North American Detective: I am Proficient in All Kinds of Gun Quick Draws-Chapter 615 - 344 Difficult to deal with_2

People in this area liked to stock up on a lot of food at once, so staying indoors for a few days wasn't considered strange.

As they spoke, the female security guard reached the villa's front gate and rang the doorbell. After waiting for over a minute, there was still no sound from inside.

Dean walked directly to the window and looked inside. This window looked into the first-floor hall. European-style furniture was visible, and a thick, intricately patterned carpet covered the floor. An antique-looking chair lay on its side, surrounded by scattered fruit, suggesting an altercation had occurred there.

Dean gestured to the others. "There are signs of a struggle inside. I suspect the owner and the person he brought with him have met with foul play."

Upon hearing this, the two security guards immediately ran over to look inside as well. Once they saw the situation inside, the male guard didn't hesitate. With a grim expression, he picked up the walkie-talkie on his shoulder, reported the situation to the security office, and requested access to the public surveillance footage of the surrounding area.

Residents of high-end communities placed great importance on their personal security. Although the female security guard had shown displeasure earlier, her expression also turned grim. If a homicide had occurred here, they, as well-paid security personnel, would likely face a substantial deduction from their bonuses.

Lawrence simply stood by Dean's side, calm and collected, without interjecting. In high-end community cases like this, without a police warrant, their hands were tied. Even breaking down a door could lead to complaints, so they had to wait for community security to force entry.

...

「A moment later.」

With the work of a professional locksmith, the villa's main door was opened.

A faint, foul smell, mingled with other odors, rushed out the moment the door opened.

A few security guards who had rushed over paled upon smelling it. As security for a high-end community, they were typically professionals in the field, many of whom had seen blood before. They were all too familiar with the smell of decomposing flesh.

One of them, a Black man who appeared to be a team leader, stopped his teammates who wanted to rush inside to inspect the situation. He turned his gaze to Dean and Lawrence. "Detective, the situation looks pretty bad." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Dean nodded. "Call the police. Have one or two of your men come in with us, and obtain the surveillance footage from this area to hand over to the forensics team later."

After speaking, Dean entered the villa with Lawrence. The security team leader, seeing this, gave orders to his subordinates and hurriedly followed.

Once inside, Dean didn't rush to survey the scene. He flared his nostrils slightly, following the scent. He led Lawrence and the burly, Black security team leader through the hall and straight to a side door that led downstairs.

The door wasn't closed, revealing a pitch-black passage below.

The security team leader, undoubtedly familiar with the architecture of these houses, began to explain, "This is generally where the indoor wine cellar is located. Some trendier homeowners will remodel and install an indoor elevator, but many also prefer this old-fashioned layout."

As he spoke, he confidently stepped forward and fumbled in the darkness for a moment. With a soft CLICK, a few lights switched on, illuminating the passage leading downstairs.

"Let's go." After sensing no immediate danger, Dean took the lead, descending the stairs.

As they reached a bend in the stairs, Lawrence and the Black security team leader both smelled an increasingly intense stench of decay. They realized the body must be below.

The security team leader gave Dean's back a surprised look. He knew that in an enclosed environment, the unique smell of a decaying corpse, after festering for some time, would permeate everything. This made it extremely difficult to pinpoint the source immediately. But this handsome young detective had pinpointed the location right after entering. Does this guy have the nose of a bloodhound?

The further they went down, the colder the surroundings became. The trio descended silently, reaching the bottom of the staircase.

What met their eyes were several modern freezers. A continuous draft of cold air flowed from them, filling the relatively small cellar space. Further away, several glass cabinets were embedded in the wall, containing only a sparse collection of liquor bottles, looking rather meager and a waste of the available space.

Other than that, nothing else was visible.

Lawrence and the Black security captain exchanged surprised glances. Where's the corpse? Having smelled the increasingly strong stench of decay, they had braced themselves, even imagining a gruesome scene in the cellar. Yet there was nothing down there. Something's not right!

...

"What's going on here?" Lawrence asked, after carefully inspecting the cellar again and finding nothing.

He still didn't give up and opened several freezers to check. Inside the freezers were only large blocks of ice formed from some murky, unidentifiable liquid. Clearly, no bodies were stuffed inside. The gaps at the bottom were only the size of an adult's fist. Peeking underneath, it looked very clean; apart from the faint BUZZ of the motor, it was impossible for a body to be hidden there.

So... where was the stench of death coming from? Where was the corpse?

With a look as if he had seen a ghost, Lawrence turned to Dean. "The stench is definitely from a corpse, but why can't we find one here?"

Dean looked just as puzzled. The layout here actually resembled the secret basement stealthily excavated in that lawyer's house. Before coming down, he had even wondered if there would be a group of rats here too. But the current situation left him bewildered.

His nose clearly told him that the source of the cadaverous stench was right in this small space.

This tiny cellar was only just over twenty square meters. It could be scanned with a glance. Where's the corpse?

Frowning, Dean followed the path Lawrence had taken, carefully inspecting the walls and floor again, but he found no traces of hidden compartments.

Inside the entire cellar, other than a few built-in wine racks and several freezers, there was nothing else.

Suddenly, an idea flashed through Dean's mind. He slowly raised his head and looked up.

On the ghastly white ceiling, he saw them: five naked corpses—two white, three Black. They were impaled by thick 'nails,' mouths agape, their murky, dead eyes staring straight at the people in the cellar below. It was like a real-life version of 'The Scream'...

...

Seeing Dean look up, Lawrence and the Black security captain, without a word, instinctively raised their heads as well.

"FUCK!" Unprepared, the Black captain shivered at the sight of the five ghastly corpses 'stuck' to the ceiling and collapsed onto the floor.

Lawrence fared slightly better, but he, too, felt his legs weaken, his fleshy cheeks trembling uncontrollably.

Looking up revealed five corpses with twisted expressions, their cloudy eyes staring intently. Who could stand such a sight?!

If he hadn't previously witnessed the even larger scale scene of more than twenty suspended bodies forming a human jigsaw puzzle, Lawrence felt his reaction wouldn't have been much better than the Black security captain's.

Dean, on the other hand, was much calmer. Upon seeing the suspended corpses, he realized the murderer was the same person behind the earlier human jigsaw puzzle. This matched his deduced sequence of the killings.

But Dean was puzzled. This is a cellar, after all. How did the murderer manage to pin five corpses to the ceiling with just a few large iron nails?

This wasn't like the human jigsaw puzzle crime scene, which had been discovered quickly. As microorganisms worked within a corpse, the internal tissues and flesh would first stiffen, then soften and rot. Toughness would decrease, and the connections between tissues would gradually diminish.

Consider, for example, someone who died by hanging. Although the spine and neck support the suspended body, a large amount of waste would be expelled from the intestines within half a day. Within three days, the rope would embed into the neck bones, causing flesh to separate. After half a month—well, unless the body was in a well-ventilated spot and dried out completely—the floor beneath would undoubtedly be covered with remnants of blood and flesh.

This scene was different from a hanging. The bodies were simply pinned to the ceiling by nails driven through flesh, and no bloodstains were found on the floor.

In such a case, even with the cellar's low temperature, the corpses' flesh should have sagged and pulled away under gravity, eventually causing them to fall to the floor. They wouldn't remain flush with the ceiling like sculptures, truly fixed in place.

How did the murderer manage it?

At this moment, even the experienced Dean was perplexed. He couldn't even figure out the murderer's technique.

This is tricky.