Chapter 402: Fishy Smell
The car's exhaust pipe rapidly belched out black smoke as the car made a mad dash toward its destination. The police cars carrying the police officers of District 3 ran as fast as possible toward their destination.
Aliya fished out an unfiltered cigarette from her cigarette case and extended it over to Dipp. However, Aliya ended up returning the cigarette, as Dipp didn't accept it.
"Our speed doesn't seem to matter in this case. The corpses must be already stiff, and the culprit must have already escaped. This is already the third time that they've eluded us," Aliya said.
"Are there any changes? Are the brains still the only ones missing?" Dipp asked.
"Yes, and I don't think this is the handiwork of cultists. There were no sacrificial altars nor carvings on the previous crime scenes," Aliya replied.
Dipp's eyes flashed intensely in hatred. "Regardless of their identity, those bastards had dared to cause chaos in our territory, so I'm definitely going to teach them a good lesson. Then, I'll send them to the research institute as test subjects!"
The car tires left black streaks on the ground as it came to a screeching halt. Dipp immediately jumped out of the car the moment it ground to a halt.
The crime scene was a theater. Dipp lifted the yellow and white cordon tape and walked down the rows of seats to see a naked man and a naked woman in the middle of the stage. The couple had picked a great place to do "it," and it seemed that they had been in the middle of "it" when they were killed.
A few policemen were collecting evidence while two coroners were examining the corpses. The policemen and coroners immediately stopped what they were doing the moment they saw Dipp and his group.
"District 3 will now take over this case. You guys can leave," Aliya said, brandishing a stamped document. The police and coroners on-site flooded out of the theater, leaving the scene in District 3's hands.
"Let's follow the protocol, even though it might not be useful at all," Dipp said while reading the autopsy report that he had snatched from one of the coroners earlier.
A middle-aged man with a deathlike pallor went up to one of the corpses. He then gouged out the corpse's eyeballs and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing carefully.
Up next was a hunchbacked old woman, and she sat cross-legged next to the last remaining corpse and lit up a cigarette. Soon, a blue smoke enveloped both the corpse and the hunchbacked old woman.
The hunchbacked old woman's eyeballs rolled into her skull, leaving only the whites of her eyes visible to the onlookers. A violent tremor ran across the hunchbacked old woman, and she started speaking in tongues.
Dipp finally looked up from the autopsy report and stared at the two. He wasn't exactly sure about the background of these two, and all he knew was that Aliya had picked them up from the underground prison.
In other words, their backgrounds couldn't possibly be clear. However, their special abilities allowed District 3 to save a lot of time and effort when it came to handling cases.
The middle-aged man chewing on eyeballs looked up and said in a hoarse voice, "They couldn't see the culprit before dying. The last thing they saw was each other's faces."
The hunchbacked old woman stood up slowly just then and said, "Same results as me. Their souls have no idea how they died, and I can only feel fear from their dissipating souls. In other words, they experienced immense fear before dying."
Dipp stroked his chin, and his personas swiftly examined the available information.
Hmm, fear? Maybe the culprit is a sea creature that managed to get onto the island. No, it can't be. Sea creatures have never really approached Hope Island of their own volition. They seem afraid of the sunlight and are unwilling to approach.
Dipp emerged from his contemplation and crouched next to the corpses, observing them carefully. The corpses wore peaceful looks, and if one were to ignore everything else, one would think that these corpses were merely asleep.
If one were to ask Dipp if he found gory crime scenes off-putting, Dipp would reply that he preferred gory and messy crime scenes to clean ones as they offered more clues than the latter.
However, the crime scene before Dipp was clearly the latter. There were no signs of external or internal wounds on the corpses, but for some reason, their brains had inexplicably disappeared.
To make matters worse, this was already the third time they found corpses that had suffered such a bizarre death. In other words, the perpetrator could now be considered a serial killer.
They had to catch the serial killer before the culprit could kill more people. If not, Hope Island would certainly be plunged into chaos.
Aliya picked up the case file from Dipp's hands and frowned as she read the report out loud. "No fingerprints, no footprints, and there are no witnesses. This is going to be a tough investigation."
"Those are clues as well. We know that the culprit consumed brains, and even though it doesn't leave fingerprints or footprints, the fact that it has made a move means that it must have left traces somewhere," Dipp replied.
Dipp crouched and pressed his head against one of the corpses.
Then, Dipp's nose twitched as he sniffed the corpse's skin carefully and meticulously. In addition to his two other personas, 096 had also bestowed upon him an extraordinary sense of smell.
While sniffing, Dipp's eyes were transfixed on every single patch of skin, afraid of missing any suspicious spot. Upon reaching the corpse's ears, Dipp frowned instantly, noticing something amiss.
Dipp shone his flashlight at the corpse's ears and finally understood how the brains of the two corpses had inexplicably disappeared. It seemed that their brains had been sucked out of their ears.
Wait, this doesn't smell like brain fluid. This is a different smell! Dipp stood up immediately and searched the semi-circle stage. Eventually, he found a small hole in the shape of a door beneath a seat.
Dipp knocked on the "door" with his finger, and a brown mouse soon emerged.
Dipp looked at it and asked, "Hey, did you guys see anything when those two people died?"
The mouse's tail swayed gently, and it tilted its head while staring at Dipp in puzzlement. It seemed that the mouse wasn't exactly a theater patron, so it was absent when the couple was doing "it."
However, Dipp wasn't exactly surprised by the lack of answer. He had asked that question just in case, and he had a more important reason for knocking on the mouse's door.
Dipp scooped up the mouse and carried it over next to the corpse's ear. "Take a sniff. Do you recognize it? I want you to go and tell your friends to check if there's a similar stench anywhere on the island. Find that place for me, and I'll buy you guys whatever you want to eat."
The brown mouse sniffed lightly and immediately stood up on its hind legs to run back to its mouse hole. Soon, a mischief of mice rushed out of the mouse hole and sniffed at the corpses' ears.
Aliya's face turned slightly pale at the mischief of mice, and she inadvertently tugged on Dipp's sleeve.
"You're still afraid of mice?" Dipp asked, sounding surprised.
Aliya smiled with difficulty, "No, I'm not"
Despite saying that, Aliya's grip on Dipp's sleeve tightened as the mischief of mice scurried back into the mouse hole.
Moments later, the mice came back out, and one of them was carrying a green scale in its arms.
Dipp picked up the scale and gave it a quick sniff. Indeed, there was a lingering stench on the scale, and it was the same unique stench that Dipp had smelled from the corpses.
Dipp compared the green scale to his own fish scales and realized that the green, conical scale was sharper and more compact than his own scales.
"Looks like a sea creature has somehow managed to get onto the island," Dipp said while staring at the green scale with squinted eyes. Then, Dipp crouched and directed his gaze upon the brown mouse. "Little mouse, can you tell me where you got this thing?"
Soon, the harbor district that had cooled down due to the operational halt had become bustling once more. However, it wasn't because the operational halt had been lifted; the arrival of a few police cars had caused the commotion.
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