How could he not be annoyed and frustrated?
"You see it clearly! You see it clearly!" he kept repeating to Old Luke.
"How can this be? How can this be???"
"Are you here to cause trouble on purpose, Lister?" Old Luke was also angry. He rushed back into the house, pulled out a still sobbing woman, and asked her to come and identify the body as well.
The woman's eyes were red from crying, and she couldn't stand steadily after seeing the body, and needed the old man to support her. Liszt asked her several times, but she just nodded, which completely destroyed his belief.
He was no longer able to speak and just stood there beside the corpse, staring at it in a daze.
"Come in, Sheriff." Hitzfeld brushed past him. "It's cold at night. Be careful not to catch a cold."
The police officers covered the body with the shroud again, wrapped it up and hung it on the horse to take it away.
This action immediately aroused strong resistance from Old Luke and the woman. They chased those people in anger and ordered them to put down the body.
"That's not him." A cold voice came from behind.
The two turned around and saw a gray-haired girl in a black dress.
With such features, they immediately recognized her as the famous detective. But this appearance obviously did not have any deterrent effect, so they planned to ignore her and continue to fight with the police for the body.
"If you want, I can make another 24 of these bodies." The voice continued, "You don't want Luke to really die, do you?"
“What do you mean…” After a moment of silence, Old Luke suddenly rushed to her, “Luke is still alive?… This body and the ones you found before are all fake?”
"It was true before..." Liszt reminded in a low voice.
"It's just a possibility." But the girl and Old Luke completely ignored him in their conversation. "Let's go inside and talk. I have something else to ask you."
A few minutes later, a group of people gathered in the wooden house, each found a place to sit down and watch Old Luke dragging a bundle of firewood out of a dark door.
"Let me do it!" Liszt immediately stepped forward to help, and together with the old man, they lit the stove.
It would take a while for the temperature to spread throughout the house. He rubbed his hands, thinking that he would have to give the family some money for firewood after leaving.
Luke is their only young laborer, and their future life will be difficult if they lose him.
Yes - even though Hitzfeld said there was a chance that Luke might still be alive, he had been missing for such a long time that Lister didn't think Luke was really still alive.
Hitzfeld was also a little cold, but it was much better inside than outside. She took out her little notebook but Ethan snatched it away. She looked at him helplessly and had to fold her hands and start asking questions.
"I want to know who Luke knows."
"A lot!" Old Luke changed his previous arrogant attitude and his attitude could almost be described as flattering. "He has good relationships with many people!"
"How good is he?" Hitzfeld asked. "What's his personality like?"
"I can answer that." Liszt interrupted eagerly, "He is a very cheerful young man, who loves to laugh and play. He often goes fishing with others, and also often goes to the mountains and forests to play."
"In the forest..." Ethan frowned.
Didn’t Duke Gran emphasize that there are still evil species contaminated by dragon blood out there?
"Did his personality change in the last few days before he disappeared?" Hitzfeld narrowed his eyes.
"Yes..." Old Luke nodded, "He has become more silent than before. He always has a gloomy face and doesn't talk. He doesn't like to eat. I can only see him once or twice a day, and I don't know where he is in the blink of an eye."
"Are you sure it was him and not someone else pretending to be him?"
"You are insulting me!" The old man was very angry.
"If you can't recognize a corpse, how can you not recognize a living person?"
"Is that confirmed?"
"Of course! He never wears a hat at home, and I've seen his face and talked to him!"
"That part is over."
Hitzfeld instructed Ethan.
Ethan nodded, and he wrote faster as he moved his pen.
"Next... do you believe Mr. Mayor?"
"Of course." Old Luke looked at the girl with a bad look in his eyes again, "Green Town is what it is today because of the Gralants... They are heroes!"
"Have you heard of the legend of Hu Tengmu?"
"I heard."
"What do you think of the idea that the Gralant family might possess the power of a dryad?"
"I don't care about that!" the old man shouted, "As long as he is our lord, what power does it matter? We want him to be as powerful as possible! Only in this way can he lead us to live forever!"
"Hmm..." Hitzfeld pondered for a moment.
"It's like this... This morning around noon, I was a guest at the manor, and we all heard a strange howling coming from the nearby mountains and forests."
"Beast?"
"It's not a wild animal. The difference is obvious. It's a very large animal. The footprints it left are almost one meter long."
"one meter!"
"I want to know if you have ever heard any strange noises or found any signs of large animals in the mountains and forests while living in the town."
"No."
"there has never been?"
"there has never been!"
"I have a say too!" Liszt raised his hand hesitantly.
Seeing that the others turned their eyes to him, he perked up: "We often go hunting in the woods. I have been personally involved for more than two years... We are very familiar with the area. I can guarantee that there has never been such a monster nearby!"
"Hasn't there been any murders in these years?"
"No! It's only now that things have happened..."
"So," Hitzfeld simply continued to ask him, "You should have had more dealings with the people in the manor than anyone else. Based on your observations over the past two years, have they done anything strange?"
"What do you mean by weird behavior...?"
"It confuses you and leaves you scratching your head."
