Chapter 306 Used Goods
“Put me down at this instance!”
“Until we arrive at the entrance of Bucky’s house, I will not do that.”
To Justin, who stood at a frame of six feet three inches, carrying Rachel was as easy as handling a cat. As he crushed the stones with his leather shoes along the way, they quickly traversed the alley.
Meanwhile, Rachel’s heart was racing.
“Is it over there?”
She heard a man’s voice from above her, which brought her back to reality..
As Rachel looked at the spot faraway, it was the only house that had windows sealed with old newspaper. On the door were a few ropes with two tattered towels attached to it.
“Looks like it.”
When she investigated Bucky’s background earlier, she found out that he had an old home here, but it was a place most of the residents had moved out from. His unit was the only exception. He only had one sister, who stayed in the school dorm and occasionally returned during the winter and summer breaks.
Since Bucky was recently released, it wasn’t that he couldn’t freely move out. However, since his sister was already staying here, the possibility of him returning to the village was exceptionally great.
“Put me down.”
When they arrived at the entrance, Rachel started to struggle as she wanted to be on her feet. After setting her down, Justin proceeded to knock on the door.
“Is anyone home?”
His voice echoed in the alley.
No response came from the other side.
“No one’s home.”
Rachel frowned because she saw the dripping wet towel at the entrance and said in confusion, “That can’t be possible.”
She stumbled ahead.
He was ready to hold her with a gesture. “Be careful!”
While ignoring him, Rachel reached out and slammed the door.
Just a tap was enough to make the old door creak before it collapsed.
The moment that it fell down, she screamed as she turned around and subconsciously hugged Justin.
“What’s wrong?”
A confused Justin focused his gaze over Rachel’s shoulder and into the house. Upon seeing the scene inside, his pupils contracted.
There was a man on the old sofa at a corner in the dimly lit house. With a wide stare and fierce gaze, he stared at them with a terrifying expression. What was even more frightening was that a knife had been stabbed into his chest whereas the area below his stab wound was drenched in blood.
Hugging the woman in his embrace tightly, Justin could feel her trembling and her heart racing for dear life.
At that moment, he felt that it was out of sheer luck that he accompanied her. If Rachel had witnessed this on her own, or even worse, met the killer face to face…
He did not dare to imagine the consequences.
After half an hour, the perimeter of Bucky’s house was surrounded by yellow tape.
Janice arrived at the scene as she personally led people from the Riverdale Investigation Bureau. After photographing the crime scene, the forensic personnel bagged the body and brought it back to perform an autopsy on it.
Sitting in the car, Rachel could not calm down even after a long time.
“Drink some water.” Justin’s voice came from the side.
As she returned to her senses, she was still pale as she shook her head. “I don’t want it.”
Whenever she closed her eyes, all she recalled was the vivid scene of Bucky’s death.
“Rachel.” A familiar woman’s voice came from outside the car.
It was Janice.
Justin gently pressed Rachel’s shoulders with a frown before he exited the car.
“Is there anything we can help you with, Officer Hawkins?”
“You two were the first witnesses of the crime scene. As such, I have some questions to ask you guys.”
“You can just ask me. I came with Rae.”
A stern Janice answered, “Mr. Burton, you do need to cooperate with our investigation, but I’ll need to question Rachel too. Not only was she the first witness of the crime scene, she had also been involved with Bucky before. So, I can’t eliminate her as a suspect just yet.”
“Officer Hawkins, you should be choosing your words more carefully. After all, you might find yourself regretting what comes out of your mouth.”
“Whether I’ll regret it or not, I’ll know it after the investigation.”
After saying that, Janice was going to bypass Justin to look for Rachel.
“Officer Hawkins!”
As Justin raised his voice, he blocked Janice’s path.
“If you don’t make way, I will charge you with obstruction of an ongoing investigation.”
“You can try.”
Right after Justin said those words, the faint sound of a car door opening came from behind him.
Rachel poked her head out and asked, “What do you want to ask? Just ask away.”
After wounding up the car window, the buzz from outside was somewhat isolated.
Taking the initiative to leave the two women alone, he chose to stand at a nearby spot since he was still wary toward Janice.
“You don’t look too good. Are you traumatized by this?” Observing Rachel’s face, Janice then added, “Luckily he accompanied you here.”
Her concern and gentle tone toward Rachel was a stark difference to the person going after Rachel’s throat at the Bureau earlier that morning.
Rachel struggled to open her mouth. “Who do you think did it?”
With a frown, Janice replied, “There’s no surveillance here and since this area has been designated for demolition, even the highway cameras don’t cover this spot. However, there should be clues at a murder scene. There’s no such thing as a perfect crime.”
“It’s Jason. Jason Burton,” a confident Rachel suggested. “After seeing our fallout, he lowered his guard against me and decided to work with me. Bucky was like a time bomb for him, though, so he had to get rid of Bucky first. I should’ve predicted this all sooner.”
Janice held Rachel’s hands with an even deeper frown. “You don’t have to blame yourself so much. He deserves this after all his complicity. I’ll definitely get to the bottom of this—one day in the future…”
She could not continue with her sentence.
There were many cases in the Bureau where the range of effect was so wide that the cases had turned cold without any new leads. On top of that, numerous people had been sacrificed as a result.
Clenching her fists, Rachel said, “Janice, Bucky was nothing but a pawn for Jason. He was someone fated to be silenced or killed off after serving his purposes. What do you think his next step would be if he wanted to erase all traces?”
Janice’s expression froze.
She suddenly released Rachel’s hand as she refused to permit that luxury of thinking and reminded with a low tone, “Rae.”
As Rachel came around, she looked outside the window to see Justin walking toward them. He must have been restless after seeing us talk for so long.
“We’ll end our conversation here. I’ll contact you if I have any questions.”
While walking over, he could only catch the second half of Janice’s sentence as she stepped out of the vehicle.
As she crossed paths with Justin, Janice nodded as a sign of greeting. “She does seem to be in shock, so head home earlier. I’ll be keeping in touch.”
He replied, “I’ll prefer it if you contact me directly, Officer Hawkins.”
“I’ll try.”
After leaving such a statement, she walked toward the police line.
It was at this moment when Frankie arrived at the scene. He was a bit confused when he saw the police line and all the vehicles from the Bureau. “President Burton, what is all this? Did something happen?”
Throwing the keys at Frankie, Justin only gave a single order instead of explaining the situation. “Drive.”
Frankie took them home thereafter.
On the way, an absent-minded Rachel continuously stared out the car window.
She did not know whether she had done the right thing. If she hadn’t squeezed the words out of Bucky’s mouth, would he have been silenced? Or was it precisely the fact that he knew too much that caused his death?
At least it provided one thing—Bucky was merely a scapegoat.
Now that he was dead, the clue to the kidnapping back then would be severed unless they found the person who murdered Bucky.
