Chapter 292 Fraud
Meilin naturally thought of what Ning Zhe could think of.

Of the 24 police officers who took part in the operation, only 16 were sent to prison for isolation and observation by special personnel and vehicles.

Of the eight people who did not leave, three including Sunak were missing, and one John died. Sergeant Ebonick and Constable Susi followed the investigation team to look for the missing Sunak and others. Constable Banuto, also known as Ningzhe, secretly left the team and slipped back to Vanessa Castle.

The last person left is Carmack.

After leaving Fort Vanessa, Officer Carmack was not taken to prison with the main force. Instead, he was taken by another group of people with county police credentials to an off-road vehicle equipped with thick bulletproof steel plates and parked outside the walls of Fort Vanessa to be questioned.

“Relax sir, we just want to ask a few questions.”

The man opposite poured a glass of whiskey into it, diluted it with ice water, and pushed it in front of Carmack: “You need to relax. This will be a pleasant conversation, not a serious interrogation. After all, you are not a prisoner.”

Officer Carmack took the glass nervously and took a sip. The cool yet hot liquor slid down his throat into his esophagus. The whiskey that had been cut by water still tasted spicy, with a hint of sweet apple flavor. Miraculously, it calmed the tension he had felt after witnessing his colleague being shot.

“Are you feeling better?” the man asked gently.

“Yeah.” Carmack nodded.

The man took out a recorder, turned on the switch and put it on the table. At the same time, he picked up the paper and pen for recording and asked, “First of all, what I want to know is, after you separated from Sheriff Ebonick and Officer Banuto in the pool behind the stable, where did you and Officer John go and what did you do?”

Carmack took another sip of the whiskey and said:

“According to the sheriff’s order, John and I went into the drainage pipe behind the pool one after the other…”

“That’s the pipe the castle uses to collect rainwater. There’s a lot of scale on the pipe wall. The sheriff asked us to get into the pipe because he saw some messy black footprints and coal slag on the ground of the pool. But after we drilled into the pipe with a flashlight, we didn’t find any coal ash or coal slag inside. It was very clean.”

The coal slag that left the footprints seemed to exist only on the floor of the pool and not in the pipes.

“The diameter of the drainage pipe is very wide, and even adults can move around in it without feeling cramped. We quickly climbed up to the second floor by stepping on the pipe wall. The pipe turned inward at a right angle and branched out into the wall.”

“We had seen the structural diagram of Vanessa Castle before we took action. We knew that this was the castle’s rainwater collection system. We followed the pipes and soon arrived at the water inlet under the eaves of the second floor. However, the drain was blocked by a stone manhole cover. We couldn’t get out from there, so we had to go back to the bend and take another fork in the road.”

“The other fork leads to the interior of the castle. There are many water inlets for the drainage pipes, but only two outlets: one in the pool next to the stable, and the other in the boiler room below.”

“Considering that the footprints on the pool floor were stained with coal cinders, John and I discussed and agreed that the intruder must have crawled into the drainage pipe from the boiler room outlet and finally came out from the pool outlet to avoid the search.” “John and I crawled forward in the pipe with flashlights. He didn’t talk much and I didn’t feel like chatting. After a few minutes, we came to another fork in the road. There were two forks in the road, the left one went down and the right one went up. I didn’t know which one to go.”

“Although we have seen the building structure diagram, we cannot remember every branch of the pipeline. John and I discussed and decided to go to each branch separately. No matter whether we found anything or not, we would return to the fork in the road and meet up here half an hour later. In the end, I took the downward branch and he took the upward branch.”

“Before we set out, he asked me if we could find any clues by searching aimlessly like this. I said, I think we could, because how could there be footprints in the pool? Maybe after you climb up, you’ll find the intruder hiding in some corner. You’d better take your gun with you when that happens.”

“Before I finished speaking, John suddenly patted me. I looked in the direction of his finger. Deep in the pipe of the branch upwards, far away, a light suddenly lit up. It flickered twice in the darkness and disappeared again. We were very sure that it was not an illusion because we both saw it.”

“I wanted to inform the sheriff of the situation through the intercom, but John stopped me. He said: It’s just a little light. Maybe it’s the aging lighting equipment in the castle flickering above the water inlet. The sheriff has a bad temper. If we rush to tell him the unconfirmed clues and let him get disappointed, we will be criticized again.”

“When John said this, there was another flash of fire in the upward branch road. I said, I won’t go down, let’s go up together to see the situation. John still shook his head and insisted on following the original strategy of splitting up.”

“I know he wanted to find the clues by himself. He is a senior police officer who has been in the police station for seven years. He is just one reason away from promotion. He thinks this is his chance to make a further step. I couldn’t stop him, so I simply didn’t stop him. After telling him to be careful, I went into the downward fork, and John climbed into the upward fork alone.”

Carmack picked up the glass and drank the remaining whiskey in one gulp. He then continued, “I climbed down a little further when the intercom rang. It was Sheriff Ebonick urging us to leave the pipe quickly. I didn’t think much about it and immediately climbed back the same way I came.”

“I met John at the fork in the road at the beginning. I asked him if he found anything upstairs. He said nothing. He guessed correctly that there was only an old lamp at the end of the pipe. I laughed and said: Your promotion is not settled, but fortunately we didn’t tell the sheriff.”

“We two climbed out of the pipe covered in dust and dirt and rushed to the reception hall on the first floor of the castle.

“As soon as he walked in, John was shot by the woman.”

At this point, Carmack’s expression became visibly depressed. The man in charge of questioning him poured another glass of whiskey, this time without adding water: “Drink some, young man, life is like this, you never know which will come first, a surprise or an accident.”

The man pushed his glass forward: “It will pass.”

Carmack nodded and drank the wine in his glass in one gulp: “It will pass.”

After the questioning, Carmack’s statement and the recording of the conversation were sent to Mary’s housekeeper’s cell phone.

(End of this chapter)