Chapter 435 Small Town, Old News and a Funeral
After questioning the sisters on their experience and the details of the horror story, Luke and Selina set off again.
They drove a loop along Route 1 first before getting on Route 73 and heading southeast.
Finally, they turned onto a country road and drove another forty minutes before they reached the town called Springwood. When they entered the town, they could vaguely sense that it was shrouded in an uneasy atmosphere. All the pa.s.sers-by had harried expressions and seemed completely indifferent to their surroundings.
They occasionally made eye contact with some residents through the car’s open windows, but these people would quickly turn their heads as if they had the plague.
They hadn’t even been in town for long before their car was stopped.
A sheriff in a dusty yellow uniform bent down to look at them through the driver’s car window. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Both hands on the steering wheel, Luke calmly gestured at himself and Selina. “We’re staff from No. 37 Middle School, and we would like to speak to Will Rollins.”
The sheriff frowned. “About what?”
Luke kept smiling. “Will did something not very nice at camp two days ago, and the guidance counselor had him come home to calm down. This wasn’t a punishment, though. After all, camp is a vacation for the kids, and it wouldn’t be decent to exclude him, which is why we’re here.”
The sheriff’s expression relaxed. “I see, you can go straight to Will’s place.”
Luke nodded and asked casually, “Did something happen? We didn’t see a lot of people when we entered town.”
The sheriff’s expression turned stiff and he said coldly, “We don’t have many residents here.”
With that, he turned around and left.
Watching the sheriff leave in his car, Luke started up the car and sighed. “It seems they’re dealing with quite the problem.”
The sheriff wouldn’t be so jittery if it was a small issue.
Selina had been reading up on Springwood and said, “There’s nothing special here. The population and economy are fairly stable, and according to the database, law and order here is within normal range. They don’t have many major criminal cases, except this one…”
She placed the tablet on the central console and continued, “There was a serial murder case here over ten years ago, which got a lot of news coverage in L.A..”
Luke shot a glance at the image of an old newspaper headline on the tablet. “A serial murderer who targeted children? He wasn’t caught?”
Selina pointed at the tablet and said, “No. There wasn’t enough evidence back then to convict the suspect, so…”
Luke asked, “He got away scot-free and is now committing crimes again?”
Selina shook her head, and another headline popped up on the tablet. “So, the suspect was locked up in an abandoned church outside of town and burnt to ashes by the angry parents.”
Luke wasn’t convinced. “Burnt to ashes? Seriously?” It wasn’t easy to burn a man to ashes, not without a special incinerator.
Burning a body in a woodfire would only blacken it at most. When the bones were burnt, they would crystallize and were unlikely to decompose further.
Selina nodded. “The police never found the suspect’s body, so none of the parents went to prison for the burning. However, the suspect has been missing since then.”
Luke said, “Alright, who was this unlucky person who was burnt to ashes?”
Selina replied, “He’s a white male, born in 1948, date unknown, five feet and ten inches tall. He used to be a janitor at the local kindergarten until he went missing in 1990. There is no evidence to suggest that he’s still alive.”
Luke felt like scratching his head. “Born in 1948? Doesn’t that mean that he’s almost sixty?”
Did this guy not age? Or was he unusually gifted and could still go on a killing spree at sixty years old?
Luke wouldn’t rule that out just yet.
After all, nothing that happened in this world would be strange.
As they talked in the car, Luke drove to Will Rollins’s house.
The house looked quite nice and suggested that the family were doing pretty okay for themselves; that was probably why Will could go to a middle school in Los Angeles.
Luke and Selina knocked on the door and spoke to Will’s father and Will himself for half an hour before they left.
When Will’s father saw them off, Luke said to him in a low voice, “I’ll let Juliet know about Will’s situation, but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to go back. You know that the kids at camp aren’t in the best frame of mind right now, and Will… is a little troubled as well.”
Will’s father nodded with a bitter smile. “Okay. It’s my request that’s too presumptuous.”
Luke sighed and said, “If possible, the best would be for you to change environments; staying in this town won’t be good for him, whether now or in the future.”
Will’s father nodded silently and saw them off.
In the car, Selina frowned and asked, “Is Will already suffering mental issues? I feel like something really isn’t right with him. It’s like… he hasn’t slept for days.”
Luke shook his head. “Who knows?”
“Where to now?” Selina asked as she faced forward.
Luke replied, “Let’s talk to Kris Falls. She’s the first witness in the suicide case.”
They drove to the other end of town, where all kinds of stone tablets stood on a hill.
Twenty to thirty people were seated in the shade of a tree. In front of them was a coffin, and a priest was giving an eulogy.
This was the town’s cemetery.
According to the information they found from the police department, the middle schooler in the coffin was Dean La.s.sell, who had died a few days ago.
He had used a table knife to cut his own throat in a fast food restaurant.
Several people had witnessed this tragic scene, but what was strange was that will claimed that his friend in town told him that it was a demon which killed Dean.
That was also the reason Jeff’s twin daughters had criticized his story.
After all, it was very hard for someone to come up with evidence for demons.
Twenty minutes later, the funeral was over. Seeing the crowd disperse, Luke and Selina drew closer.
At that moment, a boy walked over to a girl up ahead and they stood in front of a stand which had photos of Dean on it.
When they got closer, Luke’s sharp ears picked up their conversation.
The boy asked, “Kris, you knew Dean since you were little?”