Chapter 4 3

Is this school? Sachs dragged a large black crime scene forensic toolbox into this dark corridor.She smelled musty and rotten wood, and above her head saw cobwebs and dust in the corners of the ceiling. How could anyone learn music in a place like this?Here is the Ann that Sachs' mother loves to see.Rice (Annotation: Ann Rice, the famous American horror novelist, the work "Interview with the Vampire" has been adapted into a film novel of the same name.) inside the scene. Is it gloomy enough here?A technician from the forensics team joked. He was right. At the bottom of the corridor stood six policemen, four patrolmen and two plainclothes detectives, standing by a double door.

A messy Ron.Sellitto was lowering his head, copying something in a notepad, and questioning the school guard. Like the walls and floors here, the guard's uniform was covered in dust and stains. Through the open door, she saw another dark room with a pale object on the floor in the center of the murdered dead man. She told the technicians of the on-site forensic team: There needs to be lights here, and two seats need to be placed.The young man nodded, and immediately went back to the crime scene forensics car to pick it up.He'd just parked the van, loaded with all sorts of on-site evidence tools and equipment, halfway up the sidewalk outside the school, because that was the only place he could park (and drive a 1969 truck). Compared with the Marlow SS sports car and Sachs, who was rushing towards this school at an average speed of 110 kilometers per hour, his driving speed may be too slow).

Sachs watched the young blond woman lying on her back ten feet away, her belly arched from the hands tied behind her back.Although the lounge outside the recital hall was very dimly lit, Sachs only glanced at it and saw deep strangulation marks on the victim's neck, and blood stained on her lips and cheeks. The victim bit his tongue.In strangulation cases, this is a common phenomenon. She continued to observe.The deceased was wearing no wedding ring, emerald green stud earrings, and worn-out jogging shoes.In addition, the deceased was not obviously robbed, sexually assaulted or abused.

Who were the first police officers to arrive at the scene? A tall woman with short dark brown hair said: It's us.At the same time, he turned his head to his blond-haired partner beside him.Sachs saw Diane on the name tag on her chest.Frank, and the other is Nancy.Orson.She noticed that their eyes were still very disturbed, that Diane's hand kept moving back and forth by the holster, and that Nancy's eyes remained on the corpse.She guessed that it must be the first time for these two people to encounter murder. Two female patrol officers gave Sachs an overview of the whole incident: They spotted the suspect, there was a flash of light, the suspect disappeared, the situation turned into a gangster situation, and then the suspect was gone.

You told him he claimed he had hostages? That's what he said, Nancy said: But after checking, it was found that there were not fewer people in the school. I guess he was bluffing. Who is the victim? Svetlana.Lasnikhov.Nancy said: Twenty-four years old, a student. Sellitto, who was talking to the guard, turned his head and said to Sachs: Beddy and Saul are interviewing everyone who was in this building this morning. Sachs turned his head towards the scene and said: Has anyone ever gone in? Sellitto said: The patrolman who arrived first, he bowed his head to the two policewomen.Then there were two people from the emergency medical team and the response team.They withdrew as soon as the clearance was complete, and the condition of the scene remained intact.

And the guard, Nancy said, but within a minute of him being in, we kicked him out right away. Very well, Sachs said: Where's the witness? Nancy said: When we first came, there was a worker outside the concert hall. He said he saw nothing.Diane added. Sachs said: I still need to take the texture of his soles for comparison, who will find him for me? I go.Nancy said, while leaving immediately. Opening the black criminal forensics box, Sachs took out a pack of extremely clean plastic sleeves, unzipped the zipper, and took out the pure white Tyvek jumpsuit inside.She changed into the costume, pulling the hood over her head and putting on the gloves.The suit, now standard workwear for all NYPD forensic units, prevents fine material such as debris, hair, and skin cells from falling off the forensic personnel and contaminating the scene.The costume also came with a pair of boots, though Sachs, at Rhyme's insistence, tied two rubber bands to distinguish them so that his own footprints would not be mixed with those of the victim and suspect.

She puts on the headset, adjusts the microphone, and plugs the connector into the Motorola walkie-talkie.She first called the headquarters to ask them to transfer to a general home phone. After a complicated transfer system operation, Lincoln.Rhyme's low voice came into her ears clearly.Sachs, are you here? Um.Here it's like you said they cornered the suspect and he just disappeared. He chuckled slightly.And now they want us to find him.Should we first check to see if anyone made a mistake?Wait for the instruction.Volume down.reduce.The background music on the radio was gone. The forensics technician who had walked through the dark corridor with Sachs just now came back and brought two lights mounted on tripods.She placed the light at the door, turned on the switch, and then carefully crossed the threshold and entered the crime scene.

While there are many differences of opinion about the way evidence is collected at a crime scene, generally speaking, detectives agree that the fewer people on the scene, the better.However, most police stations still use teams as units and put the entire forensic team on the scene.In Lincoln.Before Rhyme's accident, he always searched the crime scene alone, and now he insists on Emilia.Sachs should do it.With other forensic team members working together, you are easily distracted and feel (whether consciously or subconsciously) that your partner will find what you have missed, so you let your guard down.

