Chapter 112: The Thief

Seeing the old medical examiner's movements, Mona's eyes lit up. "Did you actually find something?" she asked from Roan's side.

"No, nothing at all." The old medical examiner took off his mask, picked up the coffee next to him, and took a slow sip. "No alcohol, no drugs, no unknown substances. Just slightly high cholesterol."

"..." Mona's eyelids twitched at his words, and she glared at him. The old medical examiner chuckled, completely unfazed. Mona was about the same age as his daughter, and his remark was just his habitual way of teasing others.

"This is a good thing, Mona." Roan wasn't angry. He looked up at the old medical examiner with a smile. "It means Evander simply died in a car accident, right?"

"And the most ordinary kind of car accident at that." The old medical examiner, pleased with Roan's attitude, nodded with a smile. "The kind with absolutely nothing unusual about it."

Mona realized it now too. While someone dying in a car crash was indeed tragic, for the FBI, it being a pure accident was actually a good thing. Their goal for this trip was simply to confirm that the death was indeed accidental.

"Thank you for your assessment." Roan smiled and shook hands with the old medical examiner, then asked, "By the way, when Evander was brought in, did he have any personal belongings with him? We need to look at his laptop."

"They're all in the office next door." The old medical examiner smiled, set down his coffee cup, stood up to leave the autopsy room, and led them to the bookcase in the office to the left.

A few seconds later, the old medical examiner's brow furrowed, and his voice turned stiff. "Folks, it looks like this gentleman's belongings have been taken."

"What?" Mona's expression turned grave upon hearing this, while Roan carefully scanned the office. "Is there security footage here?"

"Not in the office." The old medical examiner shook his head first, then nodded, quickly leaving the office and heading toward the morgue opposite the autopsy room. "But there is a camera at the entrance of the morgue."

A few minutes later, the security footage from the morgue entrance facing the hallway appeared on Mona's laptop screen.

On the screen, a white man with a buzz cut, wearing the same uniform as the old medical examiner but without a mask, walked slowly into the office. About thirty seconds later, the buzz-cut man strutted out of the office carrying a bag.

The footage was relatively clear. Roan and Mona could see that what the buzz-cut man had taken was indeed Evander's laptop.

"Shit!"

Beside them, the old medical examiner flew into a rage and began cursing colorfully after watching the video. Seeing Roan look his way, he immediately waved his hands. "This guy doesn't work for our department! I've been working here for decades, and I've never seen him before!"

Roan exchanged a look with Mona, then sighed. "I knew this case wouldn't be that simple."

***

Inside the office of the Unit Chief of Investigative Unit Five.

"So, this case really wasn't an accident?" Seeing Augustus close his eyes and rub his temples with his right hand, Roan's expression was also grim. He spread his hands. "Very likely not. No ordinary thief would break into the NYPD autopsy room to steal something."

"Okay, I'll report this to Verinis." Augustus was silent for a moment, then looked up at Roan. "What do you plan to do next? Any ideas?"

"Mona has already extracted the suspect's image from the video and is running a facial recognition search." Roan took a sip of his coffee and said, "Evander's crashed car will be delivered to the Jacob Federal Building in thirty minutes. I'll go examine it closely then. Maybe we'll find some clues there."

"Good." Augustus nodded in satisfaction. After a brief silence, he suddenly slapped his forehead and smiled at Roan. "Lacey just called me. She and Ryder caught Ogden. They should be back in half an hour. Once Ogden is arraigned, the $400,000 bounty will be distributed to you guys."

Roan smiled at the news. "Thank you, Boss. I'll let Lacey and the others know."

After chatting a bit longer, Roan stood up and left the Unit Chief's office.

Slumping back into his own desk chair, Roan rolled over to Mona's side. Just as he was about to speak, Mona pointed directly to her computer screen.

"I've looked into Evander's recent business trip. He was invited by the military to take photos of servicemen at a certain harbor for promotional use in newspapers. Everything was logged. Evander followed orders the entire time, and there was no suspicious behavior. So, the car accident shouldn't be related to this trip."

Hearing the word "military," Roan's eyebrows twitched, and he instinctively thought of the story of the six million dollars spent on nine goats. Shaking his head to clear the thought, he asked, "What about the identity of the thief?"

"No." Mona stopped typing, stretched her arms back with a deep yawn, and shook her head. "The guy has no criminal record. I couldn't find his identity in any of the nearby prison databases. Not only that, I checked the security footage inside and outside the NYPD precinct, and he didn't show up anywhere else."

"Not even inside the police station?"

Roan's brow furrowed.

"No," Mona said with a grim expression. "He only appeared once, in the footage at the morgue entrance. And I didn't find any signs of tampering or deletion in the video."

In other words, the buzz-cut white man in the video had somehow managed to bypass most of the police officers in the station.

Roan's expression shifted slightly. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared intently at the buzz-cut man on the screen. "This case might run much deeper than we thought..."

***

Inside the spacious garage of the Forensics Division at the Jacob Federal Building.

Evander's crashed car had finally arrived, and Roan and Mona were now examining it closely.

"The airbags deployed completely." Opening the driver's side door, Roan carefully inspected the interior.

"You know, Roan," Mona said, raising an eyebrow as she pulled on her gloves. "If you're driving too fast, airbags won't do a thing. The driver is still going to get hurt, or worse, killed."

"Are you suggesting I slow down my driving in the future?" Roan grinned, tilting his head. "I'll try next time."

"Hmph." Mona wrinkled her nose, yanked open the rear door, and waved away the dust that puffed out. "Did you find anything?"

"A little." Roan nodded, pointing toward the steering wheel. "There's blood spatter on the dashboard and the windshield."

Mona tilted her head in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"Under normal circumstances, there shouldn't be blood spatter there because the airbag would act as a barrier," Roan explained, tugging at the driver's seatbelt. "But the presence of blood indicates that the airbag didn't deploy immediately upon impact. It only went off after Evander slammed hard into the steering wheel and blood sprayed everywhere."

"So," Mona's eyes narrowed, "the car was tampered with?"