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

Chapter 529 The ABC Murders

When the two police cars stopped at the entrance of the large courtyard where the Lu family lived, Zhou Yi's curiosity grew even stronger. How did they end up at the Lu family's house?
He saw Lu Xiaoshuang getting out of Shi Tao's car with a puzzled look on her face. Lu Xiaoshuang walked over and asked curiously in a low voice, "Brother Yi, what's going on?"

Zhou Yi shook his head: "I don't know either, Captain Wu didn't say."

"Let's go." Wu Yongcheng waved to the two of them.

Zhou Yi pulled Lu Xiaoshuang inside.

He had been to the Lu family's large courtyard twice. The first time was after Lu Xiaoshuang disappeared during the Hongda case, when he came to investigate.

He still clearly remembers the small attic where Lu Xiaoshuang lived, a place so small that he couldn't even straighten his back.

Actually, the two of them had already discussed it on the way, and that they would visit Lu Xiaoshuang's grandmother after getting off the train.

But to everyone's surprise, Wu Yongcheng brought them over directly.

The Lu family's tenement courtyard remained unchanged from the previous visits.

When the neighbors living in the courtyard saw Lu Xiaoshuang, they greeted her warmly.

At the same time, I was somewhat curious about this large group of people.

Soon, passing through the clothes drying in the sun and the piles of miscellaneous items, Zhou Yi and Lu Xiaoshuang arrived in front of the three east-facing rooms where the Lu family lived.

Zhou Yi and Lu Xiaoshuang finally understood why Wu Yongcheng had brought them here.

The Lu family has three rooms facing east, two of which are occupied by the second and third sons of the Lu family.

The houses in these large courtyards are not very big, so a family of three squeezed into one room was considered to be living in rather difficult conditions.

However, Zhou Yi had no good feelings towards Lu Xiaoshuang's second and third uncles' families, not only because of their harsh treatment of the old lady and her over the years, but also because of the true colors of these relatives after the major case in his previous life, which only he knew.

The remaining room on the side is where Lu Xiaoshuang and her grandmother live.

This one room was divided into two, with one half being used as the Lu family's kitchen.

The remaining half was very cramped, and it only contained the old lady's bed, a few boxes, a small table, and some miscellaneous items.

Lu Xiaoshuang's living and studying area was that small, drafty attic above.

But now, Zhou Yi and Lu Xiaoshuang see that the room where Lu Xiaoshuang's grandmother lived has changed.

The entire house had been renovated. Although it wasn't a particularly luxurious renovation, the walls were painted white, the doors and windows were replaced, and at a glance, it seemed that all the furniture had been changed as well.

The only strange thing is that the kitchen that was partitioned off next to it still looks the same as before, with a separate door, and the inside is dirty and full of grease.

However, the kitchen, which originally occupied nearly half of the house, is now only a quarter of the original size because of the addition of a partition wall.

"Captain Wu, what's going on?" Zhou Yi asked in surprise.

At that moment, a figure inside the house heard the noise and came out.

It was Lu Xiaoshuang's grandmother, Tang Yuezhen.

The old lady was overjoyed when she saw her granddaughter.

Lu Xiaoshuang quickly ran over, took her grandmother's hand, and said, "Grandma, I'm back."

"It's good that you're back, it's good that you're back." The old lady's weathered wrinkles were filled with smiles.

"Come in...come in and sit down," the old lady said warmly to the group.

Zhou Yi, with his sharp eyes, immediately noticed that the old lady had something that looked like an earphone on her ear, with a wire connecting it to her pocket.

"Hearing aids?" Zhou Yi found it strange, thinking to himself that Lu Xiaoshuang hadn't saved enough money to buy hearing aids yet.

Because after receiving the first-class merit award, she mentioned that she wanted to buy her grandmother a hearing aid, but Lu Xiaoshuang refused, saying that she had been saving money for a long time and was almost there, and she wanted to buy it for her grandmother herself.

Lu Xiaoshuang also saw the hearing aid and turned to look at Zhou Yi in surprise, assuming that Zhou Yi had arranged it.

