The officers of the Criminal Investigation Division II had just returned from a county town and immediately took over another violent murder case. They were all tired and yawning as they walked.
The captain, Zheng Yan, who had just returned from the provincial capital, rushed to change his clothes while Tan Ming reported the information they had gathered so far.
"The victim is a woman aged between 45 and 47. The estimated time of death is around two days ago in the evening. The preliminary forensic analysis suggests she died from mechanical asphyxia, likely strangulation. Although the skin on her neck was abrasively scraped, there were discernible marks. Apart from that, her face was smashed in. After her death, she was discarded in a water reservoir beside a vegetable field, where her body was discovered at 7:13 AM this morning. Due to the rain last night, villagers had been near the reservoir before the police were called, so forensic evidence hasn't yielded any useful leads yet."
"Do we know the identity of the victim?" Zheng Yan asked.
"That's the key," Tan Ming replied. "There was no ID on her, and her phone was missing. Since her face was badly damaged, no matches could be found in the facial recognition system. We haven't found any relevant information in the missing persons database either. Xiao Chen and the others are currently canvassing the area around the reservoir, and I've asked the nearby police station to help identify the victim. Hopefully, we'll have more news soon."
Since the victim's identity was still unclear, and there were no clear leads, they had to rely on the forensic and investigative teams to gather more information.
Tan Ming finished his report, grabbed a strong cup of tea, and planned to head to the forensic expert, Old Li, to check on the autopsy results before returning to the crime scene. The real crime scene might have been nearby.
At that moment, the dispatcher entered the room and said that a woman claiming to be his sister was waiting outside, emphasizing, "Your sister is so cool."
Tan Ming was surprised. His sister, Tan Jia, was quiet and impatient, and she hadn't been out much since returning to Jiujiang a month ago. She barely knew anyone in the area except for a few elderly ladies in the workers' district. Why was she suddenly here at the police station? Was there a family emergency?
He went out and saw Tan Jia leaning against the door, her arms crossed. Her green-dyed hair cascaded around her collarbones, and she wore a baseball cap with her silver ear bone piercing visible on her ear. She was holding a stray cat by its chin while it rubbed its face against her boots, exuding a cool and rebellious vibe that made passersby glance at her twice.
However, her expression wasn't great; her lips were tightly pressed together, and her brows were furrowed.
It was a contradictory behavior.
"Jia Jia," Tan Ming greeted her. "Why are you here? Did something happen at home?"
Tan Jia stood up straight but didn't answer. Instead, she asked, "Brother, was a body found this morning? Was it a man or a woman?"
Tan Ming, switching from concerned sibling to professional detective, frowned and looked at her. "Where did you hear about this? Why are you asking?"
"I think the victim might be someone I suspect," she replied quickly, speaking in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone. She gave a brief explanation: "The day before yesterday, I went with Uncle He to mediate a marital dispute for a middle-aged couple living in the Glass Factory neighborhood. The wife, Luo Mei, mentioned that her sister-in-law, Mi Junfang, ran off with her lover around 1 PM the day before yesterday. But yesterday, when we tried to mediate the situation at Mi Junfang's house, we couldn't reach her by phone, which felt strange. I'm worried that she didn't run off, but was harmed instead. Oh, and when Mi Junfang left, she was wearing a beige short coat, her hair was in short, permed curls, she had a red mole on her forehead, and she probably wore jewelry. Is the body the same woman?"
Tan Ming's eyes sharpened. The victim did match some of those details.
"Did you say her name was Mi Junfang?"
"Yes, Mi Junfang. She's from outside the province, married to Luo Zhiyong here. Luo Zhiyong has a younger sister, Luo Mei, and a brother-in-law named Wang Yong. There are tangled family relationships between the two households. Many people saw Mi Junfang leave with her lover. Luo Zhiyong even chased after them but came back around 5 PM that day," Tan Jia replied, holding her breath and acting like a concerned citizen providing information.
If the victim matched, it would speed up the investigation.
Tan Ming still had doubts, but he knew they needed to confirm the victim's identity quickly. He told Tan Jia to wait in the reception room and went off to notify the rest of the team.
"Stay here for now. If the victim is Mi Junfang, they'll need to take your statement. Someone will come to ask you questions soon. Don't worry; it's part of the normal process."
Tan Jia nodded obediently. Once Tan Ming left, she exhaled deeply and warmed her fingers with the hot paper cup she was holding.
Now, the police could quickly summon Luo Zhiyong and the Luo Mei family for questioning and review surveillance footage of Mi Junfang leaving with her lover. Once they identified who among them was the killer, the case could be solved quickly.
She hoped that solving the case would make her strange dream disappear.
…
By noon, a large number of people had arrived at the police station to provide their statements about the Mi Junfang case.
Other unrelated statements had already been processed, and the team was now learning more about Mi Junfang's chaotic love life.
"Older women are often the most unpredictable. Mi Junfang was involved with her brother-in-law, and some even say she'd go into rooms with men she met while playing cards," Xiao Chen remarked while looking at a pile of statements.
"The killer hated Mi Junfang's face, which had been smashed after her death. The killer might be one of those men's wives, or Luo Zhiyong, or Luo Mei," he added.
"It's also possible that the lover killed Mi Junfang and used this method to confuse us. He's the prime suspect since Mi Junfang was last seen with him. Have we checked the surveillance footage along the road?" Captain Zheng Yan asked.
"Our tech team is reviewing it, but the only camera in that area is an electronic eye at the quick-access tunnel. There's little surveillance elsewhere, so it's possible the killer deliberately chose that area," Tan Ming speculated.
"We still need to check. If we're lucky, there might be footage from the first crime scene. The reservoir was just the dumping site," Zheng Yan replied. "Let's go interrogate the Luo family."
However, the interrogation yielded no useful new information.
The night before, from 8 PM on February 27th to 8 AM on February 28th, Luo Zhiyong, Luo Mei, and Wang Yong were all at home, with neighbors and children as witnesses. None of them could identify Mi Junfang's lover, or explain where he came from or where they were headed, except that he was wealthy.
During the mediation session, Luo Mei had shouted insults at Mi Junfang. After hearing that Mi Junfang was dead, Luo Mei fell silent and only said stiffly, "He doesn't seem like a good person."
However, when Luo Zhiyong saw Mi Junfang's mangled body during the identification, he broke down in tears, crying loudly like a ghost, causing Luo Mei to yell at him from across the hallway.
"Enough with the crying! All you do is cry! You'll cry your life away! What have you achieved!? You're just embarrassing yourself!" she shouted angrily.
Luo Zhiyong and Wang Yong both shuddered at her angry outburst.
Tan Ming and Xiao Chen exchanged looks. "Luo Mei sure has a fiery temper."
With little new information from the Luo family, the tech team finally found two key surveillance videos of Mi Junfang with her lover.
One video showed Mi Junfang being led by the hand along the wall, and the second showed a man who matched the description of the lover from the first video.
"He's moving along the wall in a very practiced way, like he's avoiding surveillance cameras," Zheng Yan observed while watching the second video.
"Check his identity. Has he left the city recently?" Zheng Yan instructed.
Female officer Wu Yang quickly ran the footage through the facial recognition system.
"We found him. His name is Liu Guanhua, 43 years old, previously convicted for robbery and released two years ago. How did he suddenly become wealthy? Did he start robbing older women for their jewelry?" she reported.
"And he hasn't left the city recently. If he killed her, why hasn't he fled? Is he exceptionally calm, or is he planning something else?" Zheng Yan asked.