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

"Protect the scene. No one is allowed to approach the garbage room, especially the pile of scrap wood," Lu Chuan ordered in a deep voice into the walkie-talkie, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding environment. Scattered on the ground were messy footprints: work boots, cloth shoes, and what appeared to be high heels. The clearest were the footprints of Jia Qingwu's rubber shoes, covered in sawdust, stretching from the garbage room entrance all the way towards the factory office building.

Yang Lin, carrying his survey bag, crawled into the cordon. The beam of his survey lamp pierced the dim light, illuminating the severed finger. "The severed finger is a human right index finger, about 6.5 centimeters long, with an irregularly serrated cross-section," he carefully measured with a ruler. "There are obvious calluses on the fingertip, tiny wood chips embedded in the nail crevices, and fresh tear marks on the nail edge, suggesting the breakage occurred no more than 24 hours ago." On the scrap wood next to the severed finger, there were still a few dark red stains, dotted at the edges, as if left by dripping.

Yang Sen was shining a footprint light on the floor of the garbage room. The footprints on the cement were covered with dust, but several key traces could still be identified. "I found a set of size 43 work boot prints," he said, squatting down and gently brushing away the dust from the prints with a soft brush. "Stride length 75 centimeters, stride width 18 centimeters, stride angle 4 degrees outward, estimating a height of 175-180 centimeters. The footprints extend from the inside of the garbage room to the doorway, with a clear pause in front of the pile of scrap wood corresponding to the severed toe. White paint fragments are embedded in the tread pattern of the shoe soles, which initially match the paint composition on the severed toe."

Next to a paint bucket in the corner of the garbage room, Yang Sen made a new discovery—a silver button half-buried in sawdust, with four round holes, worn patterns on the surface, and dark red stains on the edge. "The button is made of metal, and the style is consistent with the buttons on the factory workers' work clothes," he said, picking up the button with tweezers and putting it into an evidence bag. "There is a blue fiber wrapped around the buttonhole, about 3 centimeters long, which may have come from clothing."

Wang Shuai placed the interrogation record book on the hood of the police car. Jia Qingwu's fingers trembled incessantly as he wrote the date "9:15 AM on July 12th." "I'm a cleaner at the factory. I come to the garbage room every morning to rummage through scrap wood," his voice trembled with tears, the chattering of his teeth particularly clear. "Today, I just opened the pile of scrap wood and saw that severed finger. There was still some paint on the nail. I was so scared my legs went weak, and I even threw the iron hook in there!"

“Have you seen any strangers going in or out of the garbage room recently? Or has anyone been injured in the factory?” Wang Shuai’s pen drew crooked lines on the paper. Jia Qingwu suddenly slapped his thigh: “Yes! Yesterday afternoon, a man in blue overalls was loitering near the garbage room, carrying a paint bucket, looking like he was looking for something.” He gestured his height, “About your height, a little hunched over, and spoke in a low voice. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘Looking for a piece of scrap wood,’ and then he left in a hurry.”

Yang Lin continued searching the pile of scrap wood with his searchlight. Besides the severed finger, he also found a broken half of a wood saw blade, with dark red stains and small pieces of skin and flesh on the teeth. "The saw blade is an 18-centimeter hand saw blade, and the teeth show obvious signs of wear," he said, measuring the length of the blade with a ruler. "The break has a fresh metallic sheen, suggesting it broke recently, possibly related to the formation of the severed finger." On the scraps of sponge next to the saw blade, there were also a few dark hairs, about 10 centimeters long, with a coarse texture.

"Does anyone in the factory use this kind of saw blade?" Wang Shuai pressed Jia Qingwu. Jia Qingwu thought for a moment, "The workers in the woodworking workshop all use this kind of saw blade. Yesterday afternoon, Old Li, the carpenter, seemed to have mentioned that one of his saw blades broke. I don't know if it's this one." He added, "Also, last night the factory was working overtime until 10 p.m. When I left work, I saw that the door to the garbage room was not closed. I didn't pay attention at the time, but now that I think about it, someone might have thrown the severed finger in there then."

Yang Sen found more clues at the corner of the wall outside the garbage room. There was a fresh drag mark on the ground, about 20 centimeters wide, extending from the direction of the woodworking workshop to the entrance of the garbage room. "The mark contained sawdust and white paint chips, which are consistent with the composition of the severed finger and the work boot mark," he measured the length of the mark with a ruler. "The drag distance was about 50 meters, so it is speculated that someone dragged an item with a severed finger from the woodworking workshop to the garbage room."

Wang Shuai's inquiry turned to the factory's personnel situation: "How many workers are there in the factory? Who worked overtime last night?" Jia Qingwu flipped through the cleaning records in his hand: "There are 32 workers in total. Ten of them worked overtime last night, all from the carpentry workshop and the painting workshop." He suddenly remembered something, "Oh right, Lao Zhang from the painting workshop took leave yesterday afternoon, saying that he had something to do at home. He hasn't come to work today. He usually wears blue overalls, and his back is a little hunched."

On the ground outside the woodworking workshop, Yang Sen found a size 43 work boot print that matched the one in the garbage room. Next to the print were a few dark red stains, which tested positive after being wiped with an alcohol swab—suspected bloodstains. “The footprints extended from the woodworking workshop to the garbage room without interruption,” he said, tracing the footprints. “They match the work boot print in the garbage room perfectly, indicating that the suspect is likely a worker in the woodworking workshop or the paint shop.”

As technicians prepared to extract the severed finger and surrounding evidence, Lu Chuan's gaze fell on the surveillance pole atop the garbage room. "Check the footage from this camera," he said, pointing to the camera at the top of the pole, "focusing on the footage from the afternoon to the evening of July 11th, especially the man in blue overalls with a slightly hunched back and the people entering and leaving the woodworking workshop." The sounds of machinery whirring and sawing wood echoed from the distant woodworking workshop, but they couldn't mask the somber atmosphere at the scene.

As Wang Shuai closed the notebook, Jia Qingwu was still muttering about the severed finger. "The paint on the finger looks like the kind of white paint that was just applied yesterday," his voice trembled. "The factory just received a batch of white paint yesterday afternoon, and only the people in the paint shop are using it." Yang Sen suddenly found a glove covered in sawdust in a paint bucket in the garbage room. The glove had tears at the fingertips and dark red stains on the edges, the same color as the stains on the severed finger.

More and more workers gathered outside the cordon, their murmurs rising like a tide. Lu Chuan spoke into the walkie-talkie, ordering: "Immediately conduct a thorough investigation of all factory workers, paying particular attention to carpenter Lao Li, painter Lao Zhang, and those who worked overtime on the night of July 11th; retrieve the tool registration records from the carpentry and painting workshops, and verify the usage of saw blades and paint buckets; contact the factory manager and obtain the identification information and recent attendance records of all workers." The sunlight gradually rose, reflecting a blinding light onto the corrugated iron roof of the garbage room, as if to completely illuminate the evil hidden beneath the sawdust and paint. (End of Chapter)