Zhou Yi shrugged, indicating that he was unaware of the matter.

Wu Yongcheng smiled and patted Zhou Yi, saying, "Come on, let's go in and take a look."

It was the same room, except the walls had been painted, the furniture replaced, and a new cement floor had been laid.

There is a new stove at the entrance, with a gas stove connected to a liquefied gas cylinder, replacing the previous kerosene stove.

Further inside, there was a large wardrobe, as well as a folding table and chairs for dining, all of which were new.

Zhou Yi even discovered that the light bulbs were newly replaced, and there was a suspended ceiling with a plywood panel above them.

At the very back, in the area where the original kitchen had been partitioned off, a new bunk bed had been crammed in.

Although the furnishings in the room are few and simple, they are quite clean and tidy, giving people a refreshing experience.

Zhou Yi and Lu Xiaoshuang were dumbfounded. Lu Xiaoshuang's eyes welled up with tears as she excitedly asked, "Uncle Wu, Sister Qiao, Brother Biao, is this the house you helped my grandma renovate?"

Shi Tao was the only one not called out, and he felt a pang of disappointment, even though he really didn't know what was going on.

Zhou Yi also asked, "Captain Wu, what can I say about this?"

Wu Yongcheng laughed and waved his hand, saying, "We really didn't do this."

The two were stunned and asked in confusion, "If it's not you, then who could it be?"

Qiao Jiali said, "Zhou Yi, do you remember when you were in the Northwest, you called Chen Yan one day and asked him to come and find Lu Xiaoshuang's grandmother?"

"I remember." Of course Zhou Yi remembered. That day he called Chen Yan for help, asking him to come and find Lu Xiaoshuang's grandmother so that the old lady could make a phone call with her son and daughter-in-law.

Jiang Biao pointed inside the house and said, "This house was renovated by Chen Yan without him saying a word."

"Brother Yan?" Zhou Yi was immediately taken aback. "Then Grandma's hearing aid?"

Wu Yongcheng said, "He bought it too. That kid is soft-hearted. Every time there's a donation, he's always the first to rush to help."

At this moment, the old lady spoke with some surprise and panic: "What... what's going on? This young man, Xiao Chen, told me that these are all government subsidies for the families of educated youth?"

Everyone forgot that with the hearing aid, the old lady's hearing was no longer impaired.

Wu Yongcheng quickly tried to make amends, saying repeatedly, "Old man, that's right, it was the government that helped us. We said that Xiao Chen handled this matter, but we meant it was the government's doing."

The old lady was quite gullible, and kept praising the government and thanking them for not forgetting the contributions her family's Guohua had made.

Then they busied themselves getting water and food for everyone, and told Lu Xiaoshuang to quickly move chairs for the leaders.

Zhou Yi roughly guessed that Chen Yan had come to help Zhou Yi make a phone call that night and saw that the old lady was living in difficult conditions, so he found someone to renovate the house.

"Uncle Wu, I don't know how to thank Brother Yan enough," Lu Xiaoshuang said, moved.

"Hey, no need to thank me. This kid is just a nice guy. He's happy as long as he can help others." Wu Yongcheng said, reaching for a cigarette, but then remembered he was inside the house and put it away.

But I guess he was getting addicted, so he went outside and started smoking.

Zhou Yi also came out of the house and came to Wu Yongcheng's side.

Seeing his serious expression, Wu Yongcheng joked, "His uncle works in the renovation business, so it didn't cost much. You're not feeling guilty about it, are you?"

Little did he know, Zhou Yi was recalling the Huang Jinbao case from his previous life.

If Chen Yan hadn't died in his previous life to save those children, he wouldn't have died.

"This was something I should have done, but Brother Yan did it for me. I feel a little ashamed."

“Chen Yan, he told me in private that he feels he has grown a lot since you came to our Third Brigade, especially since he has learned a lot from you. He is actually very grateful to you, but he didn’t know how to express his gratitude. So he just asked his uncle to come and tidy up the house.”

Zhou Yi looked at the room in front of him, then suddenly took two steps back and looked up.

