Northwest Washington D.C, a warehouse rental company.
Mona’s eyebrows were knit tightly on the other end of the phone, while Luo An, here in the warehouse, paused briefly before walking up to two middle-aged won and asked about their father.
"Father was cremated?! How co we didn’t know?"
The two middle-aged won looked astonished, glanced at each other, and shook their heads continuously:
"That’s impossible, you must have made a mistake."
Luo An did not argue with the two won opposite him and asked:
"Where is your father’s body now?"
The woman on the left answered:
"It’s in the morgue at Maria Hospital."
Upon hearing this, Luo An imdiately picked up his phone and commanded:
"Mona, Michelle, head to Maria Hospital now and investigate the procedure of the body being cremated."
"No problem!"
Mona on the other end nodded, patted Michelle on the shoulder, closed her laptop, stood up, and walked out quickly:
"We’re on our way!"
After hanging up the phone, Luo An suggested to the two middle-aged won to go to Maria Hospital and check if the body in the morgue was indeed their father.
But the two won glanced at each other, took a few cautious steps back, and began to suspect that Luo An and the manager were in cahoots, just trying to deceive them by diverting their attention.
"..."
Luo An rolled his eyes; he didn’t have ti to argue with the two middle-aged won, skipped any further nonsense, and walked towards the nearby surveillance room.
Seeing this, the two won discussed briefly in a low voice, eventually deciding that one would go to the hospital while the other would stay here.
anwhile, Luo An quickly entered the surveillance room and asked directly:
"Chenier, how are things?"
"There are signs of tampering with the surveillance."
Chenier’s face was grim as he shifted his gaze from the computer and said:
"I can’t find the surveillance footage from early yesterday morning, and there’s no backup.
I checked the hardware here and found that the old hard disk was taken away, and it’s a new one working now."
While speaking, Chenier shifted his gaze toward the manager standing beside him. The manager was startled and repeatedly waved his hands:
"I really don’t know what happened! If it weren’t for the Night Watcher’s death, I rarely co here!"
With his "Emotion Sensing" active, Luo An was sure that the manager was telling the truth. Looking at the old surveillance equipnt in front of him, he rested his chin on his hand, furrowed his brows, and stayed silent.
Chenier pushed the manager out of the room, then walked over to Luo An and whispered:
"Luo An, the surveillance was taken away; the Night Watcher was cremated shortly after he died; the person behind this..."
"Definitely isn’t just an ordinary person."
A faint gleam flashed in Luo An’s eyes as he smiled slightly, preparing to leave the room.
At this mont, Luo An’s attention was caught by the lock on the desk nearby, which the manager had cut with pliers to lock the warehouse door where the photographs were taken.
It’s the year 2006, and the warehouse company is still using tal pull-down doors with a ring embedded in the cent on the floor; tenants need to buy their locks to secure the door.
Picking up the lock and examining it, Luo An’s expression changed slightly, and Chenier looked puzzled:
"What’s wrong?"
"There’s sothing off with this lock."
Luo An knew a bit about tampering with sliding doors and technically interfering with locks.
Keys might appear similar in shape and color, but the indentations’ length, thickness, and spacing are actually quite different.
Luo An had closely examined the indentations on that key before and deduced the corresponding lock and what kind the lock cylinder should be.
Before heading to the warehouse company, just in case, Luo An had Chenier carry that key.
Earlier, when searching for the warehouse, the manager saw the search warrant and imdiately pulled out pliers, not giving them a chance to use the key.
"The lock cylinder doesn’t match that key."
Luo An took a thin piece of wire, poked it into the lock several tis from behind, then pulled it out and tossed it aside. He then handed it to Chenier, frowning:
"Give the key."
"Uh..."
Chenier skeptically pulled out the key from his pocket and handed it to Luo An, who took the key and inserted it into the lock. It only went halfway in and wouldn’t go any further.
"Just as I thought."
Luo An’s mouth curled into a smile, handing over the half-inserted key and the lock to Chenier, and said:
"This key is not ant for the lock on the warehouse door."
Chenier, holding the lock and key in her hands, looked astounded. She truly hadn’t expected Luo An to possess such skills and to observe so ticulously.
Suppressing the shock in her heart, Chenier looked up and frowned:
"But there are no locked items in that warehouse."
As she spoke, Chenier’s face suddenly changed, and another conjecture erged in her mind, she exclaid:
"Luo An, could it be that the item ant to be opened with this key has also been taken away like the photos on the wall of that warehouse?!"
"It’s not impossible."
Luo An’s eyelid twitched as he nodded silently, and Chenier’s face grew even grimr, inevitably letting out a few "F" word greetings under her breath.
"But there’s another possibility."
After pondering for a long ti, Luo An suddenly rembered sothing, his eyes slightly brightening, and he quickly stepped out of the room, pulling over the manager to ask:
"Mr. Manager, what na did the tenant of warehouse 636 leave?"
Warehouse 636 was the one where the lock had been clipped and the photos inside taken.
The manager sat by the computer, pulled up the warehouse tenants’ information, and took out the Nockvic-Brage information that Luo An had just given him, comparing it:
"Brage, the last na of this warehouse’s owner is it."
"What about Nockvic?"
Chenier also realized sothing, her eyes lighting up as she hastily asked:
"Is there anyone who has registered to rent a warehouse under the na Nockvic?"
"Let check..."
The manager carefully searched for a while and pointed at the information he found, saying:
"There’s a person with the sa na, and it’s a female."
A cold splash dampened the excitent in Chenier’s eyes.
She looked up at Luo An, whose expression was unchanged. After thinking it over, he suggested another na:
"Look for another person nad Kevin, Kevin Hyman."
Kevin Hyman was the fake na used by an informant Nockvic-Brage, which they got during an interrogation at the tropolitan Police Departnt of a man who refused to pay a woman.
"Kevin Hyman..."
The manager repeated the na quietly, slowly typing the letters into the system page.
Seconds passed, the computer page flickered, and the manager’s eyes lit up, nodding:
"There is a record for Kevin Hyman in the system!
He has a warehouse rented for over a decade in another warehouse area in Northeast Washington D.C!"
"Good!"
Upon hearing this, Chenier imdiately raised her eyebrows and clapped her hands, while Luo An chuckled and asked:
"What’s the warehouse number?"
"193!"
Twenty minutes later, the forensic investigation agents arrived at the warehouse area and began processing the traces inside warehouse 636.
Luo An and Chenier exchanged brief pleasantries with them, then drove to the location of warehouse 193 in Northeast Washington D.C.
The distance between the two warehouse areas wasn’t far. As Chenier drove, Luo An’s phone suddenly rang:
"It’s , Mona."
The voice of Mona on the other end of the phone sounded slightly annoyed, with a woman’s loud cursing echoing in the background, she whispered:
"Luo An, Michelle and I are at Maria Hospital right now, the Night Watcher has indeed been cremated.
The spot in the morgue originally belonging to him now houses a patient who had died a long ti ago and has no relatives.
The hospital’s explanation is that a temporary worker mixed up the patient and the Night Watcher’s numbers in the morgue."
"Temporary worker..."
Hearing this term, a mocking look flashed in Luo An’s eyes as he asked:
"Where is this temporary worker now?"
"He’s been fired by the hospital... Should we investigate his information?"
"Just a brief investigation will suffice, then shift most of our ti and focus onto the hospital staff responsible for these matters."
"OK."
As the call ended, Chenier, who was driving, was about to ask sothing, but before she could speak, Luo An’s phone rang again.
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