"Sarah Homeland Security. Agent Ethan Doyle."
"This is the Security Bureau's collaborator, Detective Hitzfeld. She recently solved the mystery of the Crystal Sea that has troubled the world for many years, and played an important role in eliminating the evil spirits in the Sinze Parish."
In order to build momentum for Hitzfeld, Ethan enunciated very clearly, striving to make every word understandable at the first moment.
As expected, it caused a commotion. A small number of townspeople showed realization and amazement on their faces, pointed at this side and began to explain to their companions.
"Department of Homeland Security..." Liszt's eyes widened as he stared at Ethan's photo and all the words in the little notebook for a long time. Suddenly, he smiled awkwardly, "Oh~ It's you!"
"I'm so glad... It's great that you can come... You don't know how busy the work is here, Mr. Doyle. If I can help it, I really don't want to be the sheriff..."
"We'll talk about this later." Ethan looked at this person helplessly, "Now do as she says and evacuate the crowd."
With the help of Lister and others, and the fact that the townspeople understood that Hitzfeld and his team were there to help investigate the case, they all cooperated. In less than ten minutes, the area had become deserted.
Of course, most people didn't go far. They huddled in various streets or alleys, staring at this place and discussing whether these outsiders could be trusted.
There were also those tourists from other places who came to join in the fun but were "caught red-handed". They were also forced to stay, and Lister was finding them one by one to record their statements.
"When did you come to town?"
"Last Friday... came by train."
"Do you have any way to prove what you have been doing all this time?"
"We spent most of our time playing in the forest behind us, sir. We were either in the mountains or boating on the water. The fishermen should be able to testify for us."
"What about you? When did you get here?"
"I only arrived yesterday, sir... I have only just found a place to stay, as these people and Mr. Tonks can attest."
Hitzfeld just glanced at the movement here and didn't pay much attention. He walked directly to the side of the ditch and saw at a glance that a large area of grass had turned black.
At the bottom of the gutter lay a humanoid creature, all charred black, and a large amount of powdery fragments similar to coal slag were scattered around the grass and the edge of the stone pit.
Its hands and feet were severely damaged.
The two hands from the shoulders down disappeared.
The left foot was relatively good, with the heel still intact. The right foot was broken off from the ankle, similar to the condition of the two arms.
"Oh my god...oh goddess..."
Jerry couldn't bear to watch this scene. She almost fainted after taking a glance at it. Ethan helped her to rest aside. Only Hitzfeld and Darent were left nearby.
"Damn...is this really a human?"
Darent pinched his nose and squatted down, then reached out and picked up a small handful of black powder and smelled it first.
Then he broke off a little bit from the damaged part of the body, squeezed it hard, and saw that the fragments also scattered into similar powder.
"It's all part of him." He looked up at Hitzfeld and shook his head slightly.
"The surface is so hard that it cannot be the result of a single burn. This should not be the first scene."
"Yes." Hitzfeld nodded. "Someone killed him somewhere else and burned his body several times to destroy the evidence. This is just the place where he burned his body for the last time."
Judging from the degree of blackening of the surrounding weeds and the scope of burning, the fire should not have been burning for long.
It started probably last night - maybe even early in the morning.
This amount of time alone is enough to clear many people of suspicion, including Hitzfeld himself.
"This guy is very knowledgeable..." Darent curled his lips, "This place is quite close to the lake bay, there is a lot of mist, and the wet dry grass will suppress the spread of the fire. It seems that he doesn't want to make a big noise."
"But I don't understand... If he could quietly bring the body here and burn it, why didn't he just smash this thing and scatter it in the lake?"
Darent frowned in thought.
Hitzfeld's eyebrows twitched, and he suddenly looked up at the dilapidated house behind the fence.
Chapter 16 Under the Fire Dragon
"Sheriff Lister." Hitzfeld found Lister, who was still pretending to give a statement, and said, "Can you tell me what the situation is with this house next door?"
"Hmm..." Liszt stared at the girl with a frown.
To be honest, the reason why he cooperated was not because of this girl...it was the little notebook in Ethan's hand that worked, and he valued Ethan Doyle more.
As for Ashun Hitzfeld and the mystery of the Crystal Sea... he hears at least a hundred of these nonsense stories every year, and God knows whether they are exaggerated or not.
He glanced at Ethan and saw that the man was turning his head to look over here.
"This is the mayor's house." He immediately took the initiative to cooperate. "It is one of the properties of Bal-Glarant, the mayor of Green Town."
"Mayor?" Hitzfeld was stunned.
Then she quickly regained her composure - indeed, to satisfy her guess, the identity of the owner of this house must be extraordinary.
“Can you give me more details?” she continued. “I’m sorry, I think this will be very helpful in solving the case.”
Liszt was eager for all this mess to pass as soon as possible, and his willingness to cooperate became stronger. He said, "It's like this... This is actually the temporary residence of the mayor during his childhood. Because his castle was a bit far from the red maple forest, his servants built a home for him here. During that time, they must have gone deep into the mountains and forests to hunt every day, using this method to train his hands, feet and eyesight."
"These are all things from his childhood, right? How old is he this year?"
"I don't know... but he must be over fifty."
"So this was at least forty years ago? You were employed here forty years ago?"
"No! No! I've only been here for three years... I didn't see these things with my own eyes. I heard them from the older townspeople!"
"Does he still live in this house?"
"No longer. He is living in the castle with the people from those two families."
"castle?"
