Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!
Chapter 364 - 226: Trouble, Give Me an Extra Body Bag

Chapter 364: Chapter 226: Trouble, Give Me an Extra Body Bag

Chief Flory seemed a bit bewildered.

He rubbed his forehead, "My head might have suffered a blow, I can’t quite remember everything, just that you left quickly, I struggled to follow, and then I saw a man with a mask holding a child, I chased after them, and fought with him..."

Brian looked at Chief Flory’s not so abundant hair and said leisurely, "Why didn’t you draw your gun?"

It was a decades-old habit.

Whenever there was trouble, drawing their guns was the first reaction of these veteran cops.

"Right, why didn’t I draw my gun?"

Chief Flory repeated dumbly.

He was no longer the fiery young man he had been over thirty years ago, so why would he rashly engage in physical combat?

It didn’t fit with his usual approach!

Before Brian gave him a chance to think further: "What did the man look like?"

"Very tall, wearing a black mask, I couldn’t see his face clearly..."

"What color were his pants?"

"Pants... they were a dirty pair of jeans."

"And the child, what did the child look like?"

As Brian’s questions got more detailed, Chief Flory’s responses became more and more uncertain and delayed.

By the time Brian circled back to ask again, the other man wasn’t even sure about his previous answers.

This kind of out-of-order questioning was suitable for distinguishing truth from falsehood.

It was determined by human logic.

As the saying goes, one lie requires countless other lies to embellish and cover it up.

The lies ordinary people tell often contradict themselves logically, falling apart upon questioning, and while those trained or professional in lying may be more logically rigorous, they are the same in essence.

So truly clever liars will mix truth with falsehood, leaving things unclear, so when questioned again, they are uncertain, unclear, can’t remember...

They don’t corner themselves.

Brian’s line of questioning wasn’t to confirm whether Chief Flory was lying, but rather to verify his own guess.

Chief Flory was also an experienced cop who had interrogated others.

Realizing Brian’s tactic, his expression turned sour, "Hey, listen, I don’t know what happened to me, but everything I’ve said is true."

Brian nodded, not denying it, "I know, you were caught up in a hallucination earlier."

"Hallucination?"

Chief Flory hastily felt his head, noticing no injuries, just a burning pain on his face.

He began to doubt himself, "Could it really be because of that marijuana? Its effects can’t be that exaggerated..."

Unprocessed marijuana typically only causes hallucinations in first-time users, but soon after, it becomes like cigarettes to them, at most giving a slight boost of energy and causing abnormal excitement when consumed, leading to lethargy, weakness, and even brain damage when not used—not at all a good thing.

To be blunt, the hallucinogenic effect of this substance is not even as strong as the venom of certain poisonous toads.

Brian nodded, "Ordinary marijuana wouldn’t have such exaggerated effects, but the one you smoked was that potent. Who gave it to you?"

Chief Flory seemed to recall something, pausing for a moment before speaking:

"Shara, the policewoman who greeted you.

She is the daughter of a friend of mine, and we get along well.

I trust her.

The continuous disappearances of colleagues had me on edge, she noticed it, and gave me some confiscated marijuana.

I had been exposed to it when I was younger, so I eventually took it."

As he spoke, he looked up at the ammo belt on Brian, "There are two bullets missing from you, did you fire your weapon?"

Brian patted his double-barreled shotgun, "Yes, someone dressed up in your clothes and wore a fake mask like yours, and then I blew his head off. This thing packs a punch."

"Taking him alive might have been better."

Chief Flory circled Brian’s suit jacket, "This whole situation is bizarre. The disappearances started a week ago; you just received the message yesterday; and the marijuana was given to me by Shara three days ago. I need to think about the relationship between all these events."

As a veteran chief, he still possessed basic crime-solving skills.

Brian waved his hand dismissively, "There’s no need to complicate things. Let’s first pack up the assailant’s body, then head back to town and get you a new set of clothes."

...

The marijuana was actually not a problem.

The conversation was still a probe by Brian.

No one would use such a foolish, uncontrollable tactic to set someone up.

Knocking someone out directly would be much more effective.

After all, there was no way to make Chief Flory smoke at a specific time, or even touch the stuff had the pressure not been so great.

So the marijuana was not an issue.

Chief Flory reacted quite normally to Brian’s leading questions.

From Brian’s earlier perception, there also seemed to be nothing unusual about him.

Combined with the previous phone conversation Brian induced with Captain Krist using Chief Flory’s voice, it seemed Chief Flory hadn’t participated in the operation against him.

This man was fairly trustworthy.

...

Brian didn’t believe someone would prepare a disappearance case in advance to deal with him and then send him to his doom.

The likelihood was almost nonexistent.

Therefore, the matter was fairly straightforward.

The disappearance case was real.

CD’s request for help from NW was also genuine.

The only variable was Brian.

Now the question arises.

A disappearance case in Florida—why would the CD organization seek help from the Californian Los Angeles NW Organization thousands of miles away?

Did they run out of people?

This speculation was clearly not valid; even if Florida was a land of outstanding people, with a higher number of Mutants, it’s unlikely that they would outnumber official suppression forces.

This shows that there is actually some kind of connection between NW and the disappearances here.

The CD organization knew it, and after reporting here, they sent the information to NW.

As for what this connection was, that would require investigation.

Following normal procedures, this should have been an investigation case tinged with betrayal by one’s own people, a story that ultimately brought evil to justice.

Regrettably, Brian was no ordinary person.

