Netherworld Investigator

It was nearly eleven o'clock in the evening when we arrived at JOKER bar.

Wen Baifan sat down opposite Luo Fei and Tang Huanyan, shook his head helplessly and sighed: "Seeing these two familiar figures, I have the illusion that I just got off work and have to work again."

"You still want to get off work? Two days!" Tang Huanyan took a sip of the thick froth on the beer and reminded him, "You only have two days left. Director Liao has made it clear that if you No evidence of murder has been found before, and the case will be treated as an accident."

"The pressure on Liao Chu is not small." Luo Fei poked a cherry tomato with a toothpick, "Chaoyang Primary School is a very famous school, news of a murder case will spread like wildfire, so we have to report it as soon as possible." An explanation from the public."

Wen Baifan took out a note and handed it to him, "This person is the Chaoxiao security guard who resigned three months ago. Zhang Gui'an is taking over his job. You can go to him and inquire about the patrol arrangement on the floor where the incident occurred."

Luo Fei stretched out two fingers to pinch the note neatly, and raised his eyebrows knowingly.

"Is the security guard a suspect?" Tang Huanyan leaned over to take a look, "The only one who has access to the spare key is Zhang Gui'an. Is it possible that after killing someone, he deliberately hid the key?"

Wen Baifan shook his head: "He has a complete alibi. The only exit of the security room is within the monitoring range of the school gate. I checked the CCTV records. Zhang Gui'an came to the school at 1:[-] in the afternoon and changed shifts at [-]:[-]. Afterwards, he stayed in the security room and went to the toilet once for no more than [-] minute, which was exactly the same as the information he registered in the work manual."

"It's so powerful." Tang Huanyan was not discouraged, "Since the information provided by Zhang Gui'an is reliable, we can use his words to reverse the testimony of other people."

"There is no suspicion for the time being, but I can't be sure that his words are 100% reliable." Wen Baifan was dumbfounded by her straightforward thinking.

"Ah, I thought of it!" Tang Huanyan put the beer mug in her hand on the table, and suddenly said, "The crack in the door! There is a gap about two fingers wide between the door and the floor. Tie the key to one end of the rope, The middle part of the rope is stuck on the belt of the deceased. After locking the door, the murderer pulls the other end of the rope through the crack of the door, and finally separates the rope from the key with force, so that the key can be delivered to the deceased without anyone noticing it. Finish!"

She shook Wen Baifan's shoulder excitedly: "In this case, Bai Xue, the dance teacher, is very suspicious. She is the first person who knows how to use the crack in the door!"

"You really..." Wen Baifan was shaken into wavy lines by her shaking.

"Really smart?" Tang Huanyan's eyes lit up.

"...I've read too many detective novels." Wen Baifan shrank back desperately to avoid her clutches, "The key was found in the deceased's trouser pocket, and it was the right trouser pocket. According to what you said, when you leave The key is more likely to be found in the left trouser pocket near the door."

"That's right, Mr. Bai looks very weak, and he doesn't look like a bad guy." Tang Huanyan flattened her lips and started talking nonsense, "If you follow the idea of ​​a detective novel, the most unlikely person is the murderer, maybe it's that Teacher Li……"

Wen Baifan tapped her on the head, "This is a kind of lazy thinking. In the final analysis, every case is the sum of complex social and interpersonal relationships, and everyone may play different roles in it, cover-up, suspect , insider..."

Tang Huanyan hummed: "Brother Bai, you are really convincing when you say that others are lazy."

She was depressed for a while, and her brain started to whirr again: "Window, is it possible that this room is not the scene of the first crime, but the murderer transported the body in through the window?"

Wen Baifan continued to shake his head: "It's the fifth floor, and the two windows are on the outer wall, and the window sills are covered with old dust, and there is no sign of movement. However, there is something strange about the location of the crime. Although the scene is chaotic, But the first thing I felt when I entered was that the classroom seemed too tidy. Even if the little girl goes to practice every day, the floor and the mirror are very clean, but there is no dust in the corners. In comparison, the dust accumulation on the window sill is a bit abrupt."

The waiter brought up a plate of hot fried rice, temporarily interrupting the conversation of the three of them.

Wen Baifan scooped up a small spoonful of rice, blew it on his mouth, and checked the temperature with his lips before eating it in his mouth with peace of mind, like a cat afraid of being hot.

After taking a few mouthfuls slowly, Wen Baifan put down the spoon.

