New Gods of North America

Some thoughts are like cockroaches in a house; once they start, they quickly multiply.

After eating, when they arrived at the detective agency's temporarily rented base, Wayne's mind, besides trying to catch the "real culprit," wandered to "side hustles."

Communication in this era is still inconvenient. For example, when Wayne and the others finish eating and need to find the temporary base, they first have to go to a pre-arranged location to find an agent waiting there.

Then, the agent tells Wayne and the others the address Doug rented, so they can find their way there.

If there were a place like a restaurant in the cities where they need to operate, serving as a liaison base where someone could always help relay messages, many things would probably be much more convenient.

High-end restaurants can be put on hold for now. Lina, that girl, has a bit of a "live and let live" attitude; otherwise, she wouldn't be so willing to improve the agents' compensation and benefits when she has spare money. If she really opened a high-end restaurant, she might not even bother with the detective agency. At least, they have to wait until the detective agency's profitability increases some more.

But trying to open a fast-food restaurant seems quite suitable right now.

The cost of processed cheese has already been reduced, and the various sauces Parker concocted can be replicated as is.

Fried chicken nuggets are not yet realistic before the rise of the slaughter industry, but things like burgers, pizzas, and hot dogs no longer have technological barriers.

Oh right,

And starch sausages and luncheon meat; I'll have Parker start researching them later.

Never mind if they're delicious enough; just the fact that they're "meaty" and "cheap" in this era probably guarantees a market.

Moreover, fast-food restaurants are more in line with Wayne's "westerner" image.

As Wayne thought this, he drew the letter "W"-shaped trademark.

Inesa next to him leaned over and took a few glances, "What's this? Does it have anything to do with those two Williams today?"

So Wayne talked about his fast-food restaurant concept.

Inesa blinked, "Will there be fish and chips?"

Hmm...

Chips are possible, but as for fried fish... the reason it hasn't become popular in the market is probably for a reason.

And we can't forget about drinks; that's where the big profits are.

If carbonated drinks can't be made, at least soda water or lemon tea will have to do in the short term.

After spending half the evening thinking about it during his free time, Wayne even figured out how to design the set meal,

It was at this time that Lina arrived at the temporary base with a team.

Parker is currently guarding the home base, and there are no restaurants in the community, so dinner can only be self-produced and self-sold. The ingredients have to be bought from stores that haven't closed yet, buying whatever is available.

Seeing that everyone disliked each other's cooking skills, Wayne brought up his fast-food restaurant concept, and the agents thought it sounded good. Even if Parker isn't personally cooking, having semi-finished products prepared by a master chef as a backup, it can't be too bad.

It's better than just gnawing on hard bread.

After chatting about unrelated topics, Lina and the others officially summarized the information gathered from today's visits.

The killer, Carl, doesn't have much social interaction and lives a regular life. Besides going to work and going home, neighbors rarely see him having other interactions or comings and goings.

However, he goes to a bar for a drink every payday. Lina has already sent two agents to the bar to ask about the situation. Tomorrow or the day after, she'll send two more people to investigate and see if there are any differences in the information they get.

These situations don't seem to have any problems at first glance, but Lina has become suspicious instead:

"At first, I also thought that this guy was probably just a killer used by someone else, discarded as a pawn after the fact, with no value."

"But when many of his situations are put together and looked at separately, they feel a bit familiar..."

Wayne quickly completed the mental extrapolation, "Could it be your counterpart?"

"Hard to say." Lina shook her head slightly. "If there really is a problem, he should also be mainly responsible for the 'execution team' that is lurking. The homes of personnel responsible for collecting intelligence shouldn't be like that.

"And real assassinations shouldn't be like this. Committing crimes near the cathedral, don't they consider the possibility of members leaking secrets after being arrested? Besides, assassinating that Tom doesn't seem to have the urgency to sacrifice members."

That's true. The specific time node when Tom Hagen was assassinated was after he submitted the report at the cathedral.

If the goal was to prevent this, then Tom Hagen had guards with him before that, making it almost impossible for him to be alone. Sending only one person to assassinate him seems a bit unreliable.

I've never heard of assassinating an imperial envoy after the case has been investigated.

"Retaliation" is more reasonable.

After that, Conner's team, which was searching for clues in the killer's house, also returned.

When novice detectives look for clues at the scene, they are usually more patient and meticulous than many veterans, but correspondingly, other problems will also arise.

Wayne was a little muddled when he saw the stack of clue records that the agents had summarized.

No,

Although "searching for clues in the trash can" and other behaviors can't be said to be bad habits, you can't record everything, right?

I don't care what brand of cigarettes the killer likes to smoke...

It's even more excessive to rummage through the paper packets of stubble, five packets of beard stubble, some long and some short, indicating that he is a sloppy lazy person on weekends and usually doesn't like to clean the trash can.

Wait a minute.

Wayne suddenly had a flash of inspiration, "Did you find anything like letter ashes in his house?"

Conner's team looked at each other, then silently shook their heads.

Lina raised her hand instead, "There's an ashtray in his living room with paper ash residue in it, but it's been cleaned and there are traces of water rinsing."

Inesa also nodded next to her, indicating that she had also noticed that thing.

If you want to dismantle the drainpipe to find paper ash, that's a bit too much, and paper ash can't actually be restored...

Wayne quickly dismissed his random thoughts, it's not that extreme.

But as a second-best option, there might still be a chance.

Wayne quickly instructed Conner, "Tomorrow, call that Sheriff William and have him take you to search the killer's house again. This time, bring a tool kit and see if there are any used empty envelopes or something. Focus on checking the mailbox and see if you can find different fingerprints."

After listening, Conner immediately called his manpower, "We'll go over now. It's easy to get in, and even if the neighbors find out, they've seen us today, so they shouldn't think we're thieves."

"No," Wayne thought for a while, "Even if you call the patrolling police officers, try to have a third party present."

The beard is long and short, indicating that the killer may not even go out on his days off, so there's no need to groom himself.

Wayne previously planned to go back to the academy to continue classes "next Monday" if nothing happened later, which is today, so the killer's remaining day off should be last week.

Including "last Sunday" for five days, it's at most Thursday, not yet Friday, the universally happy payday.

So, combined with what Inesa said earlier, "the killer shouldn't be able to determine that Tom Hagen would appear at the cathedral at that time," assuming someone notified the killer to go there to assassinate, then the killer should have received the message before leaving.

Although there are many ways to notify a person, considering the situation in this era, unless extraordinary forces are involved, the most discreet way may still be to deliver a letter.

The reason why Inesa and Lina would both notice that ashtray may also be for the same reason, but after all, they are still used to thinking according to the ideas of this era, and it's okay if they find that the paper ash has been dealt with.

But fingerprints can sometimes have amazing effects for solving cases, even in this era, even if they can't rely on it to find the behind the scenes people, they can prove that other people are involved.

I can only hope that the detective agency will have good luck this time...

Today's KPI progress, -2. But I'm usually the type who is relatively unavailable on weekends.