Shadow Empire

Chapter 65 Crime Scene
"...I'm sorry, we will investigate it as soon as possible!" The operator hung up the phone with a smile and sighed.

Her colleagues were curious, "Another complaint about the sewer problem?"

The operator nodded while writing down the complaint in a notebook. When she finished writing the last word, she found that there were already no less than twenty complaints written on this page.

She felt a little strange, and while answering her colleague, she seemed to be saying to herself, "Yes, although there are these complaints every year, but..."

"It's been too dense these past two days, and it's all concentrated on Burlingame Road in the Empire District."

Her colleague curled his lips and said, "Maybe some cats and dogs died in the sewer. This kind of thing has happened before."

The operator nodded, agreeing with this possibility.

It is now mid-to-late September, the hottest time of the year. Not only humans can't stand it, but animals can't stand it either.

The sewers in Jingang City are very cool. Cats and dogs will not choose abandoned dry culverts like humans. They will directly drill into the nearest sewers.

Some cats and dogs get caught on things in the sewers, such as wires, hooks, etc., and then die in the sewers.

The weather is so hot and the air is so humid that the microbial population in the sewers explodes and it will start to rot within a day.

In two or three days at most, a foul smell will spread.

They had encountered this situation before, and had asked municipal workers to take out the dead cats and dogs and dispose of them.

According to the requirements in the work manual, if there are no more than five complainants in a public issue complaint incident, the complaint can be ignored.

If the number does not exceed ten, you may consider including it in the work report and submit it to your superior.

If there are more than ten, they need to be written in a separate report, placed at the top of the report, and sent to the office.

If there are more than twenty, you need to call the competent department.

She counted and found that there were more than twenty calls. Then she made a gesture to her colleagues to keep quiet, and dialed a number on the phone dial on the desk.

"This is the City Service Complaints Office at City Hall. I have a complaint that needs to be handled immediately. It's at 72 Burlingame Street. More than 20 people have complained that there is a foul odor nearby. It should be the rotting corpse of some animal..."

There was a very rude curse coming from the receiver. It was not necessarily directed at anyone, but just a catchphrase, a way to vent emotions.

"Okay, ma'am, I understand. I'll go check it out right away." Before the receiver hung up, the operator heard some more cursing and shook her head.

“Are they swearing again?” Her colleague leaned back and looked at her. “You can actually tell him to shut up.”

The operator smiled and said, "They are asked to work in the sewers in such hot weather. If it were me, I would also curse them."

"But you can't say such harsh words. I heard it all..."

The two operators made an appointment to go shopping together after get off work, but soon forgot about it. This is their job, and it is roughly the same every day, every month, and every year.

Two municipal workers wiped their sweat and drove out of the cool office in a pickup truck, cursing.

Ever since the Secretary of State publicly stated that "appropriate dress is a person's most basic respect for society," the entire federal government system has been required to dress appropriately.

Even when it is extremely hot in the summer, they have to wear summer uniforms and cannot expose their bodies, otherwise they will be fined.

If they were not "civil servants", they would have quit long ago, but precisely because they are civil servants, they have to follow the rules.

Civil servants are comfortable, no matter what time, what world, what country.

Federal government civil servants have high salaries and many subsidies, and they enjoy all the benefits they are entitled to, including social security, medical insurance, accident insurance, and various welfare benefits that ordinary people cannot enjoy.

The two were driving on the hot road. The wind blowing in from the car window carried the salty smell of the sea. It not only made people hot from the inside out, but also made their skin hurt.

The exposed skin of these working class people is almost all red, which is actually a state of injury, but no one cares about it.

Because people who care about this won't work outdoors, and people who work outdoors have long been numb.

The car soon arrived at 72 Burlingame Street. Before they got out of the car, they smelled the stench. They were very familiar with it and had dealt with it many times.

According to the work manual they needed to put on some clothes and wear rubber gloves, but they didn't care about that at all.