"The castle is at the westernmost part of the town. It's a manor built against the back hill. They all live there."
"That means the house has been abandoned."
"Of course... This is a makeshift structure, not properly built with cement. Only livestock and desperate people would stay here for the night. I think the mayor has forgotten about this place a long time ago."
"But if this gets to his ears, he should be able to remember the time he spent here."
"This..." Liszt's forehead was covered with sweat, "What do you mean by this?"
He didn't want this matter to alarm those people. He didn't want to have any more dealings with them from the bottom of his heart!
"The murderer had many ways to dispose of the body, but he chose to dump it behind this house and burn it in the ditch." Hitzfeld stared into his eyes, "and he was very careful to avoid the possibility of starting a fire, and did not choose to go further over the fence... I think this hint is already very obvious."
"Someone wanted to use this as a warning - or to alert the owner of the house."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Liszt's face changed drastically. "It's impossible to get the mayor involved... Groundless speculation... What can this remind you of?"
"What we can remind you of depends on what happened to Mayor Barr here in the past." Hitzfeld narrowed his one eye, "Please tell the mayor that we will visit him tonight."
She had originally planned to check the messenger first. Through the messenger, she could at least find out when and where he got the letter from Eugenie Copperfield. Then they could conduct further investigation on that location to see where he went next.
But the messenger died, which was too much of a coincidence.
Could it be that the murderer who killed the messenger Luke is the same person who caused Eugenie's disappearance?
Or was this what Eugenie did herself, one of the purposes of which was to silence her and make her never know where the letters came from?
In order to obtain more clues, Hitzfeld felt that she had to communicate with the real owner of Green Town.
"I can't agree to you!" Liszt refused immediately.
"I'm not trying to embarrass you." Then he immediately defended his behavior, "It's just that those people...it's very unpleasant to deal with them. I don't want to see them again!"
"That's surprising...how is it unpleasant?" Hitzfeld asked immediately.
She was keenly aware that this town...Green Town, did not seem to be as quiet and peaceful as the rumors outside had said.
There are some secrets hidden here.
Something horrible that could cost someone their life.
"Are you sure you want to get involved in this?" Liszt glanced at Ethan again, "I warn you, it's best not to meddle in other people's business."
"Then why do you think we came to Green Town?" Hitzfeld asked.
"In fact, Sheriff, we are here for a missing persons case, and we want to know all the strange stories here."
"Okay." Liszt hesitated for a moment, "If they ask, don't say it was me who leaked it."
"Of course."
"When I first came here three years ago," the man raised his eyebrows, his face looking like he was reminiscing, "I thought I was looking for a job to provide for the elderly."
"Of course, that's actually true, but that's not how I imagined retirement."
"My idea of retirement is that I can be free and handle every case I encounter according to my own ideas, legal education, and moral concepts, whether it is a neighborhood dispute or a murder, no matter how big or small, I can handle it according to justice."
"But in reality, people here don't care about me as the sheriff. They are willing to respect me because they think I am under the command of Mayor Barr."
"Yes - they are essentially only willing to follow orders from that person. I actually have no real power here."
"I think I understand." Hitzfeld nodded in understanding.
Anyway, my efforts and what I say are of no use.
Let's just start - wouldn't it be nice to spend your retirement in this beautiful place? Maybe you can even live longer.
“So those people treat you badly.”
"No, actually they are very polite." Lister shook his head.
"But...how can I put it?"
"When you face those people and see them, you will feel from the bottom of your heart that something cold and sinister is approaching you."
"Cold and gloomy thing, evil?"
"No... it's not evil." He shook his head again. "If it was evil, they would never allow these people to continue to exist. The stone tablets in the monastery didn't react either, so they definitely have no problem in this regard."
"So you're afraid because you don't understand the principles behind this?"
"How is this possible!" Liszt almost jumped up.
"Scared... are you kidding me? I've lived for so many years... I've even killed an evil creature... Scared? Ha!"
Hitzfeld just looked at him calmly, with a smile on his face.
"I can't possibly help with this anyway!"
Liszt was somewhat annoyed and angry.
"Cough cough!"
Ethan coughed from five or six meters away.
"If you really want to visit the castle, you can first consult Father Booker of the monastery." Liszt shrugged his shoulders.
"Father Booker was sent here much earlier than I was. Many of the older generation of townspeople are not as old as him, so he must know more."
"I remember that. Thank you, Mr. Sheriff."
After this exhausting exchange, Lister called a few people as Ethan instructed, made a simple stretcher out of bed sheets and sticks, lifted the body up and sealed it for storage.
"Is your little notebook so useful?"
Darent came closer.
"Why is it so difficult every time I try to impersonate you guys?"
"Of course, the official seal of Shadow Lion is not easy to forge." Ethan retorted unhappily.
"Wait…what did you do while impersonating us?"
"Nothing, don't worry about it."
Hitzfeld squatted by the fence to comfort Jerry.
This big girl had never thought that the person who had sent her a letter would say goodbye to her in this way. A mixture of emotions such as grievance, shock, and guilt surged into her heart, and she fell to the ground, covering her face with her hands and crying. No matter how she was comforted, she couldn't stop crying.
There was nothing Hitzfeld could do about this.
After trying to comfort her for a few times, she gave up. She stood up by pressing her knees, and suddenly felt something floating in the sky.
Looking closely, it looks like a kite.
It has a long neck, a diamond-shaped body with two wings, and a long, thin tail dragging underneath.
It was a kite that resembled a fire dragon.
