Mysterious Hunting Ground

Chapter 76 76. Brainstorming, Impossible Possibilities

LVPD monitoring room.

Dean replayed the surveillance footage of Abby at the Black Jack Bar and the IKEA Hotel on 9.20.

"Abby deliberately let the police see her face on video and arrest her."

Dean looked at Holden,
"In your experience, why do you think she did that?"

Holden propped his hands on the table and stared at the screen for a while,

"Deliberately left video evidence, was caught and died without pleading guilty. There is only one explanation for this situation-Abby is provoking LVPD, betting that we cannot sanction her."

"The premise of proactive provocation is that the perpetrator is confident that he will not be convicted." Dean interjected, "but the current situation is just the opposite. Abby is at an extreme disadvantage and almost half-footed into prison."

"Don't be secretive, just say what you have to say."

"I thought of another reasonable explanation." Dean said with a strange brilliance on his face——

"The killer is someone else! He deliberately exposed Abby's face to the cameras and witnesses, let's treat Abby as a criminal and close the case quickly, and then he can get away with it!"

Dean's voice fell to the ground, and the air in the monitoring room froze, and only the beating of the heart could be heard for a moment.

Holden's smile broke the silence.

"So the person in the video is not Abby, but a twin sister who looks exactly like Abby? Or a person wearing a fake mask with the same body shape and fingerprints as Abby?"

Dean nodded inwardly, then shook his head again.

He also considered that if it was another person or some kind of existence disguised or transformed into Abby, then that thing was not Abby after all, and logically speaking, the DNA test results should be different.

Holden squeezed his knees with both hands,

"Then what do you mean? I reminded you not to be overly obsessed with supernatural theories, but you have become obsessed. You can fake your appearance, but the DNA and tooth marks left on the victim all match Abby. These evidences are not Will lie, the murderer can only be Abby."

"No, the evidence didn't lie, but Abby didn't lie either." At the same time, various clues that he had investigated in the past few days flashed through Dean's mind, especially the strange state that Abby fell into on the day of the crime. After comprehensive consideration, he made a decision. made an unprecedented bold hypothesis——

"Abby is hypnotized."

Possession was also possible, but that didn't convince Holden.

"The scar on the hand is the medium of hypnosis."

Dean word by word,
"The real murderer manipulated Abby to kill Bucky Fran, deliberately left biological samples at the scene, and left video evidence on surveillance video on multiple occasions, allowing the police to wrongly arrest Abby and convict her .”

"Afterwards, Abby woke up from the hypnotic state, and naturally knew nothing about the crimes she committed before, so she insisted that she was innocent."

Dean's voice became louder and louder, echoing in the monitoring room like an unstoppable wave.

"The real murderer is safe and sound hiding in the shadows and watching our jokes!"

……

"I'm done, what do you think?"

Dean took a deep breath, looked at the system, and frowned.

After this inference, the investigation progress jumped from 40.00% to 42, which was much less than he expected.

Wasn't it hypnosis, another being transformed into Abby?

Some kind of being possessed over Abby and controlling her?
Supernatural beings created clones of Abby?

But even though Dean changed several guesses, the progress did not change at all.

Dean suddenly understood the gameplay of this progress bar, except that at the beginning of the case, it would give a little hint based on the important things Dean came into contact with.

For heavyweight inferences, if there is not enough heavyweight evidence to support it, the progress bar will not recognize it at all, and it will not change.

Random guesswork is useless.

……

Holden petrified and hesitated for a full half a minute, and his eyes became very complicated.

Hypnotized?

"I admit, I underestimated you before. Dean, you not only have good skills, but you also have the talent of screenwriting. The story just now is very exciting. It is a bit of a talent for you to be a policeman or detective. I suggest you go to Hollywood in the future." film company development."

"I was serious."

"I also sincerely suggest that you change your career. Your imagination has no boundaries, Hypnotize..." Holden seemed to hear a big joke, "Hypnotize Abby to hide from her parents' eyeliner, sneak out of the house, and ride a bicycle Running miles away, brutally murdering a child, then running to a bar for whiskey and hanging out on hotel cameras."

"It's not hypnosis, is it demonic possession?" Holden concluded. "It's more nonsense than psychic talk."

"I'm just offering a way of thinking." Dean looked directly into Holden's eyes. "Although it sounds unbelievable, it is already the answer that best explains the contradictions."

"Even if you guessed right." Holden glanced at him and asked lazily, "Continue, how do you plan to follow this line of thought to find the real culprit, the master hypnotist?"

