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Then he shook his head, turned on the flashlight, and walked towards the cemetery not far away.
This morning he always felt that there was something strange in this cemetery, but he never remembered it after his thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Xiao Wuhuan.
Now is a good time to come and take a look.
Chapter 633 Gravekeeper
In this case, the boy noticed two suspicious points.
The first is the cemetery where the first crime was discovered. This was also the first place where he noticed something unusual. However, the sudden appearance of Kogumaru interrupted his train of thought, and he never thought about it in detail afterwards.
The second is the deceased's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Muraki. The boy always thought that Mr. Muraki's unusually nervous reaction after seeing him for the second time was very wrong, and the unknown pungent smell on his body also made the boy very concerned.
At that time, when they visited the Muraki family, what was Mr. Muraki doing in the room upstairs?
Although he wanted to investigate, it was already getting dark, so the boy decided to take a look at the cemetery first. As for the Muraki family, he would wait until tomorrow morning...
The cemetery at night does give people a feeling of chilly winds, but the boy did not feel any fear.
After all, although he is not a real policeman, he has been doing the work of a policeman and has captured countless vicious criminals.
No matter which legend it is, people like him who are "full of righteousness" are the ones that ghosts are most reluctant to approach.
Therefore, even if there really are so-called ghosts here, they should be afraid of him, not him being afraid of them.
With a flashlight, the boy walked to the place in the cemetery where Anzi was tied up that morning.
After her identity was confirmed by the Muraki couple, the police temporarily took Anzi's body back to the morgue of the Metropolitan Police Department. The dark red bloodstains on the ground around her were also cleaned up. Except for a little blood left in some corners, it was no longer as horrifying and curious as it was in the morning.
The boy stood where Kyoko's body was tied and kneeling, and used his flashlight to illuminate the tombstone in front of him.
【Mayuko Hanada】
That’s right, the owner of this tombstone is Mr. Hanada’s classmate who chose to commit suicide by jumping off the building a few months ago because he could not bear the bullying from classmate Anzi.
When the gravekeeper found Xingzi's body this morning, she was tied up and kneeling in front of this tombstone.
Indeed, on the surface this case seems simple.
Hanada chose to commit suicide by jumping off a building because of the bullying by Kyoko. After failing to get an explanation and the police’s perfunctory response, Mr. Hanada, under the influence of alcohol, happened to find Kyoko who happened to be out one night a few months later. After killing her, he tied her body to his daughter’s tombstone to comfort Hanada’s soul in heaven…
But the boy did not think this was the truth, and when he saw the tombstone again, he finally remembered the abnormality he noticed in the morning.
The body was in the wrong position.
Kyoko's body was technically tied up with multiple thin ropes into a position similar to the "Maria Prayer".
Kneeling with legs together, hands clasped in front of chest...looking very pious.
But according to what the boy had learned from Mr. Hanada's neighbors, Mr. Hanada himself had no beliefs and was an atheist.
Moreover, the boy had never found anything related to religious beliefs in Huatian's house.
If the reason why Anzi's body was tied here was really because Mr. Hanada wanted to comfort his tragically dead daughter, then according to Japanese custom, he should have tied the body in the "kneeling and kowtowing" posture instead of the "Maria prayer" posture.
Even if Mr. Hanada was under the influence of alcohol and suddenly thought of the "Maria Prayer" posture, it would not be right.
There's another strange thing about Kyoko-san's body.
Recalling the scene in his memory that morning, the boy half-crouched in front of the tombstone, then slowly raised his head.
Therefore, his gaze turned towards the dark mountain behind the cemetery.
That's right, the boy had noticed from the beginning that the head of Anzi's body was raised high.
And this was obviously not an accident, because there was a thin black rope around the neck of the corpse that was pulled back, and it was this rope that forced the corpse's head up.
Obviously, this was what the murderer did deliberately.
The boy didn't quite understand these religious rules, but based on his shallow knowledge in this area, believers usually had to lower their heads when doing these prayer postures and could not look directly at the gods.
But the murderer did the opposite. The head of Anzi's body was deliberately raised. It was neither a standard prayer nor an apology... It was very weird.
This was the strange thing the boy noticed this morning, and it was also one of the major doubts that made him suspect that the murderer might not be Mr. Hanada.
[However, why was the corpse placed in a praying posture but its head was deliberately raised? ]
Thinking about this, the boy's eyes fell on the dark hill behind the cemetery.
[Does it have anything to do with this mountain? ]
"Who is there?!"
At this moment, a loud shout suddenly came from behind the boy, and then a beam of flashlight shone over him.
The boy withdrew his gaze, stood up and looked back.
"Huh? Oh! It's Officer Shirakawa?!"
The person walking towards him was the gravekeeper whom the boy had met this morning. He was also the first person to discover the body of classmate Anzi and report the case to the police.
After seeing the boy's face clearly, the gravekeeper immediately put down the flashlight and ran over.
"It's so late, is Officer Shirakawa here to investigate the scene?"
"Yeah." The boy nodded slightly and subconsciously glanced at the middle-aged man in front of him.
