Bailonz Street 13

Chapter 194. Revenge (2)

Liam nodded as he picked up the thread.

“I was impressed by your craftsmanship. The ‘work’ was so similar that even I was almost fooled at first glance.”

Bradley Miller shrugged and responded nonchalantly.

“I kept him in the basement for weeks until he looked like me. Nicole didn’t know such a place existed in this house, so the work wasn’t difficult. He was already similar in build, and with a few details added, minor differences would be hard to notice without a face. Though I failed to fool the detective.”

“There were signs of eaten food at the table. But the stomach of the body found in the room was clean. Thanks to you so thoroughly mutilating the corpse’s abdomen, I had plenty of information to work with. It usually takes two to five hours for food to be completely digested. With a light meal, about two hours.”

He’d noticed even that? I was amazed by Liam’s keen eye and thoroughness. Bradley seemed equally impressed, slightly raising his eyebrows as he listened to Liam.

“It doesn’t make sense for there to be no traces in the stomach of someone who supposedly ate between six-thirty and seven, and was then killed. That’s when I thought – someone else must have eaten that food.”

But who? That’s where the questions began.

Liam continued rapidly, seemingly not wanting to give Bradley time to respond. He maintained his cold, calm voice as he pressed on.

“Someone who could naturally eat Ms. O’Brien’s cooking, who could put dishes in the sink. Someone who knew the location of everything in that house and even knew about the rusty water in the bathroom, allowing them to clean up their traces thoroughly after the murder. It could only have been you, Mr. Miller. But Bradley Miller was lying dead over there. That’s when things started feeling off. So when exactly did Bradley Miller ‘die’?”

Liam’s finger pointed at Bradley’s stomach.

“Based on observation, ten hours, twelve at most. The abdominal wall was still clean. If you’d wanted a perfect crime, you shouldn’t have cut open the stomach. It made the organs too easy to examine. Plus it’s winter, so the body hadn’t decomposed much.”

“That was my mistake.”

Bradley answered curtly. His face was tight with tension. Liam shrugged casually, treating it all as if it were trivial.

I remained standing with my hands behind my back, watching Bradley. In my hand was the taser from the officer. I needed to be ready to stop him if he suddenly turned aggressive.

“You couldn’t hide your hatred. My wife suspected you already knew about the ‘dead Bradley.'”

“That’s correct.”

“‘Dead Bradley’ died sometime between six and seven. So from the moment you started playing that movie, you were already in the process of killing ‘Bradley,’ weren’t you?”

“What made you think that?”

“The movie you played. Ms. O’Brien mentioned it was from World War II. The gunfire would have been quite loud. It would have masked the noise from creating your desired corpse. Afterward, you disposed of evidence. The pickaxe and shovel I saw earlier were gone. Probably buried near the house. The killer was meticulous enough to wear overshoes to hide their footprints, after all.”

Bradley neither confirmed nor denied this. But I saw him slightly furrow his brow.

“Let’s return to deducing the killer. Someone who left no signs of breaking in, who even drugged Ms. O’Brien to sleep so she wouldn’t notice what happened. Why would this meticulous and cruel killer, after destroying all evidence, not simply leave but instead stand watching Ms. O’Brien for so long? Not even noticing their wet hair and clothes were soaking the carpet.”

Bradley remained silent, but Liam added with certainty.

“It must have been emotion. Perhaps regret. That was your mistake. Being shaken because of Ms. O’Brien.”

Bradley remained expressionless. Liam posed a question.

“Was it rainwater?”

“I washed off in the bathroom. I didn’t want Nicole to see me covered in blood.”

“…You mentioned the rusty water in the bathroom. Blood will inevitably react to luminol even after washing, even when diluted tens of thousands of times. But you knew the flaw in this method, didn’t you? That luminol reacts to any heme, not just blood.”

I see. I hadn’t known that. In dramas, they often show bleach solving everything. But according to Liam, that method can’t completely erase blood traces. He explained that luminol can react to rust water as well as blood, which is why the forensics team took samples of the bathroom tiles.

“You probably thought you just needed to buy time. Just enough so no one would discover the ‘real Bradley’ was alive while they mistook the dead man for Bradley. What happened after you committed your crimes didn’t matter. You’re here for revenge, after all.”

Bradley now seemed to be struggling to hide his emotions. Liam tilted his head slightly, studying Bradley’s face as if trying to read it. Then he cocked his head questioningly.

“Why did you add wood to the fireplace?”

A house with no signs of entry or exit, a kitchen with everything in place, a half-empty bottle of sleeping pills, a warmly burning fireplace, water soaking the carpet.

All evidence pointed to one person – too perfect to be the work of an outsider. Liam asked aloud again.

“Even after divorcing her?”

“…That wasn’t my choice!”

Bradley’s voice suddenly rose. I flinched and grabbed Liam’s shoulder with one hand. No need to provoke him about personal matters. Bradley still held his weapons.

“I was barely escaping the memories of this cursed village. I was no different from a soldier returning from war. How could someone like me, who’d never dared to imagine or hope for a peaceful home life, pretend to be a normal husband?”

“You divorced because you couldn’t be a good husband?”

Liam’s tone remained monotonous.

“Because you couldn’t create the family Ms. O’Brien wanted?”

“Yes. The memories of that day in my head…”

“What memories?”

Bradley Miller stubbornly kept his mouth shut. His bloodshot eyes glared menacingly at Liam. Then he turned his gaze to the middle-aged man collapsed at his feet. He seemed to be the root of the problem.

“…If you knew what kind of place this village is, you’d never want to return either.”

Bradley muttered darkly.

“This man, Turner. Just killing him will be enough. He killed my parents. In that pit where you saw the dead sheep…”

The man’s eyes were filled with madness and resentment. Clearly, a traumatic childhood scene had fueled his desire for revenge.

“I ran away at first. But that scene kept haunting me. Even while living among normal people. Every now and then, on dark nights, I’d remember it. The torches, the pit, the villagers with farming tools…”

When faced with overwhelming anger, people usually want to avoid it. I understood now why he’d been reluctant to discuss his family and hometown.

“Was the whole village involved?”

I asked Bradley. He looked at me for a moment, then heaved a deep sigh. His harsh tone returned to its previous lifeless, quiet manner.

“Yes. Unknown funds were supporting the villagers’ lives. Turner provided that wealth, so naturally, people sided with him. Why don’t you use academic language? Mass psychology.”

Bradley’s following story was horrific.

This ginger-haired man, Turner, was amassing money through some illegal means.

The village was dying, with young people almost all gone. Slowly aging away. There’s a limit to living off fishing or pensions. The elderly also struggled with how to survive.

That’s when Turner started channeling massive amounts of money into the village community and began weekly meetings. The sick and weakened elderly started becoming healthier almost simultaneously. When people could see and feel the changes, they began to blindly follow Turner.

Liam muttered.

“A common cult.”