"If I have to say, it's building city walls and training militias every day." Lister scratched his forehead, "It's very peaceful here, and it's inland. I don't see any point in doing this."
"Do you take responsibility for everything you say, Sheriff?"
"I..." Liszt opened his mouth.
"Well, I've only been here for a short time, so I'm not sure what happened before..."
"But you must have read the files left by your predecessor."
"Seen."
"it is good."
Hitzfeld smiled.
"Tell me in detail how the Baines family died."
--------
When I woke up, it was dark!
I have to make up for it with more words to apologize poi
Chapter 36: Man's Hope
Seeing that the questioning process of himself turned into a discussion between two detectives, Old Luke did not feel impatient at all.
It all depended on what Hitzfeld had said earlier, that there was still a chance that Luke could survive.
"The Baines family..." Liszt frowned and looked at Old Luke, a native of the area, with some uncertainty. He asked Hitzfeld, "Are you talking about the Baines who live in the shack area?"
"As far as I can remember, there has only been one Baines in this town." Old Luke glared at him, then turned to Hitzfeld, "I still roughly remember some of the circumstances back then."
Hitzfeld made a gesture of invitation.
"That was a long time ago." The old man half-closed his eyes, his thoughts seeming to travel back in time to his youth. "I was exactly eighteen years old at that time. I remember it very clearly because it was my birthday. My mother went to the other side of the lake to find a merchant ship to buy some snacks. We planned to spend that day happily, but we didn't expect such a tragedy to happen in the town."
"Tragic incident..." Because of his occupational disease, Lister felt uncomfortable with this description.
"Of course it was a tragedy." Old Luke glared. "Green Town has been maintaining peace for hundreds of years. Even if it happens occasionally, it is mostly caused by outsiders. It is too rare for three people to die at once like that."
"Excuse me." Hitzfeld raised his hand. "Can I know how old you are?"
"Fifty-nine years old." Old Luke reported the number. "Many people won't believe it... Actually, the Lord and I are the same age. When we were younger, when we were both only a few years old, I used to rob bird nests with him. It's a pity..."
He shook his head, and it was obvious that he was just sighing, but not sad.
After all, the people here have grown up in Green Town for generations. They have been deeply influenced by the town's rules since childhood and don't think there is anything wrong with the huge status gap between them when they grow up.
"Fifty-nine years old." Ethan raised his head and raised his eyebrows. "That is, it happened forty-one years ago."
"Is that so? ...Your arithmetic ability is really outrageous."
"Go on." Hitzfeld stopped Old Luke from interfering with his sorcery abilities. "Tell me in detail what you remember about what happened to the Baines family."
"There is one thing I want to emphasize in advance - the Baines family is not a complete native of this town."
It might be some special psychology, or sense of honor, that was at work. Old Luke emphasized this point first. "They were first and foremost a man and a woman, both quite young, who settled down on the edge of town with permission. Although they were nice people and were quickly accepted by everyone, some things cannot be easily changed. Strictly speaking, their deaths cannot be blamed on the town."
"They came here from other places. After a period of getting along with each other, you accepted them, so you allocated a piece of land for them to live in?"
"Yes."
"Where did they live when you didn't take them in?"
"They live there too, no - you don't understand. As long as they don't build illegal houses within the town, they can live anywhere."
"So they lived near the pigs... I mean 'sheds' in the beginning?"
"Correct."
"How old they were when they arrived."
"I don't remember, it could have been two years before it happened, or three years ago, but they should have been no older than thirty."
"Are you sure?"
"affim."
"why?"
"Because they are hunters - the kind of ranger hunters. They seem to have some special abilities that allow them to track down special beasts. Hunters living outdoors all year round will age quickly, but they look very young, so it's impossible for them to be thirty years old."
"Did they tell me why they came to Green Town?"
"Yes, Pim Baines said they were tired of years of wandering and wanted to find a suitable place to settle down."
"And you believed it?"
"We didn't believe it at first, but they lived there for a long time without causing any trouble. They hunted peacefully and traded their meat and fur for food and seasoning. We all felt that they really weren't bad people."
"But the most important thing was the birth of Jack Baines," the old man continued. "They soon had a child here, and it was that child that made us realize that they really wanted to settle down here."
All those who listened nodded silently. Indeed, this was a very intuitive and powerful proof.
—Except Hitzfeld.
Except for moving her lips when asking questions, she was almost as still as a statue.
"The master is Pym Baines, and the child is Jack Baines. What is the mistress's name?"
"Tina, Tina-Bains."
Hitzfeld went to see Ethan, who thought for a moment and said, "It's a very common name... If I have to say, I'd go to the more northwest area, where there are the most."
"sure?"
"Well, one person alone might be a coincidence, but I'm 90% sure that all three of them have this trend."
"Green Town is a little southwest. If I remember correctly, there's Burro Canyon between the southwest and northwest of Sarah?"
"Yes, that's the starting point of Burro Canyon, a super rift valley."
The two of them were talking without anyone interrupting.
The others didn't dare, but Lister was trying hard to analyze the point of what they were discussing.
