Chapter 574

There were too many people here, so Schiller didn't use flash. He ran up the stairs and came to the 3rd floor of the building where the power distribution room was located.

That place was originally an old cafeteria, but because a new cafeteria was built, it was changed into a warehouse. Teaching aids, office supplies, and sports equipment were all stored here. Schiller arrived exactly at the room where teaching aids were stored. A girl was lying on the ground, covered in blood.

Schiller walked up and found that she still had breathing. At this time, Gordon and the others also rushed up. Finding that the person was still alive, Gordon and Victor both let out a breath. They hurriedly called an ambulance. Before the ambulance arrived, Schiller observed the girl's wounds.

Her abdomen was stabbed twice. The knife wounds weren't big, and they should have been caused by small cutting tools like fruit knives. The corners of her mouth were broken, and there were bruises on the side of her nose. Schiller guessed that someone should have attacked her from behind, stretched out an arm to cover her mouth, and then used the other hand holding the fruit knife to stab her abdomen.

Schiller turned his head and asked Gordon: "Is the crime scene of the murder case that happened in the gymnasium lounge still there?"

"Someone is cleaning it up. Do you want to go over? I can call and tell them to pause for a while."

"I'll go take a look." Schiller turned his head and glanced at the injured girl. The policeman was giving her emergency bandaging. The girl's beautiful face was incomparably pale at this time, trembling all over from pain, unable to speak.

Schiller walked out quickly, and Victor hurriedly followed. Although he didn't see Schiller's expression, Victor understood Schiller very well. He walked up and patted Schiller on the shoulder, saying: "Don't be angry, we will bring the murderer to justice."

Schiller didn't say anything, just kept walking forward. At this time, the sky over Gotham was covered in dark clouds, making it impossible to judge whether the early morning had passed, but soon, dense dark clouds covered this city again, and Gotham rained again.

When arriving at the gymnasium, the crying members of the dance troupe had already been evacuated to the back of the seating area. There were two policemen waiting at the door of the lounge. Obviously, they were all familiar with Schiller. When Schiller walked in, the corpse was still in place, but the things around had been moved away.

The cause of death of the deceased was easy to identify, because the fatal wound on the neck was very conspicuous. Schiller walked over, checked it simply, and then looked at the belt that was preserved in the evidence bag.

That was a decorative belt. It should have been hung on the waist when the dance troupe members were performing. Therefore, it was made of metal, and it was a thin iron chain, which was why the wound on the deceased's neck was so obvious.

No fingerprints, no footprints, almost no traces were left, and there was no one with a motive, no bystanders, no closed room. This was the exact opposite of the typical murder cases that had occurred before.

Victor stood in the center of the room, his face solemn. Obviously, he also discovered that there was too little evidence, making it difficult to investigate. But Schiller was thoughtful. Victor saw his expression and walked up to ask: "Do you have any ideas?"

"If you only look at this murder case, it might indeed be difficult to judge. But if you connect all the recent murder cases, you will find that the methods used by the murderer are completely different, and there is no connection between them. The crime scenes, except for all happening within Gotham University, don't have any common points."

"The only thing that can be called a common point is that the victims are all female."

"Yeah, they should all be members of the dance troupe. Could it be that someone is an enemy of the dance troupe, so..."

Schiller shook his head and said: "The girl who was attacked in the storage room just now isn't a member of the cheerleading dance troupe. I remember her. She is a junior student in the physics department. Because her grades are good and she studies seriously, she is very liked by the professors, so the teaching aids used in physics class are all prepared by her, which is why she appeared in that storage room for teaching aids..."

"Then in this way, it's even harder to determine the murderer."

"There is another common point, which is that the victimized women are all very beautiful." Schiller recalled and said: "And their temperament is somewhat similar."

Victor also recalled it. He felt that what Schiller said made sense. At least the two girls he saw were indeed very beautiful. It wasn't wrong to say that their temperament was similar. The temperament of college students is similar: youthful, lively, and with a bit of childishness and ignorance.

Even if Gotham is a city that is rotten beyond cure, the students of Gotham University are still better than other Gotham citizens, because the high proportion of outsiders here dilutes the dark atmosphere, and one can even see a sunny and positive atmosphere from the students' daily activities. This is rare in Gotham.

On the way back to the office, Schiller opened his mouth for a long time and talked to Victor about his views.

"Perhaps I should have said before that the murderer of a serial murder case likes to deliberately create connections."

"They will select a theme, and then arrange the identity of the victim, the time of the crime, and the crime scene according to this theme. Some murderers with compulsive behaviors even have requirements for the way the corpse is discovered, the time, and the identity of the bystanders."

"Creating connections and guiding the line of sight are their specialties. They like to let the police officers handling the case be guided by the clues and evidence they leave behind, finding the answer bit by bit. This will give them a sense of achievement, a sense of achievement in killing their own kind and playing with their own kind."