Because he didn't see the attic on the roof.

"Where did Xiaoshuang's old attic go?"

“They said it was demolished,” Wu Yongcheng replied. “His uncle saw the attic and said it was prone to leaks when it rained, so it was best to demolish it. That’s why part of the original kitchen was moved and bunk beds were put in, so Lu Xiaoshuang would have a place to sleep.”

"That's very thoughtful," Zhou Yi said, taking out his phone. "I need to call Brother Yan to thank him."

Wu Yongcheng took a puff of his cigarette and said, "Go ahead."

Soon, Chen Yan answered Zhou Yi's call.

Zhou Yi didn't waste any words and went straight to the point, expressing Lu Xiaoshuang's gratitude to Chen Yan and saying that after his transfer term ended, he would treat Chen Yan to a meal when he returned to Hongcheng to express his thanks.

On the other end of the phone, Chen Yan was still somewhat shy, saying, "No need, no need, it really didn't cost much. My uncle only charged me the cost price. As for the furniture, it was all his friend's stock, sold at a discount."

"No matter what, I'll remember this kindness. I'll ask Xiaoshuang to introduce you to a beautiful girlfriend in the future," Zhou Yi said with a smile.

"No need, no need. I haven't achieved anything at work yet, so I'm not in a hurry for personal matters."

Zhou Yi joked, "Don't be like that, Brother Yan. You've already received a first-class merit, and you still say you haven't achieved anything? Doesn't that make me seem like I'm too happy to leave?"

"I didn't mean that. You and Lu Xiaoshuang are just meant to be. Everyone is happy for you two."

Zhou Yi changed the subject and asked, "Brother Yan, do you usually read novels?"

Chen Yan was taken aback, wondering why he was suddenly being asked this.

But she still replied, "I read a few when I was in college, but I haven't read many since I started working."

His answer was typical of a top student, and Zhou Yi asked, "Do you know Agatha Christie?"

"That detective novelist? I saw the movie based on her novel in college."

"Yes, that's her, the world-renowned queen of mystery novels."

"What's wrong?" Chen Yan asked, puzzled.

“I’ll send you a copy of her book later, called ‘The ABC Murders.’ You must make time to read it when you have time,” Zhou Yi said earnestly. “I highly recommend it; you absolutely must read it.”

"Oh okay, maybe I'll go to the bookstore and buy it myself later," Chen Yan said, puzzled.

Zhou Yi quickly said, "No need, I have some at home, I'll send it to you." Just then, someone called Chen Yan on the other end of the phone, so Chen Yan greeted them and hung up.

Zhou Yi thought to himself: Brother Yan, this is all I can do to help you. The rest is up to you to figure it out yourself.

He didn't have the book at home, so he had to go to Xinhua Bookstore to buy it.

But the reason he inexplicably sent the book to Chen Yan was because the book could give Chen Yan an inspiration.

A major case will occur on the Luo River on September 14th.

Over a week, poisoning incidents occurred in multiple locations along the Luo River, primarily affecting the elderly and children. The number of people poisoned reached seven, ultimately resulting in the deaths of one elderly person and one child.

The cause of the poisoning was that the victims had all drunk intact beverages that they had picked up from the roadside.

Tests revealed that all of these different types of beverages contained a drug called tetramine.

This drug is easy to buy, but it is difficult to trace its source.

The reason these drinks contained rat poison was that the perpetrator injected the drug into the bottom of the plastic beverage bottle using a needle.

Then use a high-temperature object such as a soldering iron to flatten the pinhole.

Although this is easy for the police to discover, the elderly and children who find the drinks will certainly not suspect anything since the bottle cap is not unscrewed.

As a result, many people have fallen victim to this disease.

More importantly, the two elderly people who were initially poisoned did not report the incident to the police because they did not die.

The third poisoning victim was a five-year-old child. His parents took him to the hospital and then called the police. After an investigation, the police learned that the child's grandfather had found a bottle of beverage on the roadside. Since it was new and unopened, he took it home for his grandson to drink, but unexpectedly, this led to the incident.

