[Toru Amuro] Those years when I worked at Poirot

Seven years ago, New York, Queens.

16:15 p.m.

A black Cadillac was parked in a narrow alley between two gray high-rise residential buildings, and there was a black trash can half a person's height in front of it. If passers-by didn't turn their heads to look, they would not notice that this car was almost the same as Car's that blend into the background.

Of course, few people pass by this street, and the desolate and decadent scene is like an oil painting of the last days.

A black cat crouched for a long time on the lid of the trash can, lazily licking its paws.The cloudy sky heralds a heavy rain, but until now, no trace of dampness has been brewed.

A series of light footsteps gradually approached from outside the alley, and a young girl with rust-colored curly hair walked over quickly holding a bulging paper bag.

She bypassed the trash can and the black cat, jumped nimbly into the car, and put the paper bag on her lap.

The long-haired man wearing a knitted hat sitting in the driver's seat glanced helplessly at the bag exuding a sweet smell:

"Bought so many donuts again?"

"Sugar is the driving force of life." The girl smiled and opened the paper bag, picked a strawberry-flavored one, put it in her mouth, and pushed the bag under the man's nose, "Mr. Akai, you can eat some too. That guy doesn't know when When we come back, we may have to guard all night, it’s not okay to be hungry.”

"..." Mr. Akai - Shuichi Akai, looking at the bag full of colorful circle-shaped food sprinkled with icing sugar, wrinkled his nose, "You...keep it for yourself, I'm not hungry."

He fumbled in his pocket with his fingers and found the lighter, a sense of satisfaction welled up.For him, as long as there are cigarettes and alcohol, there is no need for food to satisfy his hunger for the time being.

"You still have to be careful, Erica." Akai lit a cigarette and rolled down the car window, "He has killed five people in a row and was cornered by the FBI and the police. It is very likely that everything will be desperate. When you act, you must protect yourself .”

That being said, he didn't think this newcomer who liked sweets and strawberry milk would be hurt. After all, she was a female martial arts champion within the FBI, and she also won the runner-up in the National Youth Taekwondo Competition in high school.

Erica began to devour the second chocolate-flavored donut at this time, and she nodded seriously: "I understand, don't worry."

The black cat suddenly raised its tail, jumped up, and jumped out of the trash can.

At this moment, a man wearing a gray-blue jacket with sunken eye sockets as if he had taken drugs passed by the alley. The two people in the car immediately looked at each other, and one quickly smoked a third of his cigarette. One threw the food bag to the back seat, wiped the debris from the corner of his mouth, and quickly checked the gun on his belt.

Then, the car door opened without a sound, and the two moved along the gray wall to the intersection. The serial murderer they had been tracking for half a month was in front of them, like a skeleton, exuding a perverted aura.

Akai looked at the man from the back and said calmly, "There should be no gun."

It turned out that the man had nothing on, and was surprisingly well subdued.There was no need for Akai to do anything. Erica, who had just been in the FBI for half a year, threw him in the face with one hand.

I thought that with the arrest of the suspect, the investigation that lasted for half a month would come to an end. Erica finished the draft of the closing report, but there was an accident that no one could have imagined.

The suspect confessed to killing only four people, not the last one, and he had an alibi that couldn't be more convincing: he was detained at the police station for disturbing the peace all that day.

Of course, the case can still be concluded like this, at least he killed the first four people, and the murder weapon - a small chainsaw was also found in his home, with a large number of victims' DNA left on it. I also confessed, and the case can be closed according to the process.

Neither, however, agreed to call it a day.Needless to say, Akai Shuichi is a reasoning maniac in a certain sense. This kind of reversal made him a little excited. The serial murder case that he thought was boring suddenly became very valuable for reasoning.

Erica also felt the same way. As a newcomer, she was full of energy, curiosity, and obsession with obsession, and she had the drive to find out.

"Do you think the prisoner has any accomplices? He deliberately caused trouble and was detained, and then asked his accomplices to kill people?" Erica asked as she left the local police station and drove into the highway, but quickly denied herself.

"It doesn't seem to make sense. If he had an accomplice, he would cooperate to forge the alibi from the beginning." She shook her head mockingly, feeling that she was still not sophisticated enough.

"That's right." Akai Hideichi glanced at the rearview mirror. A bearded truck driver always wanted to overtake, and he kept getting behind them, "And did you notice his attitude when he was interrogated? A look of eagerness to let him go The whole world knows that he is a murderer, that he committed this serial female murder that terrified the whole of New York. Will such a person deny his "merit"? If he did it, he will be desperate show off."

Erica nodded: "This kind of person usually has a very low sense of existence and is not taken seriously by others. What he longs for most is a chance to make him famous. As the saying goes, things are always reversed. He has become abnormal in the process of being ignored. "

"It's really pathetic." Akai snorted and dropped the truck with a beautiful drift.

