The motive and time for the murder have been established, and I was almost able to send Xiao Jianfeng to the cell. But at this time, A Yang called me and said that there was another murder in the Daily News Building, and the murderer was suspected to be a cement banshee.
Zhen Zhen and I immediately rushed to the thirteenth floor of the Daily Building, and A Yang told me the general situation: "The deceased Huang Jing, 30 years old, worked as a proofreader at the newspaper. At the time of the incident, he and the editor-in-chief were working overtime, and the editor-in-chief Lin Shangwen witnessed his murder. process."
Huang Jing's body was lying beside his desk. There were three chairs next to the body. Two of them stood side by side and the other was upside down on the ground. A lot of grout was scattered on the chairs, the deceased and the surrounding ground. There is an air conditioner vent directly above the chair, and the grille was removed and dropped next to the chair. The desk top is slightly cluttered, one of the drawers is not fully closed, and the key is still in the keyhole. The computer on the desktop is still powered on, but in a screen saver state.
The neck of the corpse was covered with a red wire about the size of a chopstick and stained with cement, which was deeply immersed in the skin, and the skin in contact with the wire was dark purple. The deceased's eyes were protruding, his tongue was sticking out, his face was blue and purple, and he looked like he was dead, which was very scary. There is no need for an autopsy over the years, and it can be known from the signs at the scene that the deceased was strangled by wires, but there were no obvious signs of fighting at the scene. It is impossible for a man to be strangled without struggling unless he is hung up, but there is no hook on the ceiling to hang him up. If you want to hang someone, I'm afraid you can only use the vent. With the cement everywhere, the biggest suspect is of course the cement banshee.
Editor-in-chief Lin was the only witness, so I asked him about the details at that time. His hands were shaking violently with the cigarette in his hand, and he told me about the incident with lingering fears—
Because of An An's incident, I didn't come back to work almost all day today, and when Xiao Ning had an accident, the page he was in charge of was vacant, and I had to quickly arrange the page he was in charge of, so I asked Xiao Huang to come with me work overtime.
At about 20:00, I edited a spare manuscript, so I walked out of the office and prepared to ask Xiao Huang to do the final proofreading. As soon as I came out, I saw him stacking three chairs and was about to climb up, so I asked him why? He said that there were always strange noises coming from the air-conditioning duct, and he wanted to climb up to have a look.
Strange things have been happening all the time recently, and An An has also gotten into official trouble. I also wanted to find out what was going on, so I didn't stop him, just told him to be careful.
After he climbed into the chair, he carefully removed the grille of the air outlet and placed it at his feet, and then tried to stick his head into the air-conditioning duct. However, at this moment, a pair of hands covered with grout, holding a wire tied into a coil, suddenly stretched out of the air outlet and wrapped around his neck.
I was stunned by this sudden change, not to mention him, and hurriedly wanted to get out of the way. But his neck was already caught in the wire, not only did he not flash, but he also kicked the chair over and was dangling from his neck.
It took me a while to realize he was going to be hanged, and I rushed over to hug his feet and hold him up. But his feet kept kicking, and I was kicked several times before I could hug his feet. I used all my strength to lift him up a little bit, but the hands that came out of the air outlet immediately pulled the wires up again, so I couldn't save him at all, so I ran downstairs to get help from security. But by the time I got him, he was already lying on the ground...
Editor-in-chief Lin had grout on his body and a few shoe prints on his chest, all of which matched his narrative. However, looking at the slightly cluttered desk, I can't help but wonder. The deceased once told me that he was very careful about cleanliness, how could he make his desk like this
At this time, the fleeting year has arrived. After I relayed to him the information I learned from the editor-in-chief Lin, he began to conduct a preliminary examination on the body. After a while, he walked up to Editor-in-Chief Lin and asked, "When was the deceased killed?"
"About eight o'clock!" Editor Lin replied.
Then Liu Nian asked the two security guards on duty when editor Lin arrived at the security room. Huang Yu yawned and replied, "It's probably more than eight o'clock!" Liu Nian was a little unhappy, and asked again, "I want to know the exact time."
