Chapter 69: Chapter 69 Don’t Be Mysterious_1
Zhou Ning looked at Liu Yongxin and Mr. Zhao, both of whom were staring at him; Zhou Ning nodded with difficulty.
"The perpetrator is an acquaintance, premeditated, robbery or theft might be a ruse. Once we find the cell phone, or investigate the victim’s call history, I think we’ll find some clues. Oh, and there’s also the victim’s car, we were in a hurry to get back, so we didn’t check it."
Liu Yongxin didn’t speak, and sensing a divergence of opinions between the two, Mr. Zhao was interrupted by a sound at the door; Mr. Liu waved a kraft paper bag back and forth outside.
"Scaredy-cat, just bring it in, what could possibly happen? Always making a racket outside."
Muttering to himself, Mr. Zhao went to the door to get the kraft paper bag and spread it out in front of the two men—it was an X-ray film. The on-call doctor who had come to take the X-rays wasn’t very adept at handling electronic images, so he had developed the X-ray film and delivered it directly.
Liu Yongxin picked up the film and examined it carefully against the light.
"The injuries on the forehead and temporal region caused a skull fracture, but the fracture isn’t serious and didn’t cause more severe cranial brain damage. This matches the superficial injuries."
Zhou Ning also nodded; indeed, such injuries looked severe but weren’t lethal. However, this further confirmed that the victim was coerced by the murderer, just to prolong the victim’s suffering.
"Okay, let’s stitch it up, no need for a craniotomy. We’ll clean up and head back to the station for a meal. I saw a message from Xu Da; he has already called for a case meeting. I’ll tell him to have someone check the victim’s vehicle."
Glancing at the time, it was already one-thirty. The duration of this autopsy was acceptable since there were so many wounds to measure. He hurried to stitch up the chest and abdomen while Elder Cui and Mr. Liu took the body away.
After they all washed up, they got in the car and drove back to the station.
As soon as they arrived downstairs, they heard shouting from above; looking up, they saw Xu Dayuan.
"Hurry and go to the office to eat, then come here after."
Mr Zhao grinned with a smile.
"Looks like the boss has saved us some food. Let’s hurry upstairs and get eating; I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse."
Liu Yongxin punched him lightly.
"You glutton, no wonder you’ve gained thirty pounds. The hungrier you are, the less you should gorge. Your stomach hasn’t given you the signal yet, and before you know it, you’ve eaten too much."
"Uncle, I know the theory, and I’m aware it’s not healthy, but I’m still growing; can’t help being hungry."
Everyone laughed; Mr. Zhao’s cheerfulness was the best way to communicate. As Zhou Ning followed the two upstairs, his own stomach growled at the sight of the boxed lunches, and without wasting words, they quickly dug in.
However, Zhou Ning, having just performed an autopsy, dared not eat too much, finishing only half a portion; despite being accustomed to handling dead bodies, a full stomach could easily irritate the intestines.
Mr. Zhao, unbothered, scraped Zhou Ning’s leftover stir-fried green beans with pork and shredded potatoes into his own lunch box, mixed them up, and slurped them down. Liu Yongxin shook his head continuously; the two of them drank water while Zhou Ning had already begun listing some conclusions on the back of the autopsy report, finishing and standing up.
"Master, shall we go to the case meeting?"
Liu Yongxin stood up, and the three of them went to the meeting room together. In fact, the case meeting had just started. Seeing the three men enter, Xu Dayuan quickly waved his hand, and He Chunyang paused his presentation.
"Come over and sit down—Mr. Sun is here to attend our case meeting. Zhou Xiaozhou, come over here; Mr. Sun wants to meet you."
Zhou Ning was taken aback; propelled by a nudge from Liu Yongxin and an indicating look, he reluctantly went forward.
Mr. Sun was sitting beside Xu Dayuan, smiling continuously as he looked at Zhou Ning.
"Comrade Zhou Xiaozhou, you are impressive! Your reputation is well known within our system. Come on, sit down—I’m just an observer, not here to guide the work. Continue quickly, there’s nothing more important than the case at hand."
With the leader speaking in such a manner, He Chunyang quickly resumed.
A sheepish smile on his face, Zhou Ning knew he couldn’t correct the leader; they probably didn’t even know his real name was Zhou Ning. Sitting next to Xu Dayuan made him uneasy.
After giving it some thought, it was probably due to the software incident from last time; Xu Dayuan must have reported it to the leaders, and subsequently, the sub-bureau had allocated them a decent computer.
Liu Yongxin, sitting next to Zhou Ning, flipped through the conclusions Zhou Ning had written on the back of the autopsy report, giving him an OK sign. Zhou Ning’s worried heart settled a bit more.
Over there, He Chunyang continued his previous speech.
