Chapter 15. Possible or not

I was shaken by how well he described everything he saw here. He sketched and described all the details in the drawing, even pointing out small details that I didn't notice. His meticulous approach to this was unreal to me. Somewhat calmed down, I turned to him.

'It seems we have found the main place where that ill-fated ritual takes place. I was right to come to you. It's horrible, both the place itself and the people who do this, but even so, we can't kill them for it,' I said.

'Perhaps they are killed for it, but that's not our case. If that were the case, they would have also killed the two who were with Michael. So the criminal needed this specific ritual to commit the murder,' he replied.

I noticed that he was answering calmly, so I decided to ask a personal question.

'Don't you find this scene unpleasant? The place itself, stained with blood and the remains of animals sacrificed for these rituals,' I said emotionally.

'Our minds must always be calm, for emotions distract us from evidence that the criminal may leave behind. Only a clear head is capable of understanding them, and by giving in to emotions, we only help them evade responsibility until they themselves make a mistake. I hope to catch them all,' he said.

'I hope you can. I'm already disgusted by all of this,' I said, walking a little further to survey the area.

I walked about 50 meters further when I saw a dent in the ground. It looked as if someone had fallen or even been dragged for about 2 meters. Seeing this, I called out to Samuel to examine the spot.

'You see James, you calmed down and found this clue,' he said.

'A clue? I don't think I understand anything,' I replied to him.

'How can you not understand?' he said, approaching it closely and then leaning down to study it.

After a few minutes, he started sketching the place and explaining to me. "Here you can see how the victim fell and thrashed for some time in convulsions. I think they were hit with an electric shock here, and then they were taken somewhere, dragged a little over a meter from the place of the fall. But I don't see any tire tracks from a car," he said, pondering.

"Is it possible that several people carried the victim?" I asked.

"Possible, but then why drag them this meter? Maybe the initial plan was different, but then they decided to carry them by hand," he said, walking further.

"We should inspect everything here, maybe there are tire tracks from a car nearby," he said.

I went left of Samuel, examining the ground for clues that could help us. It took about 10 minutes to walk around from the last location to the edge of the forest. I searched that part of the forest but found no leads. After all, there is a parking lot near the forest exit, which means the perpetrator or perpetrators could easily have taken the victim away by car and left them in the alley where we mostly found them.

Only one victim was found in a somewhat populated area - the victim with whom it all started. The distance fits the place we had looked at before, but now that we know the victim could have been dragged there, we no longer have a clear location for all the murders, as there could be more of such places. Moreover, the place where the victim was presumably chopped down was disturbed not long ago, maybe about a week or slightly more, but not two months ago when Michael was killed. This means that they were felled or even killed in another place.

As I pondered this, Samuel called me. "James!" he shouted. "Come here, I think I've found a few more of these places, and they're quite old," he said.

I approached him. "Look here," he said, pointing to a rather long trail with barely visible dried blood stains. "They've been here for quite some time. The blood and soil have almost blended together. I think this trail is over a month old. Only an expert can tell for sure," he said.

"You mentioned several places," I said.

"Yes, follow me," he said, and then went in the opposite direction. I followed him, away from where we entered the forest. We turned right from the altar and walked for about a minute before we found a deep groove or pit.

"Look here," he said. "There's a depression, as you can see, as if it were for one person. But on reflection, I realized that there was an installation or something resembling a coffin, perhaps even just a box. But why would they bring such a contraption here and dig this pit? " he said.

"I understand," I said. "It was a drone. That's how it lifted the body using a transport drone. That's why there's a one-meter trail left. They dragged the body to the drone, placed it inside, and then the drone left the bodies where they were found. That's why we have few traces and evidence. There are dozens of such drones in the city. We just need to find their owners and narrow down the circle of suspects," I said.

"Stop, why did you assume it was a drone?" Samuel asked.

"You see here in this recess, there's a depression that resembles a sphere," I said, pointing to the indentation.

"I see... That's theoretically possible, especially since the length corresponds to a cargo drone," he said.

"I think that by combining records and data on drone owners, we can at least find an accomplice of the killer," I said.

"Tomorrow, FBI specialists will come here, they will be able to find what we missed. They will take samples and later give us the data. I will tell them to finish everything quickly so that the criminal does not realize it. It will be bad if the criminal understands that we got a clue about him," said Samuel.

"Since we have nothing left to do here, I think it's time for me to leave," I said.

"Yes, we can go now," said Samuel.

I turned to him and asked, "Have you found a place to stay?"