"What is it?"
"Ear come here."
A whisper.
"...Are you sure you want me to find these things?" Darent's face was full of suspicion.
"Why do I feel like things are a little out of my control? What did you find when you went out tonight?"
"secret."
……
……
A dreamless night.
……
……
The next day, Hitzfeld washed up as usual. Just as he was about to open the window for some fresh air, there was a hurried knock on the door behind him.
The door opened, it was Liszt.
"Something happened." The Sheriff gasped.
"Archives room..."
"The information in the archives has been destroyed!"
--------
Thanks to: The feeling of extinction of wisdom, .assiya., Spiritual Secretary, Valkazte, Broken Leaf Mist, The Sound of Rain, Listening to the Paulownia in the Rain, Impermanence Snorlax, Shuke 98293861627, Sangui, Yuna Nerei, Shuke 76745634817, I wish you all a happy new year, Zang Xuanqing... the blades and rewards from the above readers~!
Thanks for your support~!
ps: There will be another update during the day.
ps2: If you can get up. (crossed out
Chapter 38 Scruples
Sarah set up a simple police station in Green Town.
Although it was simple, it had everything it needed. An armory, a training ground, barracks, an archive room... even Sheriff Lister was fully capable of performing his duties.
It was located in a corner, on the edge of the town. At 7 o'clock in the morning, Hitzfeld, Ethan, and Jerry followed Lister to the police station and saw that it was a three-story wooden house located in the middle of the residential area.
The reason why he brought Jerry here was because he was afraid that something might happen to her, but Lister was unwilling to let such an "outsider" enter, so he found four police officers to guard her and asked them to sit in the hall and wait.
"It's right here." Liszt led the other two to the archive room and pointed at the messy floor. He looked dejected and said, "I really don't know what to do."
It's a mess here.
This was Hitzfeld's first impression after seeing the scene inside the door.
The police department recorded information by writing it down on easy-to-preserve paper, usually yellow-white parchment, and then characterizing the information based on its nature, giving it a letter that could represent the content, and storing it in a storage cabinet for the letter, with spices placed inside for preservation.
This kind of material is not a book, it has no cover, it is just a stack of bound paper rolls.
And now, these paper rolls are scattered all over the room.
On the table, on the floor, and even on the clothes hangers...all the archival documents were torn apart, torn apart, and covered with a lot of ink.
Ethan picked up a piece of ink-stained paper from the ground, turned it over, and saw that the other side had been completely penetrated by ink, and the recorded characters had completely lost their meaning.
"That's pretty ruthless." He raised his eyebrows and turned his gaze to Liszt. "Is this how you guard the archives room?"
"This is none of my business!" Liszt's face flushed red. "I...it was like this before I came back! The police officers who were with us yesterday all had alibis when the incident happened - you know, you saw them at the time!"
"Before you come back?" Ethan frowned fiercely. "Wait, you mean earlier? When exactly?"
"After dinner." Liszt hesitated for a long time and gave an approximate range, "Even earlier than I meet you on the road."
"Are you sure?"
"It was only during that time that the defenses here were empty."
Ethan was completely numb.
After talking with Hitzfeld yesterday, he thought the girl had leaked the information on purpose to test whether the murderer cared about the police files.
If they pay attention, those people may try to destroy the data. And Lister, who is reminded, has a chance to catch the murderer, or at least find more clues.
But now the facts told him that this was not the case at all - the data had been destroyed long before Hitzfeld had laid out the plan, even before she had this idea.
Then this fishing attempt is completely useless, after all, the murderer cannot go back to the past.
His face suddenly darkened until he heard a sigh from beside him:
"Wow... He must have put a lot of effort into it..."
Turning around, there was no doubt that it was the gray-haired girl.
"Hitzfeld." Ethan frowned and stared at her, then came closer and whispered, "The plan failed... Aren't you disappointed?"
"What failed?" The girl was stunned for a moment, then she reacted and smiled brightly: "Oh, you mean that!"
"But, Ethan—I never said I was fishing with Sheriff Lister, did I?"
“……???” Ethan’s brows furrowed even deeper, with three big question marks appearing on his forehead.
"You were kidnapped." Hitzfeld shook his head. "From the perspective of an outsider - which is also the murderer's perspective of course - he may not know what we did last night, but at least he could find out that we went to see Old Luke."
"In his eyes, there is not much difference between you, me, Maps or Lister. We are all investigating the case, so this is actually the second time we have gone to him. This behavior will definitely arouse his vigilance and attention."
"He would wonder if we had discovered any hidden clues. He would use this as a basis to imagine what secrets Old Luke knew, and then he would undoubtedly remember that he might have witnessed the burning of the Baines family."
"So he will definitely come to destroy the data!" Liszt shouted.
"No." Ethan frowned. "We weren't heading in that direction when you met us. He couldn't have made such a prediction."
And because they were worried that they would take a huge risk to destroy the information if they confirmed it... This was irrational no matter how you looked at it, because there were more than just Old Luke in the town, there were people everywhere who had experienced the tragedy, and the worst that could happen was just asking a few more people.
