Chapter 44 The thing behind surfaced.
Lin Meiqi quickly put on her windbreaker and walked outside, then rode her bicycle downstairs to the crime scene.
On the way, I happened to meet a neighbor named Sister Qin from the building.
Aqin was wearing dirty white gloves and holding two bricks in her hands. There is a construction site not far away.
Lin Meiqi slowed down as she passed by and said hello to the other person.
"Sister Aqin, do you work here?" Lin Meiqi asked.
"Yes, my family is short of labor, so I came out to work as well."
"Can you move such heavy bricks?"
Lin Meiqi looked on and saw that not far away there were big men piling dozens of bricks together, carrying them on their shoulders and walking into the building.
My shoulders ache just by looking at it, let alone a thin woman.
The middle-aged woman in front of him smiled and said, "I'm used to it. Don't look at me as thin, I'm very strong!"
She rolled up her sleeves, revealing her strong forearm muscles.
Lin Meiqi was startled.
It seems that she has been doing this kind of work for a long time. She must have learned it through work.
Construction workers who work under the sun all year round are all tanned. In the past, Lin Meiqi was curious about what Sister Qin did to become like this. Now it seems that it was caused by such hard work.
After Lin Meiqi said goodbye to the woman, she felt an indescribable feeling in her heart.
When she arrived at the scene, the investigation of the victim, Li Meimei, had already begun. Feng Charlie and his team were already there with police officers.
"Medical Doctor Lin, your autopsy box."
Lin Meiqi took it, and it was full of tools. Feng Charlie had brought it specially for her.
Lin Meiqi squatted down and carefully observed the situation at the scene.
There was a knife stuck in the victim's abdomen. Judging from the state of the knife, it looked like the victim had inserted the knife directly into the abdominal cavity with both hands.
If the murderer was to stab the victim face to face, the scars on the abdomen made by the props would not be like this, unless the murderer was behind the victim with his hands covering her hands, faking a suicide scene.
But there is something unclear here. If it was really homicide and not suicide, then why would the deceased allow the other party to stab the knife into his body?
Unless she was in a coma at the time.
Lin Meiqi examined the mouth and nose of the deceased and went back to do tests to see if there were any drug ingredients in the body.
If you knock the person out first and then kill him with a knife, this would become possible.
In addition, Lin Meiqi also found some yellow fibers on the deceased's body. This material was very familiar. She put the fibers into the evidence bag, which may be important evidence to determine the cause of death.
"How is it?" asked Charlie Feng.
"The cause of death cannot be determined." Lin Meiqi nodded, "It looks like a suicide scene at the moment."
Feng Charlie pointed to a photo album scattered on the ground. The album looked very old, like a special album used as a graduation commemoration. It contained photos taken from various angles.
There are always four people present each time, and dozens of photos in the album are like this. They are the four victims, Hu Panshan, Liu Yuyu, Tao Daye and Li Meimei, and were taken during their time at Hong Kong Kowloon Middle School ten years ago.
"If it is determined to be suicide, then the scene looks like the suicide victim Li Meimei mailed three letters to three other people. The other three people were terrified and panicked. Then Li Meimei approached them one by one as a friend and killed them. After getting rid of the three people, Li Meimei's goal was achieved, so she stabbed herself in the abdomen with a knife and committed suicide, leaving this evidence at hand..."
"So, the four of them used to get along very well and were best friends in middle school, and for some reason she developed motives against the other three?"
"Yes, you can see in these photos that the faces of the other three victims were painted over in many of them, but Li Meimei's face was intact.
If it is suspected that Li Meimei applied the stain, then it would mean that Li Meimei had hatred towards the other victims. ”
Lin Meiqi pinched her chin with her fingers, also thinking.
"So what is Li Meimei's motive?" Lin Meiqi asked, "Does the motive really exist? Or is it just the hatred on the surface in the album?"
"This requires further investigation."
Feng Charlie said, "We just arrived at the scene and haven't checked the people around her yet, but judging from where she lives and the decoration of her home, her financial situation should be very bad, even worse than the other three victims."
Lin Meiqi looked around Li Meimei's room, and Feng Charlie did not forget to remind her: "By the way, this house is still rented by Li Meimei, which means that if she rents it, she can only live under such conditions."
Lin Meiqi looked around the room. The owner of the house seemed to be very sloppy. For example, there was no mattress on the bed, just a hard bed board. The victim, Li Meimei, just spread a sheet on it and fell asleep directly. Wouldn't it feel uncomfortable?