"In general, among the serial murder case murderers I have encountered, it's not that the more brutal the crime method, the more dangerous, nor is it that the fewer clues left, the more brilliant. Sometimes, it's just the opposite."

"Every case they commit might be very ordinary, but when connected together, there is a theme that is hard to fathom. They might leave a pile of clues at the scene, and then look at the investigators being played around with high spirits..."

"In short, killing someone isn't their purpose. Breaking the law, breaking the bottom line, but lingering in the danger of paying and not paying the price, using themselves as a bet to observe the reaction of the whole society, is the purpose of their killing others."

"So, although these cases possess some elements of a serial murder case, for example, all happening within Gotham University, and the victims are all female, this still isn't a serial murder case."

"Because the murderer not only isn't creating connections, on the contrary, he is desperately erasing the connections, trying to make every case look unrelated, reducing the number of common points in every case to the minimum."

"There is another point that can be used as evidence, which is that he eliminated the evidence at the scene as much as possible, making the person who acted come and go without a trace, making the police confused, and unable to investigate anything."

"For the murderer of a serial murder case, this is too boring. They want to control and guide the investigators, let them visit according to the guidelines, instead of watching others like headless flies, blindly scurrying in the exhibition they carefully produced."

"And from this conclusion, it can be inferred that the purpose of the murderer of this case is the opposite of the purpose of the murderer of a serial murder case. That is to say, if the purpose of the murderer of a serial murder case isn't killing, then the purpose of this murderer is precisely killing."

Victor held an umbrella. He saw that Schiller's face was shrouded under his umbrella. In the shadow, no expression could be seen clearly.

But every time he talked about these things related to his past, there was always a cold temperament that made people feel uneasy, as if he had a natural resonance with those perverted murderers and lunatics he spoke of.

When he stood from the perspective of an examiner, using this resonance to examine the case and find the real murderer, it was more like a black sun hanging high in the sky, chaos from self to others, with no light shining on all things.

The rain kept falling, and the shadow of death shrouded the few pure lands in Gotham. The days of Gotham University students were no longer as peaceful as usual, and the sharp sirens and the bloody smell permeating the air made this place seem to be gripped by a big hand in the abyss, just like other places in Gotham, being pulled into the endless darkness.

When returning to the office, the lights here had been turned on again, but now, the bright lightbulb couldn't give people a sense of security.

Because no one knew when the light would go out again, and no one knew whether there would be another scream and another corpse when the power went out again.

Not long after returning to the office, Gordon's phone call came, saying: "The girl who was attacked in the storage room has already been out of danger. I conducted a preliminary inquiry on her, but as expected, that person attacked her from behind, and she didn't see anything."

"According to her recollection, the attacker should be a boy, physically strong, and moved very fast, so the victim couldn't resist."

After hanging up the phone, Schiller sat at the desk, pondered for a while, and then he picked up the phone, first calling Bruce, and then calling Lex. Both of them were invited to Schiller's office.

At this time, Bruce, who received the call, was dealing with another matter, because the day after Thomas Elliott was imprisoned, the current head of the Elliott family and his wife were killed.

They died in a small alley not far from Gotham Cathedral. Their cause of death was that one person was shot twice in the chest, one of which hit the heart directly, and they died on the spot.

And the reason why Bruce knew about these cases earlier than the police was because, that night, Batman was still active in Gotham City, but someone avoided his eyes and committed the murder. By the time Batman rushed to the scene, only corpses were left on the ground.

Facing the familiar tragedy, Batman couldn't be indifferent. Thomas and he had known each other since childhood. They couldn't be called close friends who talked about everything, but they were considered old friends. Batman felt that he must find out the truth of this case.

He of course had suspects, and that was the Godfather Falcone.

Thomas committed murder at Gotham University, and the Godfather would definitely be very dissatisfied, because he had long ago said that no one was allowed to commit crimes at Gotham University. But Thomas, as the only son of the Elliott family, deliberately violated this rule, and the Godfather would see this as a provocation.

On the day Thomas was imprisoned, the Elliott family and the Falcone family broke out in conflict. The Elliott couple firmly believed that their son was wronged, and they tried their best to find trouble with the Gotham Police Department, but the Gotham Police Department was also under the control of the Godfather.

Their ignorant actions made Falcone feel annoyed. He blocked part of the Elliott family's industry in Gotham, and even invited the Elliott couple to go to Falcone Manor to talk, but just as they set off for the North District, they were killed.

In this way, who else had the biggest suspicion? Batman felt that starting from Falcone should be the most efficient choice.

Therefore, Batman started searching for past information to learn more about Falcone, so as to find his flaws.

Then, he learned an incomparably absurd fact.

Carmine Falcone, the gang Godfather who ruled Gotham for decades, had never killed anyone.

He was innocent.