Chapter 146: Chapter 145 Found_1
Sun Gaotie went to submit the test samples, and Xia Momo entered the fingerprints collected by Zhou Ning one by one into the system.
Then she began to further compare them. The process was very fast, and as an interface opened, all sorts of fingerprints appeared on the large screen, as well as the comparison results from inside the four vehicles.
"Inside Zhang Guanglei’s Sonata, fingerprints of Wang Wenjing and Wang Mengmeng were found, but they are incomplete and covered by his own, obviously having been there for some time, since his car was the most severely damaged and the parts that could be extracted were limited.
As for the fingerprint abundance inside Sun Manqing’s Jeep, there are fingerprints belonging to Yu Meili, Chai Ruhua, Mr. Chai, and Sun Yannian. In the Honda, there are fingerprints of Sun Yannian and Wang Mengmeng.
Finally, on Chen Chunxi’s Santana, fingerprints of Wang Wenjing and Wang Mengmeng were found, along with many, many unknown fingerprints."
Liu Yongxin rubbed his chin and sighed.
"This relationship is complicated enough. However, according to the current investigation results, Wang Mengmeng and that Sun Yannian are highly suspicious, even if they are not the murderers, they are accomplices. Has Xu Da mentioned anything about how the investigation into Sun Yannian is going?"
Zhou Ning shook his head, as he had just listened to the interrogation of Chen Chunxi and had been to see the cars, he hadn’t inquired about that matter.
"Not asked, probably they’ve sent someone to investigate. With the conditions we have now, we still need to dig deeper into the clues. Diphacinone was found in the victim’s body, but this substance was not found in the homes of these suspects.
The poisoning had been ongoing for a while; since last year, there had been symptoms of coughing and spitting blood, indicating that he had been in contact with this substance for a long time, slowly being poisoned, so he suspected he was simply sick. In a moment, Mr. Zhao will contact Xu Da, let him send someone to take you to the home of the deceased, Zhang Guanglei, for a look, and of course, Sun Manqing’s house needs to be checked as well."
Mr. Zhao nodded, dialed Xu Dayuan’s phone, and the other party readily agreed, as everyone was keen to actively participate, no one was shirking the responsibilities, telling Mr. Zhao to wait downstairs and soon, Bai Ruixin would join him.
Zhou Ning looked towards Sun Gaotie and waved his hand at him.
"You take the investigation kit and go with Mr. Zhao. Also, Mr. Zhao will ask Mr. Pang to assign two more crime scene technicians to join you, we are short-handed, and since this case involves both our units, we naturally need to send people."
Mr. Zhao dragged Sun Gaotie away, and Liu Yongxin turned to Zhou Ning.
"You want to check that accident vehicle again?"
Zhou Ning nodded.
"Without clues, it’s our fault for not being able to find them. Master used to say that contact always leaves a trace, there must be something we have overlooked. The murderer staged the car accident, naturally hoping for the car to be smashed or even explode. When we arrived at the scene, we could smell a strong scent of gasoline, which can destroy everything, but there was no explosion on site and the fingerprints that could be extracted from the vehicle are very limited. I want to take another look."
Liu Yongxin paused for a moment, then gestured to Xia Momo.
"Not so fast, Mr. Xia, play that animation again, the one that simulates the order of the crash damage."
Xia Momo found the animation and clicked play, with Liu Yongxin continually signaling with his hand.
"Play it slowly, at the slowest speed."
Xia Momo adjusted the animation back to the starting state, then clicked to play it at eight times slower speed.
The vehicle moved straight from the rightmost lane of Lijiang West Road towards a lamppost. At this sight, Zhou Ning began to have doubts, while Liu Yongxin immediately called for a stop.
"Stop!"
He then turned to Zhou Ning, who was lost in thought. Liu Yongxin didn’t speak but smiled at Zhou Ning, clearly hoping Zhou Ning would express his doubts.
"The deceased, Zhang Guanglei, had been poisoned for some time, his organs were damaged, his stomach had hemorrhaging and atrophy, his digestive tract had bleeding ulcers that led to mucus buildup. According to the lab results, it’s not the manifestation of acute poisoning, and his head had also sustained a hit.
In this condition, how could he control the vehicle to crash so rapidly into the lamppost? To cause such an impact and vehicle damage, I think Mr. Xia has already estimated his speed, right?"
Xia Momo nodded.
"The speed had to be at least forty, but no more than fifty miles per hour. If it were this speed, along with the consecutive impact from the rear, the driver’s cabin would have collapsed even more severely and rollovers would be more likely. Instead, the second and third impacts further back caused more deaths."
Liu Yongxin snapped his fingers on the side, clearly he had already thought of this point before.
"Alright, now comes the question. The deceased’s temporal area, behind the ear, received a heavy blow. According to the autopsy, the trauma had caused unconsciousness by damaging the brain. During the autopsy, you mentioned it was possible the deceased’s leg was fixed here, constantly pressing on the gas pedal.
