Detective Hao Dong, who was wearing makeup, was walking on the road near "Fangxian Hotel". There were several trails there, and Hao Dong walked every trail himself as if he was surveying the terrain. The road he was taking now would lead to the main road to the north if he went straight ahead. There are all ordinary houses nearby, not many luxury houses. As soon as it gets dark, every household will turn off the lights and go to bed very early. There is a noodle shop in a residential area, not far from the main road. It seems that no matter how remote the place is, there will always be a noodle shop. He opened the door curtain and walked in. The boss didn't seem to have started business yet, and the chairs were placed upside down on the dining table.
"If you want to eat noodles, please come back later. It's not ready yet." A bald old man said to the visitor.
"I'm not here to eat noodles."
The man smiled and took out a black booklet from his pocket, which was a police card. After the boss looked at it, his expression changed drastically.
"I need your assistance."
The criminal police asked him if he heard the sound of a taxi parking nearby between 12:30 and 1:30 the night before yesterday. The boss said that he did hear the sound of parking, but it was in the direction of the main road in front of the alley.
"So, you didn't see the car?"
"Well, I just heard the car park in the store."
Detective Hao Dong walked out of the noodle shop and walked towards the main road. He was carrying a black bag and looking left and right on the road, like an insurance salesman or bank cashier considering which way to take. He took out the regional map from the wrinkled pocket of his clothes and rummaged through it. At this time, what emerged in his mind was not the busy traffic thoroughfare in front of him, but the uninhabited path that turned white at night. This incident originally had several branches, and when he explored further, dense branches emerged. Interpol Captain Tian Chunda appointed the Interpol to investigate.
Detective Hao Dong decided to explore along those routes with someone in mind. He got into a taxi and combined in his mind the route someone took. He sat at a certain place, got out of the car and walked on foot, walked a few miles, and then got into a taxi, but it was only a short distance. He traced various possible routes, and another pursuit target was the fire scene.
There is no direct road connection between "Fangxian Hotel" and the fire scene. He stood and thought for a long time, then walked and looked at the homes on both sides of the road. The road near the fire scene is very narrow, and there are several alleys that lead to main roads with heavy traffic. He stopped and took a look. The area was full of small shops, ordinary houses and small companies. There was also a double-story house at the corner.
"The night before yesterday?" A man in his late thirties and his wife were sitting at the door frame. Coincidentally, the signboard outside the house was the office of a life insurance company.
"I remembered..." the owner said, "I played mahjong with a few salesmen here that night. There were five people in total, and each of them took turns to play mahjong. I remember it was about one o'clock in the morning, and I happened to take turns. After that, I went up to the second floor to see what was going on outside."
"Wait a minute...why are you looking outside?"
"Well, because the next day, yesterday, I was going to the countryside to collect insurance. I hoped it would be a sunny day, and I even opened the wooden window to check the weather."
"I see. What happened next?"
"Later, I lowered my head and looked down. There were many cars passing by on the road, and a taxi happened to be parked on the side of the road. I took a closer look and saw a woman waving her hand to stop it."
"oh!"
"I thought to myself that there was a single woman wandering around in the middle of the night. It was too dangerous, so I took a special look."
"Have you seen her face clearly?"
"No. Looking down from the second floor, you can only see the head and body shape."
"What is she wearing?"
"Let me think about it...ah, I remember, that woman is wearing a suit and a black coat."
"Is she alone?" The detective's eyes shone sharply under his broad forehead.
"Yes."
"Which direction is that taxi going?"
"It seems that the car went forward about 500 meters, then suddenly turned around and drove in the opposite direction."
"What? U-turn?" the detective thought.
"That's right, drive in the opposite direction."
That direction is exactly opposite to the direction of "Fangxian Hotel" that Detective Hao Dong thought. Despite this, the detective couldn't help but smile.
"That woman's face," Detective Hao Dong asked cautiously, "Although you can't see clearly, how tall is she approximately?"
"Well... I'm not tall. Because I looked down from the second floor, I feel shorter than the average person."
"Skinny?"
"..." The salesman pondered for a moment, "You asked me that, but I really don't have any impression. I seem to be very thin, but also very fat..."
Detective Hao Dong nodded. He thought this sentence was very pertinent. He followed the route the insurance salesman told him and walked towards a place about five hundred meters away. The road is wide and turning around should not be a problem for vehicles.
Detective Hao Dong walked through the traffic flow and walked to the opposite side. He got into a taxi there, and this time, he planned to search in the opposite direction back to "Fangxian Hotel" from another road. After a while, he stood about five hundred meters north from "Fangxian Hotel". The path here was also very complicated. With the feeling of being a suspect, he sometimes took a taxi and sometimes walked, from the fire scene to the vicinity of "Fangxian Hotel".
During the investigation, he accidentally discovered another witness - an employee of a printing factory. The other party said that because he was working the night shift, he got home after one o'clock in the morning. After eating the late-night snack prepared by his wife, and just as he was about to go to bed, there was the sound of a car parking outside the door.
"A friend said he was coming to see me. I thought it was him, so I looked down from the second-floor window."
He said that he saw the taxi stop to let the passengers out, and the person who got out was not his friend, but a woman wearing black clothing. She walked very fast and suddenly turned into an alley.
"How tall is that woman?"
"Well, because when you look down from the second floor, you can only see her head. Her height is almost as high as the sign of the cigarette stall. I guess she is about 155 centimeters. She is not fat."
"How do you remember it so clearly?" Detective Hao Dong asked just to be cautious.
"Because it was already 1:30 in the morning, a single woman got off the bus on a dark road, so I was particularly impressed."
"That's right."
"I also looked specifically at the taxi's sign light."
"Signature light?"
"It's the light housing that protrudes from the roof of the car. It has the name of the taxi company on it."
The detective's eyes lit up, and he was grateful that the witness noticed this detail.
"Which car dealership is it?"
"It seems to be called Flying Eagle."
"Sure?"
"Absolutely."
Hao Dong walked to the public phone at a nearby cigarette stand and flipped through the phone book to find the address of the Flying Eagle Taxi Company. This company is located in Nancheng District. He arrived at the dealership, showed his police ID, and asked to see the dispatch supervisor. The dispatch supervisor was a middle-aged man in his forties. He promised to check the driver's daily report for that day later.
"Please be sure to name me when you call, because other colleagues don't know about this case." Hao Dong specifically emphasized to the dispatch supervisor.
According to the principles of criminal police handling cases, they usually work in teams of two. Since he was a senior criminal police officer and this was not a major criminal case assigned by his superiors, he pursued the case alone from the beginning.
Later, he went to the fire brigade again and carefully inquired about the identification results of the fire scene, but still found no strong clues. The fire brigade determined that it was an accident, so it could not be used as evidence for his case. Hao Dong returned to the criminal police detachment, sometimes sorting out information, sometimes writing investigation reports, and worked until evening.
Around six o'clock, the dispatch supervisor of the Flying Eagle Taxi Company called him.
"Mr. Hao Dong, right? I have already found out what you just asked about."
Hao Dong picked up the pencil in one hand and prepared to copy.
"Judging from the daily report, the driver who took the passengers to that place at that time was named Xiong Ao. He just came to pay the fare for the day. I also asked him to confirm it in person, and he himself said that this was indeed the case."
"When did he return to the business office?"
"As you know, our company's dispatch vehicle must return to the team at two o'clock in the morning at the latest, so he came back before then."
"Does your shift change at eight o'clock the next morning?"
"Yes, then go home and rest until the morning after tomorrow."
Detective Hao Dong decided to go to the business office of Feiying Automobile Dealership before eight o'clock tomorrow morning.
