011 The trail of the shapeshifter

On the first floor of the headquarters of Porto police North station, different from the usual noise, detectives all looked depressed and lay down in front of their desks. Curson's head was like floating on the water up and down. He's too sleepy! When his shiny forehead occasionally hit the table, he will wake up. The pen in his hand quickly filled in a few words in the form in front of him, then the eyelids closed again and this head continued to float up and down like on the water.

"Wake up! Detective Curson! Detective Curson!"

Curson felt his shoulder being pushed. He stood up with a start and shouted, "write the report right away! Write it right away!"

However, when he looked at the form in front of him, what he saw was his graffiti work half asleep and half awake, which was far from the text report of last night's surveillance mission!

"Hum!" Curson's report was picked up: "are you going to hand in this thing! My three-year-old daughter has more talent for painting than you!"

Curson pushed away his seat and stood up. His sleepiness had disappeared. In front of him was the director of Porto police. Curson is just a detective in the North District homicide team. This is the boss of his boss, director Cologne.

"Director Cologne! I'll rewrite it right away!" The arrival of this big man is more effective than ten cups of coffee!

"No." Director Cologne crumpled up the graffiti and threw it away. He waved, "I asked your partner. Nothing happened yesterday!" Cologne glanced at James sitting at the table opposite Curson and nodded.

James was stuffing a doughnut into his mouth. Cologne frowned slightly. He didn't understand why the only son of general Lance was different from the rumor. It is said that he is a calm young man who honed his "iron" will in the army, but Cologne now saw only a second generation of officials who overeat and lacked etiquette.

"Attention, everyone!" Cologne left James alone and raised the volume to wake up the drowsy detectives. When everyone saw the big man, they immediately got up and stood up.

"Working all night for three consecutive days, everyone is very hard. I already know that nothing suspicious has happened. Now everyone, go back and have a good rest. You can do the written work later! That's it. Let's go!"

The tired detectives breathed a sigh of relief and packed up their things for a good rest. Of course, when the sun sets, they will appear on street corners, cars, and bars to monitor Porto city in the dark.

"Curson, James, you come with me." Cologne turned and walked to the murder team leader's office on the first floor.

The team leader was not there, only a young man with a gray hat sitting in the middle, looking a little overcautious.

Detective Curson habitually observed the thin man and began to establish a character profile: lack of muscle exercise, pale skin, slightly wider lower body, and relaxed hip muscles. He is a person who sits in an office for a long time.

"This is detective Curson and detective James (Lance)." Cologne began to introduce: "this is Mr. Fitz, an employee of Porto Telecom North District Communication ."

The man named Fitz stretched out his right hand and shook hands with them nervously. "Just call me Fitz."

Curson haD guessed that there was a communication problem in Porto North this week. Occasionally, the telephone lines between the government and the public can not be reached. Just yesterday, the two senators visited Porto. The smooth communication between Porto and the outside world was very important, so the poor communication had become an important thing.

This was not part of the work of the Porto police department. Curson wondered why this man named Fitz came to the homicide group.

Cologne nodded to Fitz. "You take two detectives to the scene." Then he turned to Curson and said seriously, "remember, we don't want what you see next to spread! If Porto Daily gets a little wind of it, I'll take your badge!"

Curson was stunned and saluted immediately: "yes, director!"

When the three withdrew, Cologne looked at James, frowned, but did not speak.

The three got out of the police station and got into Fitz's car. This is an old van with the logo 'Porto communication' printed on the door. It seemed that the vehicle eliminated by Telecommunications was bought by Fitz.

"Detectives, have you had breakfast? I know a great hamburger restaurant." Fitz's voice was a little nervous, and his hand holding the steering wheel was shaking. He was looking for a topic to relax himself.

"Take it easy. You're safe." Curson saw such people too much. He could guess that the little man obviously saw something he shouldn't see, so he came to the police station for help in fear. However, director Cologne estimated that what he saw would have a bad impact, so he issued confidentiality instructions for this mission.

"We don't know where we're going yet?" Curson tried to lighten his tone. "Fitz, maybe you can tell us about our destination first."