Seeing Tang Huanyan sighing while resting her cheeks, Luo Fei suddenly smiled and said, "Yanyan, you have been led astray by that guy Wang Yu's theory of the secret room. Instead of arguing about how the secret room should be established, it is better to think about it, maybe this is not the case at all. A secret room."

Tang Huanyan repeated in a daze: "Isn't it a secret room?"

"Do you know what is the most critical point for the establishment of a secret room?" Luo Fei said a cold joke mysteriously, "The key is the key."

The store manager put a cup of sweet-smelling hot drink in front of Wen Baifan, glanced at the plate on the table, and said, "Who was hungry just now? Why, it doesn't suit your appetite?"

Wen Baifan was not polite enough to provoke the problem. He thought the rice grains were not loose enough, the shallots were not finely chopped, and the soy sauce tasted bad. Luo Fei couldn't stand it when he heard it: "Why are you messing up so much?"

"That's right." The store manager shook his head angrily, but turned around and asked the waiter to ask the back kitchen to re-fry a serving.He watched Wen Baifan grow up since he was a child, and he knows his picky eaters and countless minor problems other than picky eaters. Although he has a headache, there is nothing he can do about him.

Zhao Ming used to be a policeman, and was a life-and-death partner with Wen Baifan's father. After Wen Yue died in the line of duty, he resigned and later opened this bar.Wen Baifan's mother had passed away earlier, until the year Wen Yue died, he was only eight years old. For many years, apart from his aunt's family, Zhao Ming was his closest person, who was also his teacher and father.

As for this level of relationship, even Luo Fei, who has been quite close to Wen Baifan in the past two years, knows little about it.

Joker is a poker-themed restaurant. Unlike other bars that invite singers and dancers to perform, this place invites magicians to perform on weekends and festivals.In terms of decoration style, not only the wallpapers, tablecloths, and coasters are all the colors of playing cards, but also various props are placed on the shelves for guests to play with.

Wen Baifan casually picked up a Rubik's Cube on the shelf beside the table, and fiddled with it seemingly carelessly. The rapidly changing colored cubes in front of his eyes overlapped with a pair of white and slender hands in his mind.

His thoughts slowly went back. Before recording the statement to the three, he had a brief exchange with the new Director Qiao.

If one had to use four words to describe Qiao Kejun's studio, Wen Baifan would use "as expected".

Although the room is full of experimental equipment, the overly regular arrangement creates an empty visual effect. When you walk in, even the light seems to be a few degrees colder than outside.

Wen Baifan knocked on the open door, supplemented by a clear cough, and the rhythmic "click" sound behind the computer chair stopped abruptly.The man kicked his long legs and turned around with the chair.

"What do you want from me?" Qiao Kejun slightly raised his eyes to look at Wen Baifan, there was no trace of extraneous emotion in his black and white eyes.This time Wen Baifan finally saw his appearance clearly. A person with such an outstanding appearance really has the capital to be cold.

He thought about it for a moment, regretfully gave up his plan to shake hands with Qiao Kejun again, and murmured in his heart, no wonder this man wants to be a forensic doctor, the aura of not getting close to strangers is too strong, but he didn't know that he was a clean freak With a heavy appearance, how did he get along with those bloody "work objects".

Qiao Kejun glanced at the progress bar of the data analysis on the computer screen, and said calmly: "Come and get the inspection report, wait a moment."

Just when Wen Baifan was stunned for a moment, Qiao Kejun immediately broke up the restored high-level Rubik's Cube in his hand. He pointed to a folding chair in the corner, and casually greeted: "Please sit down."

Wen Baifan had no choice but to move the chair and sit down. The air was silent for a few seconds, only the slight current sound from the CPU running.

"What do you think of the case?"

"Director Qiao, you..."

The two spoke at the same time, breaking the somewhat embarrassing silence, but causing the scene to fall into another kind of embarrassment.

Qiao Kejun repeated: "What do you think about this case?"

Wen Baifan didn't expect that he would take the initiative to bring up the topic, so he came back to his senses and smiled: "It's not an opinion, the key is to look at the evidence. The time of Principal Xu's death was between [-]:[-] p.m. and [-]:[-] p.m. Department, this is the evidence we have so far. However, at the scene, I found something strange..."

Qiao Kejun hummed lightly, and looked at him seriously, but Wen Baifan stretched out his hand to help the frame, his heart beat faster for no reason, and he looked away uncomfortably.

