Di Zhen walked into the room, took a deep breath, and smelled the scents of cigarettes and testing reagents. It seemed that the police had been here for quite a while.
On the ground, there were signboards used for fixing the position for taking photos. He projected the photo of the deceased in his mind onto the human-shaped outline marked by the white line. The deceased's feet were facing the direction of the bedroom door, and there was a long cabinet in the middle of the living room that divided the space.
Next to the bedroom door, there was a standing wardrobe against the wall.
Di Zhen crouched behind the standing wardrobe. If the murderer had ambushed here and suddenly rushed out, the deceased would have heard the footsteps, turned around, and then been stabbed in the chest and fallen down.
Did the murderer ambush in the house in advance?
Then where did he get the key? Was it an acquaintance?
According to the information obtained by Journalist Liu, the deceased was a married woman. It was said that their relationship had broken down and they were in the process of separation. The police should have already questioned her husband, right?
Di Zhen walked into the bedroom. The quilt on the bed was not folded. He sniffed it. There was a smell of a woman lying on it. It should be the deceased.
On the bedside table, there was a bowl of sunflower seeds, an unopened facial mask, and a fashion magazine.
Di Zhen reached out and pulled the lamp cord of the table lamp. He carefully inspected the surroundings again. When he opened the curtain, he found that a piece was missing from the glass. It was a very regular circular hole, just big enough for a hand to pass through.
But this was the sixteenth floor. It was impossible for an ordinary person to climb in through the window from the outside. Moreover, the hole was still some distance away from the window switch, and there were bars on the window frame.
Di Zhen stroked his chin and pondered. What was the purpose of doing this!?
Was it left by the police? No, as far as he knew, the police didn't have such an investigation method. They would try their best not to damage the scene.
Then did the murderer make this hole to release anesthetic gas outside? No, that didn't make sense either!
Di Zhen used the camera to take a picture of this suspicious hole, then walked out of the bedroom. Geng Hao was outside, rubbing his arms and urging, "Brother, hurry up! What's so interesting about this house where someone died? Don't you feel a creepy atmosphere? (a creepy atmosphere, similar to the Chinese concept of 'yin qi' which implies a sense of unease and spookiness)"
"If there really were a ghost, I'd just ask her who the killer is!" Di Zhen joked.
"Are... are you investigating the case? Are you a policeman?"
"Stay put and don't move!"
He walked into the kitchen again. There was a kettle on the gas stove, with only half of the water left. Di Zhen dipped his little finger in the water and tasted it. It was boiled water (the water had been boiled).
In his mind, Di Zhen replayed the crime process. The deceased heard the boiling water, put down the magazine, and came out of the bedroom to turn off the gas stove. Seizing this opportunity, the murderer drugged her with anesthetic and then committed the murder. The whistling sound of the kettle could mask the sound of her falling to the ground.
The police had taken away a lot of things from the kitchen, including chopsticks and knives. Could it be that the murderer used a knife from the kitchen?
After examining the scene, Di Zhen called Geng Hao and left. Geng Hao thought the mission was over and was overjoyed. He suggested going for a late-night snack. Unexpectedly, Di Zhen said expressionlessly, "There are still two places to go!"
They went to Liu Zhong Road and the dormitory building of the old waterworks again. Geng Hao complained non-stop, saying that his feet were about to break, but Di Zhen, who was completely immersed in the case, turned a deaf ear.
Di Zhen noticed that there was a baffling round hole cut in the glass at each crime scene. This might be a crucial clue, or perhaps just a red herring deliberately created by the killer. The act of imitating the "Smiling Face Killer" to commit murders was itself a huge red herring.
Normally, those who commit crimes by hitch - hiking on the crimes of others would imitate a wanted serial killer. Who would imitate a criminal who had already been executed?
It turned out that Investigating the Scene couldn't yield many clues. Di Zhen's specialty was dealing with the living. Next, he would find the people around the victims and interrogate them one by one.
