Chapter 8
Perhaps Lin Jiafan had had enough of Luo Jingyao's unhappy but forbearing look, so he slowly looked away and got out of the car after cutting off the conversation with Pang Guang.
After complaining in her heart for a long time, Luo Jingyao finally accepted her fate and pushed open the car door.
Then the two of them walked into the office building of the Jinshi Public Security Bureau without saying a word and took the elevator all the way up to the sixth floor.
The moment the elevator door opened, Luo Jingyao saw Pang Guang coming towards her. Maybe it was because he had been working overtime all day, but his face looked not only long but also green against his explosive yellow hair.
"Boss, what on earth have you been doing...?"
The urgent voice of inquiry stopped abruptly after seeing the scene in the elevator, and was replaced by a voice of confusion and surprise: "Coach Luo?!"
Pang Guang opened his mouth slightly, looked at Lin Jiafan, whose face was expressionless, then looked at Luo Jingyao, who was still carrying the same large backpack she had carried during the day. The next second, he wailed without warning, "No way? No way? You only missed one class, and you're really rushing to the bureau in the middle of the night for extra training? Staying up all night to exercise can lead to sudden death!"
In response, Lin Jiafan just glanced at him with a slight disdain, then took the lead in getting out of the elevator and heading towards the inquiry room at the end of the corridor.
Luo Jingyao naturally followed closely behind.
The environment of this inquiry room is very simple and clear, with a table, a chair, and a camera in the corner of the roof, that's all.
After temporarily settling her down, Lin Jiafan did not ask her any questions immediately. Instead, he turned around and left the room.
After the initial shock, Pang Guang, who had followed closely, now understood the current situation belatedly.
The two of them started talking outside the door without any hesitation. The intermittent voices penetrated through the crack of the door and went straight into Luo Jingyao's ears. She only needed to turn her face slightly to see every move of the person outside through the glass on the door.
"Captain Lin, what should we do next with Ma Hongtang who is lying in the hospital?" Pang Guang asked in a deliberately lowered voice.
"After he escaped, colleagues in charge of collecting evidence at the scene found a lot of interesting things in the empty room on the second floor. Some of them have been confirmed to be stolen goods from several recent burglaries in Hexi District after verification." Lin Jiafan paused here.
Pang Guang was instantly delighted when he heard this: "So he can't escape the charges of theft and illegal trespassing. We have plenty of time to slowly deal with him!"
"According to the aunt downstairs, Ma Hongtang has been living on the second floor of her house for more than a day. The infrastructure around Sanjiang Road in Hexi District is notoriously imperfect. I guess the other party chose that dilapidated community as a hiding place because of this." Lin Jiafan analyzed in a deep voice.
There were not enough cameras in the sky to capture his complete movement trajectory, and most of the nearby residents were elderly, so the possibility of being discovered by the police was naturally relatively reduced. The other party was very good at using the trick of hiding in the dark.
"A habitual thief like Ma Hongtang would definitely have to scout out the details beforehand. He would never just casually break into an unused house like the crime scene. The most urgent thing is to find out why he went there. What he saw and heard could very well be the key to these two murders."
Pang Guang nodded in agreement, and the two men moved closer and talked for a few words. At this moment, the sound of hurried footsteps attracted their attention.
The person who came was also a member of the special case investigation team. He was slightly shorter than Lin Jiafan and Pang Guang, and was slightly fat. He wore dull black-framed glasses that covered most of his face.
If Luo Jingyao's memory was correct, the other person should be called Guo Zhen.
After descending the stairs, he trotted over to Lin Jiafan and the others, reporting in a muffled voice, "Captain Lin, I've just completed the reexamination of last week's murder victim and the preliminary autopsy of today's latest victim. Here are the two reports for you to review."
The man stretched out his hand and handed over the report. Just as he was about to say something, he caught a glimpse of the half-open door of the inquiry room from the corner of his eye, and the words got stuck in his throat.
Sensitively aware of the other party's concerns, Lin Jiafan had no intention of explaining, but simply urged: "Speak."
With the tacit understanding gained from years of cooperation, Guo Zhen quickly understood that it was not unprecedented for them to reveal some information to the suspected person.
Criminal investigation work is mostly about psychological warfare.
Sometimes the more evidence a suspect knows the police have, the more likely their defenses will collapse.
After a moment's deliberation, Guo Zhen continued, "First, these two murders do share many similarities with the June 13th serial murders two years ago. For example, the victims were all women, aged between 20 and 40. Both killers used the method of skinning and shaving the flesh, leaving only the bones, and took the victims' middle fingers after committing the crimes."
"These so-called similarities are all details that the police announced to the public after the case was officially solved. As long as someone pays a little attention to the details of the June 13 serial murders, it is not difficult to replicate the case." Lin Jiafan said this without raising his eyelids, his tone calm.
"That's right, so the main difference between them is the difference," Guo Zhen said, pointing to a certain part of the two reports. "Whether it's Huang Guojun from two years ago or the murderer of the two most recent cases, they all skinned and shaved their victims after brutally killing them. Therefore, the weapons they used inevitably left some marks on the corpses."
