She didn't expect that a group of people would gather here under the place where she stayed for so many years. She tried to imagine this group of people sitting in the dark, with the flickering light of burning cigarettes in their hands, and then they drank beer and wrote their mottos on the walls. O'Shaughnessy crawled out of the sewer and onto the parking lot.Dim street lamps shone dimly on the asphalt.A group of uniformed police officers surrounded a crane that was hoisting a dark green Ford Explorer sedan and lowering it onto the road to its right.In the passenger seat of the trolley there is a women's jacket.O'Shaughnessy had heard about what was found in the pockets of his clothes: an unused condom and a lipstick. She stood there for a moment, staring at the car and the boardwalk and then at the street.I thought, if the woman was standing near her car when the killer sneaked into the parking lot, why didn't she run down the lit street instead of running for her life down the dark boardwalk? She took off the walkie-talkie from her belt and shouted to Mike, "Team No. 3, please answer." "Please speak, received on the 3rd." "Is there a reply from Randall?" "Yes, sir. He said that no useful clues have been found in the hospital. He is still investigating some 24-hour hospitals in the state. After answering, please answer." "Got it," O'Shaughnessy replied. An hour later, O'Shaughnessy returned to the police headquarters on Pacific Avenue, made a cup of coffee and brought it to the office.She's hungry, but she's been trying to lose weight since she quit smoking. She glanced into the sheriff's office and saw McGuire holding the phone to his ear.Judging from his expression, he was waiting for the call to connect. "Any news?" O'Shaughnessy asked him in a low voice. He pouted and made a "bureau chief" mouth shape for her to see, and pointed to her office.She waved him a thank you and went to her office. Chief Loudon sat on the sofa flipping through an outdated issue of The New Yorker. "Director." She greeted the chief, then took off her coat and hung it on the hanger, and stuffed the small bag into the drawer. Chief Loudon looked up at her, then crossed his legs. "I heard from the walkie-talkie that you were returning, and I was still thinking that it was safe now." Then he saw O'Shaughnessy's dirty hands and torn socks.There is also a black stain on the forehead.He asked with concern, "Are you alright?" She nodded, slid into the chair and sat down, opened the lid of the coffee cup, "It's all right, it's just that I didn't have time to change into suitable clothes to go to the scene." After speaking, she sneezed. "God bless you," Loudon said, throwing the magazine aside. "Want something to drink?" O'Shaughnessy raised the coffee cup in his hand. He shook his head, "Thanks, no need." On her desk was a stack of photographs from the crime scene that morning.The people in the criminal investigation department have already seized the time to print them out. O'Shaughnessy kicked off his shoes and wiped each other's feet under the table.She took a sip of her coffee, then took a notebook out of her bag. "We found a new crime scene," she began. "The crime took no more than six to ten hours at most. No body was found." She raised her head and glanced at the director. "I speculate like this, let's count it as a kidnapping case. The reporter was walking the dog along the beach next to the boardwalk, and then the dog fell into the sewer. After a while, when the dog came up, it was covered in blood. She thought the dog had been injured, but when she looked closely, she realized the dog was fine and the blood wasn't coming from him." Just then the phone in the outer office rang.The chief got up and closed the door. O'Shaughnessy went on to say, "The reporter called 911 and our guys sent a patrol car." After speaking, she pouted towards the envelope containing the photos. Loudon opened the envelope and shook the photographs on the table.There were flashes of bloody handprints, pools of blood in the sand, and blood on the sewer pipes. "The police who arrived at the scene earlier found the car in the public parking lot. The door was unlocked and the car key was still in the ignition." She pointed to the photo in her hand and said, "The driver's seat One side of the tire was flat, and there was a hole in the tire sidewall, about two inches in size by visual inspection. A women's jacket was found in the passenger seat, no ID was found, but it was found behind the sun visor of the car A registration record sheet, which matches the license plate number. The owner of the car is Jason