Chapter 7 Stripping Away the Truth 4

  The first time people come to the dissection room, they will feel a chill that is hard to describe. However, if you stay in it every day, you will feel differently.

  When Zhang Tong and intern assistant Deng Ran, along with the cameraman, were preparing for the autopsy in the morgue, a detective from the homicide unit suddenly called to request that the scheduled autopsy be delayed by half an hour. The reason was that the mother of the 16-year-old girl who had gone missing two weeks ago had been notified to come and identify the body, and DNA samples would also be available for comparison at the same time. Zhang Tong knew that the sooner the identity of the deceased could be confirmed, the more helpful it would be for their smooth resolution of the case. So, upon hearing this news, she quickly re-covered the damaged corpse with a white cloth, then sat quietly by the workbench, staring silently at the tightly closed door of the morgue.

  Not long after, the door to the autopsy room was pushed open and two people entered. One of them was Xiao Ding from the homicide unit, also a newcomer who had been there for less than half a year. As soon as he stepped inside, his brow furrowed quickly, clearly uncomfortable with the smell of death that permeated the room. The other person was a middle-aged woman with a sorrowful expression. There was no need to ask; she was the girl's mother. Zhang Tong gestured with her eyes for Deng Ran to stand aside while she herself hid in another corner of the room, trying to keep as much distance from the family member as possible.

  After consulting with the girl's mother, Xiaoding nodded to Deng Ran to lift the white cloth covering the body. At that moment, everyone's heart was in their throat as they watched the middle-aged woman intently. Indeed, the missing girl's mother fainted after just one glance at the body. The clothes were too familiar. The deceased was her daughter who had been missing for two weeks.

  "Zhang Jie, why did you hide so far away just now? You're not even afraid of the dead." Deng Ran's face, still with a hint of childishness, was filled with puzzlement.

  Zhang Tong sighed and said: "I am not afraid of death, but I fear the pain of separation."

  Deng Ran's eyes flashed with a hint of sadness: "Zhang Jie, do you think the girl's mother will not let us dissect her daughter?"

  "I don't know. But that feeling is understandable. After all, it's one's own family member. However, in order to crack the case and catch the culprit, there's no other choice."

  Deng Ran fell silent.

  The clothes on the deceased's body were identified as the school uniform she wore on the day of her disappearance. However, there was no visible mud stain or sign of rain washing on the entire set of clothes. This suggests that her body had been abandoned at the scene recently. A knotted scarf was wrapped around her neck, and a plastic zip tie was also found. Her wrists were bound with an identical one. All these evidence were carefully collected by Deng Ran in evidence bags, sealed, and immediately sent to the trace evidence identification team.

  Next, Zhang Tong noticed that the same bruise was found on the girl's throat and wrist. The swelling found when cutting open the trachea indicated that the deceased died of physiological asphyxia caused by hypoxia. In simpler terms, she was strangled to death. The incision on the corpse was neat and uniform, showing that the murderer used a very sharp electric cutter. Because the wound was left in one go, there were no signs of dragging or shaking. Unless someone wanted to cut it manually with such great force, the wound would not be like this.

  After determining the cause of death, a special phenomenon on the corpse left her puzzled. The way the body was decomposing seemed somewhat abnormal. When she made a Y-shaped incision to open the deceased's chest cavity, everyone present was shocked by what they saw. The girl's internal organs were more severely decomposed than her external body. This raised suspicions that the body might have been frozen at some point. Although decomposition typically starts from the inside of the abdominal cavity due to bacterial activity, the degree of decomposition on the surface and internally should be roughly the same. However, what was presented on the autopsy table was two extremes - one just beginning, the other already in mid-to-late stage. This is normally impossible. Zhang Tong furrowed her brow, took a smaller dissecting knife, cut out the deceased's heart, and then took tissue samples to analyze under an electron scanning microscope. Immediately, large gaps were found between the muscle fibers of the sample, indicating that ice crystals had formed in the tissues, causing the muscle fibers to rupture. The body had indeed been frozen. But what kind of freezing equipment could have caused this state of cellular structure?

  The conference room was brightly lit. The members of the task force sat in a circle around the table, not missing a single one. Everyone looked at Zhang Tong who was speaking without saying a word.

  "The size of the ice crystals formed is inversely proportional to the speed of the freezing process. If it was quickly frozen in a substance like liquid nitrogen or liquid oxygen, the ice crystals would be very small; on the other hand, if it was slowly frozen, such as in a home freezer or a deep freeze storage room at a food processing plant, the ice crystals would be much larger. Based on the size of the gaps shown under an electron scanning microscope, I inferred that the deceased had undergone slow and deep freezing. An ordinary freezer wouldn't have been able to hold the deceased's body, as they were 1.65 meters tall, and even folding them up wouldn't have fit. The dismemberment was clearly done before the body was abandoned, as there were no signs of freezing at the cut sites. From this, it can be seen that the deceased had been hidden in a cold storage room or a large freezer-like place."

  Wang Yan nodded: "This clue is very important. Fingerprint identification team, how's it going on your side?"