The table top has turned yellow and cracked, and there are so many stains on the walls that it seems impossible to wipe them clean.
Lin Meiqi tried to use the lights in the room, and found that two switches were broken and could not be turned on at all.
The flush toilet in the bathroom was not very convenient, so there was a plunger next to it ready to clear the sewer at any time, but it turned out to be a lot of problems.
At the beginning, the alley where the victim Liu Yuyu lived was not in a good environment, but there was a separate house with a large area.
Li Meimei lives in a densely packed honeycomb building where people are crowded together and the sound insulation is very poor. The police are here, and although the door is closed, they can still hear the laughter and scolding outside, which should affect their sleep at night.
Just as I was thinking about it, the sound of a ball hitting each other came from the corridor. Could it be that Li Meimei's current living situation was related to the other three victims?
Lin Meiqi searched the room, picked up the photo album on the table and started looking at it again.
As he flipped through the pages, his brows gradually furrowed.
For some reason, she always felt that there was something very strange about these photos.
In the photo, four people are arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, smiling brightly, but their expressions don't seem so innocent. It seems as if there is something hidden behind the smile, but she can't tell.
So he asked Charlie Feng: "Sergeant, do you think these photos are a bit strange?"
"It's a bit strange." said Charlie Feng.
Lin Meiqi thought for a moment and said, "Oh, I see. How do most people react when they are photographed?"
"...Well, these are photos from ten years ago. Not many people had cameras at that time, and the people taking photos should have been excited and happy facing the camera, so they would try their best to show their best side and capture it in the photo." said Charlie Feng.
"Yes, that's right! Generally speaking, when facing the camera, people will become very soft, smile very gently, and try to lower their posture as much as possible. But their eyes look abnormal, as if they are showing off."
"show off?"
"I don't know, this is just my intuition." Lin Meiqi said, "Sergeant, can you help contact the psychologist Xiao Shanhong from the General Administration to see what this smile means?"
Feng Charlie nodded: "Okay, I'll contact them. But can you confirm that this handwriting is indeed written by Li Meimei?"
Lin Meiqi shook her head. "It's difficult. If you want to identify a notebook, it's best to have a clear font. You can judge by the structure of the notebook, the depth of the pen, the direction of the force, etc. But these are just some scribbled strokes. There's no way to judge the relevant structure, so it's hard to verify whether it's hers."
At this time, a police officer ran over.
He found a letter in a small cloth bag mounted on the wall next to the door, which had always contained newspapers. The envelope was still in pure white, exactly the same as the envelope that the third victim received the threatening letter in.
The police officer handed it to Charlie Feng, who opened the envelope and carefully took out the letter.
This letter is actually handwritten, so it can be used to identify the handwriting.
Feng Charlie opened the letter and placed it on the table. Lin Meiqi leaned over to read the contents of the letter.
The letter was quite detailed, but Lin Meiqi was skeptical.
Li Meimei became friends with the other three victims at Hong Kong Kowloon Middle School ten years ago. They were from different grades and classes. She was three years older than the other three, but she was still excited about this cross-class and cross-grade friendship.
Unexpectedly, these three people soon isolated Li Meimei because of her poor family background, and bullied her repeatedly, such as using cigarettes to burn fireworks on her arms, cutting her hair, and bumping her eyes.
Although all the scars have healed after ten years, Li Meimei lost confidence in life due to the various malicious bullying she suffered at the time. She eventually gave up on herself and dropped out of school. She started working before she even finished high school.
Since she started working, she has suffered a lot of injustice and later owed a lot of debts.
She had no choice but to find three other people and try to borrow money from them, as compensation for them ruining the rest of her life.
The first person she contacted was Tao Daye. Tao Daye's family was relatively wealthy, and he didn't have a proper job, but he could still eat and drink as much as he wanted. It seemed that his family had a lot of savings, so he should have some spare money.
But when Li Meimei went there, Tao Daye dragged her into the house and demanded that he sleep with her before he would lend her the room.
She felt her self-esteem was insulted and hated these shameless guys who had ruined her life. She could no longer endure it, and after fleeing from Tao Daye's room in a panic, she made a complete plan.
The funny thing is that for Li Meimei, the three victims were her former bullies, but when she found the three people, they had even forgotten what they had done, as if they had just played some excessive jokes on her at that time.
