Chapter 9: A couple quarreled and murdered each other (9) The sister’s feelings towards her brother…
"You mean, Du Meizhen?"
Before Sang Luo finished her words, Ma Shi Tu took over. The only women in the Du family were Du Mama and Du Meizhen. Du Mama was old, short and fat, and in no way matched the testimony of the eyewitnesses. Du Meizhen's figure was not much different from Shen Xueyao's. Both of them were young women with beautiful looks and long hair. If you only looked at their backs, someone might confuse them.
"That's right," Sang Luo raised his eyebrows, "If it's my future sister-in-law who knocks on the door, Shen Xueyao will always open it."
Ma Shi Tu took a sip of tea and said, "Du Meizhen is only 18 years old this year and has just graduated from high school. According to her parents, she and her brother have a good relationship. What reason does she have to kill her brother? As a little girl, does she have the strength and means to do this?"
"Her intention was not to kill her own brother," Sang Luo corrected, "Don't forget, that woman killed Du Lingfeng by mistake that night. It was Du Lingfeng who first picked up the knife and wanted to kill someone, and the woman fought back to protect herself. Du Meizhen probably didn't expect things to turn out like this. Her original plan was to kill Shen Xueyao, her future sister-in-law."
"What was her motive for murder?" Ma Shi Tu asked.
Sang Luo said calmly: "When the Du family came to identify the body, Du Meizhen said a lot of bad things about Shen Xueyao. Although we didn't have much contact with Du Meizhen, I could feel that Du Meizhen had a lot of malice towards Shen Xueyao. She hated this future sister-in-law so much that she wanted to drive her out of her family."
"Oh," Ma Shi Tu sighed, "This is how it is in a family with many children. Some sisters-in-law like to bully the new daughter-in-law like mothers-in-law. There's an old saying that more sisters-in-law mean more mothers-in-law."
Sang Luo shook his head: "That's not the case. Du Meizhen's feelings for Shen Xueyao should be more complicated——"
At this point, Sang Luo paused: "But I don't have any evidence now, Master, I want to talk to Du Meizhen again."
Ma Shi Tu readily agreed. After a while, the Du family was summoned to the Public Security Bureau in the name of cooperating with the investigation. In the interrogation room, Sang Luo met the three members of the Du family again. They all had swollen eyes, and it was obvious that they had been crying since they identified the body. This sadness was not pretended.
Sang Luo asked Du Meizhen to wait outside and chatted with the Du couple alone first. Du Chunsheng came up and said, "Hasn't the case already been resolved? Why did you ask us to come here? I want to ask you, where are the family members of that woman? I want to see her family members!"
Sang Luo told the truth: "The woman's family refused to come to identify the body. If you want to do anything, I advise you to stop early, Mr. Du, this is a society ruled by law--"
Du Chunsheng jumped up in a frenzy: "Fuck you, my son is dead, why should I care about the rule of law? The Shen family is all bastards, hiding like turtles, they are lucky, if I run into them, I will chop off their heads one by one to commemorate my son! Who let them raise such a heartless daughter!"
Ma Shi Tu coughed and said, "Du Chunsheng, don't forget that you still have a daughter. If you go to jail, what will happen to your daughter?"
When his daughter was mentioned, Du Chunsheng immediately quieted down, but his brows were still furrowed and he looked angry. It was hard to get anything out of him. Fortunately, Du's mother was still rational and could ask normal questions.
"What do you think of the relationship between Du Lingfeng and Du Meizhen?" Sang Luo asked first.
Mother Du seemed very surprised by this question: "Ah, is there even any need to explain? Of course it's great, extremely great! The two children are four years apart in age, and Lingfeng, as the older brother, has always been very considerate of his younger sister. He always gives his younger sister food and toys first, and he dotes on her even more than Meizhen's father does. Before Lingfeng went to college, the two of them stuck together all the time, like a pair of conjoined twins. They didn't separate until Lingfeng went to college. Speaking of which, Lingfeng is really a good child, it's a pity... 呜呜呜..."
"Where is Du Meizhen studying now?" Sang Luo asked the next question.
Mother Du shook her head. "This child is a poor student. She didn't get into any school. We don't plan to let her go to school. She might inherit her father's business in the future. She just graduated from high school this summer and plans to relax for a while. So she doesn't have much to do. She mainly hangs out with friends."
"Are her friends male or female?" Sang Luo asked.
Mother Du: "Female, two girls. I know their friends. They have all been to our house for dinner."
"Does she have a boyfriend, or a boy she likes?" Sang Luo asked casually, "You know, at her age, this is normal."
Mother Du immediately said, "That won't happen. She is a very honest and obedient child. She never crosses the line with boys. Let alone making friends, she won't even look at boys."