"It should be between 20:16 and 20:18." He Xi pressed the phone while plugging in, then handed the phone to Liu Nian, and said, "I called the police at 20:22, from the security room. It took about five minutes to get up, and as soon as I saw something happened, I immediately called the police, so Mr. Lin should have arrived at the security room at this time."
"Then it was about 20:10 when Editor-in-Chief Lin left the murder scene..." After Liu Nian broke his fingers for a while, he smiled and said to me: "I just couldn't figure out why the deceased's pants had obvious signs of being pulled down. , now I finally understand."
"Pull down?" I glanced at Editor-in-Chief Lin, and found that his face suddenly turned pale. I immediately went to check the trousers of the deceased, and found that the position of the trousers and the pelvis were very tight, and the trousers were also pulled down. Editor-in-chief Lin said that when the deceased was hanged, he hugged the deceased's feet and lifted them up, which would definitely not cause such marks. There is only one possibility that could cause such marks, that is, he hugged the deceased's feet and pulled them down. It is not uncommon for people to use the wrong method to save people when they are in a hurry.
"I took the liver temperature for the deceased just now, and the time of death of the deceased was determined between 19:00 and 19:30 based on the liver temperature, but Mr. Lin arrived at the security room more than half an hour later. When you are older, you should pay more attention to exercise. That's fine, Mr. Lin!" Liu Nian smiled at the pale editor Lin, then packed up his tools and prepared to transport the body away.
There are 46 minutes between 19:30 and 20:16, and it takes less than 5 minutes to take the elevator to the first floor. What is the editor-in-chief Lin doing in the remaining 40 minutes? The answer is probably on the desk. I hurried over to my desk and checked the keyholes in each drawer, and as expected, there were quite a few scratches around all the keyholes, and they had obviously just come out. With the cautious character of the deceased, these scratches were definitely not left by him, and he would not even leave the key in the keyhole. Then there are only two kinds of people who make scratches, one is drunk people, and the other is panic people.
Now it's clear that Editor Lin lied. He didn't leave after the deceased's death, and searched the deceased's desk before going to the security room to ask for help. But what is he looking for? I don't know this, but I'm not in a hurry to know. What I want to know most now is the situation in the air-conditioning duct.
I quickly folded the chair and climbed up to probe into the air vent. Strange, there is no indentation like I imagined, but a small amount of grout. There are no hooks on the ceiling. To hang people up, you can only use the air outlet, and put an iron bar across the air outlet, so that you can hang people up. But in this way, because the weight of the whole person is concentrated on the iron rod, it will definitely leave an indentation in the pipe. If I can find the indentation, I can directly send Editor-in-Chief Lin to the detention center to wait for sentencing, but now I have not found the indentation. Is it really as he said, the murderer is a cement banshee
Zhen Zhen had heard that Editor-in-Chief Lin was obedient to the deceased, but now the deceased's desk is clearly showing signs of being checked. Based on this speculation, the deceased is likely to have mastered some of the secrets of editor-in-chief Lin. In this way, editor-in-chief Lin is suspected of murder, and his confession becomes unreliable. It is almost a waste of time to ask him directly, but if he can know his secret, it will be another matter. However, 40 minutes, enough time for him to go inside and out of his desk, of course there will be no evidence left.
Looking at the computer in the screen saver state on the desk, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration and hurriedly operated it. After removing the screen saver state, the first recycle bin I checked was unfortunately emptied. The deceased was a person who paid attention to cleanliness. It is not surprising that the recycle bin was emptied frequently. Ask the security if this computer is on a screensaver when they arrive
Huang Yu said that he didn't pay attention. He didn't know whether to be a security guard or just hanging out. Basically, he didn't know what to ask him. Fortunately, after thinking for a moment, He Xi said that when he arrived, the computer did not enter the screen saver state. Because he was from a rural area, he rarely had access to computers before, so he paid special attention. He also said that the computer only entered the screen saver state after he called the police, and the sudden change of the screen image made him feel very novel.
When I heard the words, I immediately checked the screen saver settings and found that the screen saver activation time was set to 20 minutes. So if someone else operated the computer after the deceased died, it goes without saying that this person must be Editor-in-Chief Lin.