Li Meimei couldn't stand the nonchalant tone in his words.
After killing those three people, Li Meimei was unable to solve her financial difficulties, so she finally chose to commit suicide out of fear of punishment...
This letter expresses the emotions vividly and has traces of tears on it, making it look quite realistic.
But Lin Meiqi still had a strong feeling.
From the beginning to the end of this case, the police seemed to be led by everyone. At this point, even the motive was clearly presented to the police.
It is precisely because of all the links that it seems even less real, as if it had been carefully planned.
Just like when you are interrogating a prisoner, it is normal for him to forget some details, but if he goes into every detail, as if he is reciting a text, then it is very likely that he has thought of the confession in advance.
Such a clear feeling made Lin Meiqi feel a little uneasy.
She said to Charlie Feng, "I will do an appraisal of this handwriting."
However, when she looked through the traces left by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in other notebooks, it looked like one person to the naked eye.
"I don't think the murderer would be able to imitate such an imaginary note. Even if he did, there would always be flaws."
Feng Charlie nodded, folded the letter and put it in the evidence bag.
"Everything in the letter needs to be investigated from the beginning to see if it fits the motive Li Meimei mentioned."
"So we didn't find out at the time because she dropped out of school on her own initiative? There are quite a few students who drop out of school in every grade. Generally speaking, most of them are students who don't study well and run away to join the society. We didn't include this kind of people because of the inherent impression that these dropouts are often bullies, not the bullied."
"Yes!" said Lin Meiqi.
After inspecting the scene, Charlie Feng drove Lin Meiqi back to the Serious Crime Squad, and Charlie Feng went to Hong Kong and Kowloon Middle School for investigation.
Lin Meiqi also had a lot of work to do. She had already taken samples of the handwriting in the letter and brought over a lot of Li Meimei's notes to carefully analyze and search for traces of the handwriting.
In addition, the cause of death has not yet been determined. If it was homicide, where did the fibers on the deceased’s body come from? Could it have been dropped by the murderer? And why did her knife-holding posture look more like suicide than murder?
Lin Meiqi spent the entire morning in the forensic laboratory, busying herself with various tests.
No one from the serious crime squad disturbed her.
At noon, Lin Meiqi hadn't come out yet, so He Wanyi bought her some rice and fried vegetables and brought them to her: "Forensic Doctor Lin, eat something and continue working. You can't starve yourself!"
Lin Meiqi was thinking, as if she was worried. She took the food and asked, "You haven't eaten yet?"
"We brought it back for you after we had it. We just opened a new stir-fry restaurant, and this stir-fried pork with peppers tastes really good. You should try it."
Lin Meiqi nodded: "Thank you!"
He Wanyi left, and Lin Meiqi stayed alone in the forensic room. She opened the lunch box and the fragrant food rushed into her nostrils.
She heard the sound of birds chirping and looked up. She saw a turtledove chirping in the tree outside the window of the forensic office.
The cry brought her out of her messy thoughts for a moment.
There have been four victims, and this should be the last one. That is to say, when it comes to Li Meimei, the case is closed and becomes a suicide case. She pleads guilty and is punished, and then the murderer can get away.
If this line of thought is correct, then the murderer must have used some method in these cases to escape from everyone's sight.
Or what kind of person can do it? Lin Meiqi was puzzled.
After finishing her meal, Lin Meiqi threw the lunch box into the trash can outside, and just after walking a few steps, she went to the bathroom to wash her hands.
Suddenly, the office phone rang. He Wanyi went forward to answer the phone: "Oh, is it a psychologist? Strange, I didn't see a psychologist!"
Lin Meiqi quickly said, “It should be Charlie Feng who asked for it. Expert Xiao from the General Administration. He’s not here now. Let me take it.”
He Wanyi nodded and said to the other party: "Wait a moment!"
Lin Meiqi walked forward and took the receiver. She heard the other party say, "Oh, forensic doctor Lin. The General Administration has another case that needs my colleague's participation, so I couldn't go over this time. Sorry."
Lin Meiqi said, "It's okay, Professor, just go ahead and do your thing. We are already very satisfied to have your support."
"Oh, that's right. Just now, Charlie Feng sent me the photo album from Noon. I took some time out of my busy schedule to flip through it and did notice some problems. None of these four people looked like they were being bullied."
