Restarting life by going to the countryside to support medical work

Chapter 629 Clear
"Did the first victim walk to the safe on his own, or was he taken there by the murderer? If he walked there on his own, why did he go there?"

If it was a hostage situation, why were there no signs of resistance left in the room? Were these two security guards really that obedient? They were both adult males; even if the other party had a knife, I don't think they would be so scared that they wouldn't even have the slightest thought to resist.

Upon hearing Li Yancheng's question, Jin Zhihai frowned and picked up the photo to examine it closely.

Seeing this, Li Yancheng stopped talking and leaned back against the sofa, waiting quietly.

After looking at it for a while, Kim Ji-hae finally let out a sigh of relief and put the photo back on the coffee table.

"Dacheng, do you think it's possible that there's actually only one murderer?"

He didn't answer the questions Li Yancheng had just asked, because he couldn't answer them either. However, the question he threw out in return caught Director Li off guard.

"One person? That's a rather novel question. How do you explain the forensic report that the two victims were killed by different dominant hands?"

Before he could finish speaking, Li Yancheng saw Jin Zhihai looking at him like he was an idiot.

"Uh... what kind of look is that?"

"Brother, is it that hard to switch to your dominant hand? It's not like I'm asking you to embroider with your non-dominant hand, it's just about killing someone with a knife. Don't tell me you can't do it."

As for the footprints left on the wall at the main entrance, those are not difficult to find.

"Uh……"

Jin Zhihai's words made Li Yancheng unconsciously move his left and right hands. Right, how could he have forgotten about this? It's not particularly difficult to train your non-dominant hand to have 80% of the function of your dominant hand. Many left-handed people can actually use both hands.

However, this explanation is still a bit far-fetched.

Li Yancheng waved his hand and said, "What you said makes some sense and can be considered a direction for investigation. If what you said is true, only one person went there that night..."

At this point, he reached out and tapped on the panoramic photo of the crime scene on the coffee table: "If it's really as you say, then there's definitely something to say about how the first victim died here."

“I understand what you mean.” Jin Zhihai nodded, picked up his teacup, took a sip of water, and continued, “Are you trying to say that this first victim is very likely in cahoots with the killer?”

“I do have suspicions in this regard. When you continue your investigation, you can focus more on the relationships of the first victim.”

Do you think it's possible the killer is a woman?

"We can't rule out that possibility. You wouldn't have only been investigating men and not women during the past two days, would you?"

"How could that be? They just focus on men, it's impossible that they don't investigate women."

In these violent crimes, the perpetrators are usually male, but the possibility of female perpetrators cannot be ruled out. Relatively speaking, when investigating such cases, the police will focus their attention mainly on the male perpetrators.

"A woman? No... How could you have imagined the killer might be a woman?"

Jin Zhihai seemed to only then realize what Li Yancheng was talking about, and asked in great surprise.

"I was just saying that, I didn't say the murderer must be a woman. You can't find anything right now, so let's change our approach and broaden the scope of our investigation."

Today is the 29th. There are only two days left this month. Let's try to make some progress in the last two days.

As he spoke, Li Yancheng gestured to the photo on the coffee table again: "Zhihai, I still think there's a reason why the first victim died next to the safe."

It is highly likely that he conspired with the murderer to kill the second victim, and then the two of them broke into the safe together. Due to a dispute over the division of the loot, or perhaps they originally intended to stage a self-inflicted injury, since one of the two guards died while the other was unharmed, they would definitely be the focus of our investigation.

The first victim's death had two causes: first, a dispute over the loot, leading the killer to eliminate him; second, the staged injury I mentioned, which unexpectedly became real.

There's a reason why Li Yancheng keeps insisting on the location where the first victim collapsed.

The office where the safe was kept, which was also where the two duty officers worked at night, was a large office of nearly forty square meters. There were a total of five desks in the office, four of which were placed in pairs facing each other, and the remaining one was placed in the corner furthest from the office door. The safe containing the unpaid wages was tucked under the space of this desk.

The two cots where the two duty officers rest at night are set up in the aisle between the four desks just inside the office.

The second victim died on the ground next to the wire bed.

The first victim died next to the desk furthest away, and the safe that should have been tucked under the desk was right next to him.

His presence here is illogical.

Since it seems illogical, didn't Jin Zhihai and the other investigators think of this?

They had certainly considered this, but through their investigation, they discovered that the first victim was a very shrewd person with a very good family background.

Both husband and wife have jobs, and their two sons also have jobs. The eldest son is married and works at the same company as his wife, with a good salary and benefits. His wife is also more than four months pregnant.

Although the second son is not married, he has found a girlfriend who is a school teacher. The two have already met each other's parents and are considered engaged. They were originally scheduled to get married next May Day.

The deceased's parents are both alive and retired, and each has a pension.

With such family conditions, including housing, they definitely belong to the upper-middle class in Beijing.

It was based on this situation that they concluded the first victim was unlikely to have designs on the more than 50,000 yuan in wages.

But why did he die next to the safe?
After discussion, Jin Zhihai and his group finally agreed that the murderer must have coerced him to go there in order to get the safe's combination.

The murderer was unaware beforehand that the combination lock on the safe was actually just for show.

The combination lock on this safe used by the finance department broke last year, and the manufacturer sent a repairman to destroy it.

The original plan was to replace the combination lock with a new one, but the leaders of the finance office were worried that if it broke again one day and couldn't be opened, it would delay their work, so they didn't allow it to be replaced.

Many people know about this, at least the staff of the neighborhood office should be aware of it, but outsiders may not.

The first reaction of a normal person when they see a safe is that it has a combination. It seems like a perfectly normal thing to take the security guard to the safe and ask him for the combination.