Looks like it's time to put Viagra to work again. Since Editor-in-Chief Lin would operate the computer after the death of the deceased, then the computer should contain his secret, perhaps a picture or a document. Although I'm not sure if Viagra will be able to get me a computer's operating records, it shouldn't be difficult for him to restore the files he just deleted.
After receiving my call, this fellow Viagra waited for more than half an hour to arrive, and he couldn't stop muttering that such a trivial matter would make him, the great hacker, work overtime. I asked Zhen Zhen to give it hard. He "massages" a few times before he works obediently. He inserted a flash drive into the computer and it didn't take long to restore a trove of deleted files, several of which were deleted after the deceased's death. I asked him to open these documents, and found that the contents were all the accounts of the newspaper office. After careful inspection, I found that a lot of funds were unknown. I think I know Editor-in-Chief Lin's secret - short of public funds!
I pointed at the screen and asked Editor Lin seriously: "You were threatened by the dead because you ran out of funds for the newspaper, so you killed him and then blamed the so-called Cement Banshee. Am I right? Editor Lin !"
"No, no, I didn't kill him, he was really killed by the Cement Banshee." He hurriedly argued.
"Then can you explain why the deceased's pants were pulled down instead of being lifted up as you said?" I said in a stern tone.
"I, I, I..." He was at a loss for words, unable to think of a reason to refute.
Although the existing evidence cannot directly prove that he is the murderer, it can at least prove that he is inseparable from the death of the deceased. And he also has a charge of short of public funds, so I asked A Yang to detain him.
The Lin family was still unlucky. Three people were imprisoned in one day. I don't know if there was a problem with the ancestral tomb. Editor-in-chief Lin's crime of delinquency of public funds has almost been established. As for his responsibility for Huang Jing's death, further investigation is required. But from the current situation, he is an accomplice even if he is not the mastermind. And the idea that the mastermind is a mysterious and mysterious cement banshee is unreasonable, so he has a high chance of being charged with murder.
Both An An and Xiao Jianfeng are suspected of murdering Ning Yuyi. Judging from the existing evidence, the latter is more suspected. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how he escaped from the darkroom after the crime, or he could have released An An.
Even though there are still many suspicious points in this case, the dust has basically settled. As long as we step up efforts to extort confessions from the suspects, the truth will be revealed. However, the reality does not seem to be as simple as I imagined, and what happened after that was far beyond my expectations.
Early the next morning, I went to the boss's office to report the investigation results to him: "The existence of the so-called cement banshee still cannot be confirmed, although there are still many doubts, but there is evidence that the two murders were man-made. "Then I told the boss about the existing evidence in detail and analyzed it one by one.
"Those surnamed Xiao and Lin are indeed suspicious, but how they got into the air-conditioning duct is questionable. If it was the same person, it would be justified, but it is hard to believe that both of them can get into the duct." The boss read the report and said.
"I can't figure this out either, otherwise the case would have been closed long ago." I said helplessly.
"Will there be a third party?" The boss suddenly frowned, "The surnamed Lin may not lie, because it is not easy to hang the dead by himself. And if he gets into the pipe and pulls him The wire around the dead man's neck, so how can he pull the dead man's pants?"
Boss this question is indeed worth pondering. However, this problem has caused the case to fall into an unexplainable endless loop. Assuming that the Cement Banshee exists, some problems will be solved, but there is still no substantial evidence to prove her real existence. Assuming she does not exist, then many key issues cannot be explained.
The case was deadlocked around the existence of the Cement Banshee. The evidence at the scene failed to provide direct proof, and the suspect's confession was difficult to distinguish. This is what worries me.
Just when the case was deadlocked, the Daily News Building went into trouble again. A Yang called me: "This time it's so evil, the Daily News Building is eating people!"
A Yang's call made me feel inexplicable, what is "building cannibalism"? He couldn't make it clear on the phone, he just told me to hurry up and investigate in person, but he told me that the one who was killed this time was a member of the Lin family - Ji Xuerong!
This Lin family is really troubled. First, Yiyi encountered strange things again and again, and then the three of them were detained within a day. Now even the remaining Mrs. Lin has been "eaten", and it was eaten by a haunted building. Could it be that this family has some deep hatred with the Daily News Building