Crime scene: 162 mystery solving puzzles to find out who the murderer is

Chapter 32 The Girl in the Ice
One winter night, several young people were playing cards and gambling in the house.

"It's on fire!" Suddenly, there was a heart-piercing shout from outside.Several people looked out of the window at the same time. The fire seemed to come up from the backyard, and it would take some time before it got here.They put down the cards in their hands and ran out together.The fire engine hadn't arrived yet, and the only security guard who was shouting for the fire just now was panicking with a bottle of fire extinguisher in his hand, not knowing what to do.The few young people who rushed to the scene could not argue with each other, and bravely threw themselves into the fire.After fighting for a while, the fire seemed out of control.

"Quickly cancel the waterproofing, it's nearby!"

"I didn't expect to use it, maybe the water is frozen!"

"Whatever it is, go and have a look." A few people ran to the sink with fireproof water, opened the cover of the sink and saw that the fruit was really frozen.This was expected, but what I didn't expect was that there was a person lying under the ice, a young girl sleeping deeply naked underneath.One of them decisively broke through the ice and carried the body out. It seemed that she was thrown into the water after being strangled to death, and she was lifeless.At this time, the whistle of the fire engine came to the ears of the three people, and the sound was from far to near, as if it came from another world.

The prosecutor of the Hokkaido District Prosecutor's Office and the Kashida Police Department of the local police station are known as golden partners, and this time they jointly handled the case.

"Mr. Guo, judging from the chances of committing the crime, the murderer is someone who lives in this apartment, and it must be one of Jia Tian and Yi Chuan."

"But both of them were playing cards during the presumed time of committing the crime."

"Yes, but both of them went out once in the middle of playing cards. Jiatian was 1 hour before the fire, and Yichuan was 15 minutes before the fire. According to the two of them, although it was cold outside, they played very hot because of winning or losing. , so went outside for a change of air, but came back quickly. Others present can testify to that. Nevertheless, I think there is such a little time to kill the girl and then take her clothes off and throw it in the sink It's more than enough."

"Do both of them have a motive for committing the crime?"

"Yes, both of them are frequent customers of the bar where the victim worked part-time. Koda is the deceased's current lover, Otsukawa is the deceased's former lover, and Otokawa is currently in a relationship with his boss's daughter. Maybe the deceased has something to do with it It is not known whether he was blackmailed."

"Well... the murderer should be Otsukawa. If the murderer did something with the timing device that set the fire on fire, then Koda, who went out an hour before the fire, was not the murderer. Whether it has been found to be useful can be found in the What about the traces of the timing device that caught fire after 1 hour?"

"Then, Mr. Prosecutor, do you think the murderer set the fire?"

"Once there is a fire, people must be in a hurry and don't know what to do, but I think that the one who used fireproof water and broke the ice to carry the corpse out is probably Yichuan. This is obviously to let people find the corpse as soon as possible... You have Paper matches?"

Cupita rummaged around and pulled out a box of paper matches from his upper body pocket and handed it over to him.After lighting a cigarette, remove the filter, put the non-flame end between the matchstick and the matchbox, and watch it turn into ashes little by little. After about 15 minutes, there is a snap of the matchbox Lit up, even though it was placed in the middle of the ashtray, the flames that rose up went up quite high. "Then you should know that there will be ashes of such matches in the scene of the fire."

"But there is one thing I don't understand. If Yi Chuan is the murderer, the body was not frozen when he threw the body into the sink, and how could the body be sealed under the ice in the next 15 minutes?"

"It's impossible to freeze quickly after being thrown into the body. How can it be so accidental. If it is caught by a lawyer in court, it won't hold water!"

"Don't worry, the means of committing the crime will be given to you before the trial." The prosecutor who caught him was full of confidence.

So, what means?

[Answer] Finally came the day of the trial.The defense lawyer really caught on to that point and kept pestering him.The prosecutor was confident, and summoned Professor Okauchi from the university of the witness system to appear in court, and with the consent of the presiding judge, he asked the witness to do a simple experiment in court.This is a cooling experiment done in elementary school, there is no need for a university professor to come to court to do it.

Slowly cool the water in the beaker. When the water temperature reaches zero degrees Celsius, it still does not freeze. When the water temperature drops to about minus [-] degrees Celsius, the professor shakes the beaker and sees that the water in the beaker begins to freeze slowly.Water in a cold state is extremely unstable, so even the slightest vibration will freeze quickly.

"...The defendant is familiar with the fact that fire prevention water is often in a cooling state, so he used this method to commit crimes in order to divert attention and escape punishment." In the final sentence statement, the prosecutor went on to state:
"The defendant lured the victim to the sink and strangled the victim to death after confirming that the water hadn't frozen. If the water had frozen, he might suspend the killing and find another time, but the defendant, who has always been addicted to gambling, also Desperately betting on the water not freezing.

The reason why the defendant stripped the deceased was obviously to speed up the cooling of the corpse, so as to create the illusion that the time of death was earlier than the actual time of death, and it is more difficult to identify the naked corpse, and there is no need to worry about the clothes not being completely soaked in water and showing flaws .

In addition, as mentioned earlier, paper matches were prepared as fuses in an attempt to burn the clothes that had been taken off.Moreover, once the body was discovered, he broke the ice and took it out first, just to avoid anyone paying attention to the thickness of the ice that had just frozen.

In the final analysis, although the defendant was lucky about the possibility of uncertainty before he decided to commit the murder, his behavior after the murder can be asserted: this is a premeditated, carefully planned and extremely brutal crime..."

(End of this chapter)