In addition, there is another important reason to search alone.Rhyme is well aware of the terrifying intimacy that develops between searchers and criminal brutality.If the forensic personnel search the scene alone, it is easier to reshape the psychological state of the victim and the suspect, and based on this, make a more correct judgment and find out where the evidence is hidden. Emilia.Sachs is about to fall into this complicated psychological situation at the moment.She looked at the body of the young woman, lying still on the ground with only a fiberboard table nearby. Beside the body were an overturned coffee mug, a sheet of music and a small piece of silver fife piece.The woman was apparently in the act of assembling the fife when the killer put the noose around her neck.When she died, she was still clutching the other fife which was not installed.At that time, did she think about using it as a weapon?

Or was this woman, in utter desperation, just trying to cling to something she knew before she died? I'm over to the body, Rhyme.While taking digital photos, she spoke to Rhyme on the radio. go on. She was lying on her back, but she was on her stomach when officers found her earlier.They turned her over to perform CPR on her.There were obvious strangulation marks on her neck.Sachs carefully turned the woman back into the belly-down position.Her hands were cuffed with some old-fashioned handcuffs, the kind I hadn't seen before.Her watch was broken, stopped at about eight o'clock, and didn't look like it had been accidentally broken.She squeezed the woman's thin wrist with her gloved hand, and found that the woman's wrist bone was also broken.Yes, Rhyme, the watch was broken by the suspect.It's a nice watch, a Seiko brand.Why did the suspect trample on it?Why not take it away?

