New Gods of North America.

Chapter 478 Doubt

Following Willy's carriage to Mr. Morier's residence, Wayne found it very clean.

The so-called "clean" at the crime scene generally has two meanings:
One refers to looking "neat and clean", the other refers to looking "as if no murder had ever happened".

This place is a bit of both, it has both meanings.

Mr. Morrie lives in one of the neighborhoods with the highest average house prices in downtown Richmond, and it has obvious characteristics.
The neighborhood is mostly made up of single-family buildings that offer medium- to long-term leases. The distance between the houses is relatively comfortable under the premise of being compact. It is not far from the core commercial district, but the security situation is obviously much better.

The prices here are probably at a level that the local wealthy people think is "not cost-effective" and the ordinary middle class "cannot afford" it. It is mainly aimed at the local upstarts who need ostentatious consumption, or the wealthy people from other places who want to save trouble and show off their economic strength.

The way of saying it means having high emotional intelligence is not to cheat on your poor friends.

The detective agency did not have any formal law enforcement powers, and when they arrived at the "first scene" of the crime in the middle of the night, they were actually accompanied by two other groups of people.

One group was the police officers Wayne specially called from the police station to cooperate with.
Originally, Wayne did not have this authority, but Sheriff William, who was assisting in the investigation, had been following the case for a day or two before, and seeing that the detective agency's investigation was going further and further, and the working hours were a bit outrageous, he became a bit annoyed, so he assigned another police officer in the bureau to "cooperate if there is anything."

The other group was patrol members hired by the neighborhood security team. They came over after noticing the commotion.
Theoretically speaking, they have greater responsibilities and obligations for public security in the neighborhood. After all, their income comes from the residents in the neighborhood. It may be nominally "community construction funds" or "voluntary donations" or something like that, which is a property fee that is not called "property fees."

After opening the door, the two groups took a preliminary look. The house was empty and tidy, and they soon began to have some complaints.
The police officer said that this place did not look like the scene of an attack, and the security team said that although there were indeed gunshots in the block tonight, it was a misunderstanding that had already been dealt with by patrol officers, and they would not allow anything to happen that would endanger the safety of the residents.

While they were complaining in a seemingly explanatory way, Inissa quietly winked at them, indicating that she was sure that there was a smell of blood here.

Lina put on the airs of a "rich girl" and walked to a corner of the living room corridor. "I saw a large pool of blood here before. If you don't believe me, you can see for yourself. It hasn't dried up even after it was cleaned up."

“There are indeed signs of being cleaned.”

The leading police officer and security guard actually came over with lanterns to take a look. They nodded in unison and then said, "But this doesn't prove that a crime has occurred here."

This kind of trouble is likely to occur when a third party is needed as a witness but does not have enough credibility.

In order to convince them to shut up, Wayne could only speak "fair words":
"Our detective agency accepted Mr. Molière's commission and came here specifically to investigate the attack. As the victim of the attack, he is the most critical witness to the real existence of the attack.

"And it's easy to verify what this lady said. I have an effective method that can detect whether there was blood here before. But it requires professional operation to be effective."

After saying that, he motioned Ryan to bring the tool kit over. Ever since the agents learned from Lina to come up with the "tool kit", Wayne had also collected some small items for himself during his spare time, and now they were just right for use:
"I'm a student at William and Anna College, so I have some professional reagents. One of these two bottles of reagents is a silver nitrate solution, which can react with blood, even if it is blood residue that has been wiped off.

"Since this lady said she had seen blood here, if we see changes after the reagent is dripped on it, it means she is telling the truth. Naturally, we need to conduct a more serious investigation."

The police officers and neighborhood security guards nearby were intimidated by the name of the academy and Wayne's serious look, especially when they saw Wayne carefully controlling the dosage and holding one end of the feather tube to dip out the reagent. For a moment, they were a little nervous.

Then two drops of solution were dripped onto the floor, and soon turned blue-purple.

Wayne lowered his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Unfortunately, it seems that what Mr. Morrie and this lady said are true."

Facts speak louder than words, and both groups of people temporarily fell silent.
Wayne decided to quit while he was ahead and quickly had the drugs put away and the remaining drugs on the floor disposed of promptly to avoid contaminating the scene. Then, while no one had any objections at the moment, he had the agents start a thorough search.

The luminol reagent commonly used by modern forensic scientists is still difficult to make these days. Silver nitrate solution can indeed react with blood and is also used in forensic medicine. It is said to produce a black precipitate. It is theoretically feasible and can be reproduced. Even experts have to nod their heads.

However, silver nitrate solution is not easy to make, and it is even more expensive to buy in small quantities and store for a long time. So Wayne actually used low-concentration iodine and flour water as substitutes. Anyway, ordinary people just look at the color change reaction, which is enough to fool laymen.

After a search, the attackers seemed to be professional.
No bodies or blood were found in the house. In one place, the bullet head in the wooden wall had even been dug out. Bullet hole detection did not exist in that era, so we can only assume that the other party was careful enough and did not leave any relevant clues.

Lina walked around the house carefully, quietly pulled Wayne's clothes, avoided the police and neighborhood security, and went to a convenient corner with him to speak briefly and quickly:
"The number of people doesn't seem to match. The previous attackers were probably only seven or eight people, and they chased them for a short distance. It's not easy to clean up the scene in the remaining time.

"Either they are really professional and took the subsequent cleanup into consideration when they took action, or they have a team of reinforcements to deal with the aftermath and help eliminate the impact."

Wayne actually has a similar view. It is mainly because after the police officers and neighborhood security guards have recovered from the tide of "technological crushing", they still do not take the investigation of the attack seriously.

The leading neighborhood security officer called a guy over and said that there was a drunk guy nearby who was shooting randomly into the air after drinking too much and had been chased away by patrol officers.
As for the police officer who came over, he tried to provide another possibility, saying that this might be a prank against Mr. Morel, or that Mr. Morel himself was lying, otherwise why would he be missing until now, and even the police station had not received any report.

Combined with Lina's statement,

Whether being skilled in handling traces or having dedicated follow-up personnel, these two possibilities actually point to the same goal - reducing the impact of the incident locally.

When outsiders commit crimes, they often don't need to pay attention to the scene. It is more convenient to burn it. And it is unlikely that the general "dragons passing by" will be specially equipped with a group of auxiliary personnel.

The more I think about this, the more it seems like it was done by a local.
(End of this chapter)