Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 242 The Little Dilapidated Building

The old man smelled it too and asked in confusion, "What is this thing that stinks so badly?"

Zhou Yi and Shi Tao had already started searching the house because they recognized the smell—the stench of a rotting corpse.

Seeing the old man about to come in, Zhou Yi reached out to stop him, making him stand outside the door.

Then he asked, "Did you notice anything unusual when you came in last time?"

"No...no, I just checked if the furniture and appliances were damaged."

"Has anyone else come by since then? Like that tenant who secretly came back?"

The old man shook his head repeatedly: "No, I changed the locks. Even if he came back, he wouldn't be able to open the door."

So it seems the stench originated when the old man changed the lock, but it hadn't rotted yet.

"Zhou Yi, come here quickly!" Shi Tao called out from the bedroom.

Zhou Yi quickly ran over, and the old man at the door was craning his neck and looking at her expectantly.

Upon entering the bedroom, Zhou Yi noticed the stench was even stronger.

Shi Tao squatted down by the bed, covered his nose with his hand, and pointed under the bed.

Zhou Yi also squatted down and peered under the bed.

Thankfully, I didn't see a dead face or anything like that.

However, there was a black suitcase that was covered in a layer of dust.

Zhou Yi and Shi Tao exchanged a glance. Shi Tao raised his eyebrows, as if to say: Please.

Zhou Yi reached out and pulled the suitcase out from under the bed.

As soon as I applied force, I knew something was wrong, because the suitcase was very heavy and clearly contained something heavy.

After pulling it out, it was a 24-inch black suitcase, a bit old, with severely worn edges and corners, and the zipper pull was broken in half.

The smell became even stronger as soon as the suitcase was pulled out; it was obvious that the stench of a corpse was coming from inside.

"Team Leader Shi, get ready to call the forensic doctor," Zhou Yi said, slowly unzipping his suitcase.

When the suitcase lid was opened, Zhou Yi and Shi Tao had very complicated expressions: surprise, disgust, and confusion.

“This…” Shi Tao pointed at the suitcase and said, “What kind of insane thing is this!”

Inside the suitcase was not a human corpse, but a cat's corpse.

It was highly decomposed, but you could still vaguely make out the bodies of three cats inside, and the remaining fur was of different colors.

"Team Leader Shi... in this situation, should we still call a forensic doctor?" Zhou Yi asked blankly.

"I don't think... I should..." Shi Tao replied blankly.

The two pinched their noses and carefully inspected the suitcase, confirming that it contained only the rotting carcass of a cat infested with maggots.

Although Zhou Yi is not a forensic doctor, he can tell that these cats have very serious knife wounds, indicating that they were all killed by human abuse.

The two closed the suitcase lid and then began to search the room, but found no ID cards, money, or other valid identification information.

The tenant did leave behind a lot of things, but they were mostly clothes and the like that that weren't very valuable.

Finally, after moving the bedside table, Zhou Yi found a business card covered in cobwebs.

The name above is also Meng Qingtong. Her workplace is the office of a company from another province in Hongcheng, and her position is sales supervisor.

After finding no further useful clues or signs of a murder, Zhou Yi and Shi Tao came out of the house.

Seeing the old man looking at them with worry, Zhou Yi told him about the suitcase in the bedroom, which terrified the old man. He said that the young man looked so refined, how could he do such a cruel thing? No wonder people kept losing cats in the neighborhood before.

It seems he's a repeat offender.

Seeing the two were about to leave, the old man asked anxiously, "Officer, what... what about this suitcase?"

Shi Tao said, "You can throw away the suitcase and the dead cat first, but don't touch the rest for now. We'll check and make sure everything is okay before you clean it up."

Seeing the two leave, the old man stood at the door, unsure whether to go in or leave, caught in a dilemma.

They were busy until after noon, when Shi Tao found a small restaurant nearby and treated everyone to a simple meal.

When it came time to pay the bill, Zhou Yi tried to take out his money, but Shi Tao stopped him, saying that the meal should be paid for by the Third Brigade, but Zhou Yi couldn't pay for it. He should ask Lao Wu for reimbursement later.

They ordered some dishes, and no one was picky. They knew they had to get back to work after eating, since they had only checked a little over a third of the dishes that morning.

"Team Leader Shi, why aren't you eating?" Gu Changhai asked.

Shi Tao took two puffs of his cigarette and said, "I'm not hungry. I'll have two to get rid of the smell."

Then he turned his head and glanced at Zhou Yi, who was eating heartily with his bowl in hand, and thought to himself, "This kid is really born to be a criminal investigator. He can still have such a good appetite. When I first started working, I would lose my appetite for three days after seeing a victim's body."

To some extent, this is one of the reasons why he works in the anti-gangster movement, so he doesn't have to see the gruesome corpses of his victims every few days.

As they ate, the group exchanged information and shared their findings. Besides Zhou Yi and Shi Tao's discoveries, there were two other rather suspicious developments.