Good question, Sachs may be the lead, or it may be nothing. This sentence could be one of the maxims of forensic science, Sachs thought. The police officers who came to the scene cut the rope around her neck, but she didn't touch the knot.When the police cut the ropes of the victim who was strangled to death, they should avoid breaking the knots by knots, which can reveal a lot of personal information about the murderer. Sachs then used adhesive rollers to collect tiny evidence. Recently, criminal forensics experts believe that the use of vacuum cleaners to absorb the scene in the past has the disadvantage of inhaling too many irrelevant substances.Therefore, most of the on-site forensics team now use rollers, a sticky roller similar to that used to stick dog hair.She bagged the evidence collected by sticking together, then used tweezers to collect hair from the corpse, and scraped the debris from the nails. I'm going to start walking the grid.Sachs said.The word to walk the grid is Lincoln.Invented by Rhyme, it's his favorite crime scene search method.The grid graph search method is an easy-to-understand method: first search back and forth in one direction, then turn a right angle, and go to the same place again.When walking the grid, not only pay attention to the ground, but also pay attention to the ceiling and any walls of the scene. She began a search, looking for any items that had been abandoned or dropped on the scene.She used roller sticks to pick up tiny physical evidence, used electrostatic methods to take footprints, and took photos of the scene with a digital camera.Although there will be a photography team to take a complete on-site record later, it will take some time to get these photos, and Lime insists that some reference photos must be obtained in the shortest possible time. policeman?Sellitto yelled. She looked back. Just asking because we don't know where the goddamn is hiding, so would you like me to get someone in to help? don't want.She said, but she also silently thanked him for reminding this matter: the place where the suspect disappeared last was the hall where she was conducting an investigation.She thought of Lincoln.One of Lyme's crime scene rules: Search carefully, but watch your back.She felt the butt of her Garak pistol on her body to confirm the position of the gun (the holster was higher than usual in the Tyvek suit), so that she could be ready in the first emergency. out in time.After the inspection, she continued to collect evidence at the scene. There, I found something.After a while, she radioed to Lincoln."In the break room, about ten feet from the body, there was a small piece of black cloth, silk," Rhyme said.I mean, it looks silky.The cloth was on top of the victim's fife part, so it must have belonged to either the victim or the suspect. Finding nothing in the foyer, she walked into the concert hall, her right hand moving involuntarily to the butt of the Garrak.After seeing that there were no secret doors or other exits in the concert hall, and there was no place for the suspect to hide, she relaxed a little.However, when she started to walk the grid, she still felt a sense of uneasiness gradually rising in her heart. gloomy Lyme, it's a little weird here I can't hear you, Sachs. Only then did she realize that under the anxiety, her voice had also become soft. Between the fallen chairs was a charred pipe and what looked like a fuse.I smell burnt nitrates and sulfur.The police officers at the scene said that the gangster had fired a shot, but the smell here was not like bland gunpowder, but something else.Ah, with that being a kind of gray firecracker, maybe that's what they heard gunshots and all, and something else There's a little green circuit board under the chair that's hooked up to a speaker. Small?He asked bluntly, Sachs, a foot is small compared to an acre, and an acre is small compared to a thousand acres. Sorry, this board is about two by five inches. If compared with the copper board, this circuit board is very big, you are right? I get it, stop reading it.She said secretly in her heart. After she put all the evidence into a plastic bag, she walked out through the fire escape door on the other side, collected the footprints here with electrostatic method and took them into digital photos.Finally, she collected some control samples, enough to compare where the victim and suspect had walked.It's all set, Rhyme, and I'll be back with you in half an hour. Have you found the secret door or secret passage they say? did not find. OK, come back quickly then. She returned to the lounge and handed over the scene to the photography and fingerprinting teams.Outside the gate, she found Diane and Nancy. Have you found that worker yet?She asked, I want to see his shoes. Nancy shook her head.He sent his wife to work.I left a message asking him to contact us as soon as he got back.Her partner said with a serious face: Well, the officer, Nancy and I feel that we really don't want to see this son of a bitch get away.If you need our help with anything, I mean, if you need us for anything in the future, you are welcome, just come to us as much as possible. Sachs knew exactly how they were feeling now.No problem, I will ask you for help if I need something.she said to them. Sellitto's radio rang, and he picked it up right away.It's the Hardy boys, and they've done their job of interviewing on-site contacts. Sachs and Sellitto went to the main foyer to meet the two men.One was tall, the other short; one had freckles, and the other had fine skin.Both of them are top experts in the Police Headquarters, and they are responsible for interviewing witnesses and related witnesses after criminal cases happen. We spoke to seven people this morning. Plus guards. no teacher All are students. Despite their vastly different appearances, the two have been nicknamed the Twins because the duo always team up and talk to each other.If you insist on carefully distinguishing who said what among them, it will only make you more and more confused.But if you treat them as the same person and listen to what they say, it will be easier to understand. The results of the interview were not very helpful to the case. There is only one thing that everyone finds strange. No one wants to come to this place.The speaker raised his head to a cobweb hanging from the dark, water-stained ceiling.No one is familiar with the victim.When she came in this morning, it was with a friend.she that friend. I didn't see anyone inside.Then they stayed here for five minutes, talking for a while.The friend left at about eight o'clock. So, Rhyme said, everything they said just now came over the radio to him.He had already been waiting for her in the concert hall. The victim, the detectives, both had tawny hair, and it was the shorter of them who was speaking now.Came here from Georgia It's Russian Georgia, not American Georgia. about two months ago.She's kind of very independent. The consulate is contacting her family. All the students were in different practice rooms today, and none of them heard strange noises or saw anyone they didn't know. Does she have a husband, boyfriend or girlfriend?Sachs asked, thinking of the number one rule of thumb in murder investigations: The suspect usually knows the victim. None of the other students knew. How did the murderer get into the school?Rhyme asked, and Sachs immediately articulated the question for him. The guard at the gate said: only the front gate.Of course, we also have fire escape doors, but that's impossible to open from the outside. So he has to pass you, right? And he has to sign, and his appearance will be recorded by the camera. Sachs looked up.There are surveillance cameras here, Rhyme, but it looks like the lenses haven't been wiped in months.They gathered behind the guard's desk.The guard presses a button and the videotape plays.Bedi and Saul had interviewed seven people, but they all agreed that there was one man, a brown-haired, bearded adult in jeans and a large jacket, who was not among those they had just interviewed. That's him, said Diane: this man is the murderer.Nancy nodded in agreement. The figure of the suspect appeared on the blurry video tape screen. He signed the registration book and walked into the school.While the person was signing, the guard kept looking at the register instead of looking at the person's face. Didn't you see his face clearly?Sachs asked. I didn't pay attention, and the guard defended himself: If they signed it, I'd let them in.That's the only thing I have to do, I'm just responsible for doing it.The only reason I'm here is to prevent anyone from walking out of this gate with school stuff. At least we've got his autograph, Rhyme, and a name.Of course the name may be fake, but at least it is the suspect's own handwriting. What line did he sign on?Sachs asked, picking up the signature register with a gloved hand. They rewind the tape to the front and play it quickly.The murderer was the fourth person to sign the register, however, the fourth name on the register was that of a woman. Rhyme cried, "Turn the tape over again, and count the number of signatures." Sachs told the guards to do the same.They counted, and there were a total of nine people who signed, including eight students including the victim, and the other was the murderer. Lyme, nine signatures, but only eight names on the register. How is this going?Sellitto asked. "Ask the guard if he's sure the suspect actually signed it, maybe he's just putting on a show," Rhyme said. Sachs relayed the question to the guard. Yes, he signed it, I saw it with my own eyes.I won't necessarily look at their faces, but I will definitely make sure they all signed.That's the only thing I have to do, I'm just responsible for doing it. Sachs shook his head, unconsciously, the tip of one fingernail dug deep into the root of the thumbnail of the other hand. Well, then bring back the register along with other evidence, and we'll study it here.Lyme said. In one corner of the foyer, a young Asian woman stood with her arms folded, looking out through the jagged leaded window, waiting for someone to drive up and take her away from this horrible place.She turned around suddenly and said to Sachs: I heard you.You see, you don't seem to know how that man got out of this building, after his.So, you think he's still here? No, I don't think so."I'm just saying that at this point we don't know how he got out," Sachs said. But if you don't know how he got away, it means he might be hiding here, somewhere, waiting for his next victim, and you don't know where he might be hiding. Sachs forced a reassuring smile.We've got a bunch of police around here and they won't leave until we find out what's going on, so don't worry. However, she thought this way in her heart: what the girl said was right, yes, he might still be here, waiting for the next victim. And, yes, we have no clue at all as to who this person is or where he is hiding at this time.