After learning that the safe had no combination, the murderer killed the security guard, then pried open the safe and took the money.

Look, this is what Jin Zhihai and his team deduced, and it seems quite reasonable. Now, hearing Li Yancheng say this, he's still a little confused, or rather, he doesn't want to overturn his own judgment.

"That's just speculation."

“It’s just speculation,” Li Yancheng said, shrugging. “Isn’t the point of solving cases to make bold inferences and carefully verify them?”

"Uh……"

While Jin Zhihai was unsure how to respond, Li Yancheng raised his right index and middle fingers, pressing his thumb against his ring and little fingers to make a "two" shape, and then said, "If we follow your judgment, then there must be two murderers, because it's impossible for one person to hold two adult men hostage at the same time if they only have a dagger, unless they're holding this..."

At this point, Li Yancheng changed the index and middle fingers of his right hand into his thumb and index finger, making an eight-shaped gesture.

"Let's set aside the question of whether the murderer has this for now. If we only have the murder weapon, a dagger, it basically refutes your earlier claim that the murderer might be a single person."

Do you agree with what I'm saying?

After hesitating for a moment, Kim Ji-hae nodded in agreement.

Indeed, it is highly unlikely that a single person could take two able-bodied adult men hostage with just a dagger.

"Okay, let's continue based on the premise that there are two murderers..."

"No," Jin Zhihai interrupted, "Da Cheng, say what you just said."

"Huh? What are you thinking?" Li Yancheng was a little confused when he was interrupted.

"Tsk, it's that speculation you just mentioned that the first victim might be in cahoots with the killer."

"Oh, oh, that? I've already said everything I needed to say. My judgment is that the reason the first victim died next to the safe was not because he was taken hostage, because there were no injuries on his body from being taken hostage."

If it wasn't pre-arranged, does that mean he was so obedient that he would just walk over on his own?

There was another point that led me to conclude that the murderer was an acquaintance of the first victim: the second victim also had no restraint marks.

The murderer covered the victim's mouth before killing them to prevent them from making a sound. But why didn't the second victim, an adult male, show any resistance when his mouth was suddenly covered from behind?

"If that's the case, then the murderer might also know the second victim?" Jin Zhihai suddenly interjected.

“That’s right,” Li Yancheng nodded. “It’s the middle of the night, and he’s still on duty. There’s over 50,000 yuan in the room he’s guarding. Even if the visitor is someone the first victim knew, he wouldn’t be so comfortable entrusting his back to a complete stranger.”

Therefore, it is highly likely that the second victim also knew the murderer, and he thought the murderer was absolutely harmless, so it was normal for him to come over at that time.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have had no reaction at all.

"Thud... thud..."

After listening to Li Yancheng's analysis, Jin Zhihai remained silent, only his left hand, resting on the sofa armrest, tapped slowly and rhythmically.

After a while, he slowly spoke, "After listening to your analysis, I actually got some inspiration. Listen to it first."

"Well, tell me, I'm listening."

"Look, Da Cheng, under normal circumstances, the finance office should notify all the units under the street office to come and collect their salaries on the 24th, so that each unit can distribute all the salaries before the end of the workday on the 25th. At the latest, the finance office should have finished distributing all the salaries to each unit by the morning of the 25th, right?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"The reason why the salary was paid late this month is because of special circumstances. The money was withdrawn from the bank late. As of the afternoon of the 25th, the salary had not been fully paid and there was still more than 50,000 yuan left."

"Yes"

"The finance staff at the finance office knew perfectly well that the salaries to be paid to various units on the afternoon of the 25th would not be fully paid out, so why did they take the money back? They could have gone to collect it early on the morning of the 26th, just as they started work, and then paid it out in the morning. It was simpler, and the money wouldn't have to stay in their hands overnight. It was much safer."

Since this month's salary payment is definitely going to be delayed anyway, why don't they choose a safer approach?

What you just said makes a lot of sense. When we were investigating this case, we intentionally or unintentionally overlooked one issue: the time of the crime.

Based on the time of death of the two duty officers given by the forensic doctor, the murderer must have arrived there not too early, because the longer he stayed there, the greater the possibility of being exposed.

The forensic doctor determined that the two died between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on the 26th. The security guard went to sleep after 10 p.m., which means that the murderer must have arrived at the scene between 10 p.m. on the 25th and 1 a.m. on the 26th.

It's not normal for the staff on duty to think it's normal to go so late.

"Who would think it's normal for the duty officer to go there so late?"

Jin Zhihai paused for a moment, and before Li Yancheng could respond, he answered his own question, saying, "The only thing I can think of that would be a supervisor checking up on staff during this time period is for the duty officer to think it's normal."

"But didn't you say that all the staff of the neighborhood office had been investigated and there was no time for the crime to be committed?"

"Perhaps we missed something."

"Phew..." Li Yancheng breathed a sigh of relief: "Then let's investigate again."

Jin Zhihai picked up his teacup and drank it all in one gulp. After putting the cup down, he stood up.

"Alright, I'll go make the arrangements now and start the reinvestigation tonight."

Li Yancheng didn't try to stop him, and stood up as well, saying, "There are only two more days left. This year will be over. If we can find a clue before the 31st, I'll ask the bureau to recommend the special task force for credit once the case is solved."

"Thank you," Kim Ji-hae said sincerely to his good brother.

"But there's no need to ask for credit. In fact, we made a mistake in this case. Once the case is solved, we won't have the face to ask for credit."

"Hehe," Li Yancheng chuckled and patted Jin Zhihai's arm.

"What do you mean by making a mistake? It's not a major issue. The timeframe I mentioned was just a request for you to act quickly, not an order. Don't feel pressured."

(End of this chapter)