...

Elsewhere.

Captain Krist of CD Andora had just pocketed his cellphone and called out to a subordinate beside him, "The sonar tracker has been deployed, have everyone come ashore, we need to adjust the equipment."

"Understood, boss."

The subordinate hurriedly went about his business.

Watching him walk away, Krist quickly took out another cellphone and pressed the pre-set speed-dial button.

The call connected, but there was no sound from the other end.

Unperturbed, Krist went straight to the point, "This is Krist. The new Second-level Staff from NW, Brian, has been positioned in the test area, but it seems he hasn’t encountered the ’welcome gift’ you prepared for him."

There was a continued silence on the other end, before someone finally spoke, "The ’welcome gift’ has lost contact, he’s been dealt with."

Hearing this news, Krist’s face turned sour immediately, "FK! Didn’t you say that ’big surprise’ was formidable, that even an NW Dawn Warrior could be easily taken care of?"

If the ’big surprise’ had launched an attack, then the surviving Brian would definitely suspect there was something wrong with himself.

Krist was an enhanced human himself and was very clear about the prestige Second Level Staff in a large organization like NW held in the Combat Department.

FK!

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

On the battlefield, in the face of gunfire and explosive weapons, such non-human monsters might not be so arrogant.

But if the enemy only intended to assassinate a single person, then that person was in big trouble!

The person on the other end of the phone, noticing Krist’s agitation, responded indifferently, "Apologies, this temporary mission was to capture alive, you should know the difficulty difference between capturing and killing..."

"What’s the use of talking about that!"

Veins bulged on Krist’s forehead as he suppressed his own voice, "What am I supposed to do now!"

"Just maintain normal operations."

The person on the end of the phone chuckled lightly, "This temporary mission was originally an internal struggle within their NW organization, and it has nothing to do with us. Next, you just hand the case over to that Dawn Warrior and then return to headquarters. He wouldn’t dare come to headquarters to kill you, would he?"

"What about my benefit?"

"When you return to headquarters, I’ll have someone deliver it to your residence."

"That won’t do!", Krist adjusted his tie, somewhat agitated, "Send it directly to my residence in Andora, I plan to take the items and lay low for a while."

He hadn’t personally seen how formidable the NW’s Dawn Warriors were, but he was well aware of how violent the Second-level Staff of CD were.

The trip to headquarters took some time.

He didn’t feel safe.

It would be better to take the items and head straight to a safe house.

After a pause, the other side agreed, "Alright, I’ll send someone to you now for the case handover, and she’ll bring the items to you."

Krist was noncommittal.

After all, he had already agreed to hand over the investigation rights of the case to Brian. What happened next was their problem, not his.

In truth, Krist wasn’t particularly afraid that Brian would kill him.

He was an employee of the CD organization. Although his position was average and it had taken him decades to become a captain, he still represented the face of the CD organization, at most he would suffer some hardship.

Otherwise, he would not have accepted this temporary task for profit in the first place.

To Krist, this deal was worth it.

...

At the lakeside camp.

When Chief Flory saw Brian throw the still-bleeding headless corpse into the trunk of his car, he felt a refusal in his heart.

But watching Brian hoist up a corpse that weighed over a hundred pounds singlehandedly with ease made him truly give up any notion of protest.

This pretty boy was indeed superhuman.

Wiping his hands.

Brian wiped clean the shards of the special material face mask, sat in the passenger seat, and smiled at Chief Flory, "That guy looked a lot like you, eh?"

"Though his face was smashed by you, both the build and hair color are not much different from mine; I even felt like I was looking in a mirror. I really don’t know how you figured out he was fake."

Chief Flory muttered and then started the car.

Returning to the town.

He went to change his clothes, while Brian stood beside the car waiting.

He fondled the material of the mask.

This stuff had a bizarre texture; despite lacking anything resembling glue, it adhered strongly to skin and would move with subtle muscular changes in Brian’s fingers.

The material’s texture was also similar to skin, with excellent breathability, making it possible to feel the temperature of skin beneath it.

Wearing a face mask made of this material meant that even if touched by hand, it would be difficult to detect; speaking wouldn’t produce discordance.

It was truly amazing.

Even more so than the face-changing techniques in some martial arts novels.

After all, face-changing required skill, whereas this thing was purely a technological product, a technology that could be mass-produced and used by anyone.

Briefly.

Chief Flory, now in fresh clothes, came over holding a body bag, "Put that thing in here, then let’s switch cars to head downtown."

Brian glanced at the trunk where blood was continuously flowing and nodded, "Okay, I didn’t expect his blood hadn’t coagulated yet, but I’ll need another body bag."

Chief Flory’s car was an old one.

The seal of the car left much to be desired.

Blood constantly seeped through the cracks of the trunk; it was nearly drained dry and showed none of the typical signs of a dead corpse.

Chief Flory thought Brian wanted to double bag it and hurriedly said, "This is one of the higher-quality body bags left over from before; the station only has two left. It’s very durable, you don’t have to worry about leaks."

"No, no, no."

Brian waved his hands, "The trunk’s corpse doesn’t need two, I mean, someone will need one, it’s the treatment he deserves, so I wanted to prepare it in advance."

Chief Flory: ...

For some reason, that sounded a bit odd.

He looked at Brian’s handsome, Sven-like face behind those little glasses, and ultimately decided to bring the last body bag from the town’s police station as well.

This guy appeared to be okay and surely wasn’t the type to kill on a whim... right?