I don’t rule out this suspicion, but I think if the deceased’s leg was frozen, at least there would be marks or other evidence left behind, but we have found none."
Zhou Ning nodded.
"Then let’s go take another look at the accident vehicle."
The three of them went downstairs and directly to the garage commandeered by the lab, where the dissected accident vehicle was suspended inside. They began to closely observe it.
Liu Yongxin gently tapped the door of the driver’s seat with the brush in his hand, and a clattering sound echoed from inside.
"At the time of the car accident, the windows were rolled up, so the victim on the left side of the accident didn’t have too many glass stab wounds."
This discovery made Zhou Ning pause; if the windows weren’t closed, it would be possible to operate at this position, and perhaps the hitting injuries were also caused at this time. Therefore, if the leg wasn’t fixed in place with an object to brace against, it was possible that the victim was thrown out of the car due to the impact. Of course, the most likely possibility was that the victim was crushed in the driver’s seat.
Zhou Ning squatted down; the brake and accelerator pedals had been crushed and inverted into the narrow space in front. Zhou Ning rubbed his gloved hands together and reached for the accelerator pedal. With a little force, the deformed pedal snapped off and fell.
Zhou Ning picked it up and looked closely, noticing a scratch on it.
"Master, there’s a scratch!"
Liu Yongxin quickly picked up a magnifying glass to take a look, then instructed Zhou Ning:
"Go get the Luminol reagent. It looks like a bloodstain to me."
Zhou Ning didn’t delay and immediately grabbed the Luminol reagent, spraying it over the pedal. Then he took it to the scratched area, where fluorescence appeared. Joy rose in his heart, and he quickly grabbed an evidence bag.
Liu Yongxin dropped the pedal inside and then looked at the place where the pedal had been.
"Keep searching. Mr. Qu borrowed tools from Qin University yesterday, and he has partially restored the car to its pre-crushed state. See if you can find anything else. This pedal’s height... if it were pinned down, it wouldn’t be easy to fling it away."
This thought coincided with Zhou Ning’s.
Zhou Ning simply knelt on the ground, peering into the stretched gap with a powerful flashlight in hand, carefully scrutinizing the area. Just as he looked toward the bottom of the dashboard, a hammerhead appeared in the gap.
"There’s a discovery, it seems to be a hammerhead, but it’s completely crushed into the gap."
Momo leaned over to look at the nearby machinery.
"I didn’t expect the center of the crush to be wrapping around a hammer. The X-ray only showed the twisted engine and didn’t detect the hammer. We have hydraulic pliers here; we could try to break open the dashboard and remove the hammer from above."
Zhou Ning nodded, fetched the hydraulic pliers, and Momo thoughtfully found the pliers’ instructions. They each donned safety goggles, and after some research, Zhou Ning held the hydraulic pliers, inserting the head into the already shattered upper part. With a series of sounds, the dashboard cracked with a crunch, cracks appearing everywhere.
Liu Yongxin quickly gestured with his hands.
"Stop, stop, stop, don’t mess with it anymore. This thing is too big, and everything here is broken and shattered. A crowbar would be safer for this."
After searching, among the tools left by Mr. Qu, they indeed found a crowbar. They inserted it and pried the entire dashboard apart, shattering it. Liu Yongxin was already standing on a chair, with his body leaning in.
"Quick, pull me."
Zhou Ning hugged Liu Yongxin’s waist and gave a hard tug backward, and they both fell over.
"Ouch, my old back!"
Zhou Ning was startled; after all, his master had previously suffered a broken leg, been injured by an explosion, and even had a heart stent. He quickly checked on Liu Yongxin’s condition.
"How are you, master?"
"I won’t die, but you, you’re skinny and dried up, how come you have so much strength? Alright, it’s out now."
Only then did Zhou Ning notice that although Liu Yongxin had fallen, he was holding a broken claw hammer in his hand.
On seeing this, Zhou Ning’s heartbeat accelerated with excitement, and he carefully packed the hammer into an evidence bag.
"Master, you rest for a bit, I’ll go up and extract fingerprints. Then, we’ll send it to the lab and see if we can find bloodstains and compare them with the victim’s skull fracture."
Liu Yongxin also smiled, steadying himself by his waist and pointing to the bag containing the pedal on the ground.
"Take that with you. It looks like the claw hammer was wedged into the gap on the side below the accelerator and the dashboard. But I’m not familiar with automatic cars; can it be started like this?"
Zhou Ning nodded.
"It’s an automatic car; the car won’t lurch forward just by pressing the accelerator. You must step on the brake. With the driver’s window open, if someone used a long pole to hold down the brake, adjusted the direction, and then released the brake, the car would shoot forward. If fingerprints can be found, the killer will surface."
Liu Yongxin shook his head.
Zhou Ning looked at Liu Yongxin with confusion; was he disagreeing with his point of view?
"Let’s search first. I think if the killer managed to design such a car accident to fool everyone, he surely wouldn’t leave his fingerprints behind, waiting for you to catch him, right?"