"Captain Lin, please carefully compare the scratch marks on the bones of these two recent victims with those of the June 13th serial murder victims... It's certain that the weapons used in the two attacks were somewhat different. Furthermore, the direction and depth of the marks left on the bones differ, indicating that Huang Guojun was right-handed, while this imitator is not only left-handed, but also lacks Huang Guojun's strength."
"Yes." Lin Jiafan first expressed his approval of Guo Zhen's findings, then added two of his own opinions: "Actually, there's another obvious difference between Huang Guojun and this imitator. Back then, after Huang Guojun selected his victims, he would sneak into their homes to commit the crimes and didn't move the bodies afterwards. However, the killer of the two recent murders did the exact opposite. He first disposed of the victims' bodies somewhere before moving them to the dumping site discovered by the police. This means that we still haven't been able to determine the primary crime scene of the two victims' deaths."
"This alone is enough to prove that this imitator is far more astute than Huang Guojun." He paused for two seconds before solemnly instructing, "Brother Guo, please contact the laboratory department later and urge them to cross-check the evidence collected from the victim and the scene in today's case with that from last week's case as soon as possible to see if there are any new discoveries."
Guo Zhen agreed very readily.
Pang Guang, who had been silent from the beginning, breathed a sigh of relief. "Great! We've finally found some clues. At least we can be sure that these two cases are definitely not some 'serial killer who's come back to life' rumored online!"
"Captain Lin, you don't know that after Wang Guifen's earlier incident, online attention on these two cases skyrocketed. The public opinion out there is quite outrageous right now."
Hearing this, Lin Jiafan fell silent, but habitually pointed at the two autopsy reports one by one.
After a few seconds, he turned back into the interrogation room.
Perhaps not wanting to waste any more time on meaningless arguments, Lin Jiafan asked directly, "After all this time, has Coach Luo decided what to say?"
However, what he didn't expect was that Luo Jingyao had already been irritated by his repeated tactics. She simply took out her phone, opened the photo album, and threw the phone on the table with a "bang".
"It's true that I went to apologize, and it's also true that I'm curious about how Wang Guifen knew the details of the case under investigation. This is the only photo I took of her at her home."
Lin Jiafan slowly picked up the phone on the table and stared at the screen for a long time.
"At first I was just curious why there was an envelope in Wang Guifen's house. When I got closer I realized there seemed to be something else inside the envelope."
Luo Jingyao has never been a person who judges people by their appearance. At first, she was just surprised that there were still people in today's society who communicated through letters. It can be said that Wang Guifen's subsequent unusually nervous act of hiding the letters really attracted her extra attention.
Pang Guang approached Lin Jiafan curiously and said, "Huh? There's no stamp or postmark on the envelope. Judging from the photo alone, we can't rule out the possibility that there's nothing inside."
"The premise is that Wang Guifen didn't cover them up in front of me." Having said that, Luo Jingyao chose to argue.
Anyway, there are some things that even if she discovers or suspects them, she can't do anything about them, but the police can.
After shrugging noncommittally, Pang Guang suddenly changed the subject: "If I remember correctly, Coach Luo has always been engaged in competitive sports. When did he start working as a private detective?"
"..." Luo Jingyao choked at the question and simply gave up: "To be honest, I often doubt that I chose the wrong career and I regret it."
Hearing this answer, Lin Jiafan opened his eyelids and glanced at the person sitting opposite him, and made a conclusion about him in his mind.
Nonsense.
Fortunately, Pang Guang didn't dwell on this topic. Instead, he turned around and whispered to Lin Jiafan, "Speaking of which, Wang Guifen is indeed suspicious. Director Zhang also said at the time that he would send someone to have a good talk with her. Should we go over and ask her?"
"Will she tell me if I ask her?" Lin Jiafan seemed to disagree.
If there really was something fishy going on with Wang Guifen, asking her rashly would only alert her.
Are you still hoping that the woman will voluntarily hand over the envelope in the photo? Who knows what she will take out then?
"I really won't tell you." Pang Guang sighed, but they are now in the stage of multi-pronged investigation, and they can't just ignore the ready-made clues.
Lin Jiafan ignored him and pushed the phone back across the table with his backhand. He smiled gently, "Thank you, Coach Luo, for cooperating with the police investigation today. I'm really sorry that it took so long."
Waving her hand, Luo Jingyao bent down, picked up the backpack at her feet and prepared to leave.
"In addition to your care for our team members these past few days, I wonder if Coach Luo would be so kind as to give me a chance to express my gratitude and apology tomorrow?" At this point, Lin Jiafan raised his hand to push up his rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose and said in an inexplicable tone, "Why don't we get a massage and relax?"
"ah?"
"ah?"
Two questions were raised in the inquiry room almost simultaneously.
Compared to Pang Guang's simple surprise, Luo Jingyao was even more disbelieving. She subconsciously looked up at Lin Jiafan, who remained calm.
This person can do it.
In order to achieve the ultimate goal, one must be able to bend and stretch.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com