He Nan has been very busy recently, and it seems that the "big case" that his senior brother mentioned to him was really not a polite way of saying it.
The body of a boy under ten years old was found in the Kui River in Kui County, a county under Shuihan County. The body showed no signs of trauma other than the neat break at the neck. The person responsible for the autopsy also stated that the body should have died within three days of being discovered. There was no sign of poisoning in the body. It was obvious that there were only two causes of death. ——One is to directly chop off the head to kill, and the other is to kill the victim due to other injuries to the head. The murderer chopped off the head and dumped the body to cover up the real murder weapon and the cause of death.
But it was not that simple. Within seven days, another corpse floated up in the Kui River. It still looked like it had no head and no obvious trauma on the whole body, but this time it was a young man in his thirties. A man in his prime. So the magistrate of Kui County had to write to the county government to ask for help - it was about to develop into a serial murder case, and if these people in the county relied solely on them, they would probably lose their jobs.
This is why Zhou Li handed over this matter to He Nan - after all, his junior brother and he were from Shanhe Mansion, and they have more experience in solving cases than ordinary people, not to mention that he is also very aware of his junior brother's abilities.
Kui County is in the northernmost part of Shuihan County. It would take He Nan two days and one night at the fastest to get there. When he received the order, he didn't even bother to rest. He just took a horse and hurried to the scene of the crime. Kui County. And just when he arrived at the Kui County government office the next evening, bad news came again - just after noon today, another woman in her early twenties was fished out of the Kui River. She died in the same way as before. same.
As soon as He Nan stepped into the county government office, he was dragged to the back hall by the Kui County magistrate. There were already arresters and gangsters waiting at the door of the back hall. Inside the room were two corpses covered with white cloths lying side by side on the ground.
"Why is there one missing?" He Nan turned his head and looked at Wu Zuo.
The fifty-year-old old man also had a look of helplessness on his face: "It's almost ten years since the first case... A headless corpse decomposes much faster than a whole corpse. If such a corpse is not dealt with as soon as possible, it will... There was a plague, so we burned it, but luckily we still have the files." Wu Zuo said while handing over a thin pamphlet.
"Have all the identities of these three corpses been found out?" He Nan asked while holding the file and reading it. He has the ability to multitask. Reading the text here does not affect listening to other people's speech, and he can even read it in real time in his mind. The deduction is going on.
"The boy's identity has not been found out. We visited people with children under ten years old in their homes according to their registered household registrations, but we did not find that any family had lost their children. The identity of this male corpse is clear. He is from the county seat. There is a tailor named Yuan Er. As for the female corpse today, because the incident happened suddenly, we haven’t had time to check..." As he spoke, the head catcher became a little less confident, and his voice gradually became quieter. This was his dereliction of duty. .
Kui County is a county with more than a thousand households and a population of tens of thousands. It is understandable that it is difficult to find out the identity of the deceased.
"It doesn't matter." He Nan nodded, "This matter has become so big that today, someone will come to claim it. Who discovered these three corpses?"
"The villagers of Erlong Village in the lower reaches of the Kui River. Their village is right at the mouth of the river. Although the people who found the three corpses are different, they are all villagers of their village." The head catcher replied.
"Okay, are they at the county government office now? I'm going to see them later." He Nan had already finished reading the file, but he was not in a hurry to listen to the confession. Instead, he squatted down and lifted up the white cloth on the two corpses. He had never seen corpses when he was in Shanhe Mansion, but there were not many such close ones - he had always been afraid of corpses, especially those who refused to die with their eyes open. He always felt that the eyes of the dead were looking at him. Now these two corpses were without sight. The head corpse was actually more bearable for him, but he still had to endure the nausea and fear.
The moment the white cloth was lifted, the stench hit our faces. In fact, the stench of corpses was always there, otherwise the two men would not have preferred to stand at the door of the back hall rather than sit inside the house.
Hmm... There is an indentation on the middle of the middle finger of the male corpse's right hand, which should be the mark left by wearing a thimble all year round; there are calluses on the thumb and tiger's mouth of the right hand, and he often uses scissors. Both of these points can prove his identity as a tailor; the fingers There are many very fine old wounds on it, puncture wounds left from needlework... Is this tailor's business not doing well?
