"I don't know what kind of mask it is, but I know who this person is, it's Andrew-Jr., and you can't be wrong, I know him in this dress." Sergeant Derek licked the sauce on his thumb, pointed to the photo, and said with great certainty.

He was nibbling on a burger, and the smell of pickled cucumbers filled the air.

"Oh!" Kenji Sakura and Gu Qi glanced at each other and asked, "Can you tell me where little Andrew is?" I'd like to ask him about the whereabouts of this mask. ”

District Chief Derek frowned and asked, "Can you tell me what this mask is?" ”

"That's right." Kenji Sakura thought for a moment and said, "This is our family's ancestral mask, which was lost during the summer festival, that is, the Nihong Carnival, and we have been looking for it, and we found this picture by chance, so we came to Flinders Island, and we are willing to pay a high price to buy the mask back." ”

"Hmm...... Since it's not something suspicious, and you're willing to negotiate a settlement, then there's no problem, just have lunch first, and I'll take you to him after eating. Sheriff Derek took a bite of the burger and chewed exaggeratedly.

"That's great." Kenji Sakura nodded, returned to the table where Gu Qi was, and sat down, eating his lunch in silence.

Both of them ate quickly, the mayor had just finished eating the burger, and the fries had not yet started, and they had already swept all the food on the table, and even Derek's account was paid.

After eating the fries, drinking the coffee, putting on his hat, Derek tilted his head at Kenji Sakura, said hello to the waiter, and walked out the door.

Kenji Sakura and Gu Qi immediately followed out the door.

The police car is an old Cherokee, very old, but it is well maintained, and Sheriff Derek doesn't talk much. Silently drove out of the town of Whitemark from the northeast and headed north to a car rental company a few kilometres away.

"Little Andrew!" Derek got out of the car and shouted at the washing shop on the side of the rental car shop.

No one came out of the washing workshop, but a middle-aged man in a suit came out of the rental car shop and nodded at Derek. "Sheriff, I'm looking for little Andrew, who hasn't come to work for two days," he shouted. ”

Kenji Sakura and Gu Qi glanced at each other, and Derek also turned his head to look at them, frowning slightly.

"He doesn't come to work often?" Turning around, the sheriff asked the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man had already walked in front of him and said with a smile: "Yes, that kid has been thinking about leaving here all day and going to the big city." I don't have the heart to work, and occasionally I will miss work for a day, but it will appear the next day, there is no business, and there is no problem for him to be absent from work for a day, and it is okay to come back the next day and wash the car, anyway, the salary is small, so I will not care. This is the first time I haven't been here for two days in a row. ”

This is the case for most young people in small places, who want to go to the big city. I didn't know what to do or what I could do, I was dazed, hesitated, and wandered, and some of them hesitated in place for a lifetime; Some of them went out, touched the ashes of their noses, and came back dejectedly, but they gained some knowledge; Really get ahead. I'm afraid it's less than one in a thousand.

"Have you contacted him?" Derek pulled out a pen and a small notebook: "Tell me his phone number and address." ”

"I contacted, he didn't answer the phone, you wait a minute." The middle-aged man walked back to the rental car deal, came out with the clerk's register, and gave Derek the address where Little Andrew had registered. He glanced at Gu Qi and Kenji Sakura and asked, "Did something happen?" ”

"Have you ever seen this mask? We're here to find masks. Kenji Sakura handed the photo to the middle-aged man.

"I haven't seen the mask, but this person is really little Andrew, absolutely right." The middle-aged man gave the photo to Kenji Sakura.

"I'll go to him and I'll let you know what the results are." Derek nodded at the middle-aged man and sat back in the cab, while Gu Qi and Kenji Sakura also returned to the car.

"If you find little Andrew, remember to help me tell him that he was fired." The middle-aged man smiled and waved at the police car, then turned back to the rental car.

The car turned around and headed back south, but before returning to Whitemark, it turned left onto a side road and stopped in front of a dirty, dilapidated house.

The land is vast and sparsely populated, there are many such abandoned houses on the island, if you don't feel dirty and smelly, anyone can go in and live, no one will care, the window glass of the abandoned house is gone, covered with dilapidated wooden boards, and you can't see the scene inside......

"Little Andrew! Little Andrew! Derek got out of the car and shouted a few times towards the abandoned house, listening to the movement inside.

There was no movement, Derek waited in place for a minute or so, then turned to Kenji Sakura and said, "You guys wait for me here, I'll go in and take a look." ”

"It's okay, let's go in too, we won't mess around." Kenji Sakura followed behind Derek and came to the front of the abandoned house with Gu Qi.

