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

Chapter 246 Investigation and Analysis
The person speaking in the second team was named He Bin. In the previous life, after Zhou Yi went from the Nanming Branch Bureau to the Municipal Bureau, Shi Tao had already been transferred to become the director of a branch bureau in the neighboring Taicheng. The person who succeeded Shi Tao was He Bin, who was also a master at cracking down on organized crime.

Gu Changhai was old and had already retired by then.

He Bin summarized the results of their investigation of more than 300 households in Donghai Community throughout the day, and finally sorted out several that were highly suspicious.

Aside from the fact that the technical department will conduct an on-site investigation of the house Meng Qingtong rented tomorrow, the only person who can be ruled out as a suspect at present is the opium addict that Shi Tao brought back.

Shi Tao questioned the young widow again after lunch, and she can basically be ruled out as a suspect.

However, judging from her rather revealing clothing, she might be someone who makes money off men.

Her household registration records show that she is widowed and has a young son in her hometown. When asked what kind of work she does and where she works, she hesitates and stammers.

Shi Tao suspected that there was a certain probability that she was involved in prostitution, so he asked Gu Changhai to contact the Qishan Road Police Station to keep an eye on the woman and take action if it was confirmed that she was a prostitute.

Besides these, there are a few others that are rather suspicious.

In apartment 501 of building 6, a couple visibly tense when the police came to question them. Both worked at the same factory. The police said there was a faint metallic smell in their home, but they didn't see anything unusual.

In apartment 102 of building 25, there's an old man who talks incoherently and has a pot on his head when he opens the door. According to the household registration information, it's an elderly couple who live there, but during the inquiry process, the old woman was never seen.

The police asked him, "Sir, where did your wife go?"

The old man became emotional and said he was dead.

However, there is no record of the old lady's death in the household registration information.

There was also apartment 201 in building number 12, where a mother and daughter lived. When He Bin went to their apartment, he heard the mother cursing her daughter before he even knocked on the door. She called her a shameless slut and said all sorts of nasty things.

After He Bin knocked on the door, an angry voice from inside asked, "Who is it?"

After He Bin answered the police, the door opened, and a middle-aged woman in her forties with disheveled hair glared at him and asked him what he wanted.

He Bin glanced into the room and saw a girl with medium-length hair in a school uniform standing there with her head down. There was a torn book on the floor; judging from the cover, it wasn't a textbook but a romance novel.

The girl turned her head and glanced at him. Because her hair was covering her face, He Bin couldn't see her face clearly, but he remembered that the girl's eyes were very resentful, which left a deep impression on him.

Then the girl turned around and went into the room, slamming the door shut.

After the loud bang, the middle-aged woman at the door was enraged again and began to curse loudly, completely ignoring He Bin standing at the door.

"What are you doing? What are you doing? Be mindful of your behavior!" He Bin said, trying to dissuade him.

The middle-aged woman turned around and glared at him angrily, saying, "I gave birth to her and raised her. What's wrong with me scolding her a few times? What's it to you? Just because you're a policeman doesn't make you so great. I didn't kill anyone or set any fires, and you still want to interfere in my family's affairs?"

As the woman spoke, she slammed the door shut.

Although He Bin was inexplicably turned away, he did not list this household as a prime suspect. He simply marked it because he did not have the opportunity to conduct any questioning or investigation.

What really made him suspicious was room 201 in building number 30.

However, the suspicion did not come from apartment 201, but from apartment 202 across the hall and apartment 101 downstairs.

The person downstairs said that one night in early March, late at night, he was suddenly awakened from his sleep by a strange noise, which seemed to be the sound of something being smashed. Moreover, the sound came from upstairs and came in waves.

He endured it for a while, but the noise kept coming in waves, making it impossible for him to sleep.

So I got up and ran upstairs to bang on the door. It took me a long time to finally open it a crack.

The lights were on inside, and a man with a gloomy look asked him what he wanted.

The man questioned what you were doing in the middle of the night, saying you were making so much noise he couldn't sleep and that he would call the police if you kept doing it!

The man said sorry and closed the door.

The sound stopped there, but when he left for work at dawn, he heard the sound of things being smashed upstairs again.

But because he was in a hurry to get to work, he didn't pay any more attention to it.

The police asked him if it rang again later.

The resident of apartment 101 shook his head and said no.

The neighbor across the hall, 202, said that 201 is a tenant, but he doesn't know what they do for a living. He added that he has never seen the person across the hall go to work.

One night, around 1 a.m., the occupant of apartment 202 heard a knock on the door. The male homeowner had just gotten up to use the bathroom and was startled.

Who gets knocked on the door at 1 a.m.?

I didn't dare open the door, but peeked out through the peephole. Then the door opposite opened, and a man behind it said to the person knocking, "Wrong way, this way." After the person went in, the door closed.