Carino, who lives at 10 Flynn Lane Road, North Beach. We sent someone to check, and there is no one at home. According to neighbors, he is often busy Out of town, used to drive a Lincoln, but it's not at home now." She took another sip of coffee and continued, "His wife is in her late forties, and her name is Elizabeth, and she runs a day care on New York Avenue. They have a daughter named Annie," O'Shaughnessy turned to another page. Note, and continued: "The girl is 17 years old. We left a note on the gate and checked every hour. There was no sign of anyone entering. Maybe they were away on vacation, but the car How to explain it?" After hearing this, Director Louden hummed. O'Shaughnessy paused, looked back at his notes, and said, "Jason is the CEO of an information consulting firm called Aiko. We got his office phone number from his company. McGuire gave him I left a message in voicemail, hope he will check it often." O'Shaughnessy turned another page, paused for a sip of coffee, and continued, "The officers did a dragnet search of the parking lot and the beach. Nothing came up. At this time of year, the Atlantic There are only two shops along the coast that are open until late at night. One is called 'Texaco' and the other is called '7-Eleven'. We woke up the employees in both stores, and they didn't remember what happened that night Something abnormal. You know our nights in May here are as dark as a ghost town." Officer McGuire stood outside the door and leaned over the window. He held up a piece of paper against the window glass. On the paper read, "Your daughter came home with Tim. The cat is gone." O'Shaughnessy gestured and nodded in thanks, then looked back at his notebook, "The municipal cleaners were there at four to pick up the trash. McGuire has sent someone to check all the trash from last night." .” Louden hummed again and asked, "Any other clues?" "Under the boardwalk, right here." She leaned forward and took a stack of photos and sat back, flipping out the one she wanted to see. "This sewer goes through the parking lot and goes under the boardwalk. The victim came from the boardwalk." It went down there. The blood started down there too. When she was about halfway in there, she went through the drain pipe to the other side, where she tried to hide under the pipe." Pointing to a darker smudge on the photo, she said, "Here's where the murderer left her when he dragged her back." She slid her finger to the bottom of the photo and added, "I found a woman's Wristwatch, I think the victim left it there on purpose." Loudon raised his head, looked into her eyes for a few seconds, and nodded thoughtfully. "It rained very hard last night, so there are no traces on the ground. The sand is too thick to collect useful footprints for technical analysis. If you are lucky, you may be able to find some clues in the car. " "Go and test the blood at the scene," Louden said, "maybe it's not human blood." He flipped through the photos while talking, some of which clearly showed the scribbled handwriting, "I think these places are very weird .” O'Shaughnessy nodded, "I think so too. Meyers has already taken some samples and brought them to Mersey Hospital for testing immediately. It is confirmed that it is human blood, and the blood type is A." "Well, that's great." Loudon said excitedly, as if he had heard the great news all at once. "I've checked all the emergency wards of the hospitals. No one from Anne has been called in the past twenty-four hours." "Can we go into Carino's house and check?" "McGuire called Hamilton. He sent Judge Merrill a written request." "Good job, Kelly. Let me know if there's anything new." Loudon said, standing up. "The media," she said quickly. "What are you going to tell them?" "Don't say anything yet. Wait until the victim's family is told about the case. We need to stabilize the public and lie about the military before finding out the suspect." O'Shaughnessy nodded, "Understood. But if we can contact the victim's family and it is confirmed that a woman from the Carino family is missing, I need to show the victim's photo on the eleven o'clock news." "As long as you think it's right, just let it go. Is there anything else I can help with?" She shook her head. He touched his lips with his finger and said, "You know about the case in the nursing home in Yulin, right?" She nodded, "I'll send McGuire over there after we finish the case in the morning. I'll go and have a look after I finish here." "Never mind." Louden said, shaking his head. "I'll handle the case myself. The body is still in the morgue, and the door is locked now. The