The Longest night

冬至 [10] / [16]

Then, the bastard showed his erect member to Daniel and told him to lick it just like an ice cream bar; promising to buy him 2 if he did the act. Daniel obeyed like a good boy. And that sick bastard gave him a bunch of sweets. He didn’t even give Daniel the ice cream bar. Since the criminal didn't visit any store, he might have planned all this.

But fortunately as Ed said, Daniel`s mother was at home because she was off that very day. She found her son with candy she never bought for him. She asked him where he got it, and heard this unbelievable story. Her intuition had rejected the story in substance, but his description of the man was too detailed to ignore. She brought him to the police station, and an officer immediately collected DNA. That was how they had the record of the DNA analysis.

But this evidence was of limited utility for the investigation since there was no match with any of the previous suspects and without someone to tie it to, the trail was going cold. Moreover, the crime scene was a cramped alley obscured from prying eyes of passersby. There was literally nothing. The other cases remained unsolved too.

All the victims were boys under 6 years old, some even as young as 4. Most of them were from impoverished neighborhoods, and almost none featured usable CCTV footage. The worst thing was, as they came from poor households, their parents worked all day while the children were left in house alone, without adult supervision. Consequently, the cases were reported long after the crimes were committed. So there couldn't be any practical material evidence to help identify potential suspects.

Also, as the victims were all kids, they couldn't clearly remember what had happened to them, or give useful clues as to who was responsible. These were the worst sort of cases because of the shallow level of evidence available, some even having none. There was nothing more to be observed except that the age of the victims of each case, the places where the crimes occurred, and what the suspect said to the victims were the same as Cynthia's briefing.

Alexander closed the file folder. It wasn't very helpful looking through them. One thing is certain: whoever the suspect might be, he is very cunning and knows all too well what he is doing. Alexander crossed his fingers and laid his head down against them as if in prayer.

“Getting the car in and out of this alley is going to be tough,”

said Ed.

As they were just off the main road, a very narrow alley appeared in which a normal car couldn’t easily fit. They pulled up to the place just after entering, and began to walk. They neared the place indicated by Carlos’ mother. It was 500 m away from Carlos’ home.

The building was deserted. It was so old, that the paint was almost completely stripped from the elements, and parts of the roof were caving in. They got out of the car, and searched the perimeter of the building thoroughly. There was a rusted steel box in the corner of the parking lot. Old beads, tattered poker card, a small doll made of silicon.