"Well. Well, we're going to my friend's house. His name is David. Well, to be exact, to his basement..."

Curson found that this guy's hands were shaking more and more, and his expression became frightened.

"I, uh, I found something that looks like David, but I'm not sure..."

Curson frowned. To be honest, he didn't understand what Fitz was going to say. He put one hand on Fitz's trembling hand holding the steering wheel, helped him stabilize the direction of the van, and asked, "David, your friend David, is he in his basement?"

"No... that's where I'm not sure..." Fitz had confusion and fear on his face. "David, he's working now..."

"What does David do?"

"Like me, we work in Porto Telecom. We are colleagues and friends..."

Curson thought for a moment and asked, "the thing you saw, the thing in David's basement, is it alive?"

Fitz shook his head. "No, sir. That thing I think is dead. It can't be dead anymore..."

"Fitz, where's the hamburger you're talking about?" Sitting in the back seat, James suddenly asked, "I'm hungry. I need food."

Curson turned to look at James angrily, but he could get nothing from James' eyes.

"Freak," Curson muttered and stopped talking.

This was not the first time Curson had said that. When he first discovered this guy's amazing appetite, he expressed such emotion. But at that time, it was just an old hand's ridicule of rookies. Then as time went on, it was almost a week since he became a partner with James, and such ridicule became a mantra.

James got a Big Mac as he wished, and Curson didn't care about the partner. Gradually, he also found out the temper of the second generation of officials. As long as he was given food, he wouldn't get in the way. So when the van stopped in front of Fitz's friend David's house, Curson ordered James, who was still dealing with Hamburg, to stay.

"During this time, many citizens reported the problem of telephone lines." Fitz took Curson, found the key on the eaves of the door, and entered David's house, "so I often turn around the city and check the line and other problems. David is not good at these jobs, so he stayed in the control room."

They walked past the living room, which is a very ordinary two-floor residence. One is the living room and kitchen, and the second floor is the bedroom. Furnishings and decorations are also very normal.

The door of the basement was under the stairs on the second floor. Fitz opened the door and a chill blew in his face.

"David's house is inherited from his parents, so he has a big basement!" Fitz led the way down: "every Wednesday night, we come here with our friends to play the game of 'dragon and dungeon'..."

"What game?" Curson asked subconsciously.

"Well, a role-playing game... Anyway, yesterday, when we came, we found that David was not at home." Fitz turned on the light in the basement. Sure enough, as he said, the basement was very big. Different from ordinary people's basements for storing sundries, this basement was filled with swords made of foam, cloaks, and hats of various colors.

Curson roughly imagined the game and added two more words to Fitz's character profile - nerd (Otaku).

"David is always the 'Lord of the dungeon'. Without him, we can't play games." Fitz went in one direction and continued, "so we waited for a while, but he never showed up. After the friends gave up, they left."

Curson looked around. He also had character costumes, but the type was not magicians or elves, but doctors, nurses, judges, and prisoners... Do you understand?

"David has never missed Wednesday's game night, so I'm a little worried." Fitz had walked to a horizontal wooden box. He opened the lock and turned up the lid to reveal the white freezer inside. "So I stayed a little longer. Then I found this."

Fitz opened the door of the freezer.

Detective Curson approached and took a look.

No wonder director Cologne didn't want this to be made public. Because so far, all the 12 missing victims were hookers. Now, lying in this freezer was an innocent citizen with a proper job in Porto.

"Why do you think this is your friend David?" Curson frowned. The corpse's head and most of the body had disappeared. Even the forensic doctor could not confirm the time of death because of the freezing.

Fitz shook his finger and pointed somewhere: "tattoo, David likes to be the Lord of dungeons, so he tattooed 'DM'..."

Curson looked at the two letters, sighed, and patted Fitz on the shoulder: "I'm sorry." Although Fitz used to use "like" before, with such a tattoo as evidence, this person can be confirmed to be his friend David.

Curson closed the freezer and took Fitz to another side: "now, tell me about the 'David' who is still working."