The male homeowner in apartment 202 said, "The people across the street are definitely not good people. Ever since that incident, I have to check if the door is locked every night before I go to bed. Officers, you should investigate the people across the street, otherwise I can't sleep soundly."

The reason they checked the situation from downstairs and across the hall was because the police knocked on the door of apartment 201, but no one answered.

Unsure whether no one was home or if they were deliberately keeping the door closed, He Bin walked around the front and back of the building after learning about it, observing the situation in apartment 201. He discovered that all the windows of the apartment were covered up.

The key issue wasn't that they used curtains to block the view, but rather that they used cardboard, which even blocked the kitchen and bathroom windows.

"Have you contacted the landlord?" Shi Tao asked after listening.

"We haven't been able to contact the landlord yet, but the neighborhood committee said they'll try to ask around tomorrow," He Bin said.

Shi Tao turned to Zhou Yi and asked, "Zhou Yi, what's your opinion?"

While He Bin was speaking, Zhou Yi was thinking and taking out the relevant household registration information to look at.

"The couple in Building 6, according to the information I saw, both work at a mechanical parts processing factory, have a son who is currently in high school and should be living at school. Their family structure is stable, they have no criminal record, and they should not be related to the dismemberment. As for their nervous expressions, it is probably related to the metallic smell they smelled."

Shi Tao asked, "What do you mean?"

"The main material used in parts factories is iron, but iron itself is odorless. The reason we sometimes smell a metallic odor is that when the human body comes into contact with iron, the sebum on our hands reacts with the iron to produce a peroxide. At the same time, sweat from the skin can also slightly corrode the metal, producing iron ions."

"When peroxides react with iron ions, they produce a compound, and it is this substance that produces the metallic smell."

Everyone suddenly realized that they had always thought it was the smell of iron itself.

"However, people who work in dry machining usually wear work clothes to prevent burns from hot metal shavings, and they also wash their hands after get off work to remove any residue. Theoretically, you can't say that you won't smell when you get home, but today is Sunday, so if there is still a metallic smell, there is only one possibility."

Shi Tao hurriedly asked, "What? They're doing their own chores at home?"

Zhou Yi shook his head: "Don't even mention that the machine tool can't be moved in. Even if it could, the floor slabs of ordinary residential buildings wouldn't be able to support its weight."

At this moment, He Bin spoke up: "I understand. Zhou Yi means that these two must have been stealing a lot of scrap from the factory and hiding it at home, which is why there is a faint metallic smell at home. This also explains why the two of them seemed nervous when we came to question them."

Zhou Yi nodded: "This is just my speculation; further investigation and verification are needed."

Shi Tao thought for a moment and said, "Old Gu, why don't you go to the Qishan Road Police Station tomorrow and find that Miao... Miao Cheng, those who are suspected but not highly suspicious, and have them follow up and verify them, including that kid I brought back to grow poppies."

Gu Changhai nodded in agreement.

"Zhou Yi, continue. What about the old man?"

"The old man in building number 25 should be fine. We can have Officer Miao and the others follow up on him tomorrow. It's possible that the old couple had a fight, and the old lady went to stay with relatives or her children. The old man is obviously a stubborn and superstitious person, just look at the pot he's carrying on his head."

"A pot?" Shi Tao suddenly clapped his hands and said, "I remember now, isn't this the qigong pot that was popular more than ten years ago?"

What Shi Tao was referring to was a type of qigong that was all the rage in the 1980s, called the "information pot" or "qigong pot."

It started in the capital and later spread to all parts of the country, where it was widely imitated by the people.

Simply put, it involves placing a cooking pot on your head, then channeling your energy, allowing the pot on your head to receive the energy field from the universe, achieving a state of communion between heaven and man.

It was very popular back then, mainly because it was convenient; after all, which household doesn't have a pot?

But that's pure nonsense.

However, back then, qigong was very popular, and many people believed in it. Even now, in 1997 and even in the early 2000s, there are still people claiming to be qigong masters who swindle and deceive others. Their core purpose is twofold.

First, he can cure your illnesses. If a hospital can't cure it, he can cure it in no time by using his powers.

Of course, how you died afterward was none of his business, and you had no chance to ask.

Secondly, they claim to ward off disasters and bring blessings, turning danger into safety, and even more exaggerated claims that they can help you seize the fortune of heaven and earth.

This type is basically combined with charlatans. Of course, they generally don't deceive ordinary people, but rather big bosses and celebrities.

It can be considered a kind of "strange" thing that has emerged in the process of improving the public's cultural awareness.

"Team Leader Shi, you're right. Back then, many people practiced this qigong pot. But now, those who still practice qigong are mostly stubborn old men; it's a kind of self-deception," Zhou Yi said.

"In addition, the act of dismembering a body requires a lot of physical strength and energy to complete, which is frankly a bit difficult for an elderly person of this age."

Let alone dismembering a murderer, even slaughtering a pig and cutting it into so many pieces is something that not an ordinary person could do.

(End of this chapter)