Chapter 57: Case Gone, and the Walking Dead
Suddenly, Luke’s phone rang. He answered the call, talked a bit, ended the call, and sank into silence.
Selina was driving. She glanced at him and asked, “What now?”
Luke had an odd expression. “Deputy Chief Thomas called me. He told us the case has been handed off and we can stop working on it.”
Selina asked, “Handed to who?”
Luke replied, “FBI.”
When the two returned to the police department, they saw four people come out, with one in the lead while the other three followed closely behind. All four wore black suits and sungla.s.ses, and had solemn expressions; they looked like gang members from a movie.
The four walked past Luke and Selina.
Luke and Selina returned to the Major Crimes Division and headed straight to Brock’s office.
When they returned, Brock nonchalantly asked, “Anything?”
Luke had an odd expression on his face once again. “Boss, the case has already been handed off by Deputy Chief Thomas. We’re here to report to you.”
Brock was stunned. “Handed off? Why wasn’t I told? Did the deputy chief tell you that?” His face turned unsightly.
It was improper for the deputy chief to get involved in his subordinates’ cases.
After all, if the higher management got personally involved in everything, what was the point of having commanding officers like Brock? Were they just puppets?
Luke thought about it and said, “In fact, not long after we arrived at the forensics department to investigate the missing body, we received a call to stop.”
Brock nodded. That made him feel better. At the very least, these two were as clueless as he was.
He picked up a different file from the table and said, “Work on this case, then,” and waved his hand to tell the two to leave.
Luke and Selina hmmed in response and left.
Outside, Selina whispered, “Looks like Brock’s quite angry.”
Luke answered, “I doubt he’s angry at us. Well, forget it. Let’s look at our new case.”
They went back to their desks and opened the file. Selina was immediately shocked at its content. “What’s the meaning of this? Are you sure that Brock still isn’t prejudiced against us? Look at the kind of case he’s given us.”
Luke still remained calm. After skimming through the file, he said in a low voice, “It isn’t necessarily because he’s prejudiced against us. This is Houston; even weapon smugglers wouldn’t resort to a shootout with the police. Did you notice that the final destination of these smuggled weapons is Mexico?”
Selina gave it some thought but was still unhappy. “We might have fought a Mexican cartel before, but that doesn’t mean that we know Mexico well. Why are we getting a case like this? This is our first day at work! We don’t even have any resources for gathering information!”
Luke nodded. “We no longer have Robert backing us up, so we need to think of a solution ourselves. Since we don’t have any information, we’ll have to look for it ourselves. A network of informants is something that takes time to grow, anyway.”
At that moment, Selina suddenly thought of something, and decided to stop talking.
In truth, the main reason the two of them didn’t have any informants was because of Luke’s request for them to remain partners.
Otherwise, they would each be following a veteran detective, and would be able to make use of the information resources available to the veteran detectives they were following. They would then have the time to slowly grow their own network.
Luke had long seen this coming.
Of course, he was more willing to continue working with Selina. That was because he believed that Selina would support him unconditionally.
With Selina following his lead, both of them would share the credit when they solved cases, but following the system’s calculations, his contribution rate would certainly be higher.
If he had to work with a veteran detective instead, he would be the one following the other person’s lead. His rate of contribution from solving cases would then be greatly reduced as a result.
The two didn’t tarry, and left in their car again.
That was what a normal work day for a detective in the Major Crimes Division was like.
To be promoted and to get a raise, they would have to work hard. There was so much work to be done that they would never be able to complete whatever was available.
After leaving the department, they grabbed a meal at a fast food restaurant.
This was a Mexican fast food restaurant.
At a Mexican restaurant, they naturally ordered some tacos, with meat and spicy sauce.
Both of them found this an extremely delicious meal.
Selina’s parents were Mexicans through and through. Thus, they had Mexican food at home most of the time.
In Luke’s previous life, he was from Sichuan, China. Thus, he had a deep love of spicy food.
Selina had two tacos while Luke had four. They spent almost 40 minutes eating.
After the meal, when they got back into their car, Selina asked, “So? Noticed anything?”
Luke replied, “Um, the tacos here are decent, but slightly worse than Sandra’s.”
Selina rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright. My mom isn’t here. You can stop b.u.t.tering her up.” She might be saying that, but inwardly, she was still happy to hear Luke praising her mom.
Luke grinned and moved on from the topic. “Everything looks normal. But we were only there for a meal. If we could find something so easily, the case would’ve been solved long ago. Let’s take a spin around the area instead.”
The new case they had gotten had to do with arms trafficking, and it was suspected that a Mexican gang was behind it.
This was why Selina believed that Brock was prejudiced against the two of them.
These gangs varied in size, from several dozen to hundreds of members. Two newbie detectives without an information network wouldn’t be able to deal with such a gang.
Luke, however, didn’t share her thoughts.
Perhaps Brock was thinking of putting them in their place, but he certainly wasn’t expecting the two of them to solve the case right away.
If they did manage to solve the case so easily, wouldn’t that make the other detectives in the team look stupid?
In fact, the case had been with them for over two months. The detectives in charge of this case previously had been transferred off it to work on another urgent case. Evidently, everyone believed it was unlikely that this case would be solved.
As Selina drove, Luke never stopped observing their surroundings.
Suddenly, his face went blank as a familiar yet unfamiliar face seemed to walk past out of the corner of his eye.
It felt familiar since he seemed to have seen that face before.
It was unfamiliar because he couldn’t recall who that person was, so he was sure that it was someone he didn’t know.
The car continued moving for a few dozen meters before Luke suddenly said, “Turn around.”
This was the advantage of their good teamwork. Selina turned without any hesitation. She merely asked, “What did you find?”
Finally, Luke recalled who that face belonged to. An odd expression surfaced on his face as he said, “I think… I saw the walking dead along the road just now.”
Selina didn’t doubt his words. Rather, she asked curiously, “Who?”
Luke took a deep breath before saying, “Do you remember our previous case? It’s the dead witch… I saw her walking along the road.”
Selina’s hands trembled as she nearly crashed the car from her shock. “WTF?”
That was quite horrifying to hear.
How could a dead person be walking along the road? Was this a ghost encounter or something?
She quickly steadied her hands and drove faster. At the same time, she also started scanning the area as she drove.