investigation can only wait until tomorrow." O'Shaughnessy frowned, wondering why the chief would personally handle a case of a fall and death in a nursing home. "Is there something wrong?" The director shook his head and said, "It's no different from an ordinary accident. Although I usually don't like to ask about cases of people falling from buildings, such cases are usually relatively simple. Especially the elderly in nursing homes." "Maybe there is something unspeakable." "It's possible that he hooked up with some old lady in the nursing home and got pushed down the stairs and died." Louden said with a smile. "I knew him. His name was Andrew Marco. When I first came, he was The precinct commander here." "I see." "His later fate was not good." He shook his head. "Participated in organized crime in Atlantic City, spent several years behind bars." "So the fact that he fell down the stairs made you feel a little bit wrong?" He shook his head and denied, "That's not true. Those things happened many years ago. The fact of the case should be the fact of the case. I may just be a little curious." "Do you want me to check it out?" Louden shook his head and said, "The results of the autopsy will prove the truth. You can concentrate on the boardwalk case. Go back and change your clothes first, and find the cat. Let McGuire handle the rest." thing. He can handle it well." It was past eight o'clock when O'Shaughnessy returned home and cleaned up the dishes.She changed into house clothes and put the girls to bed.Tim stayed with them until she went home.Tim wanted to have a good talk with her, but she didn't seem to want to continue the conversation.Maybe today is here, maybe she doesn't want to forgive him so easily. She popped a few pieces of seaweed in her mouth, stepped onto the treadmill, and started exercising while opening the tape of the 911 call next to her. "This is Wildwood Police Station, it's 5:54:20," said a voice, "what's your problem?" "My name is Cassie Rush," said a woman's voice, with a strong southern accent, "I'm visiting relatives in Wildwood. I was just now walking the dog on the beach by the boardwalk. I was doing jogging on the boardwalk. The dog suddenly fell to the bottom of the boardwalk. After a while, it crawled out by itself, covered in blood. I checked, and there were no wounds on its body. I thought someone must have been injured below. I went down I yelled a few times, but no one answered. It was too dark down here and I didn’t dare to go down alone..." The central operator interrupted her and said, "You mean right under the boardwalk?" "Well, in front of the big building with densely populated people." "Over there on the Rio Grande?" "I'm not sure... what the name of the street is. There's a store around the corner. I just went there on the weekend. The Quansheng Store, yes, the name of the store is the Quansheng Store." "Look over the ramp, there should be a metal sign with the name of the street on it. Can you see it?" "Let me see," the woman replied.After a while, she came back to the phone, "Yes, it's called Rio Grande, as you said." "Okay ma'am, that's Ronin's Wharf. Can you wait for us at home? We need your help to locate where the dog fell. Can you wait a little longer so we can identify the police?" "Of course, I will wait for you." "Great, Miss Casey, the police are almost halfway there. You just wait for them, all right?" "No problem," Cassie replied. When the tape ended, O'Shaughnessy was still on the treadmill, waiting for their call to report.McGuire should have contacted Carino's family by now. She was thinking about the morning's speculations under the boardwalk, and it all seemed mysterious.It's like another world down there.She thought of the scribbled words, the beer cans, the cigarette butts.People walked back and forth on the ground, but a group of people crouched underneath.The beach suddenly no longer gives people such a good feeling.Ronin's Wharf always attracts many young people to pass the time there in summer.To police officers in Wildwood, drug use was an open secret.Even in winter, when the temperature is very low, there will be a group of people gathered there.Could it be that Anne went there to buy drugs and then returned to the car to find the tire was slashed? O'Shaughnessy paused, took a notebook from the side of the treadmill, and wrote on it: Check with the repair shop near the parking lot for tire repair records. Maybe it's a robbery, she thought. If someone stole your drugs, you wouldn't dare call the police. She hopped off the treadmill, disappointed that she didn't get a call from McGuire.It has been