Legendary FBI Detective-Chapter 63: Little Saint Phil Church (Seeking Follow-up! Seeking Favorites!)

Walking down the stairs leads to a cramped basement.

Under the dim light, a wooden single bed is placed in the corner, with four ropes, thicker than fingers, one end firmly tied to the four legs of the bed, and the other end tied to the body of a Caucasian woman lying on the bed.

In another corner of the basement, there's an old desk with a small bag of flour and several used syringes on it.

Hearing the different sound of the person arriving this time, the woman barely opens her eyes and with cracked lips whispers faintly for help:

"help..."

——

In the living room of the house, Lyd is carefully searching the house, Agent Luo An has just called the nearest hospital, asking them to send an ambulance here, and then he walks back to the sofa and pours a glass of water for the woman wrapped simply in a shirt and trousers.

Seeing that the woman's condition has slightly improved, Agent Luo An asks softly what exactly happened.

"My name is Hayley."

After drinking the water, the woman grabs half a piece of bread left on the living room table from who knows when and starts to eat it, saying while eating:

"I work at a gym in the Ilate District, and at the end of each month when I don't have money to pay back the bank loan, I come to this area to work part-time to earn money."

The Ilate District is also part of New Jersey, located to the south of Northville District, about a twenty-minute drive from Northville District.

Regarding the part-time job Hayley mentioned, thinking of the scantily clad women he saw by the roadside while driving here, Agent Luo An's eyebrows twitched slightly, he said nothing, but just poured some more water into the cup.

Having finished her story, Hayley glanced at Agent Luo An's face and, not seeing any expression of contempt or the like, she let out a faint sigh of relief.

After asking about today's date, Hayley continued:

"Four nights ago, when I came here to work part-time, I met this black guy named Joan.

I initially didn't want to serve black people, but Joan was willing to pay one-third more than the usual rate, and it was still daytime, so I agreed.

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During the service that day, this black guy strangled my neck from behind with his right hand and knocked me out. When I woke up, I found myself locked downstairs, and this black guy was preparing to inject me with flour, saying he would sell me off in a few days..."

Agent Luo An chose to ignore some of the minor flaws in Hayley's words.

Just as he was about to continue asking some questions, Lyd suddenly came out of a bedroom on the side, holding a white T-shirt.

Unfolding the T-shirt, Lyd pointed to the signature on the lower right corner of the shirt and said:

"Agent Luo An, this is a shirt belonging to Ricardo of the Hyena Gang."

Hearing this, Agent Luo An was startled; what was the Hyena Gang and who was Ricardo?

"The Hyena Gang is a white gang from the Baisike Region of New Jersey."

Seeing the confusion on Agent Luo An's face, Lyd explained:

"The gang is not very big, but they are involved in flour, firearms, and female trafficking; it's one of the rising forces in New Jersey in recent years.

And Ricardo is one of the coachmen in charge of managing the trafficked women."

"OK."

Agent Luo An isn't very familiar with the gangs in America, but he understood the basic rule that black people stick with black people and white people with white, so he asked:

"How did Joan, a black man, get involved with a white gang?"

"It's clear, Joan is a part-time coachman, and this Ricardo, he only cares about the women's skin color, not the coachmen's."

Hearing Agent Luo An's question, Lyd glanced at Hayley on the sofa and explained:

"Especially since the Hyena Gang has been quite short of trafficked women recently."

As an emerging gang, the Hyena Gang was in a period of territorial expansion, and they urgently needed a large number of trafficked women to make money for them.

But trafficked women aren't just readily available, and coachmen can't just conjure people out of thin air, so the Hyena Gang's coachmen, while coaxing women into the trade, would also buy prostitutes from other coachmen in society.

Joan, having heard about this and recently been fired from the supermarket and in need of money, decided to take on a temporary job and targeted a new face, alone in this area, whom he had never seen before.

These women generally don't have a coachman looking out for them; most of them are part-timers. When they take on part-time work, they don't tell anyone what they are going to do. Instead, they sneak off to other districts to work.

This gives Joan a great opportunity because he doesn't have to worry about someone immediately calling the police or other coachmen showing up to beat him up after he kidnaps such a woman.

By promising a high payment, Joan lures the women to his house, locks them up, and gradually subdues them with minimal amounts of flour each day, eventually selling them to Ricardo of the Hyena Gang.

As for the cost of controlling the women with flour, Joan, being a black man, always manages to get his hands on cheap, low-quality flour with impurities. As long as the women don't die of poisoning or become addicted within a few days, Joan doesn't lose out.

Seeing Hayley starting to yawn and have a runny nose, looking increasingly listless while sitting on the sofa, Luo An sighed.

Lai De turned around and continued to search through the house.

Luo An made another call to hurry the hospital ambulance and pulled out the serial killer case file, handing a few photos to Hayley and asking:

"Do you recognize any of these people?"

Hayley opened her eyes and looked, then shook her head: "I've never seen them, I don't recognize them."

Luo An frowned slightly but didn't say much. It was a shot in the dark for him; best if there was information, no harm if there wasn't.

Beep beep—

A few minutes later, the ambulance finally arrived, and Luo An saw several nurses step out. His mouth twitched as one of them was the burly nurse, Lu Qiya.

It seemed he now understood why the ambulance had been so slow.

"Good afternoon, Agent Luo An!"

Nurse Lu Qiya casually picked Hayley up from the sofa onto a stretcher, waved to indicate to her colleagues to push it back into the ambulance, then turned to Luo An with a big smile and asked:

"Thanks for protecting me earlier, can I have your phone number? I'd like to treat you to a meal."

"Protecting a federal citizen is my duty."

Feeling a tightness in his chest, Luo An quickly changed the subject, pulling out photos of the four victims of the serial killer case and asked Lu Qiya:

"By the way, do you recognize or have you seen any of these people?"

Previously, when Luo An fired shots at the repair shop, Lu Qiya had decisively hidden in the repair shop's rest room and hadn't come out. Luo An, busy making calls, hadn't had time to ask her.

"Let me see."

Lu Qiya took the photos, looked at them for a while and frowned, pointing to the first victim, Linda Chipo, and said:

"I think I've seen her at the hospital, but I really can't remember clearly."

Hearing this, Luo An's eyebrows raised, just about to inquire further when Lu Qiya turned abruptly, walking briskly towards the ambulance. She slapped the ambulance driver's window and shouted:

"Tom, do you recognize this woman?"

Luo An opened his mouth, not knowing what to say, as the ambulance driver Tom muttered under his breath and then took the photo from Lu Qiya.

"I know her, she should be called Linda."

A few seconds later, Tom nodded and explained to Luo An:

"I forgot her husband's name, but a year ago, when she got married at Little Saint Phil Church, I happened to be there. The wedding was delayed by some troublemakers, and I remember it very clearly."

"Yes! That's right, Little Saint Phil Church! Not the hospital!"

Hearing Tom's words, Lu Qiya clapped her hands happily and said:

"During weddings at Little Saint Phil Church, there's a tradition of offering activities, essentially providing free food to passersby.

I also went to that wedding and ate several big cakes."

Hearing this, Luo An's eyebrows shot up, he quickly handed over the photos of the other three victims to Tom, asking:

"Do you recognize these three people?"

Tom took the photos, looked carefully, and then pointing to Tamara Terry's photo, he said in a low voice:

"And her, either eight or nine years ago, I don't remember exactly. But she also had her wedding at Little Saint Phil Church. Back then, I had no money and often went to Little Saint Phil Church to participate in the offering activities."