Unless the murderer has the ability to kill all those people, he can't prevent them from getting accurate information.
Therefore, this was not his purpose in destroying the data.
His eyes wandering over the torn paper rolls, Ethan suddenly rushed to a storage cabinet and stretched out his hand to pull the door open completely.
Then the next one, and the next one... He didn't breathe a sigh of relief until he opened all the cabinet doors and made sure that all the documents and materials were damaged.
"He wants to hide what he's afraid of..."
"What do you mean?" Liszt's face was full of confusion.
"If you only destroy specific information, you can easily recall the range and general content of the information according to the letter classification marked on the cabinet door." Ethan explained, "This is equivalent to suicide... It is equivalent to actively telling us what he is afraid of."
But it would be different if everything was destroyed.
The target blended into this sea of confetti and perished along with them, and it was difficult for them to guess which of all the archive documents he wanted to destroy.
Hitzfeld had previously lamented that the murderer had put in a lot of effort...
Why did she say that?
Ethan glanced at the gray-haired girl.
She didn't seem to be in a hurry at all. She squatted on the ground, picked up a few pieces of broken paper, and occasionally leaned over to smell them.
"Now, all the information that took a hundred years to accumulate has been lost." Liszt shook his head sadly, "Should I thank that bastard for his kindness? For not treating this place like a monastery?"
Abbey... huh?
Ethan stared, and suddenly he knew what Hitzfeld meant by that sigh!
"Hitzfeld!" he cried suddenly, "the man who destroyed the archives, that man, isn't he——"
"Shh-"
Hitzfeld immediately turned around and motioned for him to speak in a low voice.
Then he nodded: "It's not true."
"I see." Ethan nodded, then propped his chin up and pondered, "This way we can roughly determine which part of the data he wants to destroy, but the specific range is still too large."
"Excuse me, both of you." Liszt felt that he really couldn't bear it any longer. "Can you say something that normal people can understand?"
“Not the murderer,” Hitzfeld said.
"what?"
"I said the person who destroyed the archives room was not the murderer of the two arson cases."
"After all, if there is a chance, it would be easier to set fire to this place like before... But look at the mess here. It will take a lot of effort just to tear up these papers and open all the ink bottles one by one to pour the ink."
"this--"
Liszt was silent.
Because that's exactly what happened.
Such a cumbersome operation is too time-consuming.
The more time you waste, the higher the chance of being discovered, and the other party may just burn down the house and be done with it.
However, this creates a new problem.
Liszt gradually fell silent. He glanced at the corridor. His gaze seemed to penetrate the darkness and the barriers. He looked directly from the room to the small town street connected to the police station a few dozen meters away.
That is the market, a place for townspeople to trade things.
The police station was built here for the purpose of maintaining order, and it is also next to the main road for convenient transportation.
He just has no talent, he is not stupid.
The people who vandalized the archives room were obviously wary of setting fire to it.
The people in the entire town of Green who were most concerned about the fire spreading to that street were in the manor at the end of the road.
He remembered that Hitzfeld had said that the person who destroyed the files was not the murderer.
How could she be so sure?
It could also be that the murderer was afraid of destroying something that originally belonged to him...
Chapter 39 Old Newspapers
When they parted, Liszt seemed worried and showed obvious reluctance to separate from Hitzfeld.
"I really don't know who I should trust." He looked back at the steps. The outline of the police station gate was vaguely visible behind the bushes. He knew that there were many young police officers there, and they knew far less information than he did.
But is knowing more a good thing sometimes?
Liszt once firmly believed this, but now he feels that this is not necessarily true.
"Relax... Sheriff, relax." Hitzfeld comforted him with amusement and helplessness, "It's not like we won't see each other again just because we're separated this time. It's okay. As long as we're still here, at least you still have someone you can trust."
"And they may not be untrustworthy." After a pause, she added, "It may not be them, right? We still have to talk about evidence after all."
"But all your expressions tell me it's them!" Liszt said fiercely, clenching his fists tightly. "If that's the case, I swear I will make them pay! They will definitely pay the price!"
"Even if it is, there may be some unavoidable reasons behind it." Hitzfeld's words sounded very vague to others, and then she changed the subject: "By the way, Sheriff, I remember you said that it would be uncomfortable to get along with them."
"That's what I said."
"We've all experienced that feeling before. Let me describe it... Don't you feel like there's something very cold, like cold air, constantly trying to get into your body?"
"Yes! That's the feeling!" Liszt nodded hurriedly, "It's freezing cold! It's so chilling!"
"What do you think that is?"
"This... I think it might be some kind of extraordinary magic? After all, they have been standing here for so many years, and no one has ever been able to replace them..."
"Have they ever performed such magic?"
"No, because no one is stupid enough to go against them."
"Let me ask you more specifically - you only experienced that one feeling."
"I don't understand what that means."
"It's just that one kind. There is only that one kind. It's icy cold. There is no other kind. Not even the slightest difference exists."
