False evidence

Chapter 30 Blind Spot
What I can't stand the most is Gao He's aggressive manner. Monkey is also intolerant of any nonsense and said unhappily, "Are you interrogating a prisoner?"

Gao He shook his head, looking helpless: "I'm sorry, I just want to solve the case as soon as possible."

The monkey wanted to speak again, but I gestured to stop him and said to Gao He, "I still have to say what needs to be said. How about we start from the inpatient building, from—the blind spot."

I asked Lin Dan for paper and pen, and Gao He simply pulled out several hospital building blueprints from his bag.

After I marked all the known 'blind spots' on the drawings, Gao spat out:
"You're a real waste that you don't commit crimes."

Lin Dan was utterly dumbfounded. "You mean, Pei Xiaofan went through the courtyard, climbed through the window into the first blind spot of the annex building, and then went through the corridor with you to the stairwell. During this time, the surveillance only captured you because half of the corridor had blind spots, and Pei Xiaofan was in the blind spot the whole time?"

Gao He pointed at the map and asked, "Are there any blind spots in the corridor that we missed?"

Clearly, he shares Lin Dan's view that it's completely impossible to walk through the corridor without being filmed.

I said, "That's not important. The biggest blind spot in the surveillance is the green area between the three buildings. People can enter the first blind spot through this area, and they can also directly reach the second blind spot, which is near the stairwell. The corridor area can be completely ignored."

Gao He nodded. "Pei Xiaofan didn't go upstairs at all. She broke up with you in the stairwell, went straight down to basement level two, walked to the vehicle entrance/exit to basement level one, and followed your directions to the vicinity of the elevator area."

"Yes, you definitely didn't check the surveillance footage on the second basement level this time, otherwise you would have found her. Because I've never been to the second basement level, I couldn't have taken advantage of the blind spots there."

Lin Dan said, "The perpetrator couldn't have used this route on the night the body went missing. Perhaps... perhaps he also knew all the blind spots in the second basement parking lot. If that's the case, then the most suspicious person would be the security guard."

Gao He waved his hand and said to me, "Just say basement level. After you and Pei Xiaofan met up after getting off the elevator, you've been operating in a blind spot of the surveillance cameras."

"We're lost!" Pidan interjected.

Gao He's lips twitched: "Lost?"

Seeing that Pidan was looking at me, I shook my head slightly. "He is lost, but he is not really lost. It's just an illusion created by people."

I looked up at Pidan and said, "Do you remember, I held your hand the whole way, and every time we stopped, I would hold onto a car next to us?"

Pidan nodded, "I remember."

Gao He raised an eyebrow and turned to ask her, "Do you remember what color the car he always caught was?"

Pidan's eyes darted around, then suddenly widened: "It's red! What the hell, you idiot Sanqi, are you trying to fool me with this?"

I told Gao He, “I always park next to the red car, and one of the two cars next to it must be black, which makes a deeper impression on her.”

Gao He nodded: "The layout of the parking lots is similar, and most people are unwilling to go down to the second basement level unless absolutely necessary, so the first basement level is always saturated with vehicles. Using both visual and psychological illusions, it is indeed possible to make people 'get lost'."

Lin Dan interjected, "Sanqi is deliberately misleading people, but Bian Xiaomao's situation is different!"

"Same!"

"They should be the same!"

Gao and I said at the same time.

I asked Gao He, "The underground parking facilities at the Second Hospital are quite old. You mentioned that the basement level is usually full. So, will the hospital send staff to direct and guide parking during peak hours?" Gao He nodded, then turned to Lin Dan and said, "What are you waiting for? Do you want me to teach you what to do? Go and arrest them! And while you're at it, have someone survey the area between the three buildings!"

Gao gave the order, but he himself did not leave.

“The reason Bian Xiaomao ‘got lost’ was because someone deliberately arranged the parking locations of the vehicles in advance, using the colors of the vehicles to create a visual illusion for him. Bian Xiaomao was already frightened beforehand, so the chances of him being misled were even greater. Therefore, the people who directed parking on that day… and even the people who directed parking for the first two or three days could all be suspects.”

He reached into his pocket, seemingly to take out a cigarette, but then realized they were in a hospital and stopped. He then asked me, "How did you know there was someone in that car?"

I said, “The body is indeed gone, but even if it was eaten by dogs, the clothes and bones should still be there, right? If it was transported out of the hospital, there must be a means of transportation. Loading the body into the car must be done in a ‘blind spot.’ The car was parked in a very suitable spot, and the car itself was very strange.”

Gao He sighed, "Yeah, in an underground parking garage, even if it's parked for a long time, who would put up a sunshade? Hey, brother, how did you figure out that it wasn't a corpse inside, but a living person?"

I chuckled dryly: "Because I saw your expression... Anyway, it's something very vague and intangible. If I had to describe it, I'd call it a sixth sense."

“I can roughly imagine what you mean by ‘ethereal’ or ‘illusory,’ but… but I still think that, given your age and life experience, just because of this kind of ‘illusory’ ability, you can actually steal a living person out of our sight…” Gao He shook his head repeatedly, “This is just too much! This is not scientific!”

"Stop trying to trick me into saying anything." I winked at Pidan. "This is a secret between me and my child's mother."

"Pah!" Pidan picked up the water glass, pretending to throw it at Gao He, but his eyes revealed a smug look as he looked at Gao He's puzzled profile.

Gao He seemed to be having a nicotine craving; he paced back and forth in the ward a few times with his hands on his hips, then stopped and said:

"Alright, let's get back to the case. Brother, let's get straight to the point. How do you think the suspect managed to steal the body from the morgue?"

"You forced others to be direct," the monkey muttered.

Gao He rolled his eyes: "Hey, you're an outsider. If you say another word, I'll throw you out!"

I said, "Brother Monkey, stop complaining. It's a matter of life and death, and we do have an obligation to do something about it."

Seeing me glancing sideways at the preserved egg, the monkey stopped talking, but its lips moved as it silently sighed.

I said to Gao He, “Surveillance cameras have blind spots, and so do people’s thinking. You say that the suspect stole the body from the morgue, but if I were to say that the ‘body’ wasn’t stolen, but walked out of the morgue on its own.”

Pidan said, "Hey, are you doing this on purpose? Trying to scare people? Is it really haunted?"

Gao He met my gaze, and after a long pause, his eyes shifted slightly: "Is it still related to blind spots in the surveillance?"

I flipped to a page of the blueprints and pointed to a location. "The morgue's private elevator entrance is at this end of the corridor, near the parking lot. It's within the surveillance range towards the morgue; the opposite direction is some distance away, and there's another blind spot."

How many people are typically used to transport a typical corpse? Even if there are three, if two of them can be distracted, the remaining person would be capable of moving the body to a nearby, less visible area.

Gao He explained: "The corpses are either packed up or covered with white sheets. The corpses are changed during this period, and unless there are special circumstances, no one will check them for a while. It is difficult to steal a dead person out of the morgue, but it is much easier for a living person to find an opportunity to get out of the morgue."

He stepped forward, picked up the blueprints, stared at them for a long time, then abruptly flung his hand away and took off the walkie-talkie:

"Immediately investigate the owner of car KC1204! Yes, that's the red Mazda that was parked near the morgue on the day of the incident!"

(End of this chapter)