more than 20 hours since the incident happened, but they have not yet confirmed the name of the victim. She took a hot shower, then curled up on the bed, flipping through a magazine absently. At eleven o'clock, McGuire called. The court issued a warrant so police could enter Carlino's house to inspect the situation.McGuire turned on the phone recording in the room.There were two messages, one in a young woman's voice asking Annie to call her back right away.The other one was a young man's voice, saying only one sentence: call me when it is convenient. There is a desk calendar in the refrigerator, which lists school events, dentist appointments, and the car's gas level.On the date of the day, "Dallas" was written in pencil, but crossed out again.McGuire took a phone book from the dining table and left a note on the table asking the host to call him as soon as he returned. O'Shaughnessy heard the phone ring on the other end. "Just a second, sir," McGuire told her. "Maybe they called back." Five minutes later McGuire was back on the phone. "It's Mr. Carino. He's at the Hyatt Airport in Dallas with his wife. Their daughter, Anne, is left alone. I explain that we found his car. He says it's probably his daughter who drove out." He said Anne was staying at one of her girlfriends' homes in Wildwood. Then he hung up and called the girl's house, but the line kept busy. I told him I'd go straight there, and I'd hear from him Call him back." "Annie's girlfriend is named Jenny Wu. There are indications that Annie is most likely the victim of the disappearance. There is no doubt that her father was very sad when he heard about it. They have booked a flight back tonight. Tomorrow you go Trenton?" "I'll go, but after you get to Jenny's house to find out what's going on, call me again. I can catch up on sleep tomorrow on the way to the meeting." At one o'clock in the morning, McGuire called again, "Jenny said that Annie lied to her parents. When her parents were out, Annie's boyfriend used to come to her house for the night. They were together like this. It’s been a while. They often stay at Ronin’s Wharf after ten o’clock, and hang around all night.” "Isn't she afraid her parents will call Jenny's?" O'Shaughnessy asked. "Jennie said that Annie's parents always called at a fixed time. Annie's mother often called in the morning to ask how Annie was doing. Annie stayed at her parents' house with her boyfriend at night, and then ran to the house in the morning. Jenny's house went to answer her mother's phone. Jenny said that they had gotten away with it two or three times before. She said that Anne's parents never talked to her parents on the phone, so she wasn't worried about being exposed." "Then Annie hasn't been able to answer the phone since Annie disappeared, isn't Jenny worried?" "She was worried. Annie's mother called that morning, and Jenny lied that Annie had just gone to the pantry to get orange juice. She thought Annie and her boyfriend had drunk too much and overslept. So She left a message on Annie's home phone asking her to call back." "Who is Annie's boyfriend?" "The name is Larry Wilder. Jenny called him too." O'Shaughnessy got out of bed, took a piece of gum from the dresser and put it in his mouth. "Bard's son?" "Yes, Bud's eldest son. He told Jenny on the phone that he was chatting with another girl at Ronin's Wharf that day, and Annie showed up, and then he had a big fight with him. He said he ignored her, Later, I went drinking with a group of friends. Larry was 22 years old and Anne was only 17 years old. He told Jenny on the phone that Annie had gone home directly. After talking with Jenny on the phone, he called Annie's house .The second one on the recorded phone call was made by him." "Go to Larry's house and ask permission to inspect his car. If he doesn't agree, spy on his car first, then go and get a warrant. Someone drove Annie away from there, whoever it was, for sure. There will be blood in the car." "Okay, I'm on my way to his house." "Oh, one more thing. Check the Carinos' flight. Confirm it's what he said." "I'll ask Randall to confirm." "Okay. I'll also have a picture of Annie to put on the TV news when her parents come back. Pick a better one. I'll write the news to the paper and fax you when I get to Trenton." "Okay, are you all right?" "never mind." She lay back on the bed and chewed gum for a while.Then spit it out and put it in a morning paper magazine. After only sleeping for half an hour, she was woken up again by her daughters' sleep talking.The two little guys slept soundly next to each other, but for her, this was a sleepless night.