"Buzz..." The phone rang.

Luke picked up his phone to see, it was a bank text message.

The salary was paid.

When Luke saw the amount transferred, he immediately showed a delighted expression.

Sixteen thousand US dollars!

This sum of money consisted not only of April's salary, subsidies, and overtime pay but more so of bonus money.

To be precise, bonuses from two cases.

The first bonus came after the murder of female congresswoman Layli Harry, when her brother offered a reward of two hundred thousand US Dollars as thanks for the Robbery and Murder Department's first squad for retrieving the ransom video.

The second bonus was from Rossi Bill, the producer of "The Vanishing Lover," who donated one and a half million US Dollars to the detective bureau, thirty thousand of which was a reward for solving the Abu Gela murder case.

Luke played a crucial role in solving both cases, earning him the highest amount in bonuses, which he received sixteen thousand US Dollars post-tax.

Together with the thirty-five thousand US Dollars he spent buying stocks and one thousand dollars in cash from bonuses, Luke had one hundred ninety-six thousand US Dollars in his possession.

In addition, there was an eighty-five thousand US Dollars reserve fund in the system.

Luke's total assets now amounted to two hundred eighty thousand US Dollars.

He couldn't wait to splurge this money.

However, he knew very well that if this case wasn't solved, Reid and Susan definitely wouldn't allow him to take leave.

Let's do it.

Luke felt invigorated and found new motivation to work.

He began to concentrate his thoughts and analyze the case again.

Actually, his previous slackness was not just due to laziness, but because the case had hit a bottleneck; determining the murderer's identity required new clues.

When one encounters difficulties, it's easy to slack off; the best method then is to keep yourself busy and start with the simplest tasks.

Since no new clues had been found, start by eliminating the known suspects.

Apart from Boris, Luke felt Peter was the most suspicious.

According to Luke's previous conjecture, when Boris stabbed the victim, the murderer was likely hiding in the wardrobe.

If this conjecture held, then it wouldn't be possible for Peter to leave around twelve.

If he had left, he wouldn't have been able to hide in the wardrobe, nor could he have waited for Boris to leave and then hang up the body.

Luke revisited the surveillance around the York community area.

Checking surveillance was a crude method, but many cases had been solved with this mundane technique.

Since no better investigative direction could be found, he might as well start here and confirm Peter's whereabouts.

This time, Luke's target was Peter's car, a silver Lexus.

Luke found the surveillance video of his car.

One was from April 30th at midnight showing the car leaving the community.

From this, it appeared Peter did not lie; he indeed left the York community at midnight.

Therefore, it wasn't possible for him to wait for Boris to leave after stabbing the victim and then hang the body.

The other was from the morning of May 1st, driving to Courtney's house, where he discovered the body and reported it to the police.

Luke compared the two videos and indeed noticed a problem.

To verify whether his observation skills surpassed those of the average person, Luke called over Marcus, "Marcus, take a look at these two surveillance videos."

Marcus came over, opened the videos, and observed, "Aren't these both surveillance videos of the Lexus? One during the day and the other at night, with Peter presumably sitting in the driver's seat. Is there any issue here?"

Luke pointed at the screen, "Didn't you notice any difference in the car?"

Marcus examined closely, "What difference?"

Luke achieved his probing purpose and no longer played coy, pointing to the night's surveillance from March 30th, "This is the surveillance of Peter driving to Courtney's house before the crime. At that time, there was a dashcam on the upper side of the car's front windshield.

The second video was from the morning of May 1st when Peter drove to Courtney's house again, but this time the dashcam was no longer on the windshield."

Marcus compared the two videos again. Due to the angle of the surveillance, the dashcam was not very visible.

Moreover, one surveillance video was shot at night with dim lighting. Without careful comparison, it was hard to spot the difference, "Why would he remove the dashcam? Normally once installed, people rarely take it down."

Luke continued, "Exactly.

I suppose there are three reasons; the first is that the dashcam was broken, sent for repair, or replaced by a new one.

The second reason, the dashcam recorded something it shouldn't have.

The third reason, he was worried that the dashcam would record something it shouldn't have and prematurely took it down.

If it's the first reason, it doesn't concern us.

If it's the latter two reasons, it might be related to Courtney's death.

Peter must be hiding something, indirectly indicating he has a motive."

Marcus contemplated, "Is it possible he left and then returned to Courtney's house to commit the crime?

The reason for removing the dashcam could be because he didn't drive the car back home as usual but parked it not far from the community, worrying the police might notice and find it suspicious."

Luke nodded, "That's possible."

Having said that, they began checking other street videos along the route. Unexpectedly, Peter's silver Lexus didn't stop midway but went straight back to his home community.

After that, it didn't come out again until the next morning.

Although Marcus's guess was refuted, Luke still felt there was something amiss about the removal of the dashcam.

Marcus suggested, "Should we just bring him to the police station for questioning?"

Luke shook his head, arresting someone was easy, but dealing with them afterward was the trouble, "His case differs from Boris's. Boris was coming out of Ikaline's home, we could mistake him for a burglary suspect and thus bring him in for questioning.

But removing a dashcam isn't illegal. If he doesn't want to talk, we have no way to force him.

No judge would sign an arrest warrant for such a reason."

Luke was also unsure for a moment, Peter's behavior was indeed suspicious, but according to Luke's conjecture, he left Courtney's house around midnight, suggesting he likely wasn't the murderer.

But if he wasn't the murderer, why go to the trouble of removing the dashcam?

What exactly was Peter hiding?

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