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

Wang Shuai led three teams to check the vehicle details, with 23 registration photos filling three pages on the screen. "Look at this one," he pointed to the photo of the 17th vehicle, owned by a self-employed individual named "Liu Wei," "there's a noticeable scratch on the side of the car, and the location matches the reflective spot on the car in the surveillance footage!" The team immediately contacted Liu Wei, but the phone was disconnected. The address showed a rental house near Wanghai Community—by the time they arrived, the rental house was already empty. The landlord said Liu Wei had moved out half a month ago and hadn't left a new address.

“There’s something wrong with Liu Wei!” Wang Shuai stared at the empty room, with old building materials advertisements still pasted on the wall. “The time he rented this place coincided with the last order Qin Yanming placed in Wanghai Community, so there must be a connection.” But after searching the room, he only found a few discarded building materials delivery slips, and there were no clues to contact Liu Wei. The downstairs surveillance cameras only captured him leaving with a suitcase on June 12, and he has not been seen since.

Meanwhile, the trail of the man in black also hit a deadlock. Wang Shuai instructed his team to zoom in on the convenience store's surveillance footage. The man's black jacket had a white patch on the collar, and he appeared to be wearing a digital watch on his left wrist. "Check clothing stores within a five-kilometer radius," he ordered into the walkie-talkie, "find stores that have sold the same patched jacket in the last three months."

The team searched all the clothing stores around Wanghai Community and finally found a clue in a secondhand store. "This jacket is from last year," the store owner said, flipping through the sales records. "A man bought it on June 10th. He was about 180 cm tall, a little hunched over, and spoke with a slight Northeastern accent. He paid in cash." However, the secondhand store had no CCTV footage, and the owner couldn't remember the man's exact appearance, only saying that "he seemed to have a mole on his left cheek"—this feature was too vague to narrow down the search.

While tracing the man's route, they encountered another blind spot in the surveillance cameras. The camera at the convenience store entrance captured the man walking towards the riverbank, but the camera at the next intersection had broken down on the evening of June 13th. Subsequent surveillance footage showed no further sightings of the man in the patched black jacket. "He definitely knew where the cameras were," said team member Xiao Zhang, rubbing his sore eyes. "He deliberately chose blind spots; his counter-surveillance awareness is too strong." The anonymous WeChat payment clue also couldn't be traced back to its source. The payment account was temporarily registered, the linked phone number had long been deactivated, and the ID information was forged.

Just as Wang Shuai's investigation was stalled, Zhang Hui's summons of Zhao Gang yielded results. Zhao Gang, wearing a gray T-shirt and with a band-aid on his right index finger, entered the interrogation room complaining, "I already said I didn't kill anyone, why are you arresting me? You're interfering with my business!"

Zhang Hui pushed Qin Yanming's photo in front of him: "Where were you between 10 pm and midnight on June 13th?" Zhao Gang's eyes flickered, and his fingers unconsciously picked at the edge of the table: "I was minding the shop at the building materials store. A batch of steel bars went missing recently, and I've been keeping watch for several nights." Zhang Hui pulled up the building materials store's surveillance footage, but found that the main surveillance camera for the night of June 13th was broken. There was only a backup corner camera, which could only capture the cashier and couldn't see Zhao Gang.

“The backup surveillance only captured you doing the accounting at the cashier at 9:30, and you haven’t been seen since,” Zhang Hui’s voice turned somber. “You say you were minding the store, but who can prove that?” Zhao Gang suddenly became agitated, slamming his fist on the table: “I’m minding the store by myself, who can prove that? But I really didn’t kill anyone! I did have an argument with Qin Yanming, but it was only three thousand yuan, I wouldn’t kill someone for that!”

To verify Zhao Gang's statement, Zhang Hui sent people to visit the area around the building materials store. The owner of the neighboring grocery store said, "Around 10 p.m. on June 13, I heard noises coming from Zhao Gang's store, like he was moving things. I thought he was organizing the warehouse." Zhao Gang's wife said that she called Zhao Gang at 11 p.m. that night, and he said, "I'm watching the store, don't disturb me." The call lasted only one minute, so she couldn't confirm his exact location.

The crucial DNA comparison results came out the following morning. Xiao Wang from the technical department walked into the interrogation room with the report. Zhang Hui took it and his brow furrowed instantly—Zhao Gang's DNA didn't match the skin tissue under Qin Yanming's fingernails at all, and his fingerprints didn't match the blurry marks on the chain and bag at the scene. "How did you get the scratch on your right hand?" Zhang Hui pointed to Zhao Gang's bandage. Zhao Gang immediately peeled it off: "I was scratched by a bag while moving cement on June 12th. The workers at the shop all saw it!" After verification by the team, the workers confirmed that Zhao Gang was indeed injured on the 12th, and the wound was a thin, long scratch, completely different from the laceration caused by Qin Yanming's fingernails.

More importantly, Zhao Gang's blue Volkswagen Lavida broke down on the evening of June 13th and was parked at a repair shop. "Look at this," the repair shop owner said, showing the repair records, "It came in around 5 pm on the 13th, the gearbox broke down, and it was under repair until the morning of the 14th. It was completely unusable." Surveillance footage also showed Zhao Gang's car at the repair shop, which completely conflicted with the surveillance footage from the Beihe River embankment.

When Zhang Hui presented Zhao Gang with the DNA report, repair records, and witness testimonies, the tense man finally breathed a sigh of relief: "I told you I didn't kill anyone! I was planning to pay him back the three thousand yuan on the 15th, but who knew he would get into trouble..." Zhao Gang's voice was filled with lingering fear, "If I had known this would happen, I should have paid him back then, and you wouldn't have suspected me."

As Zhao Gang was cleared of suspicion, the sun shone brightly outside the window. Zhang Hui walked out of the interrogation room and ran into Wang Shuai returning with his team; both men looked grim. "We've checked 22 Volkswagen Lavidas, only Liu Wei's remains undiscovered, and he's fled; the trail for the man in black went cold in a blind spot of the surveillance cameras, and the WeChat payment couldn't be traced back to its source." Wang Shuai handed the investigation records to Zhang Hui. "What about yours?"

“Zhao Gang is ruled out; the DNA and alibi don’t match.” Zhang Hui rubbed his throbbing temples. “Now both main leads have gone cold—the passenger for Qin Yanming’s last ride hasn’t been found, the taxi is missing, and the chain and bag found at the scene can’t be traced.” He flipped through Qin Yanming’s social relationship chart. “Besides Zhao Gang, does Qin Yanming have any other disputes? Like passenger complaints, debt issues?”

Wang Shuai shook his head: "I checked. Qin Yanming is usually quite honest. Apart from the fare dispute with Zhao Gang, he has no other debts. There were only two passenger complaints, both minor disputes that were resolved a long time ago." Team member Xiao Zhang suddenly remembered something: "By the way, before Qin Yanming's taxi GPS signal disappeared, the last location was a sand quarry upstream of the Beihe River. Should we go there to check again? Maybe we can find the car."

The two immediately decided to go back to the sand quarry. The abandoned tin shed creaked in the wind, and the pile of rubble where the iron chain had been found last time was still there. Wang Shuai squatted down and searched through it, suddenly spotting a stone covered in black fibers: "These fibers match those from the scene!" But apart from that, they found no other clues. The quarry's surveillance cameras had long been broken, and no one in the vicinity had seen Qin Yanming's taxi. (End of Chapter)