At this moment, Wu Shuqi and two video investigators were sitting in front of the property’s computer, intently reviewing surveillance footage.
Wu Shuqi had already seen multiple WeChat chat screenshots of Xiong Zhiyang and Lü Yuchan from the past month in the “Special Task Force” WeChat group she had specifically created, specifically screenshots of their arguments.
The reasons for their arguments almost always revolved around their fractured marriage. Xiong Zhiyang believed that Lü Yuchan and Li Yuehua had an improper relationship, which Lü Yuchan vehemently denied, even demanding that Xiong Zhiyang produce evidence of her affair. Additionally, their disputes involved a failure to reach an agreement on the division of marital property.
“It seems that this Xiong Zhiyang is highly suspected of committing the crime!” Wu Shuqi muttered to herself.
While reviewing the surveillance footage, Wu Shuqi thought that Xiong Zhiyang was meticulous. If he were the murderer, he likely wouldn’t swagger into the residential area. He might disguise himself beforehand, such as wearing a long-billed hat or a wig to completely cover his face, or dress up as a “woman” and imitate a woman’s gait, to avoid revealing his true identity, attempting to mislead and deceive, and to cross the sea without being detected.
However, she believed that she, with her ten years of experience as a police officer, and her video investigation colleagues, all had sharp eyes. No matter how skilled Xiong Zhiyang’s disguise was, they would make it impossible for him to hide.
Wu Shuqi believed that the murderer snuck into Li Yuehua’s home after Li Yuehua left. Based on this deduction, before Li Yuehua left, the murderer was likely hiding somewhere outside the residential area, closely watching the exit of the residential area’s gate. When he discovered that Li Yuehua or Li Yuehua’s vehicle had left the residential area, he entered the residential area.
Wu Shuqi and the video investigators focused on reviewing the video footage from July 15th until the time of the incident, specifically the period when Li Yuehua left the residential area and returned home each day. However, they did not find Xiong Zhiyang’s figure or any suspicious people in disguise from beginning to end.
There were a total of four households on the floor where the incident occurred. Wu Shuqi learned the basic information of the other three households from the property management: one household was owned by a young couple, who had not moved in since they renovated the house last year. It was said that the couple was currently doing business in Shanghai; one household was an unfinished house, and the owner was a property speculator; and the other household was being renovated, but the renovation work had stopped after the incident.
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The staircase surveillance video of the involved unit building shows that since Li Yuehua bought cola and returned home on the evening of July 14th until after the incident, besides Li Yuehua and the three victims associated with this case, only three renovation workers, one locksmith, one middle-aged man, and one middle-aged woman entered the seventh floor.
The renovation workers were called over for identification. The woman was the owner of the house being renovated, and the middle-aged man was the boss of the renovation workers’ company.
Logically, they had no motive to commit the crime.
Could it be that the murderer climbed the stairs to commit the crime in order to avoid being seen? Or could it be that the murderer, in an attempt to evade investigation and confuse the police, took the elevator to another floor, then went up or down to the seventh floor to commit the crime?
Wu Shuqi thought that the next step of the investigation should focus on the personnel entering and exiting the elevator.
In addition, Wu Shuqi also reviewed the video of Lü Yuchan going to Li Yuehua’s home on July 18th and found that Lü Yuchan appeared in the elevator surveillance footage at 13:07. She was carrying a handbag, and she was alone. Her behavior did not seem abnormal. She took the elevator from the first floor to the seventh floor and exited the elevator, and then she was never seen entering the elevator again.
It is worth mentioning that while browsing the surveillance footage, Wu Shuqi found an anomaly: there was no video image during the period from 11:32 to 4:41 on July 15th. She asked the property management and learned that there was a power outage at that time.
In Wu Shuqi’s memory, Jincheng was shrouded in dark clouds that day, and it even rained a little around three or four o’clock in the afternoon.
