Chapter 69: A New Lead

The next day, Jimmy returned to the police precinct. Although Cragg had told him to file the paperwork and close yesterday's case, it still didn't sit right with him, and he had tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep soundly. Cragg wanted a peaceful cruise toward retirement, preferring to minimize trouble whenever possible, but Jimmy was young and unwilling to simply leave a homicide case hanging.

After drawing his equipment, Jimmy drove the patrol car directly to the crime scene. He parked the cruiser in front of the house, stepped over the police tape, and entered, putting on his gloves as he walked. This time, he activated his mind's eye once more, conducting a thorough re-inspection of every corner of the house.

The body had already been removed, but everything else remained as it had been yesterday. If no one had entered the house last night, theoretically, all objects should have remained untouched.

Jimmy checked every corner and cabinet from the kitchen and pantry to the space beneath the living room stairs. According to the images fed back by his mind's eye, nothing seemed amiss—the kitchenware, tools, food, clothing, and other items were all in order. Then, he noticed an anomaly: behind the living room television console, there appeared to be a small space, but visually, it should have been empty—there seemed to be a hollow cavity built into the wall directly behind the living room console.

Jimmy walked over to the television console for a closer inspection. There were no marks on the floor indicating that it had been moved—neither laterally nor forward and backward. Any movement would have inevitably left drag marks, which meant that the entrance to this hidden compartment was not located near the television console. He looked backward; theoretically, this wall should have been a load-bearing wall of the house. Jimmy tapped on it, confirming it was likely a brick wall. On the other side was a guest bedroom. Yesterday, he had merely opened the door to take a look; nobody had lived in it, and the room was not ransacked or messy, so he had simply passed it by.

He went into the guest bedroom to examine the corresponding wall and tapped on it. In the guest bedroom, it was a wooden wall. It appeared that a space had been partitioned off against the brick wall, then covered with wooden panels and painted the same color as the surroundings for camouflage. Activating his mind's eye, Jimmy traced the space and located a concealed door hidden behind the guest bedroom wardrobe.

Jimmy checked the floor beneath the clothes and found no drag marks; the concealed door apparently didn't require moving the wardrobe itself. He opened the wardrobe and shifted the clothes aside, revealing a movable wooden panel at the back equipped with a very shallow handle that could be pulled open. Jimmy flicked on his flashlight and leaned in to inspect.

This compartment was sixty to seventy centimeters wide, extending from the floor up to the second-story ceiling, with a depth of about two meters. It was ingeniously designed: viewed from the living room, it appeared to be a solid wall, and since this bedroom was rarely used, almost no one would notice the substantial difference in thickness between the front and back walls.

There were very fresh drag marks on the floor of the secret room, though limited in scope. Judging by their size, they likely corresponded to a duffel bag or a long travel bag, as the dust on the floor differed from that in the rest of the room. No other items were stored there, and aside from those marks, the floor was covered in dust, suggesting this space was rarely put to use.

Jimmy closed the concealed door, restored the clothes to their original positions, and left the bedroom to inspect the upstairs rooms. He found no other hidden doors or anomalies. The strangest thing was that throughout the entire house, there was no gun safe, nor any boxes or racks for holding firearms. Could the resident have been anti-gun? Yet this was Arkansas, part of the conservative South.

Jimmy stepped out of the house and began a new round of questioning with the neighbors. For the few households he had already spoken with yesterday, he repeated the questions and answers; their accounts remained virtually unchanged from the day before. However, a neighbor he hadn't spoken with yesterday offered Jimmy an unexpected surprise.

"Cragg, it's me, Jimmy. We have a new lead on yesterday's case. Where are you? Let's meet up."

Jimmy called Cragg, then drove off to rendezvous with him.

Although Cragg was a sergeant, he was currently on patrol duty. Unlike Jimmy, however, he took a rather laid-back approach. When Jimmy found him, Cragg was resting out in the countryside.

This was the status quo for many patrol officers: when things were quiet, they either drove aimlessly and boredly around on patrol or found some deserted, safe spot to rest and zone out while waiting for dispatch to call.

"Cragg, I found someone who likely witnessed the suspect leaving, and he provided a lead. Yesterday, he saw a man on their street get into a blue sedan, make and model unknown.

"White male, one hundred eighty to one hundred ninety centimeters tall, athletic build, short hair, green T-shirt, jeans, carrying a black duffel bag.

"We can check the surrounding traffic cameras; we should be able to track down this blue sedan."

Cragg looked at Jimmy speechlessly. He had already sorted out the leads and evidence yesterday precisely so he could shelve the case, let someone else handle it, and finally get some rest. How had it circled right back?

"Jimmy, head back to the precinct. I'll contact the captain to request the surveillance footage. You can take charge of following up on this case."

Jimmy looked at Cragg with resignation. The man had clearly made up his mind to completely slack off and firmly refused to touch anything troublesome. Oh well—he was the one who wanted to solve this case anyway, so taking full control and handling it himself was fine, except that there would be no one higher up to take the fall if things blew up...

Back at the precinct, the captain had already contacted the dispatch center. Obtaining copies of the traffic surveillance footage required going through quite a bit of red tape, so for now, all they could do was wait.

In the afternoon, Jimmy finally received a few boxes of traffic surveillance tapes. They were certainly not the raw footage, but rather copies from the specific intersections Jimmy had designated. He turned on the precinct's VCR and began playing the traffic footage from around the time of the incident. Because it covered several surrounding intersections, there were numerous tapes spanning a lengthy period.

After hours of repeated playback and comparison, Jimmy's eyes felt nearly strained to blindness. Since he needed to pause and rewind the footage constantly, and television screens back then were relatively small, Jimmy had sat directly in front of the television, hitting pause at a moment's notice to see clearly.

Through repeated comparison and logging, Jimmy ultimately identified three blue sedans matching the description, all bearing Arkansas license plates. After carefully verifying the license plate numbers, he called the dispatch center to request information checks on all three vehicles.

An unexpected situation occurred: two of the cars checked out as normal, but the third sported a fake license plate.

Jimmy immediately locked his focus onto the vehicle with the fake plate. Cross-referencing the recorded traffic intersections and the vehicle's heading, its direction of travel appeared to be westbound. As for its destination, it remained unknown for now; subsequent footage would require re-contacting the dispatch center to request a review.

As for the two normal vehicles, they were immediately dismissed. If the fake-plate vehicle didn't pan out, he would contact them later.

Jimmy asked the dispatch center to trace the final whereabouts of the sedan with the fake plates. That would take time, so nothing more could be accomplished today. Having arranged everything, Jimmy packed up and headed off duty. Although he hadn't patrolled today, he felt utterly exhausted.

Returning home, Jimmy grabbed a quick bite, washed up, and went straight to bed, sleeping deeply until he woke up naturally the next day before his alarm even went off.