Chapter 356: The Deceased Was Already Dead?

Chapter 356: Chapter 356: The Deceased Was Already Dead?

Trying to isolate human remains for testing was incredibly difficult and would take a very long time.

The local police department had been investigating for days without finding a single lead.

However, there were far too many witnesses. Failure to solve the case quickly could lead to public panic.

With no other options, they had to ask Zoe Sawyer for help.

When she received the call from the police chief, Zoe Sawyer accepted immediately, without a moment’s hesitation.

"Let me see." Zoe Sawyer took the file and quickly skimmed through it.

Because the victim’s identity wasn’t confirmed, Zoe Sawyer focused her attention on the location and time of the incident.

"What’s the deal with the security camera at the scene? It caught the victim’s lower body, but you couldn’t see any distinguishing features?" Heath Hale leaned in beside Zoe Sawyer, pointing to a detail in the file as he asked.

Officer Lee quickly pulled up the footage Heath Hale mentioned. After watching it on fast-forward, he said, "That’s right. The victim in the video is wearing the standard-issue factory uniform. It’s baggy enough that you can’t make out any features."

"That’s too much of a coincidence. The camera just happened to be malfunctioning during that exact time, so the video is incomplete. On the day of the incident, all the other employees just happened to not want to work overtime.

"And to top it off, the victim is a ghost—they don’t even exist," Evan Keller added.

The case file wasn’t very thick. In fact, the suspect was fairly obvious.

The factory manager.

But without concrete evidence, they couldn’t charge him.

"There’s one more strange thing: no bones were found." Standing behind Officer Lee, Evan Keller quickly scanned through the entire case file he had open.

An industrial-grade meat grinder like that could certainly mince human flesh and mix it with the factory’s raw materials into a paste, making it difficult for investigators to tell them apart.

But it has one fatal flaw.

It would leave behind bone fragments.

If the police were determined to find them, with a bit of time, they could still sift them out of the slurry.

But Lynn and Mills, along with some senior officers from the department, spent days combing through the grinder and found absolutely no suspicious traces.

"Exactly. It’s as if someone deboned the body before putting the flesh in," Heath Hale added.

But that would be a massive undertaking. It would take a very long time.

Did the victim’s family really not notice anything at all?

Lynn had also noticed the same inconsistencies that Evan Keller and Heath Hale were now discussing.

But the reality was, despite knowing something was off, they couldn’t find any remains that could be used for identification.

Lynn and the others had even collected samples of the spattered blood for testing.

It was human, but there were no matches in the database.

"This runs deep," Evan Keller said, his tone meaningful as he pointed to the file on the screen.

"I have the gist of what happened. I’m going to try now. The door should give me some clues." After memorizing the details from the file, Zoe Sawyer walked over to the door.

Sean Hughes quickly patted Beau, who was focused on his drawing. "Beau, be good. Go wait by Zoe Sawyer. She’s going to need your help in a minute."

Beau nodded, picked up his dedicated sketchbook, and trotted over to sit behind Zoe Sawyer. He opened the book with a serious expression, looking ready for action.

As for Zoe, because she had a clear time and place, that familiar feeling came over her not long after she gripped the doorknob.

After taking a deep breath, Zoe Sawyer opened the door. An operating food processing workshop materialized before her.

In front of a massive meat grinder, a man in a factory uniform was hunched over, playing on his phone.

Zoe Sawyer frowned as she studied the man’s face. He looked very familiar; she must have seen him in the case file.

However, she had only focused on memorizing the time and location of the incident.

’As for the faces of the other people in the workshop, she’d only given them a passing glance. She’d have to take another look at the file after she closed the door.’

Contrary to what Zoe Sawyer had expected, the man hadn’t moved since she’d opened the door. He just stood there playing on his phone, not walking around at all. He only shifted his weight occasionally to stretch his legs or glanced at the running meat grinder.

Zoe Sawyer stared at the clock on the wall. There was still half an hour until the time of the incident shown in the security footage.

But just then, a figure appeared from the other side of the room, dragging a heavy bag.

Upon hearing the sound, the man who had been playing on his phone instantly perked up.

He stopped playing on his phone, his eyes fixed on the approaching figure.

As the figure dragging the bag drew closer, Zoe Sawyer got a clear look at his face.

It was the factory manager!

He threw the bag onto the floor and gave it a kick. "Are you ready? It’s time for the most critical step."

"Don’t worry. Right now, it’s just you, me, and this pile of stuff at your feet in the whole workshop.

"The factory cameras have been broken for a while, and I made an excuse to send the guys in the monitoring room home. No one else will know what we did today." The man in front of the meat grinder tucked his phone into his breast pocket, his voice tinged with excitement.

"Good work. Once we get rid of this, our biggest problem will be completely solved!

"After we’re done here, I’ll take you to another place!" The manager’s voice was also laced with excitement. After speaking, he pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and started taking the contents out of the bag.

He then fed them into the running meat grinder.

Confirming the grinder was still running properly, the manager let out a visible sigh of relief and began to work faster.

They worked in tandem, one person handing over the pieces while the other fed them into the machine. They quickly emptied the entire bag into the grinder.

When Zoe Sawyer saw what the manager was putting in, her face went white.

They were parts of a human body!

But they looked limp, as if they had been deboned.

To solve the case, Zoe Sawyer had to fight back her revulsion and watch the entire process.

Once the bag was empty, Zoe Sawyer thought it was over.

To her surprise, the manager wheeled a rig over from a corner of the workshop and positioned it where he himself had just been standing.

After making sure it was stable, he dropped a rope from the top of it, letting it hang down to the other man’s chest.

The man moved quickly, securing the rope to his chest.

Then, the manager operated the rig, hoisting the man up bit by bit.

To make it look more realistic, he maneuvered the rig closer to the meat grinder.

The whole process took less than three minutes. The two cooperated seamlessly, looking like they had rehearsed it countless times.

Zoe Sawyer also realized that this entire sequence, lasting less than three minutes, corresponded exactly to the three minutes on the security footage—the very moment the "victim" was supposedly pulled into the grinder due to a "safety violation"!

’So, the victim was already dead?’