After lunch, Lin Qiupu gathered everyone in the meeting room. When Lin Dongxue entered, she saw Xu Xiaodong excitedly telling several female officers, "Did you hear? This morning, Captain Lin was completely stumped by a cab driver and ended up releasing him without saying a word!"
"Stop making things up!" Lin Dongxue snapped as she dropped the documents in her hand.
The female officers returned to their seats, and Xu Xiaodong, grinning, leaned over. "I'm not trying to provoke you. I just think this guy's a slippery one. Without evidence, he won't say anything."
"Stay away from me!" Lin Dongxue said, clearly annoyed.
"Come on, Miss Lin, don't take it out on me. How about I treat you to hotpot tonight?"
"Go away, I'm not interested!"
Just then, Lin Qiupu entered, and the room immediately went silent. He cleared his throat and said, "We've made some progress on this case, but we still lack evidence. I know everyone is working hard, but we cannot relax..."
He quickly summarized the information they had so far and assigned tasks: "Xiao Qi, Xiao Wang, you two go to the Traffic Management Bureau and check the vehicles that passed by the crime scene that night. Xiaodong, Lao Wang, you two do a canvassing of the area around the scene. We need to widen the range of potential eyewitnesses. The rest of you, I'll send over the interrogation records from this morning. Go verify what Chen Shi said."
Lin Dongxue widened her eyes. Could it be that Chen Shi had some kind of prophetic ability? The wording was nearly identical!
Someone stood up and asked, "Captain Lin, do you still suspect Chen Shi?"
Lin Qiupu replied firmly, "I don't believe he's completely innocent. He's very likely a breakthrough point, and we can't afford to let him go just like that!" His words were strong, and many officers nodded in agreement.
If it weren't for Chen Shi's earlier comments, Lin Dongxue might have agreed too. But now, her mind was buzzing. She had always disliked her brother but never denied his abilities. Now, though, she found herself questioning them.
She didn't hear the rest of Lin Qiupu's speech. As soon as the meeting was adjourned, she stood up and left.
She immediately called Chen Shi: "Where are you?"
"Looks like I was right?" Chen Shi's voice on the other end was still casual.
Lin Dongxue didn't want to acknowledge him, so she just said, "You barely got it right."
"Haha!" Chen Shi laughed. "I'm outside the Fengzhilin Hotel. Bring the autopsy report and scene photos here, I'll give you an hour."
"Hey!" Lin Dongxue tried to stop him, but he had already hung up. She stomped her foot in frustration.
The police station had made several copies of the autopsy report, so Lin Dongxue easily got one. As for the scene photos, she had to sneak into Lin Qiupu's office and secretly take pictures with her phone.
She called a cab and headed to the Fengzhilin Hotel. As she looked around, ready to call, she heard him shouting, "Over here, over here!"
Chen Shi was casually sitting in a beef noodle shop, eating noodles. Lin Dongxue sat down next to him. "You seem so relaxed."
"I'm investigating the case," Chen Shi said, slurping a big mouthful of noodles.
"Why here to investigate?"
"I told you repeatedly, the woman got off here that night. You didn't believe me, so now I have to come check it myself. But they won't let me see the guest records, so I'll need to borrow your ID."
"Fengzhilin Hotel? But the woman died halfway there, so logically..."
Chen Shi made a helpless expression. "You still think I killed her?"
"Who knows! You're so slippery!" Lin Dongxue suddenly thought to herself, what was she doing? This guy might very well be the real killer, and here she was discussing the case with him.
Chen Shi was so confident and straightforward, there wasn't even a hint of a killer's demeanor. But then again, Lin Dongxue had only been at the police station for half a year. She had been involved in a few cases but had never worked on a core investigation. She didn't really know what the real killer felt like.
Chen Shi took the autopsy report from her hand, opened it, and said, "If you trust me, I'll give you credit for a top-tier achievement."
He glanced at the autopsy report and read out a few lines: "Post-mortem strangulation... The strangulation line is parallel to the ear... Small traces of alcohol found in the victim's body... Sexual intercourse occurred before death... It doesn't mention if alcohol was found in the stomach contents!"
Lin Dongxue replied, "The victim was a pharmaceutical representative, and she often had social dinners. Her colleagues said she had a dinner that night."
"Did she drink?"
"She probably did?"
Chen Shi chuckled. "Miss Lin, do you rely on guessing to investigate?"
Lin Dongxue blushed and defended herself, "Is this really that important? Clearly, the killer was motivated by lust. What the victim ate or drank doesn't matter much to the case."
"You have too many things wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to begin. Before solving the case, every detail is important. Let me tell you why this detail matters. If there's no alcohol in the stomach but there's alcohol in the blood, it means the victim might have ingested it in another way."
"Another way?"
"Are you really this slow? Alcohol is a solvent in some medicines, like ether!"
Lin Dongxue suddenly understood. Chen Shi pulled a pen from his pocket and added a note next to the autopsy report: "Did the stomach contents contain alcohol? Was there any trace of anesthetic drugs in the blood?"
He continued, "The victim was a pharmaceutical representative, a medical student. If someone close to her did this, the possibility of anesthetic drugs is very high."
He kept looking at the document, tapping his fingers on the paper. "There was sexual activity, torn clothes, bruises on the body. From that alone, to jump to a conclusion of r*p* and murder is a bit rash."
Lin Dongxue thought carefully about what he said, then suddenly said, "Even if you're trying to clear your own suspicion, you can't confuse the issue. How is this not r*p*?"
Chen Shi caught her off guard with the question, "Are you a virgin?"
Lin Dongxue's face turned red, and she slammed the table in anger, standing up. "What are you talking about!"
"I'm saying the identification of r*p* can't be based solely on those two things. When someone is forced into sexual activity, due to lack of arousal, the body can be dry, often leading to tearing, bleeding, and internal bruising. The position of internal bruises can also indicate the position the perpetrator took. To simply conclude it's r*p* because there was sexual activity is quite rash. Couldn't it be that the victim had s*x with someone else before she died?"
"Uh... That makes sense!" Lin Dongxue reluctantly admitted.
"On that basis, r*p* and murder are even less likely. Think about it. If it was r*p*, the killer would have had to restrain the victim's limbs and take the missionary position. Even if strangling occurred, it would have been in the front position. But the cause of death was strangulation from the back. I can't imagine how the killer would have carried out these actions."
"That's not necessarily true. Maybe the killer killed her right after... you know..." Lin Dongxue said, blushing.
"I'm talking about a high-probability scenario! The weapon seems to be a thick rope, possibly a jump rope. According to your theory, this is a crime of passion, but why would a jump rope be found at the scene? That's unreasonable."
As he spoke, Chen Shi kept writing his notes on the document, the entire page nearly filled with his additions.
Lin Dongxue was deeply impressed. This guy was clearly an outsider, yet his reasoning was sound. It was more beneficial than sitting through a criminal investigation class.
"R*p* and murder, in my view, is most likely fabricated!" Chen Shi concluded.
"What?!"
"The killer is misleading you!"
Lin Dongxue thought seriously about what Chen Shi said.
"One more thing, you probably won't believe me!" Chen Shi said.
"What is it?"
Chen Shi pushed the photo of the victim's face towards her. "This woman is not the one who got in my car that night."