Diary of a Criminal Investigator-Chapter 391: Solving the Case with an Arm

If, of course, there is no ’if’.

Upon returning, the first thing the various investigation teams did was hold another briefing meeting.

Ren Qiang’s side had already completed the inspection of the villages surrounding the garbage landfill.

"No particularly valuable clues were found, as there are relatively few people around the landfill site. Apart from scavengers, generally no one goes there, so there are basically no witnesses."

This investigative result was obviously quite disappointing, but it indicated that the probability of the killer living nearby is not high.

During the investigation, Ren Qiang made a hypothesis: could the killer be living near the garbage dump?

From past cases, analyzing the burial or disposal of bodies, the killer doesn’t randomly choose locations for these actions.

The killer’s fundamental purpose is to hide the bodies.

So, why dispose of bodies at the landfill?

Is it because it’s close to home?

There is a saying of discarding bodies far and burying near, and the landfill’s environment is relatively unique. Bodies discarded here are covered by garbage, which is akin to burial.

But how do we explain the clay unique to North Mountain found in the box?

Is it possible that the individual works at North Mountain?

If the individual has the convenience of working at the North Mountain cold storage, then it becomes possible for them to freeze bodies there.

"We expanded our search area, thoroughly examined all six villages surrounding the garbage landfill, and found 12 individuals who work at the North Mountain cold storage or have had work experience there."

"We focused on these 12 individuals, out of which 7 had left the job before last year, and among the remaining 5, 3 have been living in North Mountain long-term and have never returned, while the other 2 are from the same village and usually ride electric bikes to work together."

"From here to North Mountain... riding an electric bike?"

The distance is not short.

"Both individuals got married earlier this year, and since the Cold-blooded Company charges 200 a month for accommodation over at North Mountain, they choose to stay home and make the commute daily."

Despite talking a lot, Ren Qiang did quite a lot, but ultimately there’s no valuable clue to gain.

Qin Yong looked toward Sun Jun.

Sun Jun shook his head: "Our team expanded the investigation range, selecting one month ago as the midpoint, investigating all vehicles that exited the Warehouse Valley garbage landfill ramp the week before and after."

"This garbage facility sees limited traffic, with around 100 vehicles using this exit from the surrounding highway daily."

"In total, over roughly two weeks, we’ve screened about 1,400 vehicles."

Screening 1,400 vehicles in under a week is already quite a workload.

"Many of these vehicles are construction waste transport trucks, coming from North Mountain to the Warehouse Valley landfill, with the largest entropy plug production base about 10 kilometers past there."

"These trucks account for the majority. Besides those, we focused on vehicles entering the highway from two entrances near North Mountain."

"There are thirty-six vehicles in total."

"We’ve identified the owners of these thirty-six vehicles. Sixteen of them belong to villagers around the Warehouse Valley landfill."

"Old Ren and I have already verified these, and they seem to be clear."

"Among the remaining twenty vehicles, twelve are taxis, just passing through with passengers."

"We found the owners of the remaining eight vehicles, had Crime Scene Investigation help trace the cars, but found nothing of note."

"Though we haven’t completely ruled out suspicion, the current investigation hasn’t yielded significant leads."

The police are not omnipotent, and they can’t just detain or interrogate anyone on a whim.

No one can be thoroughly investigated just for passing through that intersection once.

First, the police have no legal authority for such actions, and second, there aren’t enough resources to do so.

Simply finding someone to question about their whereabouts and having Crime Scene Investigation scan their car is already stretching our capacity to the limit.

In many TV dramas, suspects escape an area and can get by checkpoints simply by pretending to sleep on a bus.

This isn’t entirely fictional; it’s true.

The police can’t go through and verify every passenger’s ID card on a bus.

Not everyone carries an ID, and waking up sleepers is unjustified.

It’s improbable to wake a hundred sleeping people for checks.

Coincidences happen like that.

"Let me report, the situation in Huangzhou isn’t promising, but there are some small leads."

Zhang Hui began his report.

"...Regarding Wang Lili’s disappearance from the bar that night, we have investigated almost everyone with little extra information from these three individuals."

"How goes the follow-up on this lead?"

Qin Yong spoke up, showing he valued this lead significantly.

In this age, few people use cash; aside from some elderly or children, adults tend rarely to use cash. Especially patrons of such slow-dance bars seldom pay in cash.

Of course, cash still has its advantages.

From recent security reports, Qin Yong observed an interesting trend.

Cash is chiefly used in massage parlors, karaoke bars, or other paid service scenes.

The reason is simple: cash transactions leave no trace.

Hence, why would someone use cash to settle accounts at a slow-dance bar?

The reasons boil down to two possibilities.

The person either has cash handy and rarely employs mobile payments, or they wish to conceal their identity.

Which category do these three individuals mentioned by Zhang Hui fall into?

"The lead is still being pursued, but the progress isn’t great. Lu Chuan, while in Huangzhou, enhanced three images, yet they only show side profiles, with one only featuring the back of a head, making facial comparison to identify them impossible."

Qin Yong nodded, his expression not as stern as before.

Though it’s just a small lead, having something is always better in pursuing a case. A lack of clues is more concerning than having too few.

Despite not being able to perform a facial match with side profiles or the back of heads, it doesn’t mean identifying suspects is impossible with such images.

Six years ago, Qin Yong encountered a murder case where only the perpetrator’s hand was captured in surveillance footage.

The recording was quite coincidental, revealing only the assailant’s arm wielding an axe fatally striking the victim on the head, with no other discernible details.

The investigation was exceptionally tough; over a month of effort yielded no new leads.

Eventually, the case went cold. However, two years later, a detective from the team who continued to follow the case arrested the suspect at a breakfast café.

The suspect sat at a neighboring table, and while eating, the detective recognized the distinct arm.