"I'm going to ask you for advice. Use your rich experience to help me think about how to catch the murderer?" Dean paused and asked slightly, "If you really can't accept it, just play a game with me." A detective game, let go of all restrictions and free your imagination."

Holden was silent for a long time, a trace of struggle flashed across his face, and finally sighed dejectedly,
"I'm really crazy to make up stories with you, but I'm a little thirsty." Holden patted the desk.

Dean immediately made a cup of coffee graciously. As long as the murderer can be caught, what about being thick-skinned?
"Then let's shake it together." Holden took a sip of his coffee, and tapped the table rhythmically with his right middle finger, "The hypnotist you imagined is currently hiding in the dark."

Holden throws a test,

"What was his motive for killing Bucky Fran?"

There was a flash of thought in Dean's eyes, and he turned around the equipment a few times,
"If you brutally kill a child, there must be a big problem in your heart, and you said that a psychopath goes through a process from scratch."

"He may have been subjected to some kind of special physical or psychological persecution when he was a child. This negative influence gradually distorted his mind as he grew older. By chance, he began to draw happiness from these tortures!"

"Special psychological needs are a strong motive for committing crimes, just like addiction cannot be quit." Holden nodded, adding, "Of course there is also a second motive. Bucky Fran's organs were removed and he was disemboweled. There were bite marks on the edge of tissue tearing. This kind of death is much more serious than ordinary obscenity cases. It is not only terrifying, but also exudes extremely inflated desire and mystery."

"It's like using death to complete a certain ritual and fill yourself up." Holden said casually, "I've seen similar dead people, naked and painted with special symbols, with antlers on their heads, and kneeling with their hands bound. In the branches."

"But whether it's to satisfy the pervert's psychological needs, or to complete some mysterious ritual, or other motives for killing——according to my experience, the murderer can't just stop there!"

Dean's heart skipped a beat,
"You mean he's going to keep committing crimes, he's a serial killer?"

"Serial killer." The corners of Holden's mouth suddenly curved slightly, and his eyes showed nostalgia. "I came up with this professional term together with a few colleagues. That's right, I think this hypnotist will have a next time."

"So we just have to wait for him to show off?" Dean asked.

"This is the most stupid way." Holden hesitated, "The time and place of the next crime are unknown."

Dean sighed. The system only gave him half a month, and Abby couldn't afford to wait anymore. She would go to court in a few days. According to the current trend, she has a high probability of losing the case.

But he remembered that Jack, the bar owner, had a scar similar to Abby's,

"I think we can send someone to watch the bar owner Jack. He has the same scar on his wrist as Abby. He may be the next murderer!"

"What's the reason? Just because of a scar, you want the LVPD guys to stare at an old friend. It's impossible. You need stronger evidence." Holden shook his head, stroked his smooth chin, and changed his face. angle,

"The real murderer used hypnosis to frame the innocent Abby, and hid himself flawlessly. Such superb criminal skills must have gone through many experiments, and he is probably a repeat offender. So I think that when time moves forward, before killing Bucky... Before Fran, he had committed the same type of crime."

"It's just that in the past, scapegoats like Abby helped him block the crime. After the case was closed, all the information was also sealed in the archives, and no one knew."

Dean's whole body trembled when he heard the words, as if a bucket of cold water was poured on his head in midsummer, he couldn't help asking excitedly,
"So we found the files of its previous crimes, which can also be used as important evidence to unearth more clues and flaws about it, arrest it and bring it to justice, and exonerate Abby!"

Holden nodded, "That's the truth."

Dean paused and asked,
"Has there been a similar case in Las Vegas before?"

"I have read the child death case files here in the last three years several times." Holden shook his head. "There is no case similar to Bucky Fran, not even one."

Dean calmed down.

This is reasonable, if the real culprit is not a fool and does not want to attract special attention from the police, he will definitely not commit crimes in the same place continuously.

Where is it most likely to have committed crimes?

Where was his last hunting ground?

Dean bowed his head, his brows furrowed, and he fell into deep thought.

In the dim light of the equipment room and the hot mist rising from the coffee, Holden stared at the pensive face opposite, with a flash of approval in his eyes.

"The last crime location."

"The last crime location."

Dean muttered to himself in a daze. At a certain moment, the lights on the computer screen were too dazzling, so he turned around and took a look.

He saw a picture of Abby in that Adidas three-stripes tracksuit.

Immediately, as if seeing the sun through the clouds, his brows relaxed, his heart suddenly became clear, and he grinned and showed his white teeth.

