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

The van disappeared in the surveillance blind spot in the wilderness and never appeared in any road surveillance again. In Li Qiang's call records, all the strange numbers before and after the incident were disposable virtual numbers; the account book of the scrap yard showed that he was indeed processing a batch of metal scraps of unknown origin during that period, but there was no direct connection with Zhao Jianguo's death.

"He is deliberately confusing us." Wang Shuai stared at the newly added network of relationships on the whiteboard. The abnormal points marked with red pen looked like dense wounds. Li Qiang's theft of materials from the factory has been verified, and the list of "special customers" in the account book is also in the hands of the police, but these can only prove that he is suspected of theft, not as ironclad evidence of murder. Zhao Jianguo's IOU and mysterious transfer may indicate an economic dispute, but Li Qiang's perfect alibi is like a solid wall, blocking all suspicion from the truth.

The meeting room of the Criminal Investigation Brigade was filled with smoke. Lu Chuan pointed a laser pointer at the surveillance screenshot of the service area: "Li Qiang must have helpers. Check all his social relationships, especially those 'friends' with criminal records. And this unlicensed van, we must find its whereabouts even if we have to dig deep!" On the whiteboard, Li Qiang's photo flickered under the light, and the fog shrouding the truth of Zhao Jianguo's death gradually revealed its deliberately concealed outline during these investigations.

Zhang Hui threw the surveillance screenshot full of red circles on the table. In the picture, the dusty silver van was turning into an unnamed road next to Qinggang Village. "Although the license plate was covered with mud, there were three cracks on the reflective strip on the side and rear, which is a unique mark." He slashed the screen heavily with a laser pen, "Mobilize all manpower to check all auto repair shops and scrap yards in the three surrounding cities, and focus on vehicles with similar damage!"

In the middle of the night when it was raining heavily, in "Lao Zhou's Auto Repair Shop" on the outskirts of the city, apprentice Xiao Wu was staring at a photo and was suddenly stunned: "A van came to repair its tire last week with this crack, and it's exactly the same as this one!" When Zhang Hui immediately led the team to the scene, the rusty frame was still parked in the corner of the workshop, and under the peeling paint, the dark red bloodstains glowed faintly under the ultraviolet light.

"The owner registered a fake name, but..." The technician held up the dashcam memory card, "We recovered the deleted data." In the video, a driver wearing a baseball cap hummed a little tune as he drove into the service area. On the passenger seat lay a long object wrapped in waterproof cloth - exactly the same way the dead person in the cornfield was wrapped.

Through the facial recognition system at checkpoints along the way, the police locked down the driver's identity: Chen Hu, 41 years old, with a long criminal record. He was imprisoned for eight years for robbery and has been unemployed since his release. The more critical clue is hidden in his call records - in the past six months, he and Li Qiang have been in contact 3-5 times a day, and the total call time in the three days before the incident exceeded 7 hours.

The arrest operation began before dawn. When the SWAT kicked open the door of the rental house, Chen Hu was curled up on the sofa playing games, and the blue light of the screen reflected his suddenly pale face. "I didn't do anything!" He struggled frantically when he was handcuffed, "You arrested the wrong person!" But the search results made him speechless: a bloody rubber glove was hidden in the iron box under the bed, and the test showed that it was a perfect match with the blood DNA in the cornfield.

Under the cold light of the interrogation room, Chen Hu crossed his arms in front of his chest, his legs trembling. "I was just helping Qiangzi transport some goods that day, who knows what was inside!" He avoided looking at me, cold sweat dripping from his forehead, "I picked up the goods at the service area, he told me not to ask so many questions, and gave me 20,000 yuan."

Zhang Hui suddenly projected the dashcam footage onto the wall, and half of Chen Hu's face was clearly visible as he was carrying the package. "Is this also shipping goods?" He slammed the table. "The skin tissue between the nails of the deceased is being tested for DNA. Do you think you can keep it a secret?"

Chen Hu's face suddenly changed, but he still tried to argue: "I didn't know it was a corpse! Qiangzi said it contained smuggled electronic products." Before he finished speaking, Yang Sen pushed the door open and threw the test report on the table: "The hair of the deceased was extracted from the gap in the van seat, and the waterproof cloth fibers are completely consistent with the scene. If you plead guilty now, you can still fight for a lighter sentence." The air seemed to freeze. Chen Hu stared at the red seal on the report, his Adam's apple rolling up and down. Suddenly, he grabbed the water cup on the table and smashed it to the ground. The moment the glass fragments splashed, he roared: "Li Qiang, that bastard! He said that as long as it was transported once, no one would find out!" He cried and his face was covered with snot and tears. "I owed a gambling debt, and he said he could help me pay it back. I really didn't know he killed someone!"

According to Chen Hu, Li Qiang had started planning half a year ago. "He said Zhao Jianguo knew too many secrets and had to be eliminated." Chen Hu lit a cigarette with trembling hands, and the ash fell on his prison uniform. "On the night of August 8, he started in a warehouse near the steel plant, beat the man to death with an iron rod, and put him in a waterproof sheet that he had prepared in advance. I picked up the goods at the service area and drove the car to the cornfield in Qinggang Village according to the route he gave."

"Why did he want to kill Zhao Jianguo?" Zhang Hui asked.

Chen Hu took a deep breath. "It seems to be because of money. After Zhao Jianguo was burned, Li Qiang forced him to steal scrap metal from the factory and sell it for money. Later, Zhao Jianguo wanted to stop and threatened to report him. Qiangzi didn't tell me the specific details, but he said that if Zhao Jianguo was not removed, everyone would be doomed."

The door of the interrogation room was pushed open again, and Lu Chuan walked in holding the latest evidence bag - inside was the account book seized from the Liqiang scrapyard. One page was deliberately torn, but the handwriting on the edge showed the words "Zhao Jianguo's hush money". Seeing this evidence, Chen Hu completely collapsed, slumped in the chair and muttered to himself: "I shouldn't have believed him. I shouldn't have believed him"

At this moment, outside the Criminal Investigation Brigade building, the sky in the east was turning pale. Zhang Hui looked at the lights in the interrogation room and finally breathed a sigh of relief. But he knew that the real battle had just begun - as long as Li Qiang didn't speak, many key details would remain a mystery.

After receiving Chen Hu's confession, Lu Chuan immediately convened an action team and deployed the arrest in the Criminal Investigation Brigade's operations room. The big screen played the surveillance footage of Li Qiang's waste recycling station in real time. In the video, Li Qiang was sitting on a recliner at the door, crossing his legs and browsing his phone, completely unaware that the big net had quietly fallen.

"The operation is divided into three groups." Lu Chuan pointed at the map with a laser pen, "Group One will block the front and back doors to prevent him from escaping; Group Two will be responsible for controlling the surrounding intersections; Group Three will follow me to carry out the arrest directly. Remember, Li Qiang has experience in counter-reconnaissance, so be quick and decisive!"

Under the cover of night, three police cars quietly parked in an alley 200 meters away from the scrapyard. The team members changed into plain clothes and approached the target in a fan shape under the dim street lights. (End of this chapter)