Volume 1: First Arrival Chapter 87 Overlapping Faces
Tick, tick, tick…
Everything is quiet, and the sound of the second and minute hands moving is quietly amplified.
The clock on the wall of the hall has pointed to 3:37. The whole city has become quiet, and the hustle and bustle of the city slowly closes its eyes as the cold air settles.
Although one can still occasionally hear the sound of engines whizzing past downstairs, it is not as noisy as imagined. It only serves to highlight the quietness of the world, and ripples gently appear in the air.
The aroma of coffee was wafting in the air, and the only light from the computer screen was trying to dispel the darkness of the night. It was like a portal to another world. The face bathed in the blue light seemed calm and focused, with only the fingertips moving the light mouse.
Rustle. Rustle.
Kirk was also a little tired, and he thought that maybe he needed to wash his face before coming back to continue.
The photos of the senator's team are complex and numerous; and the focus is often on the senator, who is the undisputed protagonist. Only a few are focused on homeless people or volunteers, which means that most of the photos have to look for faces in the out-of-focus.
It's not easy.
At the beginning, I was able to stay focused and engaged, but slowly, my attention and concentration began to decline. Fatigue and exhaustion became distractions, and those blurry figures became more and more blurry. I started to lose focus as I watched, and even forgot what I was looking for at some point.
Occasionally, after taking a quick glance and waiting to jump over, I would begin to doubt whether I had not seen it clearly and had to redo the work.
Now, Kirk finally experienced the real experience of "looking for a needle in a haystack". Obviously, this is much more difficult than a simple word.
call……
I let out a long breath, but found that my chest was a little stuffy. I had to stop working on my waist and try some chest expansion exercises. As a result, I found that:
Shoulders are stiff, necks are sore, and back muscles are completely frozen.
My feet had just touched the ground when I felt a tingling sensation in my calves. Every muscle in my body was protesting. Even the most basic movement of stretching could make me feel the protesting sound of bones and muscles. Only then did I realize that several hours had passed without me noticing.
I looked down at the computer screen again. There are more than 30,000 photos, and I have only flipped through one-third of them. There is still an extremely long .
But what else can we do?
Adrian has submitted the evidence to the Crime Scene Division, which is using facial recognition technology to screen and search for it; however, the Crime Scene Division said that there are two priority cases being processed, and although the "homeless case" is also very urgent, it is still at the bottom of the priority list, and there is nothing to do but wait.
Maybe three days, maybe a week... The Crime Scene Division couldn't give any guarantees.
So, things couldn't be simpler -
Whoever is anxious will take action.
If they are not in a hurry, they can just wait until the results come out from the crime scene examination; but if they are in a hurry, they can only do manual screening.
In Kirk's opinion, that's not a bad idea.
Relying on new technologies is one way to solve cases; but in the years when DNA testing technology was not yet mature, the police still had their own skills in solving cases. Although there were many unsolved cases, they still relied on old methods to solve many cases. There was no need to stick to technology.
Just like now, human eye recognition is still the highest-definition recognition technology to date.
Next one.
Next one.
Next one.
"Um?"
"Just now... I seemed to see something?"
Thoughts, condensed, reaction speed is a little slow.
The fingertips stopped and returned to the previous photo.
In this photo, Senator Graham is still the absolute protagonist.
He was wearing a black coat and a gray scarf, with a faint smile on his face, looking energetic and elegant, and was distributing food to a homeless person.
It was clearly a heartwarming and charming moment for his supporters.
Unfortunately, the composition is slightly off-center, and the senator's position is too far to the right, resulting in too much blank space on the left, and the overall presentation effect is not good.
It is not difficult to imagine that the senator's team would not choose this photo as the news photo, as they had many other options anyway.
but!
For Kirk, the blank space on the left was a discovery, as he could see volunteers sorting their belongings and homeless people queuing up to leave.
It was diagonally behind and a little out of focus, so I couldn't see it clearly. I quickly glanced at it, and my attention and concentration were not enough, so I ignored it; but the corner of my eye caught a face at the moment it passed through the photo, and I subconsciously sounded the alarm and returned to this photo.
Wait, that’s…
Kirk was stunned for a moment, and all his sleepiness disappeared. He suddenly became alert, enlarged the photo, and looked over the senator's shoulder to behind him.
Zoom in, zoom in again——
Then.
The photo is distorted and blurry, and it is completely unclear.
For a moment, Kirk couldn't tell whether it was because the photo itself didn't have enough pixels or because the resolution of his computer screen was not enough.
Anyway, the result is the same.
After thinking about it, Kirk did not get anxious, but marked the photo for easy finding; then he continued to flip through the pages, but this time it was slightly different.
Kirk did not look at each photo carefully, but simply scanned them. He was looking for different photos of the same scene at a similar time, or from different angles or with different focuses. Now he should be thankful that the senator's team had taken so many photos crazily, providing different perspectives and options.
The time, place, and location all appeared. Most importantly, with a goal in mind, the entire process was accelerated immediately.
found it!
Same position, same angle, similar composition, but different focus.
The focus of this photo is obviously off; the senator 's face is completely blurred, the focus is slightly shifted to the left, and it is a little overexposed.
Although it was still not clear enough, it was enough for Kirk.
enlarge.
enlarge!
Focus.
Kirk, stunned——
Why is he there?
After a brief moment of astonishment and shock, question marks began to pop up one after another. However, Kirk had no answers to any of these questions.
Taking a deep breath, Kirk temporarily put aside all the speculations in his mind. He should not make any arbitrary judgments before finding further evidence. Otherwise, prejudice will blind his eyes and hinder calm and objective judgment, and he will eventually slowly deviate from the track of truth.
But the question now is, how should he collect further evidence?
Ask the soup kitchen director and volunteers? Ask the senator's team? Ask the person involved?
Or investigate the suspect's criminal record and alibi?
no!
It's just a photo, it's not enough, it's too weak and too far-fetched.
Of course, he could ask questions as a routine matter and invite the parties involved to assist in the investigation; but Kirk didn't think he could find out anything based solely on such evidence, and acting rashly might even alert the enemy.
Don't forget that this is a serial killer who has killed seven people in a row by slitting their throats, which is different from the suspects in ordinary murders.
"Volunteer list!"
Kirk had an idea.
Snapped!
Open the table and slowly scroll down the columns, one by one, and then another.
Kirk had almost given up hope. Perhaps the man had not completed the registration on the volunteer list, or perhaps he had recognized the wrong person.
Then, I found——
Wallace-Duke.