As for Geng Hao, Di Zhen originally wanted to give him an order to go to the police station and surrender obediently. But the problem was that there is no evidence to arrest a thief. Even if he surrendered, the police wouldn't accept the case.
Although this guy was an old - timer in thievery (slang for thief), his heart wasn't that bad. Thinking about the great help he had provided that night, Di Zhen said to him, "You can go. Don't be a thief anymore from now on!"
"If I don't become a thief, what can I eat?"
Di Zhen didn't care about these things. He raised a warning finger and said, "If you become a thief again, I'll know right away and send you to jail!"
"Okay... okay, bro. See ya later."
After saying that, Geng Hao ran off in a flash.
After booking a hotel room, Di Zhen carefully inspected every corner. After confirming that there were no hidden cameras or the like, he lay on the bed. Using his mental state, he returned to the crime scene again to re - examine it.
Although the crime scenes he had visited were at night, in his mental state, he could set it to be daytime, which made the observation much more convenient.
According to the time calculation, the first murder took place on Liu Zhong Road. The victim, Wei Xiang, was a small boss in the clothing wholesale business. The second was in Lily Community, and the victim, Wang Yue, was a female worker in a spinning mill. The third was in the old waterworks dormitory, and the victim, Zhang Chao, was an unemployed young man.
The intervals between the murders were all one week. It had already been three days since the third murder. If the killer continued to commit crimes, the fourth victim would appear next Tuesday.
He first came to Wei Xiang's home. Compared with Wang Yue's home, the small boss's home was indeed much more imposing. The floor was covered with solid wood flooring, and there was a painting of an eagle spreading its wings on the wall. There was a large genuine leather sofa in front of which was a tea table made of a whole log, with a complete set of tea sets on it.
Wei Xiang's body was found on this sofa.
Di Zhen walked to the window. The window was installed with brown - tinted glass. Strangely, there were no curtains.
If a round hole was cut in such a window, wouldn't the victim notice it immediately?
Di Zhen walked into the study. There was a German - made safe embedded in the middle of the bookshelf full of self - help books. The police had already opened it, and the things inside were naturally taken away. Di Zhen had sniffed carefully during the investigation, and it smelled like money inside.
According to the information obtained by Journalist Liu, the victim Wei Xiang had a German Shepherd. Meanwhile, at the time of the crime, the dog had eaten something bad and was taken to the pet hospital by his wife for an IV drip, so Wei Xiang was at home alone.
With a wave of his hand, Di Zhen came to the scene of the third murder.
At the entrance of the dormitory of the old waterworks, the layout was very compact. There was a passageway, and on the left were the kitchen and the bathroom. Walking along the passageway led to the bedroom, which was essentially an open - plan room. A curtain was hung between the bedroom and the passageway to block the view.
There were blood splatters on the curtain.
Di Zhen looked towards the bathroom. A flickering human - shaped shadow was squatting there. This was the most suitable spot for the murderer to lie in wait.
There was a computer in the room. Judging from the ash accumulated on the keyboard, it could be seen that the deceased spent a lot of time sitting in front of the computer every day. There were some flyers for online store promotions beside it, which might be related to the part - time job the deceased was engaged in.
Di Zhen walked to the window and stared blankly at the suspicious round hole. Looking out of the window, there was a road outside. What on earth was the meaning of cutting a hole?
With a wave of Di Zhen's hand, three pieces of glass from the crime scene appeared in the same row of window frames. Their heights and sizes were almost the same. He gestured with his hand and guessed that the murderer's height should be around 1.70 meters.
Judging from the scratches around the round hole, it was slowly cut out with a glass cutter. The murderer was an extremely meticulous person with obsessive - compulsive disorder, which was why the circle was drawn so perfectly.
"Obsessive - compulsive disorder!?"
Di Zhen murmured to himself. A thought flashed across his mind, and he went back to the first crime scene. Looking out through the round hole in the window, he seemed to understand something...