Chapter 4116: When the Pumpkins Ripen (9)

Kidnapping cases are actually extremely difficult to handle because one must constantly monitor the safety of the hostages. In most situations, there is no such thing as the scene seen in television dramas where a kidnapper holds a hostage in a standoff with the police. Such standoff scenes are generally crimes of passion, where a hostage is randomly intercepted on the road. Most kidnappers in premeditated kidnapping cases choose to hide the hostages.

Or rather, if they do not have a foolproof location to hide the hostages, they would not choose this method of crime. After all, a living person is not necessarily easier to handle than a vault door, let alone multiple people. Even if children have smaller builds and insufficient ability to resist, they are not that easy to hide.

In this situation, the "fight fire with fire" methods used in past cases are useless, or rather, even if the culprit is found, they cannot be killed directly because the hostages must be found.

Barry had previously seen in a case file that a couple kidnapped a backpacker and demanded a ransom from his family. The other party did not pay and reported it to the police; the local police shot and killed the couple outside the house.

They had assumed the hostage was hidden in the house, but they didn't find him even after tearing the house apart. About two months later, they found the corpse in an abandoned water tower in that community. The couple had locked the person in the water tower with a padlock and fed him water and food at irregular intervals.

The most desperate part was that the couple left him enough water and food for about a week, and during that week, he had to eat, drink, and defecate all within the cramped water tower. When he was finally discovered, half of his body was submerged in excrement, and the victim ultimately died of dehydration.

Therefore, Barry knew deeply that in such cases, the culprit must be placed as a second priority; one cannot rely on anyone to fight evil with evil. While it might feel satisfying to kill the person, if the hostages cannot be found, that is truly a massive problem.

Yet, this guy is choosing to walk into hell when there is a path to heaven. There aren't many people in this place, and the probability of him offending Wei En is too high. And Wei En might not necessarily know this is a kidnapping case; if he really kills the person, not only might the victim not be found, but the clues to the criminal organization behind him might also be severed.

Thinking of this, Barry felt he still had to pay a visit to the professor. Even if the person is dead, as long as Wei En has had contact with the culprit while they were alive, he should be able to know where the victim is being held.

He braced himself and knocked on the door, but upon opening it, he saw two identical people sitting on the sofa. Barry felt as if the sky had collapsed. He feared this culprit had been checking the almanac day and night, picking a lucky day for his own funeral, and had meticulously chosen a scenic graveyard for himself.

"Good evening, Professor, Doctor. How have you been lately?"

"Not bad. Come in, Barry. It looks like you didn't come here for the matter of the natural woodland protection."

"Yes. To ensure people have sufficient firewood, Brainiac has relaxed the protection regulations for trees; cutting down a few trees is nothing. However, a criminal suspected of being a child kidnapper might be active in this area. The police should have already told you; I just wanted to ask if there are any other clues."

"Come over and sit down." Arrogance went to pour a cup of hot tea for Barry, then said, "A case that even Brainiac can't handle should be very difficult. You've been working hard lately, haven't you?"

"It's alright. After all, I count as half a Gothamite; it's better than being on the West Coast." Barry rested his elbows on his knees and said, "This time, the kidnapper has abducted three children under the age of 10, and there is still no news so far. We are all very anxious."

Upon hearing there were three victims, Arrogance's brow furrowed. He said, "We did observe some suspicious activity in the woods, but we didn't encounter any suspicious people. If this culprit is one person with three children, it should be very difficult to hide."

"That is the problem. The culprits of the three kidnapping cases are not the same person; in other words, this is not a serial kidnapping case, but organized crime."

Arrogance's brow furrowed even deeper. There is a big difference between one person kidnapping three and three people kidnapping three. So he asked again, "Were they kidnapped at the same time?"

"The time difference is not large; the interval between the cases is no more than 48 hours."

Arrogance understood. If it were in the past, these three cases might not have been judged as related, but after Brainiac ruled the Earth, such heinous crimes no longer occurred. Thus, the sudden appearance of three cases of a similar nature in a short period would be very conspicuous, and it would be easy to determine that it was the same group of people causing trouble.

Arrogance then detailed the flashlight light he saw in the woods, and then Barry said, "You mean, Principal Sivana also took a flashlight to the woods to chop firewood, and chopped for a full hour?"

Arrogance nodded. He certainly knew this was somewhat wrong, but Sivana himself is a magician; he might not carry an axe to chop small trees like an ordinary person. With his magical abilities, he could completely chop large trees, or even split the wood on the spot, though that would take longer, so lingering for over an hour is normal.

Arrogance stated his thoughts, but Barry frowned and said, "The police did not find traces of large trees being chopped down in the woods. The specific situation might still need to be confirmed with the Principal. Then I won't disturb you anymore; I'll be going."

The moment he pushed the door open, the sound of wind roared inside the house. Greed saw Barry out, and after he closed the door, he stood at the courtyard entrance and said to Barry, "Do you know the Northern Cardinal?"