Gu Qi smelled the stench, there was the smell of sewers and the smell of food that had been rotten for a long time, but there was no corpse smell, Miao Yi buried her head in her hood, such a smell was torture for it, if it hadn't said that they would act together, it would definitely not have come close to the house.

Derek knocked on the door, called out to little Andrew, and then gave his name and pushed the door open.

There was no lock on the door, and anyone could come and go freely, and an even stronger stench poured out of the door, so that Derek squinted his eyes and tilted his head, raised his hand and covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, and walked into the room.

There was no light in the abandoned house, the light shone through the cracks in the open doors and the wooden planks that sealed the windows, and it was barely possible to see what was going on, there were no electrical appliances, but some dusty furniture, and in one corner of the room there was a sofa with a round table in front of it, and a few chairs beside it, on which were candles, pokers, some coins, and a few empty beer bottles.

On the sofa was a very thin person, with his head tilted to the side, his eyes closed and his mouth open, as if he was sleeping, and his clothes were exactly the same as in the photo, and his face was extremely pale.

Derek's brow furrowed, and he walked over and touched the man's neck, the tentacles were cold, obviously the man had been dead for a long time.

"It's little Andrew, already dead." Derek turned to Kenji Sakura and said.

Gu Qi walked over, touched the corpse's elbow, and then opened the corpse's eyelids and looked at it.

"What are you doing? Don't spoil the scene. Derek didn't have time to stop Gu Qi and let out a low snort.

"There are a large number of red spots on the whites of his eyes, he died of suffocation, and the zombie phenomenon has been basically lifted, he may have died the night before, he was suffocated to death, he should have killed him." Gu Qi said to Kenji Sakura.

"This is not going to be easy...... "Kenji Sakura looked around the room, even though he knew that the chances of finding the Tengu Mask here were infinitely close to zero.

They spoke English, which Derek understood, and took out the phone to contact his men and have a doctor be called.

In this kind of small place, there are not many cases throughout the year, let alone homicides, and the doctor is the coroner, or the local coroner is a part-time doctor.

After making the call, Derek asked Gu Qi, "How do you know that he killed him?" ”

"Suddenly absent from work, the owner of the car rental shop is still waiting for him to go back, so that the cause of the disease can be ruled out; There was dust everywhere in the house, only this corner was still clean, the cards on the table were relatively new, and people who were in the mood to play cards with their friends did not look like they were so depressed that they wanted to commit suicide; The coins on the table show that even if they are gambling, the stakes are not large, and they are not going to commit suicide in order to escape debts; The corpse had bleeding spots left by the rupture of capillaries in the whites of its eyes, and it was almost certain that it was suffocation. ”

After speaking, Gu Qi pointed to the corpse and said: "There are many ways to commit suicide, there is no way to suffocate yourself by holding your breath, because the respiratory system will work automatically after suffocating, unless with the help of some kind of prop, there is nothing around the corpse that can suffocate yourself, and although the shoe on the right foot is tied with a shoelace, the heel almost falls off, this is a situation that will only occur if you struggle hard, he is likely to be pressed on the sofa and suffocated, you ask the coroner to check the sofa near his mouth, you should be able to find traces of saliva- Although it doesn't have to be his saliva. ”

The couch was old and dirty, let alone saliva, and could be found in any kind of bodily fluid, including blood.

"Do you think it was the people who played cards with him who killed him?" After listening to this, Derek stared at Gu Qi for a while, and then asked.

Gu Qi pointed to the cards on the table and said, "Can you touch it?" ”

"Wear this." Derek took out a pair of latex gloves from his chest pocket and handed them to Gu Qi.

Gu Qi put on his gloves, picked up the cards covering the table, carefully sorted them out, and lined them up on the table starting from the last one.

When the twentieth card was arranged, he said: "It should be stud, all the cards have been mixed together, indicating that the game has ended, or it was interrupted when preparing to open a new game, but there is no trace of a fight on the scene, even the beer bottles on the table have not been poured, indicating that the people who played cards together have left by themselves, there is still wine in two wine bottles, and there is no trace of wine spilled on the cards, not like the scene that has been rearranged, it is not excluded that someone can do this, but even the corpses are left here, There is no point in arranging at all. ”

Derek nodded, "What if his friends conspired to kill him?" ”

"The space between the couch and the table is very small, just enough for one person to stand, if you bend down and hold his hand, his butt will push the table open, if you don't press his hand, he may push the table away when he struggles, and in any case, the wine bottle on the table will not stand there properly."

"But in any case, his friends are a clue, maybe the last person to see him alive will come with me to visit his friends?" Derek made an invitation to Gu Qi.

"Movement service." Gu Qi nodded, he was really afraid that Derek would exclude him from this case-

(To be continued......)