As a result, complete fingerprints were left on the buttons and the handle.
On a nearby machine, a minuscule drop of blood was also found. Though the factory manager and the workshop supervisor had flushed the drain in the floor several times with water, some residue remained.
Even the bone grinder, the very machine used to destroy the corpse and eliminate evidence, had been rinsed from top to bottom by the two men. Yet, in the grinding chamber that the police technicians had removed, tucked into a tiny gap less than a millimeter wide between the blade and the chamber wall, they found a faint, dark red trace, almost invisible to the naked eye.
Watching the evidence being uncovered piece by piece, the factory manager and the workshop supervisor, who had been clinging to a sliver of hope, finally gave up completely.
The two of them slumped to the floor, their heads hanging low. No matter what anyone around them said, they neither looked up nor responded.