"First of all, the belt. Judging from its newness, it has been used for about a year. Looking at the traces of the trouser loops, the deceased chose the second-to-last hole for a long period of time in the past, but at that time it was the third-to-last button. , even so, the trousers appear to be somewhat baggy. The customary buckle of the belt has been shifted, indicating that the deceased's size has undergone a considerable change in the past few months."

Being watched so intently, Wen Baifan felt a faint feeling of encouragement: "Besides, there were raindrop-like stains on the skin of the deceased, mainly distributed around the waist and under the armpits. And the nails on his hands and feet were all There is an indistinct white horizontal line, these seem to be signs of poisoning..."

Before the words were finished, the printer on the side "squeaked" and spit out a piece of paper.

Qiao Kejun reached out to take it off, quickly glanced at it, and gently pushed it in front of Wen Baifan: "From the results of the hair test, the deceased was indeed suffering from chronic arsenic poisoning."

Wen Baifan's eyes lit up.

Qiao Kejun changed the subject: "But chronic poisoning is not the cause of death, it only shows that he may have taken a special drug for a long time, such as finding sildenafil from the deceased."

Wen Baifan recalled Xu Shilin's social relationship: "The deceased and his wife divorced for many years, never remarried, and usually lived alone."

It is not a secret that Principal Xu had undergone brain surgery, but it is not known to everyone, and the degree of knowledge is also deep and shallow.If there is such a person who can take advantage of Xu Shilin's weakness to kill him and pretend to be an accident, it must be a person who knows his physical condition well.

"Although strictly speaking, this is not within the scope of my work..." Qiao Kejun called up a photo from the desktop, turned the laptop [-] degrees, and signaled Wen Bofan to look at it, "This is the photo I took on the spot A comparison chart."

Wen Baifan stood up and took a closer look. It was the appearance of a group of spherical locks. The room number was carefully marked next to each lock. It was indeed as Qiao Kejun said. There is no difference in appearance from other classrooms on the same floor, but the color looks brand new and brighter, and the degree of wear and tear is much lower. It should be replaced later.

"According to my judgment, this lock has only been used for three or four months, and the longest time is no more than half a year."

Qiao Kejun clasped his fingertips, and landed on the table "dumbly". He looked straight at Wen Baifan, "The question is, who changed the lock, when did it, and why did they change it."

There was a desk between the two, but because of Wen Baifan's upper body leaning forward, the distance between them suddenly narrowed, and Wen Baifan could even smell the clean breath of that person, the clear woody aroma was unexpectedly mixed with Soft taste,.

Few people know that Wen Baifan's extremely sensitive sense of smell is one of Wen Baifan's secret weapons to solve the case. The small molecular particles in the air are like countless converging light spots, changing symbols with thousands of meanings in his mind.

That's right, in the classroom at the scene of the crime just now, apart from the oily fumes and washing smells from the residential buildings not far away, in addition to dust, fabrics and chemical reagents, there seemed to be lingering wisps of light and faint fragrance.

Tang Huanyan suddenly realized: "Assuming that the deceased has a stable and long-term sexual partner in private, it is not difficult for such a person who maintains a close relationship with him to seize his weakness and kill him, and pretend to be an accident. If the scene of the crime is one of the places where the deceased had a tryst with his lover, in order to maintain privacy, this move of changing the lock makes sense!" She curled up her right fist and lightly tapped her left palm, "The key that the tryst may hold is The key to the failure of the Chamber of Secrets!"

Wen Baifan licked off the foam from the corner of his mouth: "This possibility cannot be ruled out."

Tang Huanyan continued to analyze with a serious face: "If that's the case, why did the murderer go to the extra trouble to steal the spare key?"

Wen Baifan took a deep breath, and glanced at Luo Fei, who couldn't help but chuckle.

"What's wrong?" Tang Huanyan looked at them blankly.

Luo Fei propped his elbows on the table, holding his own face with a smile, "Don't you think it's cute? A girl with strange power and nerves capitalized in bold."

Only now did Tang Huanyan understand the oblique ridicule, and she clicked her tongue softly, but her mind was still circling the case, and she quickly asked, "Did I say something wrong just now?"

Luo Fei winked at her, and patiently began to disassemble: "It is known that the key on the deceased's body matched the door lock, and the door lock was changed secretly. Suppose, the original intention of changing the lock was to keep the secret of the tryst, and the security guard The spare key at the location has not been replaced simultaneously, which means that no matter whether the spare key exists or not, it is impossible to open the door of the crime scene. Do you think that if there is a murderer, his original intention of creating the secret room will be What is it?"

