National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 1057 - 990: Smooth

Chapter 1057: Chapter 990: Smooth

Jiang Yuan rallied his team, bringing along Cui Qishan and others for a secret inspection of Jianmen Court.

The Zhengguang Bureau’s criminal police were not lacking in talent, strictly speaking, Cui Qishan could hardly be counted as a talent. He was the weakest link.

Mainly, Jiang Yuan was familiar with Cui Qishan, moreover, Cui Qishan had a special skill in exhuming corpses, which in a headless case like this, any abnormality could be a good thing.

Cui Qishan took any anomaly very seriously. Joking aside, Jiang Yuan, in order to save his man, brought down an entire listed company—of course, strictly speaking, it wasn’t necessary in the matter of "helping out"—but such an intent was something that Cui Qishan couldn’t help but accept.

Everyone was well-prepared, and when it was time to drive, there was unexpectedly a convoy of more than 20 vehicles.

Cui Qishan seemed as if he wanted to call over the entire Technical Investigation team.

With so many cars driving over together, it couldn’t be called a secret inspection, so they specially divided people to handle this and arranged for most of the vehicles to park in the public parking lot ahead.

There were total two cars and eight people around Jiang Yuan, parked outside of Jianmen Court.

Jiang Yuan, accompanied by Mu Zhiyang and Gao Yuyan, and Cui Qishan with his subordinate Li Jiang, making a total of five people, entered the Jianmen Court community without any obstacles.

Jianmen Court is a residential community that dates back fifty years ago; once a large institutional compound, due to organizational change and the downsizing of enterprises and institutions, it has been completely handed over to society, and now, it is just an old building complex with lax security, a prime location, but old structures.

"The incident occurred in Building 2, the one to the right upon entering," Cui Qishan had already reviewed the files beforehand.

Jiang Yuan nodded in acknowledgment of the location and observed his surroundings.

The case of Jianmen Court was difficult precisely because it was especially simple.

There are a total of 4 buildings inside Jianmen Court, all five-story tube buildings arranged in a Z shape, thus none block the view of the others. Building 2 is at the lower right-hand corner of the Z, about 10 meters away from the courtyard wall.

The victim Zhang Xiaoming lived on the 4th floor of Building 2.

The structure of the tube building itself and its occupants was very simple.

A tube building is like a row of dormitory buildings, each room a straight tube-shaped rectangular room, with one or two small partitions inside, without separate bathrooms and kitchens.

The tube buildings of Jianmen Court are second generation, each floor being equipped with two relatively large bathrooms and two kitchens, which are a bit more spacious in comparison.

The staircases and corridors are like outer appendages to the building, consisting of a long corridor with staircases in the middle.

It can be said that the structure of Jianmen Court from inside to outside is all in plain view.

One can see the corridors and people upstairs from below, and with a better position, even see into the kitchens.

The corridors are also straight through; whether looking from the staircase or the end of the corridor, it’s clear to see anyone present along the walkway.

Furthermore, Jianmen Court, built by the institution itself in the 90s, although there had been some cases of housing exchanges, inheritance, and buying and selling, overall, the residents of the entire compound were acquaintances, people from the same building were at least fifty percent familiar with each other, and even more so, over seventy percent for residents on the same floor.

However, when the victim Zhang Xiaoming was murdered, the judgment of the forensic doctor at the time placed the time of death at around 10 o’clock in the morning, a relatively quiet time in the compound—most people would have gone to work, but there would inevitably be family members present.

Yet, after extensive visits to everyone in the compound, not a single eyewitness was found.

This inevitably directed the investigation towards the possibility of an acquaintance committing the crime. Especially the residents on the third floor, only these residents appearing in the corridor of the third floor would be the least noticeable.

If there were strangers unfamiliar to the place, it would be impossible not to notice them.

But obviously, the results did not support the special investigation team’s judgment at the time.

Jiang Yuan and Cui Qishan walked back and forth on the 4th floor of Building 2 several times and finally drew the attention of an elderly lady.

"Which unit are you from?" The old lady appeared to be in her sixties, relatively young for the building.

The current resident structure is different than it was over twenty years ago. The same tube buildings house fewer people now, with more strangers coming and going, and due to the lack of private kitchen and bathrooms, the original residents have almost all moved out, new tenants come and go frequently, long gone are the days when neighbors on the same floor were closely acquainted.

