Chapter 373 Thoughts, Judgments, New Victims, Questions

 Wednesday, 11:15 am, Special Investigation Team, office area.

Mona is sitting at her workstation, typing on the keyboard with a serious look on her face.

 Accompanied by the crackling sound of the keyboard, Luo An held the tea cup and carefully looked at the photos and information of the four victims on the whiteboard.

 Normally, cutting out the tongue is a punishment for the informer, which means that the other party said something that should not be said.

 The current identities of the four victims are a speaker, a priest, a naval officer and a tannery factory worker.

 The first three victims had a higher status and may be related, but the tannery factory workers and these three were not from the same world at all.

Judging from the very solid national conditions of the federal class, if nothing unexpected happens, leather factory workers may never be associated with the first three in this life.

 Then follows the manner of death among the four victims.

 The Speaker was cut in half, officers were beheaded, priests were beaten to death with sticks, and tannery workers were skinned.

 The only person whose identity is related to the manner of death is the leather factory worker. He was the only one who often came into contact with animal skins during his lifetime. His skinning can be regarded as the "punishment" of the murderer.

But if you think about it this way, except for the naval officer's military status, which is barely related to the beheading, there is obviously no connection between the identity of the other two victims and the way of death.

 “This is a dead end.”

 Putting down the tea cup, Luo An shook his head. This road was dead, and he couldn't continue to waste time on it.

 Turning around, Luo An looked at Mona and asked casually:

 “How’s the check going?”

At this time, an hour had passed since the other agents left the special investigation team. Luo An planned to let Mona take a break and help him get Winslow's action file later. Luo An now had a strong sense of Winslow's "intuition". interested in.

“There are too many people missing every day in Los Angeles. The LAPD receives reports of missing cases every day, and even more reports of missing persons.”

Hearing Luo An’s words, Mona spread her hands, leaned back on the chair with a helpless face, closed her eyes and rested:

“From 19 days ago to 7 days ago, the LAPD received a total of fifty missing cases.

  I found 3 guys there who lost contact first and then disappeared, and there were also some guys who had other places to live without telling their family and friends.

We have just called the LAPD for help and went to those residences to check the situation. "

"Thanks for your hard work…"

Luo An handed Mona a cup of coffee, walked behind her, squeezed her shoulders, and said with a smile:

 “I’ll reward you well tonight.”

"snort!"

Thinking of the scene where her legs were sore during the half-day vacation, Mona immediately leaned forward to avoid Luo An's hands, then snorted coldly and gave Luo An a hard look.

Luo An, who was planning to ask Mona if she wanted steak or mutton chops tonight, was slightly startled by her actions. After seeing the expression on Mona's face clearly, she realized that she had misunderstood what she meant.

Luo An rolled his eyes speechlessly. It was all because Lacey said some nonsense all day long. Mona was taught bad things by her!

 Lacie sneezed hard in the distance...

Jingle Bell-

Just when Luo An was about to explain what he really meant, the landline phone on Mona's desk suddenly rang. She pressed the answer button and heard the trembling voice of an LAPD patrol officer on the other end of the phone.

“Special Investigation Team? We found a body in the house you mentioned.”

 Hearing this, Luo An and Mona's faces instantly darkened.

　　——

 Half an hour later, in a community southeast of Los Angeles.

 This community in Los Angeles is dominated by the middle class, and the houses are pretty good, with basically two units per building. Luo An and Mona arrived at the community in a brand new SUV. After parking the car and taking a look at the SUV, Luo An laughed.

The special investigation team originally had two SUVs, plus the three that were snatched from Wande, there were now a total of five.

The five new detectives went out to investigate clues this time. They all drove old SUVs. Only Lacey’s group drove one of the three new SUVs.

 Luo An is very satisfied with the new agents.

 Walking into the community, Luo An and Mona took the elevator to the crime scene on the sixth floor, took out their golden badges to show their identities, and slowly walked into the room.

This room is very large. As soon as you enter the door, you see the spacious and bright living room. Things in the living room are a bit messy, and there is a lot of dust on the debris on the floor. Luo An and Mona can tell at a glance that there has been a fight here. .

Haunted into the living room, turned right and walked a few steps, which was the bedroom of this room. Before reaching the bedroom, a **** smell hit his face and entered Luo An's nostrils.

He and Mona walked to the door of the bedroom together and looked inside. A red world suddenly appeared in front of their eyes.

The overall decoration style of the bedroom is mainly white, the most common color in Los Angeles, but at this time, there are splatters of blood everywhere on the surrounding walls.

There is a big bed in the center of the bedroom. There is no one on the bed, but the original brown sheets have been stained black with blood.

Under the big bed, a tattered corpse lay curled up, with bone-breaking stab wounds all over the body, and the ground was covered with coagulated blood.

After seeing the scene in the bedroom clearly, Mona's face immediately darkened, and Luo An frowned. Based on his experience, he could instantly tell that this newly discovered victim was hacked to death by the murderer using a knife.

Pulling Mona away, he waved his hand to signal the agents from the Trace Inspection Section to enter the bedroom to check the situation. Luo An took Mona back to the living room, and while carefully inspecting the items in the room, he asked:

“Mona, what is the personal information of this victim?”

 “Matthew Modlin, 43 years old, works at the Los Angeles Department of Taxation.”

Mona opened her laptop, looked at the information inside and explained:

“He was discovered missing by his colleagues 14 days ago and called the police. This guy likes to gamble and is a frequent visitor to Las Vegas.

 Because of gambling, Matthew's wife and daughter had left him, and his colleagues also knew about Matthew, so the LAPD only conducted a simple investigation and determined that Matthew ran away because of money. "

Luo An was not interested in the character and life experience of the gambler, but he was very confused about why a bad gambler like Matthew had such a house that no one else knew about.

“Nominally, this house belongs to Matthew and is left to his daughter.”

Mona spread her hands and said that Matthew bought this house when he was not addicted to gambling, but Matthew did not tell his wife about this house.

Matthew has been gambling for many years, and this house has always been his trump card. This house has changed hands many times over the years, but it finally returned to Matthew.

 “Then he died here.”

Luo An shook his head. Gambling has always been a point of no return. If the tongue in Matthew's mouth hadn't disappeared in the bedroom, knowing what Matthew had experienced before his death, he would most likely have thought it was revenge from Matthew's enemies. The next hand.

Continuing to inspect the house, as Luo An expected, he still found nothing useful. At this time, the agents from the Trace Inspection Section also came out. Mona quickly asked:

 “Have you noticed anything?”

The Trace Inspection Section detective shook his head and said:

“Not at the moment. It will take some time to conduct detailed investigations on site.”

 “OK, good work.”

Mona was a little helpless. She turned around and found Luo An standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of the living room, looking quietly into the distance. She walked to Luo An and followed his gaze and saw a cross. It was a church. Mona's face was full of doubts:

 “Luo An, what did you find?”

Luo An pondered for a while, with a half-smile expression on his face, and asked:

 “Mona, except for the priest, do all the other victims have faith?”

 (End of this chapter)