Genius Detective - Chapter 241

Chapter 241

Chapter 241: Blood in the Mall

Chen Shi returned home and called Tao Yueyue to the living room as he turned on the computer, plugged in a USB flash drive, and ran a software program on it .

He said, “Come here . Let's paint a picture of that criminal . ”

Tao Yueyue asked, “Isn't this the software that restores faces in the Public Security Bureau? Where did you get it?”

“Borrowed . ”

“Borrowed?”

“The person wasn't in front of the computer when I borrowed it . Don’t worry about these details . I’ll delete it after finishing . ”

The two pieced together the nose, eyes, and ears in the software for a long time . Tao Yueyue frowned and knit her brows together the whole time . After an hour, they finally pulled together a face . Chen Shi asked, “Is this Zhou Xiao?”

“Uh, it doesn't feel like it’s the same . . . Uncle Chen, I can't remember too clearly . ”

“All right!” Chen Shi sighed and deleted the software .

“But if I see him again, I can probably recognize him . ”

The next day, Lin Dongxue went to the police station in charge of the disappearances of Jiang Hui and Jiang Ming . Since they’d been zeroing in on kidnappers as of late, the police stations paid more attention to the two disappearances . They went to many places over the past few days .

Their efforts harvested some progress . In the surveillance footage of a hotel, it showed someone wearing the school uniform the day after the two children disappeared .

The figure flashed across the alley .

The camera was originally facing the corridor . It was taken through the glass and wasn’t very clear . The police showed it to Lin Dongxue . Lin Dongxue said, “This school uniform is a female student’s . ”

“From the nearby references, the height and body shape are similar to Jiang Hui’s . ” The officer said .

“Did you go there?”

“This surveillance footage was sent to us as a clue when we issued a reward for public leads . It was received last night . We are planning to head over now . Will Officer Lin be joining us?”

“Okay, let's go!”

Lin Dongxue went to the scene in a police car . The alley was narrow . One end led to the road and one end led to a hotel . The police found a button here that was suspected to be on the school uniform .

In addition, a dead female cat with an assortment of colors was found . Its eyes were already very cloudy .

While looking at the screenshot of the surveillance video on their mobile phone as reference, they finally stopped at a door . Lin Dongxue pushed in and found that it was a safe passage in a home appliance mall . She went in and looked around while the local police went to the person in charge .

The person in charge said that the mall was closed at 6:00 every night and the door would be locked .

The policeman asked, “At 8:00 PM on April 2nd, are you sure the door was locked?”

“It must have been locked . ”

At this time, Lin Dongxue came out of the door . “I just asked the employees . They said that although the mall closes at 6:00, as long as there are customers, the employees have to work overtime . Sometimes they don't get off until 8:00 or 9:00 PM . ”

“Who said that?!” The person in charge was a little nervous .

“Rest assured, we are not from the Labor Bureau . We are police . A child came in on the evening of April  2nd . [1] Do you have any surveillance of that?”

“The surveillance is all in the mall . ”

Immediately, the police inspected the surveillance footage and found a shot of the two children walking in at 6:00PM on April 2nd . [2] It was no doubt that it was Jiang Hui and Jiang Ming . Lin Dongxue asked the clerk who was still at work at the time . They couldn’t recall them as they saw too many customers every day .

Lin Dongxue secretly wondered .  Why did the two of them go in, but only one came out? Surely…

Lin Dongxue entered the safe passage from the inside of the shopping mall . There were four safety exits on each floor . The safe passage surrounded the outside of the shopping mall . There were two exits on the sides and stairs in the passage that goes up and down .

It was daytime right now so there weren’t people in the safe passage . Only one janitor was sweeping the floor .

She went up to a security exit and found that a key was needed to lock it, so she asked the person responsible whether the keys for all security exits were the same and who had access to the keys .

The person in charge said, “There are three keys that can open all the doors . One is here with me and one is a spare that’s placed in the security room . The last one is used by employees who take turns to lock the door . ”

“Who locked the door that day?”

“I'll find out for you . ”

When they found the employee, he said that the door was locked at 7:00 that night . Lin Dongxue asked, “Did you check the inside before locking?”

“What's there to check? There's nothing to lose except cleaning supplies . ”

“How is the door outside the first floor locked?”

“It's locked from the outside!”

Lin Dongxue recorded his name and ID number . Then, she took a few photos of him so that she could see if his testimony checked out . If he locked the door at 7:00 that night, the surveillance footage of the nearby hotel would have captured that .

She also took a picture of the lock and the key and sent it to Lin Qiupu . “Is this kind of lock easy to open?”

Lin Qiupu replied . “It's easy . Anyone who knows a little about locks can open it . ”

She called for the cleaner who cleaned here on the morning of April 3rd [3] and the cleaner said, “I didn't notice anything really . There was a dead cat on the top floor stairs though . I threw it out . ”

“Apart from the dead cat, was there anything else?”

“Oh, there were a few flowers wrapped in plastic paper . . . I wonder who created a little funeral for the cat . ”

“Please wait a moment . ”

Lin Dongxue brought her to the alley and asked if it was the dead cat that she had seen earlier . The cleaner responded, “Yes, yes . This is the dead cat . . . Why are you investigating this?”

“It’s inconvenient to disclose that for the time being . Is it convenient to leave your contact details?”

She bagged the dead cat, said goodbye to the local police, and returned to the bureau .

Peng Sijue tested it and the results came out after a while . He said, “This cat was injected with dimethyl sulfoxide and poisoned . ”

“Jiang Hui stole dimethyl sulfoxide from school . She was not trying to kill her brother . Judging from the bouquet placed on the scene, she probably euthanized the cat . ”

“I don't know much about veterinarians . You can ask a vet from a pet hospital to find out if this cat was sick . ”

“This doesn’t need to be investigated . The missing child is the key point . ” The investigation of the case did not need to be so exhaustive . They could make choices and focus on the point at hand, which Lin Dongxue learned from Chen Shi .

“Where did the cat come from?”

“In the safe passage of a shopping mall . The missing child had been there . I didn’t feel good when I went in . It was empty and quiet and there was no monitoring in there . With the exception of employees who came in and smoked cigarettes, no one came in . If anyone locked the door, since the mall is so noisy, nothing would be heard from the inside or outside . ”

“That being the case, I'll send a few people with you and go to the scene to pick up samples . ”

“Thank you, Captain Peng!”

In the afternoon, Lin Dongxue brought several police officers from the forensics department to go and collect evidence . Each person handled a different floor . Lin Dongxue was walking anxiously on the first floor . She was very conflicted . She hoped that the case would progress, but she was also afraid of this case becoming a criminal case .

The phone rang and a police officer said, “Stains of blood were found on the third floor!”

Everyone immediately rushed over and sprayed Luminol reagent on the ground . The blood stains were clearly visible under the ultraviolet light, and it was clear that it had been wiped .

Lin Dongxue felt a little dizzy and said, “Get the evidence and take it back for testing!”

1 . Editor’s note: This should be the 3rd unless this is separate from the girl being seen in the hotel surveillance footage . The hotel footage was the day after the two disappeared . I think the two disappeared on April 2nd . Chapter 235 says they disappeared 48 hours ago, and it was April 4th .

2 . Editor’s note: As above .  

3 . Editor’s note: 4th if we go with the timeline I explained earlier .