After asking the sisters what had happened and the details of the horror story, Luke and Selina set off again.
The car first went onto Highway 1, then turned around and went back onto Highway 73, heading southeast again.
Finally, they turned into a rural road, and after driving for forty minutes, they arrived at a place called Springwood Town.
When they entered the town, both of them vaguely sensed that the town was enveloped in an uneasy atmosphere. The passersby were in a hurry and seemed indifferent to their surroundings.
Occasionally, they would meet the eyes of some of the residents through the open windows, but they would quickly look away without greeting them, as if they were avoiding the plague.
Not long after they entered the town, their car was stopped.
A sheriff in a yellow police uniform bowed down from the driver's seat and asked, "Who are you? What are you doing here? "
Unperturbed, Luke gestured at himself and Selina with both hands on the steering wheel. "We're staff from No. 37 Middle School's campsite. We want to talk to Will Rollins."
The sheriff frowned. "What do you want to talk to him about?"
Luke was still smiling. "Two days ago, when Will was camping, he did something bad. The dean of students told him to come back and calm down, but it wasn't a punishment. After all, camping is a vacation for children, and it wasn't appropriate to leave him out, so we came. "
The sheriff relaxed. "Is that so? You can go straight to Will's house."
Luke hummed an "oh" and asked casually, "What's going on here? We didn't see many people when we came. "
The sheriff's face stiffened, and he said coldly, "We don't have many residents here."
With that, he turned around and left.
Watching the sheriff drive off, Luke started his own car and sighed. "It seems that they're in a lot of trouble."
If it was a small problem, the sheriff wouldn't be so jittery.
Selina had been reading up on Springwood. Hearing that, she said, "There's nothing special about this place. The population isn't too big or too small, and the economy isn't too bad. According to the database, the public security situation here is normal, and there aren't many serious criminal cases. Except for this … "
Placing the tablet on the dashboard, she continued, "More than ten years ago, there was a serial murder case here that made it onto many newspapers in Los Angeles."
Luke glanced at the photo in the old newspaper headline on the tablet. "Serial killer of children? You weren't arrested? "
Selina tapped on the tablet a few times. "No, because there wasn't enough evidence to arrest the suspect, so …"
Luke asked, "He got away with it, and now he's committing crimes again?"
Selina shook her head, and another newspaper headline appeared on the tablet. "So, the suspect was cornered by the angry parents into an abandoned church outside of town, and then burned to ashes."
Luke chuckled. "Burn to ashes? You must be joking. "It was not easy to burn a person to ashes. Funeral parlors also needed a special incinerator to achieve this effect.
Using wood as a fuel could at most produce coke, but turning it into ash was impossible. After the bones were burned, there would be a phenomenon of recrystallization. At most, it could be considered a fake sarira.
Selina nodded. "Because the police didn't find the suspect's body, the parents didn't go to jail for burning the suspect to death. However, the suspect has disappeared since then. "
Luke said, "Fine. What was the unlucky guy who was burned to ashes for?"
Selina said, "White male, born in 1948, date unknown. He's five feet ten inches tall. He used to be a gardener or a school worker at Badham's kindergarten. He went missing in 1990, and there's no evidence that he's still alive. "
Luke scratched his head. "Born in 48? Then wouldn't he be fifty-five now? "
Could it be that this fellow was immortal? Or was he so talented that he could still go on a killing spree when he was sixty years old?
He was still doubtful about this point.
After all, nothing was strange in this world.
For example, a certain person whom Stark called an old popsicle had slept for seventy years, and when he woke up, he went on a killing spree all over the world without looking old at all.
As they talked, Luke drove the car to Will Rollins's house.
The house looked nice, and they weren't poor. Perhaps that was why Will had been able to go to high school in Los Angeles.
Luke knocked on the door and talked to Will's father for half an hour, before they came out again.
Luke lowered his voice and said to Will's father, who had walked them to the door, "I'll explain Will's situation to Juliet, but there's little hope that he'll go back. You know that the kids at the campsite aren't in the right mood right now, and Will's emotions … aren't very stable. "
Will's father nodded with a bitter smile. "Fine, my request was too presumptuous."
Luke sighed, but still said, "If possible, it's best if he changes his environment and doesn't stay in this town. This will have a negative impact on him now and in the future."
Will's father nodded silently and watched them leave.
After they got into the car, Selina frowned. "Is there something wrong with Will's mind? I feel like he's not in a good state. It's like … he hasn't slept well in days. "
Luke shook his head. "Who knows?"
"Where are we going now?" Selina asked casually as she looked ahead.
Luke said, "We're going to look for Kris Falls. She's the first eyewitness in the suicide case."
The two of them drove to the other side of the town. On a gently undulating hilly area, various types of stone monuments stood there.
Twenty or thirty people were sitting under an awning. In front of them was a coffin, and a priest was reading a eulogy.
This was the town's cemetery.
According to the files they had found at the police department, the high school student lying in the coffin was Dean Russell, who had died a few days earlier.
A few days earlier, he had been eating at a fast food restaurant and had slit his own neck with a knife.
Several eyewitnesses had seen the gory scene, but the strange thing was that Will's playmates in town had told him that it was the devil who killed Dean.
That was also why Jeff's twin daughters had picked on Will.
After all, it was always difficult to get evidence from someone who had seen the devil.
Twenty minutes later, the funeral was over.
Seeing that the crowd had dispersed, Luke and Selina walked over.
At that moment, a boy walked up to a girl. They were talking in front of a shelf of Dean's photos.
When he got closer, Luke overheard their conversation with his keen ears.
The boy asked, "Kris, did you know Dean when you were little?"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