The reason she remembered it so clearly was because that day she drove to the home of an orphan fifty miles away to send warmth, and she took money out of her own pocket to give the orphan’s grandmother 2,000 yuan. The child’s parents were killed by robbers two years ago, and that case was solved by her and her colleagues. At the time of the incident, the child was not yet seven years old. After that, he lived with his grandmother, who was in poor health. Although the government helped him and his grandmother with subsistence allowances, most of the monthly subsistence allowances were used by the grandmother to see a doctor and get medicine. The family was very poor. Wu Shuqi sympathized with the grandmother and grandson very much and had donated money and goods to their family many times in her personal capacity.
Wu Shuqi pursed her lips and thought, could it be that the murderer happened to enter the residential area during the power outage? Because the murderer had ample opportunity to commit the crime — Li Yuehua left home at about eleven o’clock that morning and did not return home until after six o’clock in the evening.
If a screening of the personnel entering and exiting Prosperity Garden District is carried out for the period of the power outage on July 15th, the difficulty of the work will be very high, because although Prosperity Garden is a new residential area, the flow of personnel entering and exiting is relatively large. Wu Shuqi learned at the time of the incident that the security work of the residential area was not done well — for a long time in the past, the security guards did not register the personnel and vehicles entering and exiting the residential area, and the access control became a decoration, which undoubtedly opened the door of convenience for the murderer to commit the crime.
Although Xiong Zhiyang has a strong motive for committing the crime, it is only natural for the police to bring him back to the Criminal Investigation Bureau for interrogation. However, if there is a lack of evidence, the police can’t do anything about him, and in the end, they can only let him go, unless his psychological defense collapses and he confesses himself.
In addition, it is not ruled out that Xiong Zhiyang hired a murderer. Without knowing what the murderer looks like and when the murderer sneaked into Li Yuehua’s home to commit the crime, it is not easy to make a breakthrough in the investigation work.
The case was complicated, and there were many clues. Wu Shuqi felt dizzy and raised her arms to rub her temples with the index and middle fingers of both hands. Whenever she encountered a difficult case, she would habitually rub her temples with her hands.
Wu Shuqi asked the video investigators to copy the video and bring it back to the bureau for a closer look. She then prepared to go to the scene of the incident to take a look, hoping that her colleagues in the Technical Section would have new discoveries on the scene investigation.
She walked to Unit 3, the unit building where Li Yuehua lived, and stopped. With her back to the building, she looked up at the opposite side. More than twenty meters away, a newly completed building stood in front of her. Rows of windows looked like big mouths, devouring the sparse sunlight.
She took the elevator downstairs.
Forensic investigator Wang Xi saw Wu Shuqi walk out of the elevator and greeted her, saying, “Captain Wu, we found some white fibers on the edge of the refrigerator door, which were compared with the fibers extracted from the cola bottle taken from here. The morphology and composition of the two are consistent. We suspect that they were left by the murderer’s gloves when they came into contact with the surface of the object. This is not difficult to understand. Cyanide is a highly toxic chemical, so the murderer must not dare to take it lightly when poisoning, so he took protective measures in advance.”
“Are there any other discoveries? For example, traces of the suspect’s shoe prints.” Wu Shuqi looked at Wang Xi with anticipation.
Wang Xi shook his head and analyzed carefully: “The suspect’s footprint evidence cannot be extracted at all. There are the following situations: First, the murderer’s goal should be very clear. After he came in from the outside, he may have walked directly to the door to unlock it, then entered the house to poison, and then quickly left the scene.
“Second, the murderer has to go through the living room to get to the kitchen, and the living room is a public area and a place for daily activities. The kitchen is also an important activity area in the home life. In addition, the area from the door to the elevator door is also a public area. The footprints left by the murderer have been covered by the footprints of other people. In addition, the fire caused serious damage to the scene, and the suspect’s shoe prints have been broken and have no extraction value.”
