Chapter 286 - Narrow Down the Range

Chapter 286 Narrow Down the Range

Luke seemed to be observing Sarah’s body, but he was actually discreetly surveying everybody’s reactions.
Regretfully, while their reactions weren’t entirely the same, nothing suspicious really stood out.
Luke didn’t find that odd.
The murderer attacked two people after Luke identified himself as a police officer. The suspect had to be a psycho, since no sane person would commit a crime when they knew police officers were present. Luke and Selina began to ask everybody questions.
Both of them were using recorders that Luke had modified, and they didn’t have to write everything down themselves.
Half an hour later, Elizabeth and Billy arrived. Elsa and her new partner Simmons, a young white detective, also showed up soon after that.
Their help would be indispensable since there were too many people that had to be questioned.
This was also a major case. The lead actress of a movie had been killed right in front of police officers and hung from the ceiling. It was a provocation no matter how you looked at it.
The murderer had even attempted to kill one other person. Did they really think that the police was nothing?
Luke quickly explained what happened to his colleagues who had just arrived.
Frowning, Elsa asked, “Did anyone see you handcuff Mike?”
“No. I handcuffed him in a corner. Nobody could’ve seen him behind all the items in the way unless they were nearby.” Luke shook his head.
He knew why Elsa had asked the question. It meant that the murderer’s attack on Mike wasn’t planned, but improvised.
After all, the murderer couldn’t have known that Luke was a police officer, or that he would handcuff Mike in that corner.
Elsa turned gloomy. “What is his goal? To provoke the police?”
Killing a suspect that Luke had handcuffed was even crazier than killing a random guy in front of him.
Luke would’ve been in serious trouble if Mike had been killed.
Mike didn’t deserve to die because of his prank. If the incident was reported, Luke would probably be demoted and transferred out.
If Elsa lost Luke, her team’s efficiency would definitely plummet. Elsa said in a low voice, “We’ll be working overtime today. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
Nobody said anything. They certainly didn’t have the courage to openly object to their boss.
Elsa said, “Luke, you can take action freely. The rest of you will investigate the crew with me. Let me know if you find anything.”
Everybody nodded, and the crew was divided into several groups for questioning.
Luke wasn’t given a task because Elsa knew that he had a mysterious way of cracking cases.
He could often find suspicious things after roaming the crime scene for a while.
Hence, Elsa would rather not squander Luke’s ability by having him interrogate the crew.
Luke walked back and forth on set, mainly around where Sarah had been hung and where Mike had almost been strangled.
But he didn’t find anything.
The murderer was quite cunning.
The murder weapons he used were all props that had been touched by a lot of people, just like the noose around Mike’s neck.
After examining the crime scene, Luke deduced that the murderer must’ve used a simple yet practical trap to hang Sarah instead of doing it himself.
When Sarah stepped into the trap, the noose dropped around her neck and tightened.
Sarah was only 1.6 meters tall, and according to Jennifer, it helped Sarah cut a more pitiful-looking figure in the movie.
Sarah wasn’t a strong woman. The moment she stepped into the trap, the noose tightened around her neck and she was hung.
Luke could totally imagine how desperate she must’ve felt with a bunch of people right in front of his eyes, yet she couldn’t cry for help at all.
Luke wasn’t entirely disappointed after his inspection.
The murderer was bold and used carefully-devised traps.
It was a good thing for the murderer, because it would be hard for the police to track him down.
However, the murderer still left clues behind.
And there was an obvious one in Sarah’s death.
Why was the murderer so confident that Sarah would set foot in his trap?
This wasn’t a jungle, and the murderer had only set up one trap, yet somehow, he knew that Sarah would fall into it.
The trap range was very small; just twenty centimeters off and it would’ve missed Sarah.
Luke found that interesting.
Else didn’t contact him, which meant that she hadn’t found anything yet. The forensic scientists were already on the job when he returned to Sarah’s body.
Luke questioned them, and their replies were within his expectations.
Sarah had indeed died by hanging, and hadn’t been strung up only after she was strangled; otherwise, the body would have exhibited a different set of marks. Also, there wasn’t anything unusual under her fingernails.
Clearly, the murderer hadn’t given her a chance to struggle.Perhaps, the murderer had simply and silently watched her step into the trap and get hung. Cold-blooded and scheming, the murderer felt like a serial killer.
As far as Luke could recall, though, many serial killers did like to use strangulation, but few would silently hang their victims next to a crowd.
Soon, the forensic scientists took Sarah’s body away. Until further examination, it was impossible for Luke to acquire any other leads from them.
Luke circled the set again.
This time, he calmed down and carefully analyzed the smells on the nooses that had been used to hang Sarah and Mike.
Although he couldn’t directly find the murderer this way, he could narrow down the range of suspects. There were traces of twenty people on the two nooses, which was roughly half of the crew of around fifty people.
Following that, there were only five targets whose scents were on both nooses.
It was only one tenth of all the people on the set, which was good enough for his investigation.