"How is tailor Yuan Er's business?" He Nan asked confusedly.
"Ah? Uh... Yuan Er's business is very good. He runs the tailor shop himself and has two or three assistants. Many rich families in the county come to him to make clothes." Although He Nan didn't know what he wanted to do. , but the head catcher still answered truthfully.
It turns out that it's not that the craftsmanship is bad, but that I haven't done any work by myself for a long time... so the needle points on my hands are extremely old, and you can't even tell them without looking carefully. This is He Nan's habitual reasoning. No matter whether it is helpful to the case or not, it is always correct to think more about it. In many cases, such inconspicuous details may be the murderer's motive for killing.
After roughly looking at Yuan Er's body, He Nan looked at the headless female corpse. Like Yuan Er, the female corpse looked very bloated from being soaked in the river. This female corpse looks different from Yuan Er's corpse. Her hands are rougher than Yuan Er, a young man. It seems that she often does rough work, and there are some irregular scars on her left hand. , a long and thin old wound on the index finger was the most obvious, spreading from the nail to the metacarpal bone.
"It seems that she is left-handed, and she also has dogs at home...perhaps more than one." He Nan said in his heart - the irregular scars on the woman's hands look like canine bite marks, and the marks are not very deep, so It was probably scratched by canine teeth while feeding. Judging from the depth, size, length and area of the bite marks, she had at least one medium-sized dog and another larger one in her home.
"Uh... I don't know if you can find out who among the people in Kui County has dogs, but I must ask you to check. Maybe the facts of this case will become clear." He Nan stood up and kicked. He kicked his slightly sore legs and explained his reasoning and speculation to everyone.
"In addition...the male corpse Yuan Er and the female corpse should not have died at the hands of the same person." He Nan finally made a conclusion after carefully comparing the two corpses several times, and this confident look also surprised everyone. .
"Hey Prison Cao... why did you say this?" the county magistrate asked suddenly, looking at his expression with surprise, while the two men standing aside also showed surprise.
"The conditions after decapitation are obviously different between living people and dead people. The blood stains on the clothes of this female corpse were like splatters, almost staining the entire chest and back red, and even the sleeves of her clothes were stained a lot, although the blood stains were almost washed away by the river. It was clean, but residual marks could still be seen; in contrast, the blood stains on Yuan Er's body were only a little on the back of his neck, and most of them were on his chest... So I can conclude that Yuan Er was beaten to death first. The head was decapitated a few minutes later... Since Yuan Er's body was lying on the ground, the blood only stained the chest when it flowed out."
"That's not right." The old man retorted: "Perhaps it's because Yuan Er is a male, and his height and neck width are not comparable to this woman's. The assailant may have judged that it would be difficult to kill with one blow, so he killed Yuan Er first. What about beheading again?"
"Don't worry...I haven't finished speaking yet." He Nan interrupted the old man: "Although at first glance, the fracture between the head and the neck is the same, but if you look closely, you can find the fracture on the neck of the female corpse. It was clean and neat, and it was obviously separated from the connection between two bones; while the break on Yuan Er's neck was a bit uneven, and the person who cut it didn't even know the structure of the human body, so he cut directly on the bone when he cut it. In the center, the cut was not neat. The former was obviously cut with a decapitation knife, and the knife skills were extremely skillful, while the wound in the latter looked more like it was cut with a kitchen knife, and more of a 'saw' method - although It may be disrespectful to the deceased to say this, but if the perpetrator can be found based on the doubts here, it can be regarded as comforting the spirits of the two people in heaven."
"In addition, this woman's knees are very stiff, and there are shallow bruises on her shoulders and upper arms where hemp ropes were strangled. She must have been restrained and killed while kneeling; while Yuan Er's body was covered with bruises. There were no such marks, so it was very likely that he was hit on the back of the head with a blunt instrument while standing. To confirm my guess, I also touched the chest of Yuan Er's body - as expected, his collarbone was somewhat sunken. There are also traces of knocks on the knees. It seems that he fell to the ground when he received the first blow or hit the bone."
