North American Detective: I am Proficient in All Kinds of Gun Quick Draws-Chapter 597 - 336: A Brutal Way to Die (Book Friends, Gentry, Wish You Well on Dragon Boat Festival)_2

Watching the two patrol officers, unsteady from the high-temperature environment, Dean had them rest. He then called over two unfamiliar officers with tools to pry open the heavy lock on the iron hatch in the floor.

It appeared to be an enclosed space inside.

The moment the iron hatch was lifted, a foul, rotting smell rushed up from below, hitting the two officers who had gleefully taken over. The odor was pungent.

The two rolled their eyes back and, without even registering the urge to vomit, simply fainted.

Dean was speechless.

Right, two more consumables down.

He could only gesture for Salami and his partner, who had recovered some of their strength, to drag the two unconscious officers aside. He also had them fetch a small camera and some gas masks from the car.

Fortunately, Los Angeles was wealthy, and its patrol officers were well-equipped. All these items were in the police car.

Once the odor from the underground space had mostly dispersed, Dean, wearing a gas mask and having borrowed a handgun, took the lead down. Salami and his partner, cameras mounted on their shoulders and guns in hand, followed behind him. Their tension was high as they descended one by one.

However, these two rookies didn't disengage the safety on their handguns.

It wasn't that they didn't want to. Before descending, Dean had warned them not to disengage the safety unless they encountered a specific situation.

After all, Dean merely wanted them as witnesses. He didn't want them to face danger only to be felled, not by the threat itself, but by the panicked, stray bullets of their colleagues behind them.

The underground passage had rough, steel steps. Every step they took produced heavy THUDS that transmitted through the structure, adding to the tense, nerve-racking atmosphere.

It was unclear what lay within the underground space. Even though it had been ventilated for a while, the farther down they went, the stronger the vile mixture of decay and acrid chemicals became.

Even with his gas mask on, Dean's keen sense of smell could still detect the odor, forcing him to hold his breath as he advanced.

About three or four meters down, the stairs began to level off.

CREAK.

The solid feel of stepping onto a wooden floor came through.

CLICK.

A sensor-activated incandescent light switched on, causing the two officers behind Dean to instinctively close their eyes. The next moment, SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK! A cacophony of noises erupted from ahead.

They turned out to be rats, each as big as an adult's palm, with long tails trailing behind them.

These rats, apparently having not seen light for a very long time, scattered frenziedly in all directions under the sudden glare of the incandescent bulb, leaving a series of dark red stains on the somewhat soft ground.

Dean didn't bother observing the surroundings immediately. He first turned and shouted loudly, "Clear! Don't shoot!"

Luckily, he shouted when he did.

The two young rookies behind him, startled by the light and the rats' squealing, had already disengaged their safeties.

If he had created some other distraction first, he might have truly 'enjoyed' the pleasure of being backstabbed.

"Phew! That scared me to death!"

"What the hell are these rats? They're so huge!"

Their tension eased, and now accustomed to the light, the two used the topic of the rats to deflect their embarrassment.

Compared to the composed Captain Dean, their performance just now had been pathetic.

Dean ignored these two—essentially just tools to him—and began to seriously survey his surroundings.

This was a crude underground space, over three meters high and about the size of an ordinary middle school classroom. Strictly speaking, it was more like a cellar.

The passage they had just descended consisted of makeshift steel stairs without railings. The bottom was a wooden floor, poorly maintained, with some areas rotted through, revealing the earth underneath.

Where the three of them had landed, the wooden planks must have had a sensor.

Looking ahead, there were rows of shelves. On these shelves were blue folders, each compartment labeled. Upon closer inspection, the labels were dates.

Dean put on gloves, pulled out a file, and examined it. It contained contracts, ledgers, and some simple notes written in cipher.

This place must hold all of lawyer Barnaby's secrets.

Dean scanned the roughly six large shelves and then said to those behind him, "Follow me. Keep the cameras focused."

With that, he followed the blackish-red footprints left by the rats on the wooden planks, moving past the view-obstructing wooden shelves until he reached the innermost part of the basement.

There stood a simple wooden desk and chair with some office equipment.

A mangled corpse, wrapped in tattered clothing, was slumped in a sitting position, its head tilted back, mouth agape. The black, empty sockets where its eyes had been stared straight towards the narrow passage.

As Dean rounded the corner, his gaze met the corpse's empty black sockets. Even with his courage, his heart lurched, and his pulse quickened considerably.

"FK!"

"Oh my God!"

The two officers following behind cried out in alarm at the sight around the corner.

This peculiar environment, combined with the gruesome state of the corpse, was truly terrifying.

"Stop shouting. Just stand here and keep the camera steady," Dean said irritably. He took a small camera, mounted it on his head, and then cautiously crouched to examine the corpse. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The corpse was in a particularly gruesome state.

Its clothes were ragged, bearing obvious chew marks. The exposed skin and flesh were horribly mangled, covered in the bite marks of rodents.