"Creating the illusion of an accident and realizing a complete crime?"

"Ten points from Gryffindor." Luo Fei raised his index finger and scratched the tip of her nose lightly. "The mysterious disappearance of the spare key will arouse the suspicion of the police. To some extent, this runs counter to the original intention of the creator of the Chamber of Secrets. That is It is very likely that the person who made the secret room and the person who stole the spare key are two different people."

As Wen Baifan said, every case is in the final analysis the sum of complex social and interpersonal relationships, and each person may play a different role in it.The actions of each character are just and one-sided from their respective standpoints. It is this "one-sided justice" that constitutes complex realistic conflicts.

Holding the beer glass, Tang Huanyan sighed, "It's amazing how much information can be read from such a small place."

Luo Fei raised his eyebrows proudly.

"But you're wrong about one thing." Wen Baifan said suddenly.

"What?" Luo Fei was a little surprised.

"My surname is Qiao," Wen Baifan said solemnly, "he's more than a little more handsome than you."

Tang Huanyan giggled.

"Yeah, no wonder Ms. Tang's eyes straighten when she sees someone." Although it was a joke, Luo Fei's tone still had a hint of sourness in it, "You saw it just now, she didn't even talk. It’s not complete, I don’t know where Hun’er has gone... Aww!”

"Let you talk nonsense!" Tang Huanyan shook her fist triumphantly, and snorted at him.

"What is turning into anger from embarrassment! This is it!" Luo Fei pretended to cover his forehead, and complained wronged, "It seems that I have hit the mark!"

Wen Baifan held his chin in silence, watching them play tricks with great interest.

Over the past six months, no matter how dull he is, he has also noticed the unusual subtle aura between the two of them.

Luo Fei likes to tease Tang Huanyan to blow her hair. In essence, he is no different from the childish little ghost in elementary school who pulls people's braids all day long to attract the attention of the girl he likes.He looks like a fool, but he is very slow in his relationship. Although he has a secret love for Tang Huanyan, he has not confessed it for a long time.Tang Huanyan has a lively and enthusiastic personality, but like many girls, she is still duplicity, trying to act as if she doesn't care, and keeps her secrets deep in her heart.

The ambiguity in this world can be roughly divided into two types, one is a large piece of flowers that bloom silently before the end, and the other is like a boundless shadow growing in despair beyond the sun, and this young couple is lucky to be in the first state .

Sensing Wen Baifan's meaningful smile, Tang Huanyan blushed suddenly, and had no choice but to cover up her embarrassment by chattering, "Hey, you think that Xu Shilin really wants to rape students, how can such a person be the principal of a primary school. Speaking of this, I suddenly remembered another case, you know, the notorious pedophile Wang Zong was released recently after serving his sentence."

Luo Fei took a deep breath: "The conversation is so natural that we didn't realize that you were changing the subject at all."

Tang Huanyan glared at him, and Luo Fei answered the question tactfully: "I know that he was suspected of molesting and murdering children, but the prosecution only found evidence to convict him of negligent death."

Tang Huanyan nodded: "Yes, I heard that Wang Zong used to be a gangster, but he was covered by a very powerful person, so he was able to escape. In the end, he was sentenced to only one year in prison. He was released just a few months ago , but it didn’t take long for a new case to occur. I heard that just a few days ago, a six-year-old child who lived in the same building as him disappeared.”

"I will never change my nature." Luo Fei frowned and spat out four words.

"But this time the situation is different from before. Guess what?" Tang Huanyan deliberately kept it a secret.

"What's the matter?" Luo Fei flattered himself.

"Before the police applied for a search warrant, the child actually went home by himself! I have a classmate who is in charge of this case, and I heard the details from him. This happened a few days ago, I remember that we were also drinking here that day, and by the way, we met Director Qiao, do you remember, and then I heard the news the next day."

"I said, no wonder you remember it so clearly." Luo Fei was annoyed, and then asked again, "So how did that kid go home by himself?"

Tang Huanyan shrugged: "No one knows, that child kept silent about what happened during the two days when he disappeared. What's even more surprising is that Wang Zong disappeared."

Luo Fei was puzzled: "What do you mean by disappearing?"

"The world just evaporated." Tang Huanyan lowered her voice and whispered, "Everyone said that the one who made him disappear must be... that person."