"ah?!"
As if someone had burned the back of his head with an ice cube, Mance shivered and said:
"Oh, oh...I see, no wonder...then Arthur is really transferred?"
"..." Ed stared at the confession book in his hand in silence for a while.
He had never told Mance clearly that Arthur had been sacrificed before, but only said that Arthur had been transferred from Silvermist City due to work arrangements.
Normally, this would be okay to say, but now that Angelica is here, I don’t know if this will irritate her.
But he was overthinking it. Angelica just bowed slightly and replied calmly, gently and politely:
"Hello, Officer Mance. My name is Angelica Custer. I will take over my brother's job from now on. Thank you for your consideration."
"It's easy to talk about."
Mance nodded vigorously, patted his soft, fat chest and replied:
"Since she is brother Arthur's sister, I won't be too polite. If you need anything in the future or can help, just come to me."
"Mance." Ed quickly changed the subject, "These confessions..."
"Is there anything wrong with the confession?" Fat Police Officer Mance scratched his head and asked in confusion, "I recorded the confession myself. I don't see any problems. The confession is completely consistent?"
"It's just because they are completely consistent that it's a bit strange, don't you think?"
Ed shook the confession book in his hand, tilted his head slightly and asked.
Human memory is not completely accurate and may be biased to a greater or lesser extent. For example, a man wearing a brown coat, gray vest and blue jeans walks out with a poodle and is seen by a group of people passing by. Their retelling of the event may not be consistent -
Everyone may remember key details like "man" and "lead dog" clearly, but descriptions of details such as clothing, breed of dog, etc. are likely to be completely different.
But the descriptions of some details in the six confessions they have obtained are surprisingly similar:
The crime occurred at 10:30 in the morning. Three masked men were responsible for robbing, cutting the reins, hearing explosions and seeing smoke, evacuating from three routes respectively, and unable to see other responders.
"When you say that, it seems..." Mance's expression became a little solemn.
"Everyone will remember the shocking images of explosions and smoke, but I think there should be some discrepancies in the details such as the time of the crime, the number of robbers, the behavior of the robbers, the evacuation route, etc. That’s it.”
"Do you think they colluded to confess in advance?"
After hearing this, Mance's face was full of disbelief, and he vowed:
"It's impossible. These are witnesses we randomly found at the scene of the crime. I checked their identities and they are not related to each other. They are all good citizens who are honest and law-abiding and have no bad records."
"Did they come to help?"
"That's definitely not the case! Damn it, I've been in this business for six or seven years. How could I be so stupid as to trust that kind of 'enthusiastic person' who comes to provide clues?"
Mance swung his ears like fans, looked a little excited, and his cheeks turned red:
"These are onlookers I stopped at random from the street. I also specially selected one from different areas, unless the entire street has been bribed, or they are all accomplices!"
"Okay, don't get excited, brother, I just asked casually and I didn't doubt your professional ability." Ed smiled and said, stroking his hands, "They are all accomplices... This actually reminds me of a detective book."
"You mean the detective on the train murders? I remember in that book everyone on the train was a murderer and worked together to forge perfect testimony."
Seeing the confused look on Mance's face, Angelica whispered thoughtfully next to her.
"Yeah, but that's just a fictional, idealized crime model in a book, and there are only twelve suspects, and we have a whole street of people here. Is there any way to affect everyone's consciousness? For example, create A huge illusion..."
Ed muttered to himself and quickly denied this possibility:
"No, that cost is too high, and the person who can do it must be a high-level Beyonder. If an Beyonder like this just wants to grab a pineapple... he can just carry the whole car and jump to the roof and run away. , No one who is not afraid of death would dare to intercept such a person - especially if he does it just for a cart of pineapples."
Although carrying a whole carriage and jumping onto the roof is just an exaggeration, it is obviously not necessary for an extraordinary person like this to just grab a pineapple.
"Is it possible that they colluded with each other on the way to the police station to record a statement? If there was only one police officer leading the way, it would not be difficult for several witnesses to whisper to each other behind." Angelica suggested.
"But why did they collude to confess? Why did they protect the robbers? I can't figure out why they did this." Mance said in confusion.
"What if the robbers are heroes to them...?"
Ed said suddenly.