Erica leaned back, enjoying the wide view ahead.She likes riding in Akai's car the most. She can feel the speed and passion at any time without danger.

The two have been working together for half a year, and they hit it off unexpectedly from the very beginning.Akai is taciturn, but very reliable, with a high IQ and strong abilities, and there are many things worth learning from her.

Erica herself is also a girl who is not good at words. She used to have a short-term partner who was very fond of random thoughts, which made her hear magic voices in her ears every day, and she couldn't completely refuse to respond. In this way, she was said to have no sense of humor , made her very distressed.

She is not indifferent, nor does she have a sense of humor, but she is slow to warm up, and it is difficult to open her heart to people she is not familiar with.

Therefore, these two people have only been together for a week, and they are like old partners.

Neither of the two would meddle in anyone's business, and both tolerated and even ignored each other's quirks.Erica felt no pressure from Akai's sometimes silent behavior for a day, and Akai showed no shock at Erica's high sugar intake regardless of her image.

I just said "Be careful of getting diabetes in the future" in the first week.

"Next, how do we investigate?" Erica took out the newly purchased "Sherlock Holmes" from the drawer of the car, flipped through it quickly, and asked.

She had read it several times when she was in middle school, but now she was only deeply impressed by some of the cases, most of which she had almost forgotten. Yesterday she finished reading "The Red-haired Society" and regained her love for this book when she was young.

However, although Sherlock Holmes is her favorite, she prefers Agatha Christie.

"Do you have any ideas?" Akai didn't answer directly, but asked her instead.

Erica closed the book and put it back in the drawer. She frowned and thought for a while: "I think I should take another look at the autopsy reports of all the deceased."

After saying that, he raised his head and looked at Akai's side face longing for praise.

"Please don't look at me with that look, okay, it makes me feel like an old man over fifty years old." Akai grinned and smiled, "But Mr. Palmer is right, you really Very talented for the FBI, with a keen sense of smell."

"You are too much." Erica suppressed the excitement of being recognized, straightened her body, and her face suddenly lit up, "It's actually not difficult to think of it. Only the first four victims were killed by that person, which means that the fifth The deceased was killed by a 'imitator'. After all, they are not the same person. No matter how similar the imitation is, there must be differences. Besides, we have not released the details of the corpse to the media. The imitator is probably just a mistake based on reports. The imitation was successful. Therefore, we must find out the difference in detail between the No.5 dead body and the first four dead bodies.”

"Exactly. But don't forget, we have carefully reviewed the autopsy results of these five people before, and found no obvious difference, which is why we believe that the same murderer committed the same series of murders. This time again Reading the report, there is probably no breakthrough either."

Erica let out a "hmm", and suddenly her eyes blinked rapidly. She turned her face and asked Akai: "You must have an idea, don't you?"

Akai smiled elusively, tapping the steering wheel with his fingers.

Erica knew it was his habit when he first had thoughts.But he obviously wanted to keep it secret and didn't intend to speak directly, so she also wisely stopped asking.

You can't just rely on him, you must also develop excellent reasoning skills in order to be competent for a long decades of working life.

A month ago, three women were murdered at home. They were naked to the waist, and their chests were sawn with a large cross that almost extended to their stomachs.Not having been sexually assaulted means that the murderer is likely to be gay, sexually dysfunctional, or...female.

Then there was the No.4 victim, who died in the same way.They were all stabbed to death from the back first, and then disemboweled by a chainsaw.There were traces of entertaining guests at the scene, which means that the murderer was invited into the house by the victim as a guest.

The murderer was very cunning and did not leave any fingerprints or even a single hair, which caused a lot of trouble for the detection work.

However, he can gain the trust of so many women (all in their mid-35s), and he is certainly not a vicious-looking person when he is invited in when no one else is in the house.It is very likely that he is a thin man with no offensive power and plain facial features.

Facts have proved that this is true. The murderer is not only thin, but also has a bald head. No wonder he didn't lose a single hair.

The prisoner we arrested confessed that he killed these women because they were similar to his mother, slightly obese, with long pale blond hair, strong desire for control, and most importantly, they all cheated.

He killed them to wash away their sins, so he carved a cross on their chests.

Erica suddenly said "ah", and Akai turned to look at her, "What's wrong?"

"During the interrogation yesterday, you asked the murderer whether having a son was an important reason why he chose to kill him. He said yes. I finally understand why you asked that!"

"Oh?"

"Because of the fifth deceased, she is still single."

"That's right. So it proves that this is a case of imitation murder." Akai said firmly, "And I have roughly locked the scope of the murderer."