"Okay, that's about it." He Nan breathed a sigh of relief, "Considering my age and experience, I'm not familiar with women's bodies, so I have to ask this senior widower to check whether the woman had been affected by any injuries during her lifetime. I will leave it to you. I will listen to the confessions of the villagers of Erlong Village." He Nan had already arranged everything in his words. Indeed, everyone present could not find any fault, so they all followed He Nan's instructions. Orders to take action, autopsy of post-mortem, survey of survey.
A total of two villagers from Erlong Village came. One of them became more cautious after discovering the second corpse. He often paid attention to whether there were new corpses by the river. His unintentional move really helped. , the third female corpse was also discovered by him in time.
However, they only knew that the body floated down from the upper reaches of the Kui River. The specific location of the dumping place could only be concluded by He Nan for an on-site inspection. So He Nan took two detectives to accompany him and rushed to Erlong Village with the two villagers. Before leaving the Yamen, he specifically told him to "take good care of these two corpses."
It was already late at night when they arrived at Erlong Village. He Nan and the two detectives stayed overnight in a house in the village, waiting to go up the river early tomorrow morning to search for clues.
Kui River is one of the tributaries of Hanshui River, with a total length of about 500 miles. It branches from Hanshui River in Kui County, crosses Lian County, and finally merges into Xiaodonghai. The flow of the river is neither fast nor slow, so it meets the river near Erlong Village. It is easy for corpses to accumulate there due to the turning, which is why the villagers of Erlong Village always find corpses.
"The person who dumped the corpse did not tie the corpse together with stones and sink it on the spot. Sure enough, it was because the rivers around Kui County were shallow and the corpse was easier to find... so they let the corpse float down the river. The corpses were destroyed in the sea, but they did not expect that these three corpses were coincidentally found in the river bend near Erlong Village, traveling at a slow speed that almost stopped. This proves that no matter how many people dumped the corpses, they were all found. They are residents near Kui County..." He Nan thought after walking along the river for a while. "However, we do not rule out the possibility that there are other buried corpses that have not yet been found..."
"The identity of the female corpse cannot be determined yet, but at least Yuan Er will be a breakthrough... Let's go back first to determine when Yuan Er disappeared. We should be able to get a relatively close time by asking the guys in his shop for confirmation. .”
After making up his mind, He Nan stopped wasting time on the long Kui River. It was far less convenient to judge the time of death of Yuan Er to deduce the identity of the person who dumped the body based on the speed of the water flow. He Nan What's hard to imagine is that it's best to guess based on the water flow. If you can't guess, it doesn't matter.
It cannot be said that murders are frequent these days, but the detection rate is really low. In most of the remote forests, no one knows who has died. It is common for people to be dead or not to be seen alive. This case of corpses buried in the Kui River can make people wonder. When He Nan saw the corpses, he could already say that God couldn't bear to see these three people die in vain.
He Nan took two detectives to stroll along the Kui River for a day, and did not return to the county town until sunset. However, what happened in that day could be said to be a wake-up call for him, and He Nan was so angry that his nose was crooked. Gone to who knows where.
"Where is the female corpse?" When He Nan returned, he saw that the female corpse was no longer in the yamen, so he found the widower for questioning.
The old man also looked embarrassed: "After you left last night, Xu Yuanwai from the county came over. When he saw the body, he started crying loudly and said with tears that this was his missing concubine. Although she is dead now, there is no trace of her. Can we let him take the whole corpse back to have a better life and bury it? We couldn't bear to stop him, so we let him take the corpse away..."
"Absurd!" He Nan's eyes widened, "Now that such a major case has not been solved, the only evidence must be kept well, not to mention her husband, not even her biological father can take it away! What if they accidentally destroy some clues while transporting the body?"
Seeing He Nan's behavior, the old man was a little reluctant: "You came from above, but we are people from this county. We are not the ones who offended Yuan Yuanwai. When the case is over, you will leave. We You still have to live, right?”
He Nan squinted at the old man and snorted coldly: "You are afraid of him but not me? Don't worry about tomorrow. Let's go to his place now and bring the body back."
