American forensics, but the gourmet system

Chapter 78 Experts and Provocation (First Update, Please Subscribe!)

Before it got completely dark, Russell finally met Professor Victor, who had rushed over from NYU School of Medicine.

Professor Victor looked to be around forty-three or forty-four years old, not very tall, with shoulder-length blond hair, and wearing an ordinary long down jacket. If one didn't know her identity beforehand, anyone would think she was just an ordinary middle-aged woman.

Mannion went up to Professor Victor and shook hands with him in a friendly manner: "Good evening, Professor Victor—it's so late for you to come all this way—"

"I had an important lecture this afternoon, so I rushed over as soon as it ended—" Professor Victor's tone was very efficient, perfectly matching Russell's stereotypical image of a university professor. "These two are my students, both doctoral students in forensic anthropology, Antoine Hooker and Sofia Liu—"

Russell heard a familiar sound and involuntarily looked behind Professor Victor.

Professor Victor's lineup was quite politically correct. Antoine was a black man in his thirties, while the girl whose surname was unclear (I couldn't tell if it was Liu or Liu) was a young Chinese woman wearing large black-rimmed glasses, standing behind Professor Victor.

In the dim light, her facial features were not clearly visible.

Russell turned to look at Aina beside him, who silently mouthed, "Chinese?"

"It should be." Russell nodded slightly.

Even after leaving his homeland for many years, Russell still felt a sense of kinship when he saw Chinese Americans in America.

But years of experience have taught Russell that in America, a land where self-interest reigns supreme, even those of Chinese descent, from the same hometown, or even blood relatives, sometimes require caution.

Therefore, Russell was only slightly curious about the girl who appeared to be of Chinese descent, but he didn't feel any real closeness to her.

Professor Victor exchanged a few pleasantries with Mannion before turning his attention to the large plastic sheets spread out on the open ground.

The FBI's burly men had stopped digging through the garbage mountain, and several of them turned on their tactical flashlights, adding a bit of light to the somewhat gloomy forest.

The stark white bones on the plastic sheeting looked even more human under the blinding light of the flashlight.

Professor Victor walked over and squatted down next to Corpse Number Five. He picked up the white paper that was placed under the skull and carefully examined the bones of Corpse Number Five: "These are all what you found—"

"—Abandoned corpses." Mannion continued, "That's right, a criminal gang replaced these bodies that should have been sent to the crematorium with the corpses they killed—and that's what you see now."

"Then why didn't they burn all the bodies together?"

"I can't believe it," asked Antoine, a 30-year-old Black man.

"According to criminal psychology, it's probably because they didn't want another person to share the loot—" Mannion shrugged. "From our current investigation, we can see that this criminal gang didn't try to bribe the funeral home administrator—by the way, Professor Victor, according to regulations, these remains are handled by the FBI. You can hand them over to the OCME forensic pathologist; he's over there."

Mannion gestured with his chin in Russell's direction.

His expression wasn't particularly friendly.

Russell guessed that Mannion had been holding back all afternoon, but hadn't found an opportunity to lash out, and that a forensic pathologist would definitely be needed at the scene.

So when Professor Victor, who was working with the FBI, arrived at the scene, Mannion's attitude turned sour again.

But to Mannion's surprise, Professor Victor stood up, holding Russell's description of the fifth body, walked towards Russell, and even shook hands with him in a friendly manner.

"You must be Russell?" Professor Victor looked up slightly at Russell, smiling slightly. "You know, Lorne just raved about you on the phone—"

"Dr. Beckman is always like that," Russell said modestly. "He's always been friendly to young people."

"No, no, no—" Professor Victor smiled and shook his head. "I know Lorne better than you do. He doesn't praise others easily, especially in front of me—and when I saw what you wrote, I knew he hadn't praised the wrong person."

Professor Victor waved the blank sheet of paper in his hand: "The judgment is extremely accurate—it matches the information I gleaned from the skeletons—was this your independent interpretation?"

"Yes." Russell scratched his head; he couldn't be modest anymore.

After all, opportunities to showcase one's professional abilities in front of academic giants are not many.

"Well done—very skilled." Professor Victor looked down at the fourteen skeletons and Russell's description of their condition, then looked up at Mannion beside him. "Supervisor Mannion, with such an excellent forensic pathologist here, did you need to call me over?"

Although embarrassed, Mannion was also a man of flexibility, and immediately said, "Of course, we need professionals to cross-verify it—after all, I'm not a professional, and this case is of great importance, so I still want to make sure everything is foolproof—"

Russell suddenly felt that the title "chameleon" from the text he had studied as a child was quite fitting for Mannion.

Professor Victor smiled noncommittally and turned to Russell: "Dr. Russell, if possible, I would still like you to stay here and continue to follow up on the scene. After all, you know this case better than we do, and it would be troublesome to hand over the work on short notice. Antoine and Sophia will also stay here to assist you, so you can have more time to hand over the work to them."

To be honest, if it weren't for the existence of system tasks, Russell would have been eager to hand over these tasks long ago.

Fourteen corpses, plus those still unearthed from the garbage heap—the report afterward would probably be as long as a novel like Wuthering Heights.

Professor Victor's proposal was exactly the outcome Russell wanted to see.

I can continue to complete the tasks given by the system without having to write reports.

Russell was even somewhat grateful to Mannion.

If he hadn't insisted on having Professor Victor's team take over the home investigation work, those horrific forensic reports might have really landed on his shoulders.

"No problem, Professor Victor," Russell readily agreed, "but I'm afraid I can only stay here for another day or two—my travel period is about to expire."

"Lorne also mentioned this to me—" Professor Victor nodded and said with a smile, "and he also told me not to poach you to work in my lab, since he hasn't built his own team yet—speaking of which, would you be interested in pursuing a PhD with me, Dr. Russell?"

Russell thought that Dr. Beckman was indeed a lover of Chinese culture, as he even knew how to use reverse psychology.

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