When the police inspected the empty beverage bottles, they found pinhole marks at the bottom, leading them to conclude that it was a malicious poisoning case.

Sadly, the five-year-old boy passed away due to organ failure after three days of intensive care.

During this period, several other cases of poisoning occurred, all of which were caused by drinking beverages that had been picked up from the ground.

Although the Luohe police immediately warned the public through television, radio, and newspapers, the reach of information dissemination is still limited these days. In addition, the victims were mostly elderly people and children who did not pay much attention to these information channels, so subsequent poisoning cases continued to occur.

This ultimately led to the deaths of both individuals.

Because this poisoning case was highly random, and the locations where the poisoned individuals found the drinks were scattered throughout the city.

Therefore, the Luohe police classified this case as a random and malicious poisoning case motivated by revenge against society.

According to Lu Zhengfeng's later account to Zhou Yi, back then, almost all the police in Luohe had to take a loudspeaker out every day to patrol and remind citizens not to pick up anything of unknown origin from the ground to eat or drink.

Because no one knows exactly how many poisoned drinks the murderer prepared.

Because surveillance is not widespread, the police can only find suspicious persons by conducting extensive interviews and investigations of witnesses.

But this kind of poisoning is too easy to carry out. You can just ride your bicycle by at night, throw it away casually, and no one will know.

So the result was that the case became an unsolved mystery, with a five-year-old boy and a sixty-four-year-old man dying innocently.

Moreover, it wasted a lot of police resources, making it a very big case in Luohe.

How the case was eventually solved was quite baffling.

Twelve years later, the Luohe police arrested a young murderer who got into a fight while drunk and accidentally stabbed someone to death.

The terrified suspect said he wanted to atone for his crime by doing good deeds, claiming he knew who the perpetrator of the poisoning case was.

The murderer he was going to report was the suspect's biological father.

Ultimately, it was this "filial piety" report that led to the solving of the poisoning case twelve years ago.

It turns out that this case was not a random poisoning case of revenge against society at all, but a typical murder case that used "random killing to cover up the real killing target".

The killer's real target was the 64-year-old man.

The murderer was an extremely narrow-minded person. He had dated the victim's daughter when he was young, but the victim looked down on him and forced them to break up.

Therefore, he harbored resentment and held a grudge.

Although he wished he could devour its flesh raw, he didn't dare do anything, fearing he'd be discovered by the police and shot.

One day, he unexpectedly came across an old book published in 1987. The book contained a scheme that, on the surface, involved killing people randomly in alphabetical order, but in reality, hid the real target within the scheme. This amazed him.

At the same time, he had a sudden realization and the idea of ​​taking revenge on the dead arose in his mind.

This book is Agatha Christie's "The ABC Murders" that Zhou Yi mentioned to Chen Yan.

So the murderer copied the core of the book's plot, and after following the victim for a period of time, discovered that he had a habit of getting up early to collect garbage to supplement his family's income.

Then he meticulously designed a "random poisoning case" to cover up his real murder target under the guise of random poisoning.

When it was the deceased's turn, he watched as the deceased picked up the drink by lying in wait near the deceased's activity area.

Not long after, the deceased died despite all efforts to save him.

Moreover, to ensure that things didn't escalate too much before the deceased was poisoned, he didn't add large doses of rat poison to the drinks during his first few poisoning attempts.

Only the bottle the deceased drank had a higher dosage.

Therefore, none of the other victims were in mortal danger. The five-year-old boy was an accident, possibly due to his young age.

As for why the murderer's son knew that his father was the murderer, it was because when he was in elementary school, he witnessed his father injecting something into a beverage bottle with a syringe. Later, when he wanted to drink the beverage, his father scolded him.

It is common for criminal suspects to report on each other in order to atone for their crimes and reduce their sentences.

After all, these people's loyalty is just lip service; most of them will betray their friends for personal gain without hesitation when it comes to self-preservation.

It is indeed rare for a son to report his own father.

Zhou Yi had seen the case file, but by the time he saw it, the case had already been solved, so it wasn't considered an unsolved case.

