Jimmy's idle time did not last long. Chris went out for a while, and when he came back, he had a new task for them. It was just that it hadn't made it to the FBI case list yet and was still with the NYPD.

Chris: "Jimmy, get ready, we're heading to the NYPD."

Jimmy picked up his suit coat, "OK, what's the matter?"

Chris: "A case that might have some issues. An investigative journalist was knocked down from a parking garage and fell to his death. You know, when the person who dies is a journalist, it usually necessitates an investigation."

Jimmy nodded, drove the car, and took Chris to the police station in Brooklyn. Although Chris could drive with one hand, having Jimmy there naturally meant he could relax a bit.

Chris located a detective and successfully obtained the case files. Chris and Jimmy reviewed the files in a meeting room, and the detective responsible for the case also came over.

Chris: "Harold, thanks for your trouble. Please give us an overview of the case."

Harold: "OK, from a normal perspective, this case appears to be that journalist Ashi Perino made a mistake while driving out of the fourth floor of the parking garage and fell to the third floor. The vehicle overturned, and most of Ashi's injuries were impact wounds and abrasions. The fatal injury was to the neck, caused when the car flipped over and he struck his head against the roof of the car, twisting his neck and resulting in death. You can take a look at the autopsy report and the photos from the scene."

"However, when we investigated his car and personal belongings, we found only a wallet, cell phone, and pen in his bag. There was no notebook or memo pad."

"Also, the car flipped over front-end first after hitting another car parked on the third floor, then tumbled forward. But it seems there are impact marks on the rear bumper. Since there are no internal surveillance cameras in that parking garage, we can't rule out the possibility that he had been in a previous accident and hadn't got it repaired. We can only suspect that someone might have hit the back of his car causing him to speed out of the fourth-level parking deck."

Thereafter are the photos from the scene and pictures of the car inspection after it was towed to the police parking area."

Chris nodded. These photos indeed seemed highly suspicious. In theory, if the car's rear bumper was hit, the owner would usually opt to file an insurance claim, especially since Ashi was a reporter with a decent income. He naturally wouldn't neglect the car after an accident like many poor people might, continuing to drive it as long as it still ran.

Moreover, it was completely abnormal for a reporter not to carry a notebook with them. This seemed to suggest that someone had taken the notebook either beforehand or after the fall.

Chris: "Were any fingerprint checks done on the car? Especially on the doors."

Harold: "Yes, we did that. On the driver's side door handle, we didn't find any fingerprints, not even Ashi's own. It's obvious someone cleaned it up."

Chris: "Interesting. Are there any surveillance videos from the entrance and exit of the parking garage? Let's take a look."

Harold nodded and left the conference room. After a moment, he brought back two videotapes. "We've already edited these. It covers from five minutes before Ashi entered the parking garage until half an hour after the accident occurred. If there's anything abnormal, this timeframe should be sufficient for investigation."

Harold, after starting the video playback on the conference room's TV and VCR, clearly had played it many times before. He paused it timely, allowing Chris and Jimmy to see that Ashi was alone in his car when entering the parking garage, with no one accompanying him.

Harold had already calculated in advance that, in the two hours between Ashi entering the parking garage and the accident, more than seventy cars entered. In the half-hour after the accident, twenty cars left the parking garage. Unfortunately, there were no internal security cameras in the parking garage, only two at the entrance, one facing inward and one outward, monitoring the entrance and the exit, respectively.

Chris handed the file to Jimmy: "Jimmy, take a look at the files for now. Harold, let's have a chat outside."

Jimmy began to flip through the file. Reporter Ashi was a freelance investigative journalist, meaning he was not affiliated with any particular newspaper or television station. Typically, such investigative journalists would investigate significant incidents and create documents or frameworks before negotiating the sale of their reports with newspapers or television stations.

Another scenario involved taking on investigations assigned by organizations, which generally weren't very common since both newspapers and television stations had enough reporters to cover regular stories.

Such individuals also often had a side job as part-time private detectives, investigating matters like infidelity or locating people—issues that were not quite appropriate for reporting to the police. Especially with regards to infidelity investigations, many people would hire them to track the movements of their spouses. In the United States, divorce is a significant decision, often involving substantial asset divisions.

Of course, Jimmy knew all this due to the extensive information available in the FBI file database, where there was some record or other about various industries and their affairs.

As for the police, they currently only had these on-site investigation reports. Ashi's place hadn't been searched yet, and to apply for a search warrant, there needed to be a valid reason. Mere police speculation was not enough for a judge to authorize a search of Ashi's residence.

Yes, search warrants were generally directed at suspects to look for potential evidence, and now this type of search directed at a deceased person, which was still part of a death investigation and possible involvement in a murder plot, so it was normal for a judge not to sign off on it out of laziness. After all, closing the case as an accidental fall would be the easiest, and besides the detectives, no one would have any objections—the scene was just too well staged.

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