This was an ordinary-looking man, and his clothes were no different from when he saw him in the morning.
But perhaps because of the different identities of the two men, namely, a police officer and an ordinary citizen, the gravekeeper seemed a little restrained and did not get too close to the boy.
"I'm sorry, Officer Shirakawa. After the police took the body away, I asked someone to clean up all the blood here, so..."
"No problem." As they walked out of the cemetery together, the boy asked casually, "Were you patrolling just now?"
"Oh, yes. After this inspection, we'll do two more inspections tonight and that will be enough..." the gravekeeper replied with a smile.
"What's on the mountain behind this?" the boy asked again.
"This... I'm not sure either. Although my job is to inspect the cemeteries nearby, I've never been up to the back mountain. And it seems that no one has ever lived on that mountain. It's probably just a bare mountain with nothing on it..."
"Really?" The boy nodded slightly but did not say anything further.
"Officer Shirakawa, could it be that... the police have already found the murderer?"
At this time, the gravekeeper asked curiously.
In the darkness, the boy glanced at him.
"Not yet, I just found some clues..."
The boy withdrew his gaze and frowned slightly. He thought carefully, as if he suddenly thought of something, and his brows suddenly relaxed, but the tone of his voice did not change at all.
"As for who the murderer is, we need to continue investigating..."
At this point, the boy's hand suddenly loosened and the flashlight in his hand fell to the ground.
With a "click" sound, the cylindrical flashlight rolled forward along the steps. The beam of light from the flashlight swept across the night sky, instantly illuminating the tombstones around the two people.
"Ah! Officer Shirakawa! Your flashlight!"
Beside him, before the boy could speak, the gravekeeper hurried forward and wanted to help the boy pick up the flashlight that was rolling on the ground.
Seeing this, the boy did not hesitate. He stepped forward quickly, with almost no sound, and reached out to grab the flashlight at the same time as the gravekeeper grabbed the flashlight on the ground.
Due to this identical action, the distance that the two people had previously deliberately maintained was quickly shortened, and it could even be said that they were touching shoulders.
It was also at this distance that the boy smelled the same unknown pungent smell on the gravekeeper as he had smelled on Mr. Muraki before.
【Is it true...】
Chapter 634 It’s late at night, watch your step
"P-Officer Baihe?"
In the pitch-black cemetery, there were only two flashlight lights. The gravekeeper bent down to pick up the flashlights and turned to look at the boy who was doing the same thing as him.
A gust of night wind blew by, and there seemed to be a hint of chill in the air.
As if frightened by the boy's sudden action, the gravekeeper had a panicked expression on his face. If it weren't for the cover of darkness, he felt that he would probably be exposed to the young police officer next to him immediately.
The gravekeeper was hoping for a lucky break, but the actual situation was pretty much what he thought.
After smelling the same unknown pungent smell on the gravekeeper as he had smelled on Mr. Muraki at noon, the boy had roughly figured out the ins and outs of the case.
"No need to do that, I can do it myself."
The boy's face showed that gentle smile again, but it was hard to see clearly in the dark. He exerted a little force with his hand, took his flashlight from the gravekeeper, and then stood up.
Beside him, the gravekeeper also stood up, looking uneasy and nervous.
"I'm sorry, Officer Shirakawa, it's me, it's me..."
"It's just that the flashlight fell, why are you suddenly so nervous?"
Without looking at him again, the boy dusted off his flashlight and said:
"You didn't drop my flashlight, what are you afraid of?"
"I, I'm just a little nervous. After all, you are a policeman, haha..." Forcing himself to calm down quickly, the gravekeeper laughed.
"Nervous? Why do you sound like you've committed some crime?"
With a laugh, the boy turned on the flashlight and continued to walk out of the cemetery. Behind him, the gravekeeper hurriedly followed, but like before, he deliberately kept a certain distance from the boy.
"Did you break any law before?" the boy asked casually in a normal tone.
"That's not the case!"
Upon hearing this, the gravekeeper hurriedly explained, his tone, which had finally calmed down, now sounded a little flustered again.
"Officer Shirakawa, please don't overthink it. I'm just a cemetery keeper. Even if I wanted to break the law, there's nowhere to do it..."
"That sounds true, but... it hasn't been long since the war ended. Especially during the war and the turbulent period of post-war reconstruction, criminals often took advantage of the police's inability to handle the situation and committed crimes, and then got away with it.
There are countless unsolved cases left over from that period. In recent years, I have been specifically looking through such files stored in the Metropolitan Police Department, and have solved many of them.
Some people always think that if they can hide for a while, they can hide forever. There are even some arrogant and ignorant fools who always think that they can deceive the police by just making up two flawed tricks. This is really stupid...
Little do they know that in the eyes of those who are truly determined and determined to investigate these things, their little tricks are nothing more than "beastly tricks that only add to the laughter"..."
Having said this, the boy suddenly turned to look at the gravekeeper beside him, moved closer to him, and then raised his hand and patted his shoulder.
When the gravekeeper heard the boy's words which seemed to have a hidden meaning, his heart was already trembling with fear. He had no idea whether the boy had already found out some key information or just said it casually by chance.