Chapter 52: Searching for the Body Snatcher
Upon meeting Dr. Patterson, he produced a class photo.
In the photo, a girl's face was blurred out, but even so, her beautiful features couldn't be concealed.
"Detective Harper, what do you mean by this? Why are you showing me this student photo?"
Dr. Patterson was puzzled by Harper's actions.
"Dr. Patterson, I obtained this photo four months ago. A month before I received it, the girl whose face was blurred had transferred to another school."
Detective Harper handed the photo directly to Dr. Patterson.
"Within three months of her transfer, four students in her former class committed suicide inexplicably, seven were admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and the remaining students transferred schools one after another. I don't know the specifics of what happened."
"But one thing is certain: those students who transferred schools disappeared one after another. Even more bizarrely, not long after she transferred to her new school, she was brutally murdered by a male classmate, dismembered, and her body disposed of."
"When we arrived, her body had already vanished. Because the students gave false testimony, the body has not been found to this day, and this case has become another unsolved mystery."
Detective Harper finished speaking in one breath, then stared at Dr. Patterson, waiting for her answer.
Dr. Patterson, with her long, flowing hair, rolled her eyes. She asked impatiently,
"So why are you here? What does this have to do with me?"
Detective Harper smiled sheepishly and explained,
"The murdered girl's name is Tomie Kawakami. According to the investigation, her name also appeared in the files of the Westside Police Station three years ago."
His expression was inquisitive and puzzled as he continued,
"This Tomie was also murdered by a male classmate, and her body also disappeared at the crime scene. The male classmate who murdered her is named Derek Thompson."
"Derek Thompson?"
Dr. Patterson repeated in surprise.
Detective Harper's eyes lit up at Dr. Patterson's tone:
"Yes, it's Derek Thompson. He's Emma Mitchell's ex-boyfriend. According to the case information, the crime scene was also at Emma Mitchell's residence. She's your patient now."
Dr. Patterson hesitated. She couldn't casually reveal her patient's privacy; it was a matter of professional ethics. Besides, this matter had nothing directly to do with her.
"I don't know!"
Dr. Patterson regained her composure.
"Didn't Emma Mitchell talk to you about this? Are you her psychologist?"
Detective Harper strongly suspected that Patterson knew something.
However, Dr. Patterson didn't seem inclined to speak further, instead adopting a dismissive attitude. Detective Harper could only turn away helplessly, planning to return with more information the next day.
Marcus was still busy at the Maple Grove Police Department.
The one thing this world currently has in abundance is probably Tomie Kawakami.
Therefore, he wasn't in a hurry to find Tomie; the most important thing now was to find someone, a man indispensable to his plan.
Marcus had searched the police department's system and found 502 American men named "Ray."
After filtering out those under 18 and over 30, 178 remained.
Based on their photos and personal identification information, Marcus gradually eliminated those who were particularly unattractive.
Only 14 relatively handsome young men remained. Most of these men had average features and ordinary looks, making them easy to select.
Of these 14 handsome young men, Marcus further eliminated those who were under 5'5" tall, narrowing the pool down to four:
"Ray Foster, Ray Mitchell, Ray Cooper, and Ray Bennett."
There's a 90% probability that one of these four Rays is the man he's looking for.
Marcus is searching for a nameless man from the "Possession" arc of the Tomie series. This man possesses abilities similar to a body-swapping supernatural entity, albeit a scaled-down version.
He can swap consciousness with someone by making eye contact for ten seconds, using that person's body to experience life.
Over the long years, he has long forgotten his original name, his original gender, and even whether he was originally human.
Regardless of gender, if he's attracted to someone's appearance, he'll possess their body until he tires of them, then he'll seek a new target, constantly changing bodies like a hermit crab.
He hasn't just possessed humans; he's also swapped bodies with dogs, cats, and various other animals.
Over countless years, he has changed bodies countless times, until he finally met Tomie.
Marcus didn't know the man's name, but he was certain that this man had possessed a man named Ray during Tomie's time.
Whether or not he had possessed or replaced him now, as long as he could find clues about this 'Ray,' he could follow the trail to find this mysterious man.
After finalizing the list of suspects, Marcus called some of the department's confidential informants.
With the police reward and his own personal bounty combined, he offered an extremely generous reward: information about the lives and activities of these four Rays over the past year.
This mysterious body-swapping man, though difficult to find, had a distinct style.
Like Tomie, he enjoyed a high-profile, luxurious lifestyle, making him easily identifiable by sudden changes in his habits.
If no Ray matched, he would continue to observe; if one did, he would personally track him down.
Marcus didn't consider sending people to investigate events related to Tomie.
He was genuinely worried that if these people actually found Tomie, they would fawn over her, not only revealing everything he had entrusted to investigate but also turning around and trying to kill him.
It was almost certain this would happen.
After dealing with everything and packing his things, Marcus planned to take a car that very night to find Detective Harper.
This detective had been investigating Tomie for quite some time and should know more.
Tomie's storyline was incredibly chaotic because Tomie wasn't a single individual, but rather a Tomie splitting into many fragments.
More importantly, in both the movie and comic series, many characters were only referred to by their surnames, not their given names.
If they had given names, especially with uncommon ones, knowing their approximate age would be easier—the process of elimination would suffice.
But knowing only the surname, without a given name, was problematic. Even in a country like America, any given surname would generate at least 100,000 results.
This made it impossible to pinpoint the exact characters in the story.
For example, consider the main character among the 42 parts of Tomie: Ms. Stevens. Throughout the movie and comics, she was always called "Stevens" or "Ms. Stevens."
Marcus tried searching for "Stevens" using the police department's population retrieval system, and as one of the most common surnames in America, it directly yielded over 230,000 results.
Finding Ms. Stevens among 230,000 people is like searching for a needle in a haystack; even with additional methods, it wouldn't be worth the time.
Fortunately, Marcus remembered that Ms. Stevens was being held at the State Psychiatric Hospital within Riverside Medical Center.
He'd already sent people to investigate.
Marcus's goal was simply to find a Tomie. He planned to find one first and test if she could be used to his advantage.
(End of Chapter)
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