1960: My uncle is the FBI Director

Chapter 1 The Newcomer to the Murder Unit
"Is anyone gone?"

"Just left."

"Sigh, it's become an unsolved case again."

The spacious office was filled with smoke. The slightly overweight supervisor wrote a series of case numbers in red pen on the whiteboard with a stern face, marking the addition of another "fierce general" to the homicide unit's 'Cold Case'.

A cold case is a case that has been closed and is suspended when the investigation cannot continue.

In the innermost part of the large office, against the wall, stood two whiteboards, one red and one black, representing unsolved and solved cases respectively. The red case numbers were far ahead, almost overflowing the whiteboard, while the black ones barely filled half of it.

After writing down the numbers, Supervisor Julian Wenner clapped his hands to encourage his team members and wanted to say a few more words of encouragement, but he was called away by the assistant to the deputy superintendent.

The team members continued to smoke and work diligently on their case, making the large office incredibly noisy.

Half an hour later, Manager Wenner returned with a sullen face. Theodore hesitated for a long time before knocking on the door of the manager's office.

Manager Wenner's face was frighteningly grim, but upon seeing that it was Theodore, he composed himself and asked calmly, "Dixon, what can I do for you?"

Theodore's full name is Theodore Dixon Hoover. His father was a paratrooper in World War II who returned home insane. Theodore was raised by his uncle. After graduating from college, he had a big fight with his uncle and left DC, moving to Felton and changing his name to Theodore Dixon to become a police officer.

Two months ago, Theodore died of illness.

Theodore, a newly arrived professional profiler from more than sixty years in the future, is hit by a truck and falls off a cliff on his way to an academic conference.

After much effort, he was transferred from the patrol department to the homicide squad a week ago. However, he hasn't been assigned any cases yet; he's just been given time to familiarize himself with the work.

Manager Wenner thought highly of him and planned to train him gradually.

“Mr. Wenner, I would like to take over 600403.”

600403 is the case that was just put on hold. The homicide officers are used to calling the case by the date it was reported, rather than by the 16-digit 'password' given to them by the police station, which contains letters, numbers, slashes, hyphens, and dots.

Supervisor Wenner raised an eyebrow and asked seriously, "Do you have a lead?"

The homicide squad under Supervisor Wenner had a harmonious atmosphere. Although everyone was under a lot of pressure, there was no backstabbing or infighting. He hated internal strife among the team members, and if this young man he had his eye on 'kept his information,' he would have no choice but to send him back to the patrol department.

Theodore, unaware of Wenner's thoughts, shook his head and said, "No, I'm just interested in it."

“I’ve been observing for a week now, and I want to give it a try. Anyway, this case has already been shelved, so it won’t have any impact even if we don’t solve it in the end. If I do solve it, our team will have one more Cold Case spot.”

Supervisor Wenner, recalling the scolding he had just received from the deputy superintendent, was somewhat tempted, but he still cautioned, "You need to be prepared. I've seen many people get stuck in a case and can't get out of it."

He advised, "You have to learn to let go, don't stubbornly persist. Many of our team members only started to independently manage cases after a year of being here."

This was because they were afraid Theodore would be impatient, and also afraid he would stubbornly persist.

Seeing that Theodore had taken it to heart, Supervisor Wenner smiled again and said, "Go get the case briefing from Bernie."

Theodore was overjoyed. After leaving the office, he pumped his fist vigorously. Wenner saw this through the blinds and couldn't help but shake his head and laugh.

…………

Bernie Sullivan was in charge of case 600403. He was a middle-aged man of obvious Germanic descent, with high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, a straight nose, and profound gaze. His strong biceps bulged his jacket, giving him a menacing air. In those days, police departments favored tough guys—those who were resilient, durable, and capable of fighting. The homicide unit was full of burly men.

Solving cases these days is still largely a physical activity, requiring relatively little mental or technical skill. Frontline officers, in particular, don't trust results obtained through technical means they can't understand; they trust clues gleaned from face-to-face questioning more.

When Theodore came over, Bernie was packing case-related materials into cardboard boxes. These would be sealed in the archives and kept until new clues emerged.

Theodore explained his purpose: "Bernie, I just talked to the boss, I want to try 600403."

Bernie paused, closed the file in his hand, tossed it into the cardboard box, and asked curiously, "The boss agreed?"

Theodore repeated the same story he'd told Wenner, and Bernie pushed the cardboard box towards him. He had no intention of helping Theodore get to the bottom of the case.

This was well-intentioned. If he were to explain the case to Theodore, he would inevitably add his own subjective opinions, and Theodore would inevitably be influenced by him, which would not help solve the case at all.

Theodore returned to his seat and began organizing the case files.

The cardboard boxes were only half full; this amount of information was hardly enough for a murder case. While the contents were complete, they were very thin; some folders contained only a few pages.

Theodore quickly glanced through the documents in the box and got a general understanding of the case. He then took out a brand-new notebook and outlined a basic timeline:
Around six o'clock in the morning, Mr. Brian and his son, Sit, went out to the mountains to haul timber.

At 8:00 a.m., the deceased Mrs. Brian had breakfast with her daughter Anna.

Around nine o'clock in the morning, neighbors Diane and Carter arrived at the door, bringing cakes and candies they had baked themselves.

At 11:50, Carter and Diane left together.

Around midnight, Diane saw someone asking the deceased for directions.

Around 12:10, Diane found the deceased lying on the lawn and screamed. Carter, who lived nearby, heard the screams, came out to check, and helped call the police.

At 12:33, the police arrived, and a number of nearby residents had already gathered at the scene.

Theodore carefully reviewed the statements and added a detail: Diane's description of the prime suspect in the case—the person who asked for directions:

"Around noon, I saw a tan truck parked outside. The driver was a bearded man wearing a hat and an orange jacket, and he was asking her for directions."

Then came the autopsy report, which showed a 2-inch irregular laceration in the right temporal region (temple area) of the deceased, with radially fragmented edges of the wound, a linear fracture of the right temporal bone extending to the base of the skull, a subdural hematoma, and punctate hemorrhages on the surface of the brainstem—in layman's terms, he died from having his head smashed open.

The deceased had defensive injuries on his arms, and his clothes were covered with a mixture of dirt and rye grass leaves.

Besides that, there were a few photos of the scene and long, meaningless statements.

The reason why testimonies are considered useless is that a large portion of them insist that they witnessed the deceased being dropped by a UFO, while others insist that they witnessed a mysterious truck driver strangling the deceased—or stabbing, smothering, etc. People have given full play to their imagination and come up with all sorts of bizarre ways to die.

After spending three hours reviewing all the materials, with very little useful information, and seeing that it was still early, Theodore decided to go to the site.

But before that, he needed to meet with the first batch of police officers who arrived at the scene.

(End of this chapter)