"Since she is an honest person, why would she secretly read the letters between her brother and his girlfriend?" Sang Luo asked back.
"What do you mean by that? Aren't you investigating Ling Feng's case? Why are you always asking about Mei Zhen?" Mother Du's motherly intuition made her alert. She immediately defended her child. "Mei Zhen is just curious. Don't you have time to gossip? She is so young. What's wrong with her doing something wrong?"
Sang Luo didn't beat around the bush and asked directly, "On the night of the incident, Du Lingfeng went out alone, you were cooking at home, and Du Chunsheng was out buying goods. What about Du Meizhen? What was she doing?"
Mother Du suddenly became angry: "What are you talking about? You don't think it was the sister who killed her brother? I really don't know what's wrong with your brain. How could a sister kill her own brother? The two of them had such a good relationship——"
At this point, Mother Du was stunned for a moment, with an extremely unnatural expression on her face. Obviously, something had passed through her mind, but after a few seconds her expression returned to normal. She pretended to be calm, sat up straight and answered:
"That night, Meizhen stayed at home with me and didn't go anywhere. We had dinner and went to bed."
Ma Shi Tu saw through her flaws and slammed the table, emphasizing: "Don't give false testimony. You will be held legally responsible if you give false testimony!"
Mother Du repeated what she had just said and emphasized: "This is the fact. I can take responsibility for what I said."
Sang Luo asked again: "What did you cook for dinner that night?"
Mother Du answered truthfully: "Eggplant fried with meat, millet and pumpkin porridge. The leftovers are still in the refrigerator. If you don't believe me, you can go and see. I have been so sad that I haven't eaten anything in the past two days."
Seeing that there was nothing else to ask, Sang Luo invited Du Meizhen in. Du Meizhen sat on the chair with great interest at first, thinking that she could say bad things about Shen Xueyao like last time, but Sang Luo asked as soon as he opened his mouth:
"Where did you go on the night of the incident?"
Upon hearing this, Du Meizhen felt like she was struck by lightning. She wilted completely. She sat on the chair uneasily, her eyes darting around. After being silent for a long time, she managed to utter:
"That night... well, I was at home, with my mom."
"What was for dinner that night?" Sang Luo asked the same question again.
Du Mei was really dumbfounded. She obviously didn't expect Sang Luo to ask this. She thought about it for a long time and finally said tentatively: "Tomato scrambled eggs?"
As soon as she saw Sang Luo and Ma Shi Tu's faces, Du Meizhen knew she had guessed wrong, and she started to make a scene like a rogue:
"It's been so long, who can remember what we had for dinner? You police are just trying to make things difficult for me by asking this! Let me out, I want to tell my parents!"
Sang Luo said directly: "You were not at home that night. Where did you go?"
Du Meizhen closed her eyes and shook her head like a rattle, shouting, "I don't know, I don't know anything, I want to go home!"
Due to her extreme uncooperativeness, the interrogation had to be interrupted. It was impossible to find out where Du Meizhen went that night through the interrogation, but Sang Luo believed that she was a major suspect, and Ma Shi Tu also felt that this was a direction for investigation.
The interrogation reached a stalemate. Ma Shi Tu went to the corridor to smoke a cigarette. Sang Luo followed him to the window to get some fresh air. A gust of wind blew, and Sang Luo suddenly had an idea: "Master, I have an idea!"
"What?" Ma Shi Tu turned around and asked.
Sang Luo: "Since Du Meizhen is shouting that she wants to go home, let's take her home - let's go to the Du family and search."
Since the person refuses to speak, we can only hope for physical evidence.
Ma Shi Tu readily agreed and quickly applied for a search warrant from the bureau. The two of them came to Du's house with the search warrant and began a carpet search under Du Meizhen's nose.
The two focused their search on Du Meizhen's bedroom. Her bedroom was very warmly decorated with many cute decorations. It was obvious that her family loved her very much.
Sang Luo first found a pair of black sneakers under Du Meizhen’s bed. The soles were very dirty, with a lot of ashes and some golden particles mixed in.
Seeing the pair of shoes, Sang Luo immediately asked Du Meizhen to take off the shoes on her feet. Du Meizhen took them off reluctantly. They were a pair of white sneakers. Sang Luo observed the soles. The soles were very clean and had a smell of new shoes. They had probably been worn for only a day or two.
"You just changed into these white shoes this morning," Sang Luo pointed at the two pairs of shoes and said, "On the night of the crime, you were wearing these black shoes, right?"
Du Meizhen pouted and said nothing. The expression on her face showed that Sang Luo guessed right.
Sang Luo picked up the sole of the black shoe again and observed it. The ashes on it were grayish white, and it seemed that this kind of ashes would only be produced when burning paper at the grave. Could it be that Du Mei really went to the cemetery on the night of the incident?
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