Chapter 43 Copycat
When Wang Zheng opened his eyes, there was only a white ceiling in front of him. Then he half sat up and rubbed his temple with his hand. At the same time, his brain began to work, trying to recall why he came to this place. The place where he lost his memory yesterday was clearly the corridor outside the crime scene.
"Are you awake?" Gu Xia, who was sitting on a chair far away, couldn't help laughing at Wang Zheng's appearance and explained hoarsely, "I think you must want to know where this is. This is a hotel. After we saw you fainted yesterday, we sent you here to let you rest first."
"Thank you." Wang Zheng looked at Gu Xia gratefully. He was afraid that if he had stayed at the scene alone, he might not have been treated like this when he woke up. After a moment of silence, he continued, "How is the case?"
"Not very optimistic." Gu Xia sighed and said, "According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 1,200 electricians in Minjiang City. If we have to take statements from each of them, it will take several months to complete the task with the police force of the branch ."
"What are the exact results of the autopsy?" Wang Zheng asked.
"Just as you thought." Gu Xia's eyes lit up when he said this, and he said, "The deceased was not burned to death by liquid, but was instantly knocked unconscious by the high-voltage electric arc, and then burned. As for the source of the electricity, we checked the deceased's switch box and confirmed that there were signs of human intervention."
"That proves that the first police officer who arrived at the scene found that there was no electricity. In fact, the murderer turned off the meter box. It also better explains why there was no fire source at the scene." Wang Zheng wiped his face and stood up, saying, "I think we still need to go to the scene to take a look."
When they arrived at the scene again, Wang Zheng and others soon made new discoveries. Because it was daytime this time, they had a better understanding of the details of the scene.
"There are burn marks on the deceased's window. It should be an electric arc." Gao Feng was the first to discover a black mark next to the window, and the wall was a little damp.
"This was caused by the murderer's careless operation." Gu Xia looked around and said, "After hearing Wang Zheng's judgment of the murderer, I roughly understood that the murderer must have connected another wire through the main switch and then placed it on the deceased's body, causing the rare burning phenomenon after the deceased was electrocuted."
"Rare burning?" Gao Feng showed a puzzled expression on his face.
"Yes, the human body has a certain ability to withstand electricity. Ordinary voltage is not enough to electrocute a person, because now electric meters have a safety switch. When the voltage exceeds a certain level, the switch will automatically close. So when the first police arrived at the scene, the power was turned off." Gu Xia said with a smile.
"What caused the deceased to burn? Don't tell me it was water?" Gao Feng asked quickly.
"In fact, it was water." Gu Xia held the quilt that was burned to a corner and smiled, " It seems that the murderer must have once stained the murderer with water, and then calmly placed the live wire directly on the quilt. The moment the electricity and water met, not only did the deceased faint, but also the quilt caught fire, thus achieving the purpose of burning the deceased."
"The inside of the mattress is really wet!" Gao Feng pressed the mattress in surprise, then exclaimed as he looked at the slightly wet marks on his fingers.
After getting such clues, Wang Zheng and others couldn't help but get excited, because they all felt that they were very close to the murderer. With just a little more clue, they could catch the murderer who committed two murders in a row.
"I will communicate with the Minjiang Municipal Bureau now and try to find some records." Gu Xia took out his mobile phone with a smile. The moment he turned on the screen, the phone rang.
"I think it's definitely not a good thing." Gao Feng Zhuantou looked at Wang Zheng and said.
"Now when I hear the phone call, I feel nervous." Wang Zheng also shook his head.
"You guessed it right." Gu Xia hung up the phone, his face a little ugly: "Let's go, someone just reported that a body was found in a pond on the outskirts of the city. We need to go to the scene to take a look."
"Are we responsible for someone who accidentally fell into the water?" Gao Feng looked a little speechless.
"It would be fine if it was just a simple fall into the water." Gu Xia sighed and said, "The victim did not die from drowning, but from being burned."
…
The suburban pond is an hour's drive from the previous crime scene. It happened to rain last night, so the car had to be driven very carefully. By the time we arrived at the scene, it was already noon.
"What's the situation?" Gu Xia walked into the blockade and asked Bai Ling and Hua Mei who had already arrived at the scene: "I heard that the person was burned to death?"
"That's right." Bai Ling nodded and said, "I found the same scar on the left arm of the deceased as the previous deceased. It is confirmed that it was caused by an electric arc, but the deceased's posture is a bit strange."
"Oh?" Gu Xia looked at the identity file of the deceased sent by the suburban police station, cried out strangely, looked at Bai Ling who had stopped, and said apologetically: "Go on."
"Okay." Bai Ling calmed down and said, "When the deceased was salvaged, I found that his death was not like the struggle of drowning or burning. Instead..., he was curled up like a baby. I suspect this is not the first crime scene."
"This is where the body was dumped." Gao Feng walked over from a distance and said thoughtfully, "The footprints at the scene are very mixed. Because there was a small amount of rainfall last night, the soil here is relatively wet. I checked and found that apart from some footprints that arrived at the scene later, there is a set of footprints closest to the pond that is problematic."
"Tell me about it." Gu Xia asked.
"The front part of the footprint is sunken, while the heel is very shallow." Gao Feng paused and continued, "Based on the traces, this person should have been carrying something heavy. The footprints that turned back after reaching the edge of the pond are much shallower than the previous ones. I have taken samples, and the specific details will have to wait until we get back to the Municipal Bureau for analysis."
"Okay." Gu Xia nodded. After looking around, he suddenly felt that something was missing, and couldn't help but ask quickly, "Where's Wang Zheng?"
"When I was studying the traces at the scene just now, I saw that he seemed to be running towards the corpse," Gao Feng recalled.
"Let's go over and take a look too."
Gu Xia waved to the two of them, and after walking a few steps they arrived at the temporary tent. As soon as they opened the curtain, they could see Wang Zheng squatting at the feet of the deceased, holding a pair of tweezers and doing something unknown, while Huamei was standing in the distance, folding her arms and looking at him quietly.
"Why are you here so late?" Wang Zheng looked up inadvertently and saw Gu Xia and others coming in. He stood up and put the things on the tweezers into the tray at hand, and said with a smile: " I think I know what the murderer used to dump the body."
"You already know that it was a murder and body dumping?" Gao Feng opened his eyes wide, feeling a little unbelievable.
"Although the deceased was found in the pond, he was burned to death. I can't help but regard this as an act of dumping the body." Wang Zheng paused and continued: "The curled-up state of the deceased must have meant that he died in a small and sealed space, and the murderer revealed something."
Gao Feng did not expect that the three people at the pond and their inferences based on the scene were similar to those of Wang Zheng hiding in the tent. He felt a little depressed when he thought about it and said, "Why do I feel like I am redundant?"
"We should say, how come we ran into such a monster." Gu Xia was also somewhat helpless. As soon as he said this, the three people beside him nodded repeatedly, expressing their agreement.
"Even if I am a monster, there are some things I cannot do, such as inferring the murderer based on the traces at the scene." Wang Zheng said with a smile: "If there are traces, prepare to arrest the person. This is a copycat crime."