After a pause, he said: “On the other hand, three sets of clear shoe prints were extracted from the empty room that was not damaged much in the scene. There are adult shoe prints and minor shoe prints, male shoe prints and female shoe prints, which should belong to Li Yuehua, Ning Yaohong and their son. Of course, our Technical Section will also identify the shoe prints to eliminate suspicion. Also, Xiao Zhang and I searched the entire house and did not find any cyanide substances.”
Xiao Zhang was also a forensic investigator. He nodded at Wu Shuqi.
Although this result was within Wu Shuqi’s expectation, she still sighed in disappointment and said: “I and several colleagues from the Criminal Investigation Team once suspected that the murderer, after discovering the victim’s death, re-entered the room to turn on the gas stove and gas cylinder valve in order to create the illusion that the victim died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
“But by viewing the surveillance video, no suspicious person was found entering or exiting the floor in the few hours after the fire occurred. Why were the gas stove and gas cylinder valve turned on? I guess it may be that Ning Yaohong forgot to turn it off when she used it, or it may be that her ignorant son turned it off, which coincidentally made our police associate it with the murderer.”
Wang Xi agreed with her view.
At this time, Wu Shuqi’s cell phone rang. She answered the phone and heard the voice of the police officer Lu Tianhai, who was temporarily transferred from the Criminal Investigation Bureau to investigate the locksmith. Lu Tianhai said that the locksmith had run over by himself and was now downstairs in Unit 3 of Prosperity Garden. He claimed that the locksmith insisted on talking to you, Captain Wu. Wu Shuqi said, “Okay, I’ll go down right away,” and then took the elevator upstairs.
Although Lu Tianhai didn’t say why the locksmith wanted to talk to her, Wu Shuqi guessed that Lu Tianhai and another police officer, Yang Hua, two hotheads, had scared him by saying that he was highly suspected and asked him to honestly confess the facts of the crime. The locksmith was frightened, so he hurried over to find their leader to explain the situation, trying to clear himself of suspicion. Maybe in his mind, the leader’s business ability was excellent and he could enforce the law fairly and justly.
Sure enough, as soon as Wu Shuqi arrived upstairs, the locksmith rushed over and hurriedly defended himself: “Officer, the work of that family has nothing to do with me! That woman called you this noon and said she wanted to change the door lock. I happened to be nearby, so I rushed over and left after changing the lock.
“I have only been to the entrance of her house. The woman asked me to come in and have a glass of water, but I refused because I was busy with the next business. Officer, everything I said is the truth! My locksmith company is registered with the Public Security Bureau. In addition, my fingerprints, palm prints, and DNA are also registered with the Public Security Bureau. You can check it if you don’t believe me! Only sick people can do such outrageous things as poisoning!”
Wu Shuqi carefully watched him finish speaking. The way he looked at her was so firm. She thought that the eyes were the window to the soul. If he was telling the truth, she could see it through his eyes. In addition, she couldn’t think of any motive for him to commit the crime. Besides, Ning Yaohong was there, so even if he wanted to commit the crime, he would have no chance. This person’s suspicion could be ruled out. She smiled slightly and said: “Master, don’t be nervous, we are just looking for you to understand the situation.”
“That’s good, that’s good.” The master breathed a sigh of relief.
Wu Shuqi thought of the replaced door lock that was not seen in the case room and in the room, so she asked the master: “Did you take away the door lock that was replaced?”
“Yes.” The master quickly admitted, “The woman asked me to take it downstairs and throw it away, but I didn’t throw it away. I took it back to my residence. I was thinking of selling it as scrap. Officer, if you need it, you can send someone to get it with me.”
“This is important evidence, of course we need it!” Wu Shuqi then said to Lu Tianhai, “I’ll go and get it with the master in a while.”
Lu Tianhai responded: “Okay.”
Wu Shuqi routinely asked the master if he had found anything abnormal about the victims, mother and son, and if there were any other people in the room (the suspicion of the several renovation workers had not been completely ruled out, so she asked this). The master answered them one by one. Without obtaining any valuable information, Wu Shuqi let the master leave.