Police officer Chen Shu.

Chapter 158 Suspect Identified

The neighbors started gossiping about the family, especially the woman in the pink pajamas, whose excited tone was grating to Chen Shu's ears. He greeted Xiao Yang, who was surrounded by people, and then took Ma Hengyuan, who was being escorted by plainclothes officers, downstairs to the car.

He sat in the passenger seat, turned his upper body, and asked Ma Hengyuan, who was sitting in the back seat sandwiched between plainclothes officers, "Does Zhang Yan have any friends here?"

Ma Hengyuan thought for a moment and said, "I don't know, and I don't know any of her friends."

It makes sense, who would bring their lover to meet their friends? Chen Shu took a cell phone out of the case file and held it out to Ma Hengyuan: "Unlock it."

Ma Hengyuan unlocked his phone by touching the screen with his finger.

Chen Shu put his phone away, swiped the screen a few times, found WeChat, and tapped it: "What's Zhang Yan's WeChat name?"

"swallow."

Chen Shu found Yanzi in his WeChat contacts, checked the chat history, and found nothing suspicious. He then tapped Yanzi's profile picture to enter her Moments and began browsing her posts.

While looking at the contents, he casually asked, "Ma Hengyuan, do you know Ahui or Xiaohui? They're from Zhang Yan's side."

The name "&&Hui" on the IOU still lingered in Chen Shu's mind. Perhaps it was just his intuition as an investigator, but he suspected that this person might be the key to solving the case.

Besides emotional entanglements, retaliatory harm may also involve debt conflicts.

"Yes, Yanzi does have a best friend named Xiaohui, but I don't know her exact name."

"Oh, then tell me about Xiaohui. Just tell me what you know."

The name Zhang Hui sounds like a woman's name, so she shouldn't be the murderer. Chen Shu wasn't too concerned and continued scrolling through the deceased Zhang Yan's WeChat Moments.

"I remember last week when I was with Yanzi, she received a call from Xiaohui, and the two of them had a big argument about money. Um, Xiaohui owes Yanzi money."

Telephone?

Zhang Hui's name has not appeared on Zhang Yan's call logs for the past three months.

Either a non-registered SIM card or...

It's either WeChat voice call.

Chen Shu's heart skipped a beat, recalling the IOU signed "&&Hui". He gripped his phone, pointing the screen at Ma Hengyuan: "Is this the person?"

Ma Hengyuan stared at his phone, carefully reading a post on WeChat Moments showing Zhang Yan with another woman, before shaking his head: "I don't know her, and I don't recognize her."

Chen Shu took back his phone and continued browsing Zhang Yan's WeChat Moments.

A third of the content on his WeChat Moments consisted of photos of him with the woman in Dongzhou. If nothing unexpected happens, the woman is Hui. Chen Shu forwarded all the original photos from the deceased's WeChat Moments from Ma Hengyuan's phone to his own WeChat.

He habitually reminded the plainclothes officers sitting on either side of Ma Hengyuan to keep a close eye on their target. He then got out of the car, took his phone, walked a little further away, and dialed Xu Chaofan's number.

"Hey, Shu, I was just about to call you. I'm in the forensic lab at the Criminal Investigation Department right now. I've checked the iron gate and the chain on it at the crime scene. It probably rained for a few days, so there aren't many fingerprints left."

There were indeed many shoe prints inside the main house where the body was found. Besides the murderer's and the two people who reported the incident, there were five or six different types of shoe prints, presumably left by people who came in earlier. We are still sorting them, but shoe prints alone aren't very useful.

Well, there aren't any other decisive clues.

As Xu Chaofan recounted the details of the scene, Chen Shu suddenly recalled the scene from when he first entered the main house and was startled by the unusual corpse, causing him to back away from the house.

When he stepped back to the last step, his back touched half of the main house door that automatically closed!

"Brother Xu, for some reason, one half of the main door closes automatically. But the other door is always open. If I were the murderer, and I dragged the body into a corner of the house in preparation for retaliatory harm, my first reaction would be to close all the doors."

Conversely, if I only entered the main house out of curiosity or to seek shelter from the rain, the half-open door was already convenient for me to enter and exit. The door was dirty and dilapidated, and most people wouldn't touch it unnecessarily. Therefore…

"There must be the killer's fingerprints on the door! And they must be fresh fingerprints, fingerprints that wouldn't get wet from the rain!"

Xu Chaofan's excited voice came from the phone.

From this side, one could sense the other party's jubilant mood. Chen Shu nodded in satisfaction and then presented an even more compelling clue: "Brother Xu, I'll send you a few photos later. Try using the authority from the Criminal Investigation Department to see if you can use facial recognition on the women in the pictures. If you can identify any information, send me a copy of the data."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Shu sent all the photos of Zhang Yan's WeChat Moments that he had previously seen through Ma Hengyuan's phone to Xu Chaofan.

Chen Shu prayed fervently, hoping the pictures wouldn't be heavily photoshopped, and quietly awaited good news.

About ten minutes later, the phone emitted a "beep beep beep beep beep" sound indicating that a WeChat message had been received.

It seems quite a few people have been identified!

Chen Shu excitedly took out his phone and quickly opened WeChat.

Several documents were displayed, presumably because the system had identified a large number of people. A quick scan based on age and address information was all it took to move on to the next image.

"Wang Mingyun, female, 31 years old, from QQ province, temporary residence in Dongzhou XXXXX, height 1.51 meters, weight..."

"Cheng Feng, female, 17 years old, from Donghai Province, address: Dongzhou XXXXX, height: 1.58 meters, weight..."

"Li Xiaohui, female, 26 years old, from X province, 1.67 meters tall, weight..."

Li Xiaohui!

&&Wisdom!

Chen Shu clicked into the document details and read it carefully several times.

I put down my phone, walked to the west side of the building where the deceased lived, and looked at the large number "16" printed in the middle of the building.

Somewhat disbelievingly, I took out my phone and looked at it again.

"call!"

Chen Shuchang let out a long breath, knowing that he had grasped the key to the case.

He went back upstairs, where Xiao Yang was still surrounded by several women. The only difference was that there was an additional person next to him, Zhang Liyun, the instructor of the Second Criminal Investigation Team, who had a bitter face and an extremely ugly expression.

Zhang Liyun, who is 44 years old, has been working as a front-line criminal police officer for over 20 years. According to the personnel bureau's standards, he is still a low-ranking clerk.

He had long since given up any ambition, and in the past, he would lie down and fish in troubled waters whenever possible, just to make ends meet with his salary. But in the current situation, even someone as used to being a lazy bum knows that when the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken!

He has received confirmation that the entire criminal investigation team was mobilized and arrested Zhang Fei, the husband of the deceased, in his hometown in X province. After investigation, they have largely ruled out his involvement in the crime!

The Zhang Yan murder case has reached a dead end again! Only one day remains until the originally scheduled three-day deadline for solving the case! Under intense pressure from higher authorities, the Criminal Investigation Division has reached an extremely dangerous point!

His WeChat work group had been exploding with messages. The last few messages were all pictures of car dashboards, with the red hand on the dashboard sliding to the right to its maximum!

The criminal investigation team members are rushing back as fast as they can!

(End of this chapter)