The boy stopped his bicycle and walked to the grass. In the middle of the grass, there was a man lying in a denim jacket and jeans. He looked like he was no longer breathing. The young man was so surprised that he immediately got on his bicycle and ran away without looking back.
An hour later, the criminal police from the Serious Case Group of the Municipal Criminal Investigation Detachment rushed over.
The corpse was that of a thirty-six or seven-year-old man with a thin body, a straight nose, and a dark complexion. His face was tilted to the side in pain, and there were obvious pinch marks on his neck. It seemed that he had been strangled to death. The clothes of the deceased were not messy, and the flowers and plants around the body showed no signs of being trampled. There are various indications that this man did not put up a strong resistance before his death. He may have been suddenly strangled by his neck and suffocated to death.
The police immediately asked people living nearby who were watching from a distance to identify the deceased. After the people came to identify the deceased, they all said they had never seen this man in the area.
The body was transported to the public security hospital for autopsy. But Team Leader Tian Chunda was still standing there, looking around.
"Oh, by the way. Hao Dong, did it rain at your house this morning?" Tian Chunda looked around at the ground and asked suddenly.
"No!" Hao Dong replied.
"My family lives in the north of the city. When it was almost dawn, I seemed to hear the sound of rain in my dream. When I got up, I saw that the ground was really wet. Is it raining over there too...?"
"My home is in the west of the city. It doesn't rain in that area, and it doesn't seem to rain in this area either."
"So it's just a light shower." Tian Chunda said while tapping the ground with the toe of his shoe.
That afternoon, the results of the autopsy came out.
The victim was 37 or 8 years old. The cause of death was suffocation due to strangulation of the neck. An autopsy of the internal organs showed that no drugs were found in the stomach, but there was coal dust stuck in the lungs. The murderer committed the crime between 10 a.m. on the 12th and 1 a.m. the next day.
"Powdered coal?" Tian Chunda couldn't help but blurt out after hearing the report, and then asked: "Is this man living in a coal-related environment?"
"This..." the anatomy doctor explained: "There is also a lot of coal powder stuck to the mucous membrane of the nostrils. It is possible that his living or working environment is related to coal."
41
The identity of the victim was learned that evening.
As news of this case was reported on the Internet, the deceased's wife rushed to the city's criminal police detachment after hearing the news. The police immediately asked her to identify the body.
"Yes, he is my husband." She answered firmly with tears in her eyes.
"What's your husband's name?" Tian Chunda asked.
"His name is Meng Xiangyu."
"When did he go out last night?"
"My husband and I both work part-time jobs. Yesterday evening at about six o'clock, I came home and saw that my husband was not at home. At first I thought he had gone out to buy things, but after waiting for more than an hour, he still didn't come back. . Then I asked the neighbors, and Mrs. Zhang next door said she saw him answering a phone call in the yard around four o'clock and then hurried out. "
"You answered the phone? Did you hear what your husband said on the phone?" Tian Chunda asked.
"I also asked Sister-in-law Zhang about this, and Sister-in-law Zhang said she didn't pay attention."
The phone call attracted the attention of the police.
"Think about it, who would call your husband at that time?"
"I've been thinking about it for a long time, but I can't think of any clues."
"Do you have any relatives near the eastern suburbs where the body was found?"
"Not at all. I was also surprised. How could Meng Xiangyu go to that place?"
"Your husband must be carrying a bag or backpack when he goes out, right? We didn't find it at the scene, and you won't find it at home, right?"
"He went out with a handbag. A black regular handbag."
"Is there money in it?"
"It won't cost much, usually only two or three hundred yuan at most."
"Is there anyone who is dissatisfied with your husband and looking for revenge?"
"No, I'm sure of that."
At this time, Hao Dong interrupted and asked:
"Does your family usually burn coal?"
“We don’t burn coal, our home uses gas.”
"Is there a place near you that sells or stores coal?"
"nor."
After asking about the general situation, the police asked the woman to go back.
The crime team focused its investigation on the mystery of the phone call that drove the victim away from home. Meng Xiangyu went out after receiving a call and was killed after going out. It seemed that the person who killed him was an acquaintance of his, so Meng Xiangyu went there after answering the phone without any precautions.
42
The criminal police found that the person who called Meng Xiangyu in the afternoon before he was killed was Lu Tian, the chairman of Xingfa Real Estate Company. They went to the company to interrogate him.
On the way there, Tian Chunda said to his subordinates: "This Lu Tian is a suspect in the murder of Qu Lili, and now he is a suspect in the murder of Meng Xiangyu. He has a big problem."
Meng Xiaochun said: "Maybe the two cases are related. Lu Tian killed Qu Lili, and Meng Xiangyu found clues and threatened her, so Lu Tian killed Meng Xiangyu again."
Tian Chunda nodded, "It's also possible."
Seeing Tian Chunda and others coming again, Lu Tian smiled and said, "Several police officers have visited our company again. Do you have anything new to ask?"
Tian Chunda nodded: "Yes. Did you call Meng Xiangyu around four o'clock in the afternoon on the 12th?"
"Yes, he can repair locks. There was something wrong with my safe door lock. I asked him to come over and repair the lock. He agreed, but he didn't come. I called him again, but his phone was turned off."
"Where were you and what did you do after four o'clock in the afternoon on the 12th?"
Lu Tian lit a Chinese cigarette, took a puff and said, "I work in the company from four to five o'clock. After get off work, I invited a few friends to drink until midnight."
"Oh? Drinking? Please tell me the name of your drinking partner."
"They're all here." Lu Tian wrote down the names of his drinking friends and handed the note to Tian Chunda. It read: Ji Chuan, Chen Xiong.
Lu Tian added: "Jichuan also invited three male neighbors to drink together."
After leaving Xingfa Company, Tian Chunda said to his subordinates: "We need to investigate Lu Tian's drinking friends to see if Lu Tian is telling the truth."
Returning to the criminal police detachment, Tian Chunda asked Xiang Haiyang again: "Haiyang, how is the investigation in the eastern suburbs going?"
Xiang Haiyang replied: "We are currently investigating with all our strength. No one who witnessed Meng Xiangyu and the murderer coming to this area has been found near the body site."
Tian Chunda said to his subordinates again: "Tell me, where was Meng Xiangyu killed?"
"Wasn't the body found in the woods in the eastern suburbs?" said young detective Yu Ping.
Hao Dong continued: "Because there is no blood, it is difficult to determine where the crime scene is."
