Chapter 3 Chapter two

"Good morning, Ian, I'm sorry to call you here at this time." Sean Myers spoke quickly and sounded sincere, but he didn't mean sorry at all, "But I think this occasion It would be best to have someone at a supervisory level on the scene, Jason suggested calling you, I also think you are the best person to handle this case." McCarthy shook hands with Sean first, then his old partner Jason, his mind racing. Sean was the bureau's press secretary and head of public relations, and he was a cunning old man with sixteen years of dealing with the media that was as pervasive as flies.Although in terms of people, he is still a pretty good guy, but none of the detectives would like to see him in the workplace, especially the detectives of the robbery team-his presence often means dirty work, tired live.Because there is usually not only one corpse at the scene where he appears, he has an ugly nickname in the robbery and homicide team, called "Death is Coming".If there was only one corpse at the scene where he appeared, then unless the person who died was the mayor, a congressman, or a Hollywood star, there was only one possibility...

"Serial murder?" "You guessed right!" Sean nodded. McCarthy turned around, the on-site forensic team had finished processing the scene, and the police officers were putting the body into a body bag. He tried hard to recall the appearance of the body, trying to connect "her" with the previous cases. "Remember the rape and murder case in the back alley of that Texas barbecue restaurant two weeks ago?" Jason reminded, "The one in Frank's hands." Um... no, McCarthy didn't remember anything, he pretended to be trying to remember. "It doesn't matter if you don't remember, because we thought it was just an ordinary case. It was a blonde waitress who was raped and strangled to death. It was a bit strange that her eyes were covered with two coins, and her lower body was poured with a lot of cleaning. Potions. Frank thinks it's the Indians who did, you know, the weird rituals. He's gone down that line, and he's got no leads."

McCarthy only listened to Jason's words—"It's okay if you don't remember"—how could it be okay?You remember, even Sean, who is in public relations, remembers, but I, as the new supervisor of the robbery team, don't remember—even though he knew Jason didn't mean it that way, McCarthy still didn't feel like it, he knew there was something wrong Few people think that he was promoted to this position by luck. "Well, I remember that case," McCarthy said with an ugly face, "tell me about the current case." "Let Catherine from the forensic department explain the situation at the scene. Her introduction will be clearer." Sean suggested——McCarthy noticed that the senior forensic officer who took off the Tyvek protective suit was a woman —yes, the red-haired woman who took charge of the scene on the case that made him so successful, but McCarthy never managed to remember her name.

"Katherine Gretchen, day shift supervisor." The woman in her early forties with short red hair pulled off the rubber gloves and shook hands with him. Her hands were cold and slippery from wearing rubber gloves for a long time. McCarthy It felt like holding an eel—one more reason he didn't like the on-site forensics team. "Tell us about the situation at the scene, Director Gretchen." "Just call me Cathy. The corpse has already started to show rigor, and it is estimated that the time of death was twelve to fourteen hours ago, that is, yesterday evening..." She raised her wrist and looked at her watch, "It is six o'clock in the morning Fifty cents, she was killed between 5:00 and 7:00 yesterday evening. The preliminary investigation revealed that she was strangled and suffocated to death. There were obvious strangulation marks on the neck of the deceased, and no defensive wounds were found on both arms. , clean under the nails too - I think you know what that means."

"The deceased probably knew the murderer, an acquaintance who committed the crime?" McCarthy said. "Perhaps her boyfriend. Any identification on the deceased, Cathy?" "No, no wallet, no driver's license, no identification of any kind. It's up to you guys to find out who she is, gentlemen. We found no signs of handling around the body, just some latex sneakers, size 44½. Shoe prints, rather old shoes with scuffed soles, which we believe were left by the murderer, with footprints in and out, whereas the footprints of the dead man only entered the woods—in other words, we believe that this is the first One spot."

"Tell us about something special, Cathy," McCarthy urged. "Oh, yes, there are a couple of unusual things - the dead man's eyes were covered with two ordinary quarters, minted in 2002, and no fingerprints were found on them; and..." Catherine swallowed Drooling, a look of disgust appeared on his face, "The victim's lower body has obvious vaginal lacerations, I'm sure she was raped, and a large amount of chlorine bleach was poured into the deceased's uterus, gentlemen, The girl's lower body was completely destroyed—I checked the victim's lower body carefully, and found no hair that did not belong to the deceased. Most premeditated rapists shaved their pubic hair, but the bleach was obviously used to destroy the DNA in the sperm. I I think the killer might not be wearing a condom."

"Is it possible to get a sample of his DNA?" Jason asked. "No, even if we are lucky enough to get a small number of undamaged samples, the contaminated samples will not be able to go to court. Damn "CSI", now even high school students know how to destroy DNA evidence!" Yeah, it's all thanks to that hit TV series. If it wasn't for that TV series, how could the government spend millions of dollars every year to feed a laboratory and people who work day and night?If it weren't for that TV show, where would you still be teaching at a high school, Miss Catherine—McCarthy thought harshly, but still asked in a very serious tone:

"Miss Catherine, I still have a question..." "Cathy, and please don't call me Miss." "I'm sorry. Cathy, can you tell me if the deceased was raped before or after death?" "What?" Catherine didn't seem to hear his question clearly. "Whether she was raped before or after her death? That's very important," McCarthy explained. "As you said, there were no defensive wounds on the arms of the deceased, and no traces of the murderer were found in the nails. , you would have mentioned if her hands had been bound - so my understanding is no - that is, the deceased did not resist when she was raped, I think unless she was dead by then , or in a coma, or... more than one murderer."

"That didn't occur to me, I guess I can't tell you exactly if the rape happened before or after the murder, but when I get back to the lab, I'll give the victim a poison test to see if she was raped— —You'll have a detailed report, Detective." "Thank you!" A smile appeared on McCarthy's face. He felt that he had finally saved a little bit of face—although there are machines that can see things that we couldn't see before, we still have to rely on veteran police officers to investigate cases. Exploring the wisdom. "Hey, can we finish here?" Sean urged, "Do you hear the noise outside? I think the media reporters have heard the wind. Although I set up an eighty-foot cordon, the people outside Four lads probably won't be able to handle it, and I don't want the serial killer rumors to be the headlines tomorrow. Listen, guys, don't talk too much when you get out, I'll take care of it."

"Now, I'm going to take care of our witness." He gestured "See you later" to the two detectives, then turned and walked in the direction of the body finder who had been questioned impatiently.