The first story came from a conversation Qiao Jiali had with the elderly residents of the neighborhood. They said there was a young widow in Building 16 whose home was frequently visited by strange men. Once, two men even caught them in the act and got into a fight, one of them even suffering a head injury. However, it's unknown whether the police were called.

The older women commented: "This young widow is too wild. Even if she wants a man, she can't do this. Sooner or later, something bad will happen. She might end up like Zhang Hui, who was chopped up and flushed down the toilet by a man."

The second suspicious case was apartment 301 in building 34. After knocking, the door opened a crack, and a young man in his twenties peered warily through the crack at the police officer from the second team. Throughout the questioning, this man never fully opened the door, simply speaking to him through the crack.

This was quite suspicious. In order not to alert the enemy, the brothers of the second team silently noted down the house number.

Shi Tao immediately said that after finishing his meal, he would go and meet this person to see what was going on.

Gu Changhai stated that the biggest problem now is that many residents of Donghai Community have moved away after being affected by the Zhang Hui case.

This resulted in inadequate investigation and many omissions. Although they all made records, we still need to find a way to solve this problem later.

Zhou Yi took out a population registration form from the neighborhood committee from his pocket and handed it over: "Teacher Gu, this is the population registration information of Donghai Community at the end of February. You can compare it with the permanent resident data, and you should be able to find some of the information."

Gu Changhai took it and nodded repeatedly: "Having this makes things much better."

Shi Tao said, "Old Gu, I'll leave this to you. Go back to the bureau later to do the comparison."

"Team Leader Shi, I'll leave Donghai Residential Area to you for now. Sister Qiao and I will go check on Meng Qingtong in a bit; he's currently the most suspicious person," Zhou Yi said.

"Alright, that young widow I mentioned earlier, and that guy who wouldn't open the door, I'll have a good chat with those two this afternoon," Shi Tao said, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

Meng Qingtong's business card reads "Dinghua Group's Hongcheng Office".

The name sounds impressive, but at the same time, it's completely unclear what this so-called Dinghua Group does.

Zhou Yi and Qiao Jiali drove to the location on the business card. Zhou Yi looked up at the building in front of him, then looked down at the address on the business card and scratched his head.

"Sister Qiao, I haven't gone the wrong way, have I?"

Qiao Jiali leaned closer to take a look and said, "Yes, this is it."

Before them stood a dilapidated little building. Zhou Yi felt that the building was even older than Wu Yongcheng's. There wasn't even a sign at the entrance, and many of the windows were broken.

If you come at midnight, you could practically treat this like a haunted house.

Isn't it a large corporation? Isn't Meng Qingtong a sales manager?

Even public restrooms are more upscale than this, right?
Well, since we're already here, let's see what happens.

The two entered the dark stairwell and found it empty. The stairs were made of wood and creaked loudly when stepped on.

The address on the business card was on the third floor. The entire building only had three floors, and there wasn't a soul on the first or second floor.

Upon reaching the third floor, Zhou Yi discovered that one of the doors was closed.

However, the door only appeared to be closed; the lock was broken and it opened with a push.

Compared to the dilapidated building, this room was actually renovated, with white paint on the walls and several desks.

What's even stranger is that there were obvious signs of vandalism in the house. Although there weren't many things, the place was still a mess.

Zhou Yi picked up a dirty white cloth from the ground, covered in footprints. Upon unfolding it, he discovered several words printed on it: Dinghua Group's Hongcheng Office.

Hey, that's really true.

What the heck is this? Is it a shell company?

Ten minutes later, Zhou Yi was about to congratulate himself, because he had guessed it.

He went to the window and looked out, but didn't find anything unusual.

Qiao Jiali suddenly lowered her voice and said, "Zhou Yi, someone's here."

Zhou Yi listened carefully and sure enough, he heard a series of chaotic footsteps outside. The wooden stairs made strange noises like chickens being trampled.

There seemed to be quite a few people, and Zhou Yi and Qiao Jiali immediately reached for their gun holsters at their waists.

Outside, the sound arrived before the person did.

“I saw two people come in with my own eyes, there’s no doubt about it, they must be that kid’s group.”

A few seconds later, the door was kicked open with a bang.

The already dilapidated wooden door suddenly suffered damage it shouldn't have had to endure.

Collapsed suddenly.

Strangely, Zhou Yi saw that the person who stepped out from the doorway looked bewildered and terrified, as if the door collapsing was completely unexpected.

Upon seeing this, Zhou Yi removed his hand from the holster, indicating that he was not some kind of thug.

The man who kicked the door finally realized what was happening, put his foot down, pointed at the two men and said in a feignedly fierce tone, "You...you're in cahoots with that guy surnamed Meng, aren't you? Pay up! If you don't pay up today, you...you won't be leaving here alive."

Without wasting words, Zhou Yi pulled out his badge and said, "Police. Come on, tell me what happened?"

(End of this chapter)