"Let me explain in detail. According to what Feng Charlie said, when the other three people bullied Li Meimei, she would often show that she didn't want to be approached by the other people, especially when the three perpetrators approached her. Although she was smiling, her expression should be unnatural. Her eyes could be blank, flustered, or disgusted. Her body also moved slightly inward, always sending out shielding signals. But it is obvious that none of these four people, especially the last suicide you mentioned, had such a situation."
Lin Meiqi asked: "Could it be because these album photos were taken before the bullying occurred? In other words, the four of them had a very good time together, so they were not opposed to this kind of physical contact."
Psychologist Xiao Shanhong said: "It is possible. If it happened before the bullying occurred, it would be completely explainable."
But he paused, as if he wanted to say something.
"Is she the last suicide victim? There's something wrong with her condition?" Lin Meiqi asked.
"Yes, they are more than just good companions. Not only does Li Meimei's look show no signs of being bullied, but even more strangely, she exudes the aura of an offender. Have you noticed that the four of them all have a hint of arrogance in their smiles, as if they are superior to someone else?"
Lin Meiqi hummed, as if thinking about something.
She actually had a feeling that these people seemed to be demonstrating.
But why does it appear like this in the photo?
"In other words, the signals expressed by Li Meimei and the other three people's expressions are the same. They are all perpetrators?"
"Yes, there is aggression in that smile. The eyes are rolled up and the tails of the eyes are drooping. These are typical signs of contempt. But Doctor Lin, you have to find evidence to know what this photo actually shows. I am only judging from a psychological perspective. I hope this can give you some reference!"
"Thank you! That's great."
After hanging up the phone, Lin Meiqi froze in front of the phone, and something in her mind became clearer and clearer.
Just a little bit more.
At this time, the sound of birds singing outside attracted her attention again.
She looked out the window and found that He Wanyi was also paying attention to the bird. She and He Wanyi both looked at the bird, and He Wanyi was teasing it and imitating its call.
In an instant, Lin Meiqi seemed to have her Ren and Du meridians opened up: "I know!"
"Forensic Doctor Lin, do you have any ideas?" He Wanyi turned her head.
“There are indeed four people in the photo, but the environment in which they were taken should have five people,” said Lin Meiqi.
"Why is the fifth person not in the photo?" He Wanyi wondered.
After a moment, she realized, "Oh, I see, she is the photographer, outside the photo!"
Lin Meiqi nodded: "That's right, the photographer should be the one being bullied. Because she was bullied, she was not qualified to be photographed by the precious camera at that time, and she could only take pictures for them. This also explains the disgusted expressions, because they are facing people who are inferior to them, and bullying them has become a habit. So although they are facing the camera, they are also facing the person behind the camera who is taking pictures for them. The disgusted and arrogant attitude is unstoppable."
He Wanyi suddenly realized: "Wow, Forensic Doctor Lin, your idea is really extraordinary!"
"No, think about the birds outside. There are two of us in the room, but when the birds outside see us, there are only two of us. We face them, just like facing the photographer behind the camera. You chirp and tickle the birds, and this scene will be recorded. That's it!"
Lin Meiqi stepped forward and patted He Wanyi on the shoulder, "Thank you for the inspiration!"
"No, it's mainly because Forensic Doctor Lin is smart!" He Wanyi praised.
[Receive praise, IQ +1]
Lin Meiqi's thoughts became clearer.
But who is the person holding the camera and taking the photo? How to check this person? There is no evidence that the person is in any scene, no wonder no one can detect his existence.
Since these four perpetrators came from different classes and grades, they could probably only get together after school.
Few classmates would know about this seemingly unrelated small group.
This is why there are obstacles in the investigation.
So, in this case, when all the members of the group were killed, does anyone else know who the fifth person was?
Lin Meiqi walked back to the forensic doctor thoughtfully.
The identification conclusion of the instrument came out. Lin Meiqi looked at the results caused by various parameters and found that they were the same as she expected.
The letter that Li Meimei left before she was murdered was written by her own hand.
Why did she leave this letter? Was it written under pressure? But being forced to write this letter is just speculation, there is no evidence at all.
Everything is going against the police right now.
Because even with the evidence from the psychologists, and everyone's doubts about the case in all aspects, there is nothing concrete to prove it, which completely gives the murderer an opportunity to escape.
These conditions are too favorable for the murderer.
What will the murderer do next? The four people who bullied him have all been killed. Who will he challenge next?
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