The two found the place where the stench was the strongest, put up a no-entry sign, and then recorded the work time in a notebook.

Then they opened the manhole cover, but to their surprise, the expected stench did not appear. The two looked at each other and thought this was unusual, and then one of them went down into the sewer.

About ten minutes later, he climbed out and "there was nothing inside except a dead rat."

There are always some dead rats in the sewers. Every time there is a thunderstorm, it may only appear as a short shower on the ground, but for the rats in the sewers, it is a flood disaster.

But the stench of a few dead rats was far less pungent than what they could smell now.

"This stench... doesn't seem to be coming from the sewer." Although it is the strongest here and there is only one sewer manhole cover, the sewer is really not that smelly.

This was their job, and they had to figure out whether it was their responsibility. The two men sniffed around regardless of the intense stench, and finally, they found that the smell was coming from the gaps in the windows of the basement of the old building in front of them.

In order to provide lighting and ventilation, the basement will have a window facing the main street, about ten to fifteen centimeters high. People cannot enter anyway, so the small window can also provide lighting.

After the two found the source of the smell, they put their things back in the car, patted their butts and prepared to leave. This matter had nothing to do with them.

Soon the matter was transferred to the police station, who notified the patrol police via the radio. Suddenly, a police car drove out from the shade of the alley and headed towards this side.

Seven or eight minutes later, two policemen got out of the car and immediately covered their mouths and noses.

They didn't curse, but looked a little solemn.

One of them lay on the ground and looked inside through the gray glass, but saw nothing.

Being so close to the glass, the pungent smell became even worse, and he was sure that it was the smell of a corpse.

Another police officer knocked on the door of a resident on the first floor. It was an old-style house with the front door facing the street. An old woman opened the door.

The old woman didn't look very happy. "Did you guys fix the stench?"

The police officer pointed his thumb forward against the badge. The old woman turned her head and shook her hands. "I'm not blind, so what do you want to do?"

"…Uh, ma'am, may I ask if you know who lives in the basement?"

“Can we contact the owner of the house now?”

The old woman seemed to realize something, and she called the police, who soon found the homeowner and opened the door.

The strong stench rushed out through the door and was a bit eye-irritating.

The two of them called for support immediately. Twenty minutes later, four police cars and a morgue arrived here. The city bureau's forensic doctor was used to seeing all kinds of corpses, but he couldn't stand the smell either!

Half an hour later, support from the Municipal Bureau arrived. They brought a full set of biological suits and entered the scene.

Eight bodies were lying on the ground, seven of them were shot, but the death of one was very strange.

After taking photos at the scene, all the bodies were taken away, and some police officers had to wait until the stench here dissipated before coming in to collect evidence.

The forensic doctor said that after being stored in a closed and high-temperature space for at least four days, the entire house was full of bacteria, so it was best to wait until the smell dissipated before entering.

After returning to the police station, the case was directly transferred to the criminal investigation team. Today was Officer Lucar's day shift, so the case was assigned to him.

He came directly to the forensic doctor and looked at so many highly decomposed corpses. Even though he was used to seeing all kinds of corpses, he still felt uncomfortable and wanted to vomit.

"Seven people died from gunfire, including one person who was shot six times."

"There was another person...he was stuffed to death."

"He died of overeating?" Lucard stood outside the morgue, not wanting to go in. He held the autopsy report, but his eyes stayed on the face of the medical examiner. "You mean he died of overeating?"

"Yes, his stomach ruptured and he went into hemorrhagic shock."

Officer Lucard curled his lips and said, "Do you know what's the most interesting thing about being a criminal police officer?"

He asked himself and answered, "It's about seeing all kinds of bizarre ways of dying."

Only then did he begin to look through the reports, "Any information about their identities?"

The forensic doctor shook his head. "This is not my job, but judging from the scene, there are some gambling tables. It should be an underground casino..."

(End of this chapter)