Chapter 113 Death of the Virgin: Fatal Smile

"Dean Chen, please come back with us. There are some things you need to explain to us. For example, why did you pretend the murder scene was a theft scene?" Fang Rui said.

Chen Xinran's face turned pale, and she subconsciously retorted: "Police comrade, what are you talking about? I reported the case as soon as I saw the body. How could I have time to fake the scene?"

"How do you explain the injury on your knee?"

"It was when I fell while holding Yuanyuan just now."

"Please take us to where you fell. Now the surveillance has been restored, and there are surveillance here. We will know everything clearly once we check."

Chen Xinran gave up the excuse and left with Fang Rui and the others. Before leaving, she gave the position of acting director to volunteer Li Min. She was in her thirties and was considered to be the most experienced person in the group.

"Li Min, please take good care of these children."

"Where are you going, Sister Chen? I can't handle it alone, you must come back as soon as possible."

"Okay, I will come back as soon as possible."

After returning to the police station, Chen happily confessed her crime.

"Comrade police, I really didn't kill anyone! I don't know why Dean Zhang died!" Chen Xinran clenched his hands tightly and kept rubbing them. "I needed a large sum of money, and I asked Dean Zhang to borrow it. She refused to lend it to me, so I had a bad idea and wanted to sneak into her office to steal money. Didn't it rain heavily last night? When I checked the electric meter, I suddenly thought, if I trick them into cutting off the power, there will be no surveillance, so I can break into her office and steal money?"

"How do you know her office has money?" Fang Rui asked.

"She has a lot of money! What kind of person do you think our dean is? A kind man?" Chen Xinran sneered.

Xiao Zhang replied, "The newspaper said she is a selfless moral role model. Although she has no children, she is a good mother to many orphans..."

"Hahaha, only you believe this! Do you know how many caring people donate to our welfare home every year? Jiang Miao Group alone donates millions to us every year. Where do you think the money goes?"

Chen Xinran smiled sarcastically, "It all goes into Zhang Xuemei's own pocket. She always brainwashes us with empty words, saying that we are doing charity and accumulating merits, and she pays us two to three thousand yuan a month. As for herself, she makes a lot of money. I just asked her to borrow a few tens of thousands of yuan for emergency, and she refused to lend it to me, and she also scolded me."

"Are you saying that she is embezzling public funds?"

"As you can see, our welfare home only has two small buildings, and the living expenses of those children are not much. How much money can they spend? Where did the rest of the money go? It must have gone into her own pocket."

Xiao Zhang said, "But we didn't find any assets under her name, and there were only tens of thousands of yuan in her bank card."

"Young man, are you stupid? If you embezzled millions, would you put it in your own bank account? You would definitely change it into cash and hide it. I suspected that the money was hidden in her bookshelf. Because she treasured that bookshelf very much, and no one would let her touch it."

"So, you stole the money?" Fang Rui asked.

"Of course not! I searched her study room for more than an hour with a flashlight. The bookshelves were full of books. I opened them one by one to check, but I didn't see a dime. Her office is very poor, and there is nothing valuable. I went to her dormitory before, but there was no money there. I really don't understand where she hid so much money?"

Xiao Zhang said, "Could it be that she didn't have any money to embezzle?"

Xiao Zhang checked Dean Zhang's dormitory. The clothes in her closet were very old, some of them were yellowed by washing, but they were very clean and tidy. There were several holes in the quilt and sheets, and those holes were covered with flowers embroidered with needle and thread. She was reluctant to throw away even the broken hangers. Would such a person embezzle public funds? Xiao Zhang thought of a corrupt official in a TV series, and felt that it was possible.

"Was her office door unlocked at the time?"

"No, her office was never locked. I thought at the time that she was really brave, not locking the door even though she had so much stolen money in her office. Now it seems that the stolen money is probably not in her office."

"Please explain the whole story."

"The welfare home lost power after 8 o'clock last night. While Old Liu was on patrol, I stole his shoes and faked a lot of footprints outside the wall. I even stepped on vines and moss to make it look like a thief climbed over the wall to steal things. I also left footprints on the windowsill. After doing all this, I searched the study for the stolen money with a flashlight. After 10 o'clock in the evening, I heard some movement downstairs and quickly slipped out of the office. Police comrade, I didn't steal anything, so my behavior was not illegal, right?"

Xiao Zhang reminded her, "There is a crime called attempted theft. The specific sentence is up to the judge."

Chen Xinran looked ashen.

Fang Rui asked, "You said you heard some noise last night, what was that noise?"

"It sounded like Dean Zhang's footsteps, so I quickly left her office."

"When did you find out she was dead?"

"A little after seven this morning. She gets up very early every day, but this morning she was suddenly late, so I went to her office to look for her. Then I saw that she had been stabbed to death. I was shocked."

Fang Rui thought of the two lost stuffed pigs and asked, "Did you steal the stuffed pigs in her office?"

"Why would I steal children's toys? Those two pigs were so ugly, and the paint was peeling off. Why would I steal them? I guess some kid sneaked in and stole them."

Chen Xinran couldn't help asking, "I made so many preparations, how did you know there was something wrong with me?"

"You have too many flaws. For example, those superfluous footprints..."

Before the interrogation ended, Fang Rui asked, "Why didn't you throw away the security guard Lao Liu's shoes?" Lao Liu's foot was lame, and it was too stupid to use footprints to frame Lao Liu.

"I threw it away. I threw it in the trash can. He was the only male in the welfare home, so I had to steal his shoes."

Fang Rui and Xiao Zhang looked at each other, both of them were very confused, why did the pair of shoes appear under Lao Liu's bed?

At the morning meeting the next day, Mu Mian reported the results of the autopsy.

"The deceased died the night before yesterday, that is, between 10 and 11 pm on March 21st. The cause of death was excessive blood loss."

"There is a blood swelling on the back of the deceased's head, which shows signs of life. This blood swelling should be caused by the deceased falling to the ground," Mu Mian opened the deceased's photo on the screen, "The deceased has Western knife wounds on her body, and the murder weapon is the same, that is, the fruit knife inserted into the deceased's chest. From the location of the knife and the distribution of the blood sprayed at the scene, it can be inferred that when the murderer stabbed the deceased with the knife, she was lying flat on the ground and did not resist."

"Several fingerprints were detected on the knife. They belonged to the same person. Judging from the size of the fingerprints, they belonged to a child." Xiao Wang said, "I suspect the fingerprints should be from the little boy found at the crime scene. But I haven't obtained his fingerprints yet. The staff of the welfare home won't let us see him, saying that they are afraid of irritating him."

"Could it be that Yuanyuan killed the victim?"

"But Yuanyuan was only eight years old. How could he subdue Director Zhang and stab her to death?"

"Could it be that Director Zhang fell to the ground and fainted?"

"We also detected an overdose of nitrous oxide in her body." Mu Mian interrupted their discussion. "This gas has a slightly sweet smell, a mild anesthetic effect, and can make people laugh. That's why it is also called laughing gas."