Chapter 141 Murder in Sleep: Seizing Property

"How is your brother's property?" Fang Rui asked.

"He just got a house and 100,000 yuan in cash. Don't underestimate this 100,000 yuan. It was a huge sum of money at that time."

"Is the house in Beiyuan Garden?"

"Yes. It's there."

"How was the property divided after he disappeared?"

"My sister-in-law said that my brother had taken away the family's property, and they wouldn't let us see Mingli. We felt we were wronged at the time, so we gave Mingli's custody to my sister-in-law, gave her the house, and paid her 50,000 yuan in alimony in one lump sum." Li Qiang said, "Later, I heard that my sister-in-law had gone crazy, and I still wanted to bring Mingli to live with me, but her uncle always stopped us from seeing Mingli. We felt that my brother was also responsible for my sister-in-law's madness, and at that time I was doing business and had money, so I gave her uncle another 150,000 yuan as my sister-in-law's medical expenses."

Little Zhang sighed. If Li Qiang knew that Zhang Mingli was not his brother's biological daughter, and that all the money went into the pocket of Zhang Mingli's uncle, he would regret it to death.

Seeing Xiao Zhang's complicated expression, Li Qiang asked in confusion: "Comrade police officer, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, just take us to your house to find the cell phone."

"Okay. Comrade police officer, just say you are here for the census and don't tell my mother about my brother, okay?"

"No problem."

Li Qiang drove here, his car was leading the way, and Fang Rui and Xiao Zhang followed him in a car.

"Boss, Zhang Mingli's uncle is such a scumbag. Not only did he embezzle the property of Zhang Mingli and her daughter, he also went to the Li family to extort money. I thought he was a good person because he looked so gentle, but I didn't expect him to be so vicious." Xiao Zhang couldn't help but complain, "And the house obviously belonged to Zhang Mingli, but he actually sold it back to her and made a lot of money. He's really a money-making genius!"

"I even suspect that he is related to this murder case." Fang Rui analyzed, "Zhang Mingli's mother suffers from schizophrenia. How could she handle the body so calmly and carefully? Is there someone helping her?"

"Oh, right! Zhang Taotao is also a chemistry teacher. Ah, it's scary to think about it." Xiao Zhang suddenly felt a chill down his spine. He originally thought that Zhang Taotao was just maliciously occupying the property of an orphan and a widow. Thinking carefully, could he have been behind it?

"Boss, if he buried the body, why did he sell the house to Zhang Mingli? Isn't he afraid that Zhang Mingli would remember something? He wouldn't sacrifice his life for money, right?" Xiao Zhang questioned.

Fang Rui thought for a moment and said, "If he just helped bury the body, then the maximum sentence should not exceed ten years, and the statute of limitations should not exceed fifteen years. The statute of limitations has already passed. So even if we discover his crime and find evidence to incriminate him, we still can't convict him."

Xiao Zhang was silent. I am not afraid of bad people doing bad things, I am just afraid of bad people with high IQ.

Li Qiang's home is a small villa. When Fang Rui and Xiao Zhang arrived at his home, his old mother was sitting by the door in the sun. The blanket on her legs slipped to the ground. Li Qiang picked up the blanket, patted the dust, and covered her legs again.

Li Qiang took them to the second floor, he opened the door and said, "This room belongs to my brother. He told me that after he went abroad, I went to his house and moved all his things back. They are all here. See if you have any clues."

"Mr. Li, you are so good to your brother." Xiao Zhang found that there was no dust in this room, and it can be seen that it is cleaned regularly.

"This is my own brother." Li Qiang said with a sob. He kept this room because he thought that one day his brother would be able to come back, and then his brother would find that there would always be a place for him in this family, no matter how long he was away.

There were not many items in the room, just some books and clothes. Xiao Zhang checked the clothes, shook each piece of clothing a few times, and then felt the pockets one by one.

"Comrade police, there is no need to look for those clothes. There is nothing. I have searched them all."

Fang Rui flipped through the books casually. They were all teaching materials with no words on them. As he was flipping through them, a piece of paper fell from it.

Fang Rui picked it up and took a look. There was a line of words written crookedly on the paper: Li Bao, your wife cheated on you, and your daughter is not yours.

The paper was wrinkled and looked like it had been crumpled and then stuck in the book.

"Which bastard wrote this? My brother and his wife love each other so much, how could my sister-in-law cheat? Mingli is smart and cute, and she is obviously my brother's child." Li Qiang said dissatisfiedly.

Xiao Zhang couldn't help but complain in his heart: But Zhang Mingli is really not!

"Did you move these books back from your brother's house?"

"Yes. At that time, my sister-in-law threw all my brother's things into the trash can, and I secretly picked them up again."

Li Qiang found a black Nokia mobile phone from the drawer. After charging it for a while, he opened the text messages on the mobile phone.

"These two messages were sent to me by my brother before he lost contact."

The text message read: Brother, I love Xiaojuan too much, I can die for her, but Zhang Huanhuan, that crazy woman, won't let me go, so I can only go abroad with Xiaojuan. Brother, you and mom don't have to worry too much about me. I brought all the money with me. I won't be without money. I will contact you when I am stable.

The last message read: Brother, Xiaojuan and I have arrived in the United States. It's good here. You and mom don't have to worry about me.

After reading the text messages, Fang Rui opened the other text messages that Li Bao sent to Li Qiang. He found that most of the other text messages were also text messages to report safety, but Li Bao used the word "niang" to refer to his mother in other text messages, and only in those two text messages did he call her "mom".

"How does your brother usually call your mother?"

"We are used to calling her 'niang' here. We don't call her 'mom'." Li Qiang suddenly realized something and asked, "Do you suspect that these two text messages were not sent by my brother? My brother had already been killed at that time?"

Xiao Zhang nodded heavily.

"Do you know who Xiaojuan is?"

"I don't know. We also asked Dabao's friends, and they said they didn't know anyone with the character "Juan" in their name. There is no such person in the school where he teaches."

After leaving Li Qiang's house, Xiao Zhang said, "Who could have written this note? Why did that person tell Li Bao about this? Was it to provoke their relationship? Could the person who wrote this note be the adulterer?"

"It is very likely that this note caused the breakdown of their relationship. Zhang Mingli's mother accidentally pushed him down when she was arguing with her father." Fang Rui guessed.

Fang Rui originally wanted to summon Zhang Taotao to the police station for questioning. But even if there is evidence to prove that Zhang Taotao has occupied Zhang Mingli's property, this is a civil dispute and they can't do anything about it. There is no evidence to prove that Zhang Taotao is related to the murder.

After dinner, Fang Rui and Xiao Zhang drove to Zhang Taotao's home.

The person who opened the door was a handsome young man, whose facial features resembled Zhang Mingli's.

However, he was in a bad temper and asked impatiently, "Who are you? Who are you looking for?"

"Is Zhang Mingli here?"

He became even more irritable and turned to the house and said, "Zhang Mingli, do you feel like you're living under someone else's roof? This is my home, don't let those shabby friends of yours come in, okay?"

Zhang Mingli hurried over, "Mingyuan, don't be so rude! Officer Fang, Officer Zhang, is there any new progress in the case?"

When Zhang Mingyuan saw that they were police officers, he immediately put on a smiling face, "Comrade police, I was rude just now. Come in, please come in, I'll make you some tea."

"..."

Fang Rui found that Zhang Mingli and Zhang Mingyuan had similar facial features. Standing together, they looked like real siblings.