"Hey, partner!"
By now, Bell had already walked out of the main church building with his coat in hand, catching up to Jeffrey's side.
"So? Do you think the build matches?"
The lean Jeffrey didn't even look at his colleague as he pulled a phone from his pocket and kept walking.
"I don't know, don't ask me. After all, there's something wrong with my head."
"Oh god..." Beck slapped his forehead and said apologetically.
"I'm sorry! Jeffrey! I'm sorry! Okay?"
However, Jeffrey ignored Beck and quickened his pace toward the police car parked by the street.
Beck followed behind, his mouth never stopping.
"Hey, partner, don't be like that. You should know, it was just a joke..."
It wasn't until the two sat in the police car and Beck received no response that he threw up his hands in a fit of pique.
"We've partnered for so long, don't you know me? Fine, whatever!"
Hearing this, Jeffrey glanced at Beck, who was sitting in the passenger seat seemingly sulking, and said calmly.
"If you think Father Yorkes is that mysterious man, what do you plan to do or what could you do?"
"I would..."
Beck's eyebrows twitched slightly. He wanted to say something but found he couldn't answer the question.
He suddenly realized a fact: even if he felt Father Yorkes was the mysterious man based on the physical comparison, he still couldn't do anything.
Jeffrey inserted the key into the ignition and continued calmly.
"We came here just to complete a task, not to do anything else. Because the people who died were all rotten-to-the-core scumbags, the department is just going through the motions with this case anyway."
Vroom!!!!
The police car started up. Jeffrey shifted gears and stepped on the gas, saying calmly.
"So the case you should be taking seriously right now is the one that just happened..."
Roar!!!
The police car surged forward, charging into the darkness and instantly leaving the church's vicinity.
Before long, it merged into the traffic heading toward the city center, speeding along.
"An elevator murder? And it happened in the Jesse Building?"
Just as his colleague said, Bell quickly switched gears. He frowned, remembering a jumper case he received yesterday that also happened at the Jesse Building.
"Yeah!" Jeffrey, who was driving, recalled the information on his phone and said succinctly.
"According to the reporter's description, the elevator in the Jesse Building suffered some kind of malfunction, trapping five passengers. However, not long after, likely due to the malfunction, the lights suddenly went out. When the lights came back on, someone was already dead in the elevator..."
Saying this, Jeffrey closed his mouth. Looking at the traffic and the flashing neon lights ahead, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
According to the information he received, one point was most suspicious: the elevator malfunction had been going on for a long time, yet professional repairmen hadn't been able to find the cause. This made him suspect there was some connection between the killer inside and the repairmen.
"What?"
Beck still couldn't wrap his head around it. "Partner, is this killer looking down on us? They actually dared to kill someone right under our noses?"
Jeffrey didn't respond. He just tossed the phone to Beck and then floored the accelerator.
"Let's go take a look first."
Vroom!!!!
"Hey!!! Partner, slow down, slow down!!"
Amidst Beck's shouts, the police car shot forward like an arrow from a bow, overtaking every car in front of it.
At this moment, in the Jesse Building where the murder had occurred, two security guards were sitting in the surveillance room. One of them, the gray-haired security captain Adolf, was holding a walkie-talkie and watching the monitors, trying his best to keep the people trapped in the elevator calm.
"The police will be here soon. Everyone please stay calm. We will do our best to ensure the lights don't go out again, okay?"
It was easy to say, but when someone suddenly died mysteriously in the elevator—and by hanging, no less—no one could stay calm.
There were only three men and one woman left in the elevator. The deceased was an old woman; she was currently suspended in the air by a rope, her hair disheveled, her face contorted in a hideous expression, and her tongue lolling out.
Abigail, wearing only a white short-sleeved shirt and jeans, was somewhat hysterical. She cried and said in panic,
"F*ck!!! Someone died!! Who the hell can stay calm!!"
She huddled tightly in a corner of the elevator, staring fixedly at the three men who were equally guarded and tense. Now everyone left was male, which pushed her wariness and fear to the limit.
The second living person was a tall Black man in a security uniform named Relf, who had only been on the job for a day.
He glanced at the hanged old woman, swallowed hard, and huddled in another corner. He looked in all directions, his gaze finally landing on the two men beside him, his eyes wary.
In his mind, a woman like Abigail shouldn't have the ability to do something like this. Only a man would have the strength to physically hoist an old woman up—especially this man in plain clothes with a thick, sturdy build.
"Damn it! Fix the elevator already! I can't stay in this f*cking elevator for another second!"
At the same time, Max, who seemed to sense the Black man's particularly defensive gaze, also focused most of his wariness on him. To him, only Relf could have done such a thing so silently.
The last living person was Vic, a short man dressed in a gray suit like an elite professional. He was even worse off than Abigail, sitting hunched in a corner, weeping in terror.
"Please! I beg you!!..."
However, what they didn't know was that no one could hear their pleas.
In the surveillance room, Adolf saw the people's mouths moving on the monitor, but no sound came through. He frowned and looked at the subordinate beside him.
The subordinate, Ronald, understood. He picked up a walkie-talkie and brought it to his mouth.
"Buddy, how far along are you?"
In the dim basement.
The voice traveled through a certain channel to another walkie-talkie. The repairman Gene, who had just finished checking the circuits in the mechanical room, stopped his inspection of the basement's main line. His gaze was somewhat strange and puzzled.
"The main line in the basement also has no problems. It looks perfectly normal."
Ronald looked at his captain, Adolf, and then spoke into the walkie-talkie again.
"Buddy, you need to speed it up. Someone died in the elevator; I'm afraid they won't be able to take it."
Gene was a bit surprised and incredulous that someone had died just like that. But looking at the main line where everything seemed normal, he shrugged.
"Alright, I'll speed up. But it looks like there's no problem with the circuits. I need to go to the elevator shaft to check."
The voice reached the surveillance room. Ronald and Adolf exchanged a look, and Ronald could only respond into the walkie-talkie.
"Okay, good luck, buddy."
Hearing the response, Gene the repairman put away his walkie-talkie. He took one last look at the circuits, still unable to find any problem. He tilted his head, pushed aside the strange feeling, and continued deeper with his flashlight.