"Yes, they look very cute. What about them?"

"Their calls are very varied; sometimes they sound like a stream, sometimes like a whistle, and they can produce more than 20 different sounds. I just heard them singing."

After Greed finished speaking, he turned and left. Barry remained where he was, feeling somewhat confused. But at this moment, the wind became even stronger, and he had to quickly duck into the police car, take a sip of hot coffee, and only then did he slowly recover.

But he could not wait here; he had to follow his colleagues to the woods to collect evidence. He carried his coffee and walked toward the woods, first standing by the lake to look, then entering the woods, and then constantly looking up.

"What's wrong?" A police officer looked at him and asked, "Is there something up there?"

Barry shook his head, and after a moment of silence, he spoke: "Are there animals in this forest?"

"There should be. There are pine trees here, so there might be pinecones, and therefore small animals like squirrels."

"What about birds?"

"Just the usual types of birds, warblers, sparrows, crows, and so on." The officer thought for a moment and said, "So you are looking for bird nests?"

Barry did not deny it. He looked up, and he really did find some bird nests, but they were all very small, and because they were too far away, he couldn't see clearly what kind of birds they were.

Dr. Schiller would not mention something for no reason; he must be hinting at something.

Barry sighed in his heart. He also didn't know why Schiller wouldn't just say it directly. It could be seen that the professor was very disgusted by child kidnappers, but they had not had direct contact with the kidnappers, so they couldn't know what they were thinking, and perhaps that was why he couldn't say it directly.

"Northern Cardinal..." Barry muttered softly.

"Oh, look here!" someone suddenly shouted. The shout woke Barry from his thoughts; he hurried over, and then discovered the half-footprint that the officer had reported as suspected to be a child's footprint.

It looked short and thin, and seemed to have half of a little bear pattern, which was a pattern unique to children's shoes. And soon, his colleague walked over with a mobile phone and said, "It has been confirmed with the parents; seven-year-old Paul Austin was indeed wearing children's shoes with a little bear pattern on the day he went missing."

"It seems it's correct; the culprit is right in this vicinity."

"I don't quite understand," a police officer said, "Kidnappers usually tend to hide the hostages, right? Why is he wandering around the woods with the children? What help can they be?"

This forest does not connect to any mountain ranges or caves; it can be called an isolated place. If one wanted to pass through this area, one could completely avoid the forest, so it couldn't be that the culprit was taking the children on a journey; it seemed he was just taking the victims around in circles here.

Barry remembered the content they had discussed earlier, and then said, "The kidnapper might be tempted, making some irrational moves because he wants to establish his own authority. I think this is it."

Everyone looked down at the half-footprint on the ground.

Half an hour later, in the BAU office, Barry kept staring at the mold of the footprint in a daze. Some colleagues were analyzing soil samples, while others were checking photos of trees one by one.

"Hey, Barry, what are you doing?" The blonde woman walked up and patted him on the shoulder.

"Nothing, I'm just thinking, perhaps we missed some clues." Barry said with a frown.

They did indeed find footprints, and also found many chopped-down trees, as well as the eyewitness report provided by Schiller, but these clues could not be linked together; the most important link was missing in the middle.

Thinking of this, Barry took the car keys and said, "I'll go for another round; there might be new discoveries. Don't wait for me for dinner."

After speaking, he hurried away, and his colleagues just glanced at him and went back to their own work.

But in reality, Barry did not drive; on one hand, it was faster for him to run, and on the other hand, he was worried that the sound of the car engine would alert the enemy. During the day, so many police officers went, so the suspect definitely wouldn't show his face; going alone at night, perhaps there would be extra discoveries.

He ran quickly to the woods, and again focused his gaze on the bird nests overhead, even climbing up a tree to check inside, but found nothing.

He began to carefully think about the words Greed had said. The other party's focus should be on the bird calls, but what was special about bird calls?

Barry went around for a circle, found no clues, but was unwilling to give up. He decided to expand the search range, starting to circle the streets, from east to west, checking houses door to door. Most of the houses were unoccupied, and one could see to the end at a glance; there was nothing to check, and then he soon arrived near Schiller's house.

Just as Barry was about to run toward that side, he suddenly heard bird calls coming from the wind. He turned his head and saw a huge chestnut tree, with chestnut fruits blown down by the wind all over the ground.

"Perhaps it's these chestnuts that attracted the birds to call," Barry thought, "What Greed heard was probably these birds singing."

And then, he suddenly felt a chill rush straight to his crown.

How could birds sing against such a strong wind?!

"Northern Cardinal calls..." Barry muttered to himself while running at full speed toward the house where the chestnut tree was located.

Barry realized that Northern Cardinals have many types of calls, so where Northern Cardinals appear, those fine, sharp screams would all be taken as birds singing.

Not only that, the rodents and various birds attracted by chestnuts would all make calls, which was enough to cover up the screams of children accidentally spilling out from some closed room. ===== CHAPTER 4117 =====