"I have proof! The white tracksuit and the crescent scar on Abby's hand are all from Santa Monica!"

"If there was a crime last time, it would most likely be in Santa Monica!"

The progress jumped to 50.00%.

……

Dean took the pen and paper from the desk, waved his hand, and wrote two names on both ends of the white paper,
"True Murderer," Abby Clarke.

He teases out several timelines between the two:
On July 22, the real murderer injured Abby's left wrist on the Santa Monica beach, leaving a crescent-shaped scar as a hypnotic mark and medium.

In mid-September, the real killer got his white tracksuit in Santa Monica and came to Las Vegas.

September NO.20, Las Vegas Booker Park, Abby was controlled by the real murderer, wearing a white sportswear, killed Bucky Fran.

……

"Do you understand, Holden." Dean showed him the timeline excitedly, "The murderer stayed in Santa Monica for a while, and the last crime was probably there!"

Holden grabbed the timetable and glanced at it, his expression became very exciting,

"How on earth did you put these few irrelevant things and places together mechanically?"

"Why bother with scars and tracksuits?"

"Let me just ask you again, Scar, you made up a hypnotic reason, what about the sports jacket? Why did the murderer travel all the way from Santa Monica to Las Vegas, and Abby had to wear it to commit the crime?"

"I haven't figured it out yet. Like the scar, this dress is probably some kind of medium or mark? Or a prop for a special ceremony?" Dean said uncertainly, and looked at the system, but there was no change.

"Holden, take me to the Santa Monica Police Department, and help me find out if there have been any child deaths similar to Bucky Fran in recent years. As long as we can find them, it will prove that our inference is correct. Wrong, the murderer is a serial killer who hides deeply! Abby was wronged!"

"Have you really thought it through?" Holden folded his hands, propped his chin on the back of his hand, and looked at him sharply, "The hypothesis you put forward at the beginning that the murderer is a hypnotist is very far-fetched, and you asked me to accompany you again." You play the detective game, you do a lot of deduction on the basis of this shaky hypothesis, and then you come to the conclusion that the murderer committed a crime in Santa Monica."

"This conclusion is untenable, and I will not go out of my way to prove it."

"This conclusion is well-founded, it's... intuition." Dean looked at the system's voice and paused. Santa Monica's conclusion can touch the progress, and the system has not made too many mistakes so far, so it is worth investigating.

But the evidence of this occult cannot be explained to outsiders.

Holden shook his head empirically,

"Didn't you learn that when you were training as a volunteer? Don't make assumptions when observing and gathering evidence, or you will subconsciously twist the facts to support that assumption, and you will lose your objectivity."

"But you're going to do it anyway, and you're building a house on a castle in the sky that won't have a solid foundation."

"The more luxurious you build in front of you, the worse the final collapse will be."

"All your self-righteous inferences and conclusions will crumble into ruins, and what awaits you in the end is ruin and disillusionment."

Holden showed a trace of unbearable, but then hit him mercilessly.

"All your hard work will eventually become a joke!"

Dean's face froze for a moment, his lips moved, his eyes struggled to look into the air,

All my inferences are ridiculous imaginations and assumptions, doomed to failure?

No.

Why do investigations have to follow the rules when they have come to the supernatural world?
The system is an abnormal thing. To investigate according to its prompts and reflect it on the real process is bound to be jumpy, even absurd and incomprehensible, just like looking for possibility in the impossible.

But Dean's flickering eyes became firm again. He had no better choice. Turning around now meant giving up this incident and giving up Abby.

……

Dean's expression became more serious and sincere than ever before, and he solemnly made a promise to Holden,

"Man, from the Alexander Raphael case, to the Bud Burton case last time, to the usual volunteer missions, have I let you down? Help me this time, and I owe you a favor !"

Holden grinned silently.

But staring at the tense face in front of him, the determination in the eyes, the persistence to the truth, and the stubbornness that never turns back.

He thought of his passionate and wild fantasies when he was young, stubborn and unreasonable.

Fail to fail.

Holden looked down at the table and shook his head, showing a helpless smile,

"If you insist on hitting the wall once, then I will make it happen for you. I will accompany you to the Santa Monica police station to look for it."

"But I'm going to have to make a few calls and convince that powder keg of Carl to let us go at a critical time like this."

Dean held out his hand,

"Smart decision, trust me, you won't regret it."

Holden shook his hand lightly,
"Leave tomorrow morning, drive your Bronco, by the way, the gas fee will not be reimbursed."

(End of this chapter)