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

Half an hour later, surveillance footage provided by villagers of Xiangyang Village came in: at 10:15 PM, a black motorcycle appeared beside a small road at the east end of the village. The driver got off, untied a black bag from the back seat, and took out an object about 30 centimeters long. It was unclear what it was. He then tied the bag back up and continued riding towards the grassland. "This timeframe falls right within the time frame of the death," Wang Shuai frowned. "Could he have taken out a dagger or some other weapon?"

However, just when everyone thought they had found a crucial clue, a twist occurred during the investigation the next day. Through the vehicle license plate monitoring system, Wang Shuai found a partially blurred license plate and located the motorcycle owner—Zhao Jianjun, a villager from Xiangyang Village. When the police found Zhao Jianjun, he was feeding cattle on his own pasture. Upon seeing the police car, he looked puzzled: "Why are you looking for me? I've been on the pasture all day yesterday and haven't gone out."

"On the evening of August 15th, did you drive your black Honda motorcycle towards the grassland?" Wang Shuai asked. Zhao Jianjun shook his head: "My motorcycle broke down last week and has been under repair for a while, but it's still not fixed." He led the officers to the garage to check, and the motorcycle was indeed parked there, covered in dust, with no signs of being tied up on the back seat, and engine parts scattered around, clearly indicating that it was under repair.

"What about the motorcycle in the surveillance footage? The license plate matches yours," Xiao Zhang pressed. Zhao Jianjun suddenly remembered something: "Oh! I lent my license plate to my cousin Zhao Jianming last month. His motorcycle wasn't registered, and he was afraid of being stopped by the traffic police." Based on the clues provided by Zhao Jianjun, Wang Shuai found Zhao Jianming, who admitted that the motorcycle in the surveillance footage was his: "On the night of the 15th, I went to a relative's house east of the grassland to borrow something. The things strapped to the back seat were farm tools for my relative, not any tools for committing a crime. After borrowing the things, I went straight home and didn't go deep into the grassland."

To verify Zhao Jianming's statement, Wang Shuai retrieved surveillance footage from his relative's house, confirming that he arrived at his relative's house around 11 p.m. and left at 1 a.m., with no time spent going to the pasture during that period; the farm tools also matched the "long black bag" in the surveillance footage, ruling out any suspicion of involvement. The first suspicious motorcycle was thus eliminated.

Next, Wang Shuai shifted his focus to agricultural tricycles. At 10:30 PM, a black agricultural tricycle entered the camera's view on the county road south of the pasture. Its tire treads had horizontal stripes, consistent with the tire tracks found by Yang Lin and Yang Sen at the scene. "The cargo bed was covered with a blue tarpaulin, so we couldn't see what was inside," Xiao Li pointed to the screen. "The driver was wearing a dark coat and a hat, so we couldn't see his face."

The tricycle traveled north along the county road and appeared at the entrance of a small road on the west side of the grassland at 11:10 p.m., before disappearing into the grass. "This small road leads directly to the grassland slope, which is very likely the route the suspect took to transport the body or tools!" Wang Shuai asked his team to contact the transportation department to check the vehicle owner's information based on its characteristics—the agricultural tricycle had no license plate, but there was a clear white scratch on the right side of the vehicle, which became the key identification point.

After a day of searching, the team found a matching farm tricycle in Linhe Village to the south. The owner was villager Sun Fugui. "I drove the tricycle to the neighboring village to pick up corn on the night of the 15th. The truck bed was full of corn, and I covered it with a tarpaulin to keep it from raining," Sun Fugui explained. "After picking up the corn from the neighboring village, I went straight home. I didn't go to the pasture. You can ask the people at the corn purchasing station if you don't believe me."

Wang Shuai immediately contacted the corn purchasing station and confirmed that Sun Fugui had loaded corn at the station between 10 PM and 11 PM and arrived home around 1 AM, providing a complete alibi. The corn residue in the truck bed also matched his account, and the white scratches on the right side of the vehicle were caused by rubbing against a corner of the wall while hauling corn, and were unrelated to the case. The second suspicious vehicle was also ruled out.

After eliminating two suspicious vehicles, Wang Shuai was not discouraged and continued to expand the scope of the surveillance investigation. At 11:50 p.m., a silver minivan entered the frame on the rural road east of the grassland. The rear window was open, and a figure could be vaguely seen moving around. "This car is suspicious. It appeared on the rural road late at night and was close to the grassland," Xiao Zhang said. "Let's check the owner's information."

The vehicle owner was Liu Hongmei, a self-employed business owner in the city. When the police found her, she was unloading goods in her shop: "I went to the countryside to deliver furniture to customers on the evening of the 15th. The delivery workers were in the back seat of the vehicle. After we finished the delivery, we went straight back to the city and did not go to the grassland." Through the delivery note and the customer's testimony, it was confirmed that Liu Hongmei's statement was true. The delivery route was in the opposite direction to the grassland, thus eliminating her as a suspect.

From the afternoon of August 16th to the early morning of the 17th, Wang Shuai and his team checked a total of seven suspicious vehicles—three black motorcycles, two agricultural tricycles, and two vans. Each one was ruled out because of reasons such as "having an alibi," "vehicle characteristics not matching," or "not related to the case." The ashtray in the analysis room was piled high with cigarette butts, and the surveillance footage on the screen kept flashing. Wang Shuai's eyes were bloodshot, but he remained focused.

"Could we be going the wrong way?" Xiao Li rubbed his eyes, his voice weary. "We've checked so many vehicles, none of them belong to the suspect. Could it be that the suspect didn't even drive and went to the grassland on foot?"

Wang Shuai shook his head: "The area around the grassland is very remote. It would take at least 4 hours to walk there and back. Moreover, the deceased was 178cm tall and weighed about 70kg. It would be too difficult for the suspect to take him to the grassland on foot. There must have been a means of transportation. We may have missed some blind spots in the surveillance, or the suspect may have used a vehicle with a fake license plate or no license plate."

He asked Xiao Zhang to pull up a map of the area around the grassland and mark all the blind spots in the surveillance system: "Tomorrow we'll visit the areas around these blind spots to see if any villagers have seen suspicious vehicles or found any traces left by them. Also, contact the technical department to create a 3D model of the tire tracks extracted from the scene to reconstruct the vehicle's features and narrow down the search area."

At 2 a.m., Wang Shuai arrived at Lu Chuan's office with a prepared investigation report. "We have investigated seven suspicious vehicles so far, and all of them have been cleared of suspicion," he handed over the report. "The main problem is the incomplete surveillance coverage, especially in the pastoral roads and grasslands. Many areas have no surveillance cameras, which has made the investigation difficult."

Lu Chuan looked at the report and nodded, saying, "Thank you for your hard work. Eliminating possibilities is progress; at least we won't take a detour. Next, you'll take two steps: first, lead a team to investigate blind spots in the surveillance system to find eyewitnesses; second, follow up on the tire footprint modeling done by the technical department, and combine it with Zhang Kai's autopsy findings to further clarify the vehicle's characteristics. Also, Zhang Hui is checking nearby restaurants; perhaps he can find clues from the deceased's stomach contents. Keep your information channels open." (End of Chapter)