"At the initial crime scene, we carried out a carpet-style search and discovered that from the first to the seventh floor, only the victim’s family resided. However, the door of room 201 on the lower floor was unlocked, and it was not being renovated. Outside the window, there was a pile of sand, and if someone were to jump out of the northern window, they would likely land on the sand pile. Indeed, we found two footprints on it which will be sent to the forensic doctor later.
The victim, Wen Haicheng from the Huadong Design Institute, was a top designer. The properties they developed and some of their design drafts have won many big awards. His social relationships were not complicated, and he had not made any significant enemies.
The owner of this design institute was their mentor back in the day. The person who reported the incident, Wang Mingliang, and Wen Haicheng were classmates. After graduation, along with Huang Yongsheng who had a good relationship with them, they followed this mentor and established the Huadong Design Institute.
According to Mr. Chen’s reaction, if anyone was dissatisfied with Wen Haicheng, it would be a few competing design institutes, but privately their relationships were still good. Sometimes they even joined other design institutes in bidding.
Wang Mingliang reported that the victim was coughing all day yesterday, so he went home early and did not attend their meeting in the evening. However, at eleven o’clock last night, they checked various drawings online needed for today. They couldn’t contact him in the morning, which led them to go check on Wen Haicheng at his home. As for the victim’s car, no valuable evidence was found.
Oh, and one more thing. The victim Wen Haicheng’s wife, Zhang Xin, was an alumnus of Wen Haicheng and Wang Mingliang. The two had been in a relationship since high school and were the only couple among them to turn their campus romance into a successful marriage. They were very happy, and their son was also very smart. Everyone admired this couple."
Xu Dayuan nodded, exchanged a few words with Mr. Sun, and then pointed to Liu Changhai, asking:
"Changhai, have you found the mobile phones of Wen Haicheng and Zhang Xin? Have the call records been retrieved?"
Liu Changhai held up two evidence bags containing two unrecognizable phones, both front and back shattered, with many fragments inside.
"The phones were found in the community, in the flowerbed on the north side of the sixth building where the incident happened. We found them with the help of police dogs, as there is building debris everywhere in the community..."
Xu Dayuan tapped his finger on the table, his face darkening a bit.
"Get to the point, skip the process. Can the data on the phones be recovered?"
Liu Changhai shrank his neck, obviously startled.
"I asked the technical department if it’s possible to extract data. However, they’re not very familiar with this phone model, so it would take about two to three days. As for their phone numbers, we’ve already obtained the call records from the mobile company."
As he spoke, he took out a stack of papers and distributed them. Zhou Ning felt anxious inside, as there’s usually little one could find in call records. Many people’s secrets are on their phones, and if they couldn’t solve this in two or three days, that would be problematic, especially since his countdown had only 96 hours.
He glanced at the large transparent screen and felt his heart cool by half.
No, there were only 92:27 hours left.
Just as he was thinking this, Xu Dayuan was already looking at Zhou Ning.
"Talk about the findings from the crime scene investigation and the autopsy."
Zhou Ning unfolded the autopsy records and handed one of the hand-drawn floor plans to Mr. Zhao, who quickly turned on the projector. The image of the floor plan appeared on the screen. Approaching the conference table, he spoke out loud:
"I will first discuss the findings from the autopsy. The cloth strips used to bind the victim, Wen Haicheng, were obtained from the scene. There were a total of 27 cuts and stab wounds on the body, including 3 on the torso and abdomen, 1 on the neck, and 22 on the limbs. None of the 26 cuts were deeper than two centimeters, and none damaged the main arteries or veins; they were meant to intimidate.
The most severe cut was found below the reproductive organ, severing two-fifths of it with a clean cut, resulting in a blood loss of over 800 milliliters. All cuts and stabs matched the wallpaper knife found at the scene exactly. The cutting showed no hesitation; it was very vicious, and the handle had traces of paint on it.
The victim’s head was struck with a claw hammer, with three impact injuries at the forehead and temporal regions, which is the area behind the temples. These blows resulted only in skull fractures and scalp lacerations, not fatal injuries.
The cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation due to obstruction of the mouth and nose, and the murder weapon was a cushion found on the bed. Now, looking back at the cloth strips, wallpaper knife, claw hammer, and cushion.
By comparing fingerprints, residues, patterns, and colors, I can confirm that at least three of these four items were obtained from the initial crime scene."
Mr. Sun looked quite interested.
"Oh, Comrade Zhou Xiaozhou’s point is that this was a crime of passion? The murderer initially wanted to rob, but because the victim resisted fiercely and did not cooperate, the murderer killed him in a moment of desperation?"
Xu Dayuan frowned slightly. At the scene, Zhou Ning had ruled out the possibility of robbery and defined it as a crime committed by someone familiar with the victim. Could he have changed his mind now?
"Don’t beat around the bush, share your judgment!"
