Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 764 An Untimely Project

Regarding this murder case, after Ma Rongcheng's guidance, what appeared to be just an ordinary suicide case actually revealed a hidden second person behind it.

This person also attempted to fake shoe prints.

It must be said that the suspicion is very strong.

The purpose of the investigation is now clear: to uncover this person's identity information.

As assigned by Chen Shu, Zhu Yiba and Huang Mao stayed at the Criminal Investigation Brigade to examine the video recordings copied from the hotel.

Because the hotel has a large number of cameras, even just the surveillance footage from the days before and after the incident still generates a massive amount of data, making it a task that tests one's patience and meticulousness.

Chen Shu, Chen Chuan, and Jiang Hai followed trace evidence expert Ma Rongcheng back to the hotel where the crime scene was located for a second investigation, hoping to find some different evidence.

The four arrived at the hotel and waited for Ma Rongcheng to conduct a second examination. Jiang Hai, who had been bursting with energy in the forensic room, became listless and wandered around aimlessly with his neck hunched. He figured that even after graduating from the police academy, he wouldn't be cut out for technical work.

Chen Chuan sat unceremoniously on a recliner at the scene, watching anime. At first, he was talking loudly without any self-awareness, but he only knew to tone it down after being glared at by Chen Shu.

Chen Shu initially followed Ma Rongcheng in the room, intending to secretly learn some on-site investigation techniques. However, he realized that he had passed the age of being eager to learn, so he wandered off to other places.

A staff member who had been brought up from the hotel front desk stood outside the room, serving as a witness to the re-examination.

Generally, for this kind of work involving going out to collect evidence or make identifications, the witnesses are usually auxiliary police officers on duty, and they are also responsible for signing documents afterwards.

However, since Chen Shu and his colleagues were police officers from other provinces on vacation, while Ma Rongcheng was an expert dispatched by the provincial department, neither side had auxiliary police officers accompanying them. Therefore, upon arriving at the hotel, they asked the staff on the first floor to temporarily act as witnesses.

If the regulations are strictly followed, then ordinary people like this are the true witnesses.

However, in practice, the uncertainty of witness behavior, such as needing to go home for dinner, go to work, or suddenly receiving a phone call and having to leave, can cause the police's work to stall or even have to start over.

The situations mentioned above are relatively mild. Some witnesses are very proactive. After being invited by the police to be witnesses, whether out of curiosity or a sense of responsibility, they often become excited and wander around the scene, inadvertently destroying evidence.

Therefore, the police officers handling the case are more accustomed to having auxiliary police officers act as witnesses.

The room was crowded with people in several places. Chen Shu walked to the window, which was a little emptier, opened it to let in some fresh air, and then peeked out to look around at the surroundings.

This is a room located on the third floor of the hotel. Although the number of floors does not look high, the height of each floor is quite high because the first floor is used as a reception hall and the second floor is a banquet hall.

The hotel rooms on the third floor are roughly equivalent to residential buildings of five or six stories.

“At this height, it’s generally impossible to climb in from the outside.” Chen Shu looked at the smooth wall. Unlike ordinary high-rise buildings, there were no water pipes for people to climb. It was definitely impossible to climb up by hand.

The windows on the left and right sides of the room are quite far apart, and even with the smooth walls, it is impossible to climb across.

Chen Shu looked down and saw a secluded grassy area with nothing but a narrow path running east to west. Beyond that was the hotel's low fence, and beyond that was a dilapidated alley.

Although it was nearing noon, there wasn't a soul in sight downstairs, including in the alley outside. Under the direct sunlight, apart from the peeling paint on the walls and the cracks overgrown with weeds, nothing could be seen.

On the other side of the alley, there were only a few windows, but the curtains were drawn tightly, leaving no gaps for anyone to see through. Clearly, the people living inside did not want to have anything to do with this dilapidated alley.

Chen Shu shook his head self-deprecatingly. When he was among the first to enter the scene, the windows were locked from the inside, making it impossible for anyone to get in from the outside. Besides, given the condition of the outer wall, even a gorilla might not be able to climb it. "Officer Chen, could you help pull the curtains up a bit?" Ma Rongcheng, who had begun examining the shoe prints, said without looking up.

"it is good."

Finding nothing amiss, Chen Shu drew the curtains, instantly darkening the room.

Based on his previous observations, Chen Shu analyzed, "Expert Ma, we were arguably the first people to enter the scene. At that time, the windows were closed and locked, and the surveillance footage showed that no one else entered the room before the deceased moved in and until the incident."

"So, from beginning to end, only the deceased was in the room, making suicide highly probable. But this contradicts our earlier conclusion that a second person was in the room deliberately faking the shoe prints, and the consistent depth of the ligature marks on the deceased's neck doesn't suggest hanging."

Chen Shu suddenly realized that he might have been rambling, which made him seem rather insecure in front of the expert. While catching his breath, he noticed that the other party wasn't listening very attentively, so he swallowed the rest of his words.

"The first batch? I remember the record says that the cleaning staff were the first to discover the body." Ma Rongcheng lowered his head, his hands moving quickly as he struck various professional-looking photography poses while repeatedly pressing the shutter button.

It only took a few seconds, Chen Shu thought to himself.

Time slowly passed, and Ma Rongcheng finally managed to photograph and extract all the shoe prints. He stood up, patting his back and lamenting his advanced age.

At this moment, as the room darkened, Ma Rongcheng easily spotted Chen Chuan, whose face was illuminated by the light from his phone screen. Chen Chuan was sitting beside him, intently watching his phone, which was clearly displaying a short animated film.

"Watching the video on site? It wouldn't be good if the public saw it. If you want to rest, go to the car." After all, they weren't colleagues from the same province, so although Ma Rongcheng was unhappy, he still expressed his displeasure quite tactfully.

Chen Chuan, without looking up, said, "What rest? I'm working. Isn't this a locked-room murder? I'm looking at a few locked-room murder cases in 'Detective Conan' to see if I can get any inspiration."

Ma Rongcheng was both amused and exasperated. Just as he was about to continue lecturing Chen Shu, he noticed that Chen Shu was standing behind Chen Chuan with a serious expression, nodding frequently while pinching his chin, as if he had come to his senses.

"These police officers from the coast are so unreliable," Ma Rongcheng thought to himself, before continuing to fiddle with his work.

However, when taking photos of the shoe prints, he still appreciated the skill of the out-of-province detective and the extent to which the scene was preserved.

Unlike the rough and clumsy workers at the police station, once they get their hands on a case, it's like ten cases have been solved. Even if the Emperor himself came, he couldn't reconstruct the scene.

Unlike now, he is quite certain that a second person exists, as the traces of the disguised shoe prints are very obvious.

However, even if there is a second person, they may not necessarily be the murderer; there are many coincidences in this world.

In the cramped room, Ma Rongcheng felt a bit suffocated. He stood up and let out a long breath, but the anti-fraud series of cases he had investigated in the provincial department's special task force that year still inappropriately surfaced in his mind.

He shook his head, hoping to focus on the case at hand instead of continuing to fantasize about the case that was getting further and further away from him and was about to be solved.

In any case, the credit certainly doesn't belong to someone like him, a mere beast of burden.

However, if one were to stumble upon a stroke of luck and land a position within the provincial government, that would be ideal.

Ma Rongcheng shook his head vigorously to refocus his attention.

(End of this chapter)