  "We found some fine, dark red particles in the knotted scarf left behind by the perpetrator. Sample analysis revealed that it was pig blood. The same bloodstains were also extracted from the binding tape. After examination, they were identical to those on the scarf and belonged to pig blood. The deceased's school uniform also had similar fine, dark red bloodstains. These bloodstains did not have a splashing shape but clearly indicated that they were transferred through indirect contact. The most bloodstained areas were under the armpits and the pant legs of the school uniform around the ankles. We can infer from this that the deceased was dragged by the perpetrator with their hands holding the armpits and ankles, resulting in the transfer of pig blood. The perpetrator must have had a lot of fresh pig blood on them during the crime, which is why such obvious secondary transfer occurred."

  "It seems that the killer's occupation can be roughly determined. He is likely to be engaged in pig slaughtering work. Generally, some pig slaughtering factories will have corresponding cold storage facilities to store pork. In this case, our suspect has a place to store the body that matches the inference." Wang Yan stood up and walked to the whiteboard, drew a circle on the map with a red pen, and pointed to the center position, saying: "This is the school where the victim was located, and this is the victim's residence. The two places are less than one kilometer apart." Then, she used a blue pen to draw a line between the school and the residence, turned around, and said seriously: "Team, immediately investigate all pig wholesale points within this range today, including stores, as long as they have cold storage facilities, regardless of their size."

  Get off work. Zhang Tong just walked out of the locker room. Didn't expect to run into Liu Chunxiao head-on.

  "Off work! Old classmate."

  "Right. How did you get here."

  "Come on, I'm busy. One case. Just those files have made me work extra days." Liu Chunxiao said with a exaggerated stretch. "How about you? Want to have dinner together tonight?"

  "My mom's health isn't good. I have to go back. Next time."

  Liu Chunxiao couldn't hide a face full of disappointment.

  Just as things were getting awkward, Wang Yanan pushed open the door and walked out.

  "Haven't left yet. I thought I was the last one."

  Zhang Tong suddenly had an idea in his heart. He immediately pulled Wang Ya Nan and said: "You came just in time. I was worried that this old classmate of mine would have no one to spend money with. Let him treat you to dinner tonight."

  "Really." Wang Yan couldn't believe her ears. "Is this really happening?"

  "Don't worry." Zhang Tong patted Wang Ya Nan's shoulder. "When have I ever lied to you?"

  "Right, has there been any progress on the case?"

  Wang Yan tightly furrowed her brow: "Right, based on the clues, a pork butcher's employee is highly suspicious. After the case was reported, he returned to his hometown. I've already sent someone to fetch the suspect. The cause of the case should be temporary. There will be results tonight."

  On the way home, looking at the monotonous streetlight outside the car window, Zhang Tong's mood was particularly depressed. Human life is too fragile.

  The next afternoon.

  The victim's name was Li Xiao, a second-year student at Tianchang City Middle School. On the day she went missing, due to temporary rehearsals for National Day performances, Li Xiao left school at 8 pm. Because her parents were busy with work, Li Xiao had always taken care of herself and often returned home late. Her daughter was obedient and understanding, so her parents didn't worry about it. Moreover, the school was just across from their residential area, and they could see it from their balcony. However, by 10 pm that night, she still hadn't returned home. Her parents realized that something might have happened to their daughter, but no matter how hard they looked for her, Li Xiao seemed to have vanished into thin air. It wasn't until two weeks later that her body was unexpectedly found in the suburbs. Wang Yan stood in Director Li's office, reporting the case with a serious expression.

  "After the incident, my subordinates and colleagues from the local police station visited all the households along the 800-meter route from the residential area to the school. They all said they didn't notice anything. In the surveillance video, there is only a short segment that recorded the girl crossing the road. The direction she was walking in was towards Tangwu Village, which is where her home is located."

  "So, looking at it this way, the victim was likely killed on this 800-meter road. It's very possible that she was still somewhere on this road at the time, we just haven't found her yet. Right?" Li's face was full of puzzlement.

  "My idea is the same. We plan to follow up on the clues provided by the forensic lab and re-examine all the merchants who sell pork along the way to see if we can find any leads."

  "Alright, get back to me as soon as possible."

  "Wang's team is the only one that operates a pig slaughter and processing plant, which also has a small freezer to store pork." Assistant Xiao Zheng soon brought news from the street office.

  "We'll go take a look right away. Is the owner in?"

  "In"

  This is a butcher shop located at the street corner. The storefront is only about 10 square meters in size. The entire butcher shop is greasy. Because it's already afternoon, there are no customers in the shop. On the counter, a few pieces of leftover meat from the morning market are scattered around, emitting an indescribable strange smell.

  The shop owner is a stout middle-aged man with a kind face.

  After Wang Yan explained the situation, the shop owner looked wronged: "Comrade police officer, I'm operating honestly. I've never done anything illegal. You can't frame me. Besides, when that girl went missing, I wasn't even here. I was on a business trip. There was only one employee watching the store."

  Wang Yan and his assistant looked at each other in dismay. He quickly explained, "Boss, we were just investigating the situation. We didn't say anything about you. You don't need to worry."

  Really.

  Wang Yanan couldn't help but laugh and cry: "We police won't wrong good people. You can rest assured."

  The chubby shop owner finally nodded with a half-trusting expression.

  "Right, boss. You said there was a partner who took care of things for you. Where is he now?"

  "He's gone. It's quite strange, actually. He suddenly quit a few days ago, saying he had an emergency at home and had to rush back."

  "Would it be possible for me to bring my colleagues to take a look at your store?"

  The shop owner nodded hastily: "Of course you can. Come on."