Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

The two immediately found the security captain and checked the patrol records. Sure enough, every morning between 2 and 3, the security guards would leave the park and go to the duty room to rest for half an hour. "But the surveillance during this period still didn't capture any suspicious situations." Wang Shuai looked through the video, his face full of disappointment.

Zhang Hui was lost in thought: "If the murderer is familiar with the park environment and knows the blind spots and patrol rules, then it means..." His cell phone suddenly rang. It was a call from the technical department. After listening, his face was solemn: "The fiber analysis has made new discoveries. A small amount of motor oil was detected in the lining of the deceased's skirt. The composition is consistent with the lubricating oil used in car engines."

Wang Shuai's eyes lit up: "In other words, the deceased rode in a car, or the murderer used a vehicle to move the body?"

"But there are no suspicious vehicles in the surveillance." Zhang Hui pinched his brows, "Continue to expand the scope of investigation, check the auto repair shops and parking lots within 5 kilometers, and..." He looked at the back wall of the park, where there was a relatively low wall, "Send people to visit parents who pick up their children outside the wall and ask if they have found any abnormalities recently."

Three days passed quickly, but no clues were found.

Lu Chuan organized a case analysis meeting.

The meeting room of the Criminal Investigation Brigade was filled with smoke, and the incandescent light made the projection screen pale. Lu Chuan stood in front of the whiteboard, and the laser pen in his hand passed over the photo of the deceased. The strangulation marks on the neck of the female corpse in the photo were shocking. "Today's case analysis meeting, each group reported the progress and focused on discussing the breakthrough of the case." He looked around at the participants, "Yang Lin, start with the on-site investigation."

Yang Lin stood up and turned on the projector. A satellite map of Beishan Park unfolded on the screen. "We re-surveyed the crime scene three times. Three types of fibers were detected at the base of the sculpture. Two of them were consistent with the composition of the deceased's clothing, and the other one is being analyzed." He switched to the photo. The pry marks on the white marble base were clearly visible in the close-up shot. "The prying tool was initially judged to be a flat-blade screwdriver. The marks are relatively new, so it should have been done by the murderer recently."

"What did you find from the surveillance investigation?" Lu Chuan interrupted.

Wang Shuai flipped open a thick notebook, and the sticky note between the pages trembled slightly: "We retrieved 72 surveillance cameras around the park and screened the video footage 10 hours before and after the incident. We found a suspicious person wearing a black jacket and a baseball cap. He appeared outside the west wall of the park at 15:1 am on October 17, but soon disappeared into the blind spot of the surveillance." He retrieved the blurry surveillance screenshot, in which a black shadow was dragging a rectangular object. "The size of this package is similar to that of the deceased, but it cannot be confirmed."

Zhang Hui added: "We checked auto repair shops and parking lots within a five-kilometer radius and found no unusual vehicles. However, we found a half-broken climbing rope in a trash can in the alley behind the park. The material matched the fibers in the marks left by the victim." He held up the evidence bag, and there were dark red stains on the rough knot.

"Zhang Kai, tell me about the autopsy." Lu Chuan turned to the forensic doctor.

Zhang Kai pushed his glasses and spread out the autopsy report on the table: "The deceased was about 28 years old, 165cm tall, weighed 52kg, and died of mechanical asphyxiation." He pulled out the X-ray, and the old fracture of the right clavicle was like a scar. "The fracture healed in about five years, and he should have received formal treatment. Shrimp, crab, and red wine were detected in the stomach contents, and the time of death was locked in 2-3 hours after the meal, which is consistent with the inference that he was killed in the early morning of October 10."

The conference room fell into a brief silence. The young police officer Xiao Li suddenly spoke up: "Did the murderer hide the body in the sculpture to delay the discovery?" "It's possible." Lu Chuan wrote "motive for hiding the body" on the whiteboard, "but more importantly, the sculpture is located in the center of the park with a large flow of people. The murderer knew that the body would be discovered sooner or later, but he chose this place. This shows..." He paused and pointed the laser pen at the ring mark on the deceased's ring finger, "It may be conveying some kind of message, or the deceased has a special identity and the murderer deliberately provoked."

"Could it be that the murderer was an acquaintance?" Zhang Hui questioned, "The wedding ring was violently torn off, and there was skin tissue between the fingernails. These all show that the murderer had close contact with the deceased."

Wang Shuai shook his head and retorted, "If it was an acquaintance, why couldn't the city's missing persons system find her identity? Moreover, the deceased's clothes were clean, with no damage from struggling. It seemed more like she was killed after being knocked unconscious." He pulled up the clothing inspection report, "A trace amount of chloroform residue was found in the lining of the skirt, which is a common anesthetic."

Mr. Zhou from the technical department suddenly raised his hand and said, "There are new discoveries on the carvings on the base of the sculpture. Although it was deliberately damaged, after image enhancement processing, the letter 'S' and the number '7' were preliminarily identified." He showed the restored photo, and the blurred carvings were vaguely visible on the screen. "It may be a clue left by the deceased, or it may be a deliberate misleading by the murderer."

The discussion became more intense, with various opinions constantly colliding. Lu Chuan looked at the dense clues on the whiteboard and suddenly asked, "How is the source of the food in the deceased's stomach being investigated?"

"The city's western-style restaurants were checked but to no avail." Zhang Hui flipped through his notebook, "But at the Dongjiao Vegetable Market, a stall owner recognized the deceased's photo. On the evening of October 10, she bought king crabs and imported red wine, and specifically requested a pairing of roses."

This detail made the air freeze instantly. Lu Chuan's laser pen landed heavily on the three words "roses": "Romantic dinner, expensive ingredients, carefully dressed. The victim should have been preparing for a date before she was killed. Check her phone's communication records, focusing on the numbers that had frequent contact on October 10th."

The meeting lasted until late at night, and the rain outside the window was getting heavier. When everyone dispersed, the clues on the whiteboard had been connected into a network: mysterious shadows, broken climbing ropes, residual anesthetics, romantic dinners. These fragments seemed scattered, but they vaguely pointed to a carefully planned murder.

The turning point came on the fifth day after the body was discovered.

The medical records room of Haizhou Central Hospital was filled with the musty smell of damp paper. Wang Shuai adjusted his glasses for the 23rd time and searched through the piles of medical records. His notebook was densely filled with hospital names, departments, and investigation progress. There were a few crumpled coffee coasters between the yellowed pages - the marks left by a week of staying up all night to investigate.

"Comrade, can't you be more flexible?" He pleaded with the archive administrator again, "I need all the female cases of right clavicle fractures between 2018 and 2020." The administrator sighed and tapped the old search system: "The computer can only find the past three years. For earlier ones, you have to go to the warehouse to look through the paper files. There are ten years of information. Are you sure you want to check it?"

As dusk deepened, Wang Shuai had been squatting in the dust of the underground warehouse for three hours. The light bulb above his head flickered, illuminating the wall of brown paper bags with an eerie paleness. His fingers were cut by the paper pages, but he was unaware of it until he turned to a file bag numbered "20180917 - 0245". (End of this chapter)