Cui Qishan, noticing the old lady’s age, didn’t answer directly but instead asked, "Are you the owner of an apartment in this building? Have you lived here since before or did you buy the apartment later?"

"Who would buy an apartment here, we’re all waiting for the renovation; they talk about renovating but don’t do it, now we’re just waiting for the demolition." The old lady from Beijing was eager to express her identity as an old Beijinger, she then said, "This apartment was allotted to my father back then, and after my dad passed, my brothers who had better living conditions, they gave me this apartment. Now it’s being used as a school district house for my granddaughter, to cook a meal at noon, take a little rest, and then take her home in the evening."

"This house hasn’t been renovated or demolished because of that case, right?" Cui Qishan brought up a rumor from the neighborhood.

The old lady’s face changed, "I didn’t think it was likely before, but now it seems possible. Ah, what does it have to do with us? The neighborhood next door has elevators now, just because there was a murder in our building, they said no to installing them. Not to mention demolition, with such a good location, why wouldn’t they demolish... "

"So, you mean that case hasn’t been solved yet?"

"Who knows, it probably hasn’t been solved."

"Were you living here when that case occurred?"

"I was. I lived with my parents and several brothers. It was after that incident that we were determined to buy a house."

"What do you think the murderer is like?"

Without thinking, the old lady said, "It’s hard to say, but it might have been a worker from the factory."

"Hmm? Why do you think so?"

"Because Zhang Xiaoming was advocating for ’layoffs and re-employment’, think about it. If you were a factory worker, would you want to be laid off and re-employed? Many people were so angry they wanted to stab him. And in the end, wasn’t he stabbed?"

"I remember that they arrested a few people back then, those who had said such things." Cui Qishan was recalling the case files.

The old lady said, "Zhang Xiaoming was stabbed to death during working hours, and the workers were all on the job. They didn’t have the time to stab him." As she spoke, the old lady looked up and asked again, "Which department are you from?"

"We are the police!" Cui Qishan said this with a smile yet seriously, waiting to see the old lady’s reaction.

"Are you going to work on this case again?" The old lady’s brow furrowed, devoid of the expected welcome.

Cui Qishan was taken aback, "Has someone worked on this case before?"

"Don’t you investigate it every few years? I’ve joined quite a few groups," the old lady said with a suspicious look at Cui Qishan: "Where’s your ID?"

When an old lady from Beijing scrutinizes you, you feel some pressure.

Cui Qishan chuckled bitterly, showed his ID to the old lady, and continued asking questions.

Finally, having asked enough to annoy her, Cui Qishan caught a few passersby to question, and then checked the chat groups the old lady had mentioned.

They were all created by members of the previous task force.

Cui Qishan chuckled bitterly and said, "I guess they’re just like us, investigating secretly every few years, not daring to launch a full-scale operation, but conducting a preliminary investigation beneath the surface. They probably hope to collect enough evidence before reporting it up the chain. Sadly, they have never managed to gather the evidence."

Cui Qishan spoke earnestly, though his words were not pleasant.

Jiang Yuan nodded.

Cui Qishan then sighed and added, "Most of the task force members who worked on this case back in the day have retired by now. If we’re going to work on this case again, it mostly depends on the results of questioning. We also have to consider the suspect’s behavior."

What Cui Qishan described was the standard process of investigating a backlog of homicide cases.

For cases over 20 years old, most of the evidence has disappeared, so such cases heavily rely on the suspect’s guilty conscience or a successful report from those around them.

If the interrogating police can get the suspect to confess directly, that would be perfect. If not, they need the suspects’ cooperation to provide some information. Otherwise, resolving a backlog like this becomes very difficult.

Therefore, Cui Qishan was pinning his hopes more on the person whose fingerprint Jiang Yuan had found.

Jiang Yuan shook his head slightly and said, "He might not confess. Once he does, he’ll become a murder suspect. Besides, I don’t think he’s the killer."

Regarding the former, Cui Qishan reserved his judgment, only asking about the latter, "How do you know he’s not the killer?"

"Wang Futing, the suspect matched by my investigation, his fingerprint was found on the wall of the courtyard, and there was no bloodstain on the wall. Judging by the victim’s wounds and the position of the body, the victim had put up some degree of resistance. If Wang Futing participated in the killing, his clothes and hands would likely be stained with blood, so the courtyard wall couldn’t be that clean."

"So, this Wang Futing might be completely unrelated to the case?" Cui Qishan was getting agitated, "I knew it, it couldn’t be this easy!"