He mainly heard it from Lu Zhengfeng, so it left a deep impression on him, since Lu Zhengfeng was a witness to the case back then.

Because there was no Long Zhiqiang case in the previous life, there would be no such rotation team system. Lu Zhengfeng was still in Luohe when the case occurred.

But things have changed in this life. Lu Zhengfeng has come to Hongcheng, so the case will fall to Chen Yan.

Zhou Yi couldn't give Chen Yan a heads-up about the incident, and the case file from that year recorded that the person who picked up the drink was an elderly person with poor memory, and the poisoning had taken a toll on their body, so the exact time and place where the drink was picked up was also vague.

Even if Zhou Yi went to Luohe, let alone remotely, he might not be able to accurately prevent all the victims from picking up the poisoned drinks.

So he chose to use a suggestive approach to help Chen Yan.

He believed that with Chen Yan's intelligence, as long as he had read the novel before the incident, he would definitely be able to figure out the mystery behind the poisoning case.

The joint law enforcement support team of the provincial department is actually a talent training program for the new generation of public security personnel in the province. Their outstanding performance during this period will have a great impact on their future development.

Of all the major unsolved cases in Luohe during the period leading up to the end of the year, Zhou Yi remembered that this was the only one, so he had to help Chen Yan.

This can be considered a way of repaying him.

As soon as Zhou Yi hung up the phone, Lu Xiaoshuang came skipping over: "Brother Yi, you have to thank Brother Yan properly. He's such a good person, I don't even know what to say."

Zhou Yi smiled and waved his phone, saying, "I just called him and thanked him. I also told him I'd like you to introduce him to a girlfriend later."

Lu Xiaoshuang said with difficulty, "Besides Youyou, I'm not very familiar with the other classmates, and we've all changed dorms. My new roommates seem a bit distant from Youyou and me..."

Zhou Yi patted her head and said, "I was just kidding. These things are all about fate."

As for Lu Xiaoshuang saying that she and Mo Youyou were ostracized, it's not surprising. After all, the Hongda case happened not long ago, so it's normal for their new roommates to have opinions about them.

Time heals all wounds.

"Oh right," Lu Xiaoshuang suddenly exclaimed.

"What's wrong? Have you forgotten something?"

"Do you remember when Youyou told me to go to Wuguang and asked me to come find her?"

Zhou Yi nodded: "I remember."

Mo Youyou's family lives in the urban area of ​​Wuguang. Her parents are ordinary workers.

Yunlai Town, where Zhou Yi's maternal grandmother lives, is still quite a distance away. Last month, when they went to her grandmother's house, the two of them discussed that they could find some time to visit Wuguang City, and Lu Xiaoshuang could stay at Mo Youyou's house for a couple of days, and then they would pick her up later.

However, after the incident at Yunxia Mountain, Zhou Yi was injured and needed to recuperate, so Lu Xiaoshuang naturally forgot about the matter.

"I completely forgot to say hello to her," Lu Xiaoshuang said.

"Does she have a phone at home? Why don't you call her now and tell her?"

"Yes, she left me her number. I'll look in my bag." She said, running into the house.

Lu Xiaoshuang has neither a mobile phone nor a landline, so she is only in contact with one person.

Actually, it's already August, so Mo Youyou must know that Lu Xiaoshuang isn't going.

However, given the previous major incident, Zhou Yi knew that Mo Youyou genuinely cared about Lu Xiaoshuang, so it was better to make a call to let her know she was safe.

Lu Xiaoshuang walked over with a notebook on it, which contained a landline number.

Zhou Yi dialed the number and then handed it to Lu Xiaoshuang.

A moment later, the call should have been connected.

Lu Xiaoshuang asked happily, "Excuse me, is this Mo Youyou's house?"

But immediately, Zhou Yi noticed that Lu Xiaoshuang's expression had suddenly changed.

"What's wrong?" Zhou Yi asked quickly.

Lu Xiaoshuang frowned and said, "Brother Yi, something seems off."

(End of this chapter)