Chapter 88

"When they left, everything was just as it is now. I haven't touched anything," Cinda said, and then she started crying again.

It might be because the scene brought back painful memories.

The entire first team of the criminal investigation unit skillfully put on gloves and shoe covers and entered the house.

The sisters' room was not big, but it was very clean, with a scent of laundry detergent, indicating that they were very tidy people. Every piece of clothing smelled fresh.

Apart from a homemade wooden bed for sleeping, there was also a very ordinary wooden table.

On the table were several stacks of elementary school books, and underneath was a long bench, just enough for two people to sit on.

The moment Robert stepped into the room, he felt something was off.

He turned and asked the still sobbing Cinda, "Can I ask you something? Is their room usually this tidy?"

Hearing Robert's question, Cinda glanced inside.

She was clearly taken aback. "I rarely went into their room before. They were usually very clean, but it wasn't like this... I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong."

Dennis pointed out the problem, which was the neatly folded quilt. "Officer Davis is asking about this. Did they usually fold their quilt like this?"

Cinda immediately shook her head. "No, I wouldn't even fold a quilt like this. This is too neat. When I helped them clean their room, I only swept the floor."

Zoey opened the wardrobe, and the clothes inside were also neatly folded.

Although there weren't many clothes, they were organized by season.

This clearly didn't seem like the mindset of rural people. They couldn't possibly have such meticulous living habits.

Zoey asked, "How long has it been since you last came here?"

Cinda thought for a moment and replied, "About half a month. I was doing a total cleaning at home and helped them mop the floor. The last time I checked, their quilt wasn't folded like this."

While they were talking, Alexander went to the wooden table and looked through the items on it.

Apart from a piggy bank, there were some elementary school books.

Alexander asked, "Did they both graduate from elementary school?"

Cinda sighed, "Yes, they only went to elementary school. Both of my daughters were good students, but being good at studying is useless. In our village, girls usually only go to elementary school; no one continues their education."

"Why is it useless?" Zoey asked.

"Our village is like this. The family doesn't have money, so we have to save it for the boys," Cinda, a victim of the deeply ingrained preference for boys, explained.

At least she could still have some rationality; she knew to cry after her daughters died, unlike Renee.

"Why is it useful for boys to go to school?" Zoey asked, not taking her eyes off Cinda's guilty look. She continued, answering her own question, "To get a wife."

Cinda remained silent.

Alexander, worried that Zoey might hurt Cinda, walked over to her and said in a voice they could hear, "Stop talking."

Zoey glanced at him but didn't say anything more.

Dennis took out a UV flashlight and carefully scanned the room. Fingerprints were everywhere, evidence of the sisters' lives. There were too many fingerprints, making it difficult to collect evidence.

He walked to the window and unexpectedly found a faint footprint.

He looked outside.

The windowsill was about 4 feet from the ground, and outside was an open yard.

He speculated, "On the night of the incident, the two victims might have climbed out of the window. They must have been hiding something from their family and didn't want them to know."

Seeing this, Robert immediately asked, "Have they mentioned anything to you recently that you didn't agree to, like going somewhere to play?"

Cinda thought carefully, then shook her head. "Faye used to often say she wanted Sadie to go back to school, but she hasn't mentioned it for a while."

"Anything else?"

"No."

The criminal investigation team fell into deep thought.

What had the sisters encountered, or what were they secretly doing?

Why would they climb out of the window in the middle of the night?

Zoey also looked for clues by the desk.

They flipped through the books and found the sisters' handwriting in one of the notebooks.

It was all written in pencil, and over time, many of the words had blurred.

She glanced at the simple pencil holder next to the piggy bank.

There were four pencils in it, of varying lengths but all quite short. It seemed they had been used for a long time and were cherished, with the tips sharpened to a point.

Alexander noticed that.

He analyzed, "Four pencils, all short and relatively new. They must have been bought recently and used frequently. If one of the pencils had a dull tip, it would mean the others hadn't been used for a while. But all four are new, so they were likely used recently."

Zoey glared at Alexander with disdain.

She pointed to the pencil holder and asked, "Did they usually write or draw?"

Cinda thought for a moment and said, "Yes, sometimes when I was cleaning, I would see them doing something at the table."

Zoey acknowledged and turned to Alexander, "Look through these books and see if there are any recent writings."

Alexander agreed and began searching carefully.

After a while, Dennis and Robert, who hadn't found any clues elsewhere, joined in.

Cinda had no idea why they were so focused on the pencils.

She decided not to wait at the door anymore.

She told them to look around as they pleased and left.

After a while, Zoey put down the book she was holding, "This one hasn't been looked at in a long time."

The others also said they hadn't found any recent markings in their books.

Dennis was curious. "If we haven't found any new markings in their books, where were they writing or drawing?"

Robert put the book back in its original place and suddenly thought of something. "Wait, Kelvin learned to draw. Whether writing or drawing, there should be a sketchbook for practice. When Kelvin was in school, they would give out a lot of these books each semester."

"Yes, Officer Davis, you're right. I had the same thing when I was a kid!" Dennis suddenly realized many doubts and speculated, "Their sketchbooks are missing? Did someone hide them? Why would they hide their sketchbooks?"

This was a new discovery, but it couldn't be fully considered a breakthrough.

Robert added, "Why would they take the sketchbooks? They wouldn't be worth much even if sold as scrap. Let's search again and see if the sketchbooks might be in another part of the room. Try to keep the room as it was."

"OK!"