American forensics, but the gourmet system

Chapter 69 The Raccoon's Revelation (First Update, Please Subscribe!)

Boom boom boom!

A loud knock echoed through the room.

Russell groggily opened his eyes, thinking that aliens had attacked.

He struggled to sit up. The adrenaline rush from yesterday's daring car rescue, coupled with his late-night discussion with Aina, left Russell still somewhat disoriented.

Boom boom boom!

The knocking on the door persisted.

Russell got out of bed, put on his slippers, opened the bedroom door, and looked into the living room.

On the other side, Aina's bedroom door was also ajar, and Aina's dark red hair was messy as she sleepily peered out.

Russell knew that he was probably in no better shape now.

"I'll go open the door."

Russell pointed to the door and said to Aina.

Who's outside?

Aina looked at Russell with a puzzled expression.

"I don't know either—" Russell shrugged and walked towards the door. "Who would knock on the door so early in the morning?"

Boom boom boom!

"Here it comes, here it comes."

Russell walked to the door and opened it.

"Hooray! Surprise!" Jesse stood in the doorway, wrapped up like an Eskimo, and opened her arms to Russell.

"Hey, hey, hey—" Russell exclaimed, both surprised and delighted, bumping shoulders with Jesse. "What are you doing here?"

"Why can't I come?" Jesse walked into the room, looking around. "Am I mad at you for interrupting your date, Russell?"

Aina looked at Russell, then at Jesse, her eyes filled with confusion.

"Aina, this is my colleague, Jesse," Russell quickly introduced. "Jesse, this is Aina, my—well, my roommate."

"Oh—roommate." Jesse greeted Aina with a drawn-out, mischievous grin, "Good morning, Aina."

"Good morning—" Aina blinked. "Are you a police officer, Jesse?"

"Yes, officer." Jesse placed his backpack on the sofa. "But I'm not here as a police officer—"

"Then you are—"

'

"I'm Russell's bodyguard now," Jesse chuckled. "Captain Hansen granted me paid leave, and I rushed over overnight—when I called Russell last night, the team was all together, and we immediately guessed that Russell didn't have much help here and might even be under threat to his personal safety—is that right, Russell?"

"Oh, you guys are a little touching." Russell shrugged. "That's true—but how did you guess?"

Jesse plopped down on the sofa smugly: "With such heavy snow yesterday, given your cautious nature, you certainly wouldn't have been driving fast. So when you said you had a flat tire, I immediately realized it wasn't an accident—"

"You realized that?" Russell asked sharply.

"Okay, actually it's Captain Hansen—" Jesse chuckled again, "Anyway, we discussed it, and since we just got a new intern on the team and we don't have any cases to work on right now, I thought I'd take a few days off to help you out—how's the case going?"

"Let's talk about the case's progress later." Russell glanced at Aina, who was leaning against the doorframe, and scratched his messy hair. "We just woke up, let's wash up first—there are some chocolate chip cookies on the coffee table, you can have some—"

Jesse gave a strange smile again: "Heh heh—just woke up?"

"Don't laugh so lewdly, Jesse," Russell said as he walked into his bedroom. "Ignore him, Aina."

His head is full of frivolous nonsense —

Aina couldn't help but laugh, waved to Jesse, and went back to her room to wash up.

"Hey!" Jesse protested, annoyed. "Who said my brain is full of nonsense? Besides, I came all this way to be your bodyguard, and you give me chocolate cookies?"

"Lunch includes delicate pre-made desserts, charred steak, and a healthy vegetable salad," Russell said, turning back. "I guarantee it will satisfy you."

Russell went into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.

"Ha—" Jesse took a chocolate cookie from the box on the coffee table and stuffed it into his mouth, muttering as he chewed, "They're actually living in separate bedrooms—how boring."

The projector in the room hummed, projecting a topographical map onto the wall opposite the sofa.

Jesse sat upright on the sofa, like a primary school student listening attentively to a lecture.

Aina was operating a computer at the table next to her, and a bright red dot appeared on the terrain map.

"This is where we found Jennifer's arm," Russell said, still holding the coat hanger, pointing to the area marked with a red dot. "There's a withered, fallen oak tree here, a favorite den for raccoons—"

"I have a question," Jesse raised his hand and asked, "What does this case have to do with raccoons?"

"Of course it's related. A raccoon stole Jennifer's arm from somewhere." Russell tapped the wall with a coat hanger. "If we can find out where the raccoon went, we might find Jennifer's remaining body—"

"The raccoon must have been to many places—" Jesse started counting on her fingers, "Old tree hollows, abandoned cars, garbage cans for kitchen waste, abandoned groundhog nests—how are we going to find them?"

"Based on the habits of raccoons."

Russell winked at Aina, and a bright yellow circle appeared on the topographic map, centered on a red dot.

"I consulted an expert on animal behavior, who told us that the female raccoon was in the autumn, storing up fat in preparation for winter, before she suffocated by Jennifer's finger choking her trachea. At this time, her activity radius is about 0.8 kilometers."

"How many miles is that?" Jesse asked instinctively.

"Damn it—half a mile, I guess." Russell quickly converted the units in his mind.

"Okay, so looking at it this way, most of the farm to the west is within the raccoon's range—" Jesse said, pointing to the map, "so we can ignore the farm in our search area, right? After all, a farm isn't a good place to dump a body—"

"Good analysis, Jesse." Russell gave Jesse a thumbs up and continued pointing to the map, "The area near the Hudson River to the north can also be left out of the search area for now. I've been to the riverbanks of the Hudson River; they're all bare rocks, making it difficult to hide a body."

Jesse fell into thought, and slowly said, "Then our search area is limited to the east—but what is the east?"

“A deserted hill,” Russell said, “covered with bushes and various deciduous trees—a road runs around the bottom of the hill, the only passable road in the vicinity leading to the Hudson River.”

Jesse's eyes widened: "You mean...?"

Russell nodded. "I discussed it with Aina last night. If criminals intend to dispose of a body, they will choose a location that is not too far from the highway—unless they want to attract a lot of attention."

Russell, holding a coat hanger, tapped on the projection of the topographical map on the wall: "We plan to start our investigation from here."