Wu Xiang looked at his surroundings. Someone climbed over the wall from the Zhenbo Garden next door and entered the Shanshan Guild Hall! He first climbed up a big tree in the Zhenbo Garden, and then easily climbed over the foot-high courtyard.
When going down the wall, he used the protruding lintel of the small door as a step. That's why he left half a footprint.
Li Zhenguodao: "No wonder we searched Nanjianzi Lane and couldn't find the murderer! It turns out he ran away from here long ago!"
Wu Xiang said: "This doesn't make sense. If he climbed over the wall from here and escaped into the guild hall, then who locked the back door? If there is a murderer outside who locked the door, then why is there someone else?
Why would Wang Xiuzhu be killed if someone stayed behind after escaping? This doesn’t make sense.”
Lao Qi said: "It doesn't matter. You can lock the door inside."
This was unbelievable to the three policemen. Wu Xiang had seen the Australian lock embedded in the door panel, which could indeed lock the door in both directions, but how could the padlock be locked from the outside and people get in again? Could it be climbing over the wall?
"You will know when you get to the place." Lao Qi said, "There is a door on the door."
Wu Xiang didn't care if there was a door on his door or not, he said: "Open the door here first."
Lao Qi didn't dare to disobey, so he opened the door with the key. When he pushed the door open, he saw a small courtyard inside. Although the courtyard had not been repaired for many years, the courtyard was overgrown with weeds and the paint was peeling.
Elegance in detail.
The courtyard was not big, so Lao Qi led them through a moon cave door and entered the garden. The garden was already in a state of desolation. Not only were weeds and trees everywhere, but most of the building rockeries in the garden had collapsed, and there was only one path that was barely passable.
The sun is high in the sky, but if you were on the street, you would probably be dripping with sweat. As soon as you entered the garden, although the wind was calm and the trees were still, you could only feel a cold air coming, penetrating your muscles and bones. The ground was full of rotten leaves and grass.
Deep. The trees in the garden are all more than fifty or sixty years old, and the shade of the trees is like a canopy covering the sky and the sun. The flower trees that were originally planted in the vat have squeezed the vase, and are covered with black tree trunks covered with green moss.
It is full of gorgeous flowers and is indescribably weird.
The old man did not dare to look around and just led the way - he said that he had not come from the guild hall for several months.
"This place, even strong men wouldn't dare to cross it once it gets dark - it's not clean."
Wu Xiang was not in the mood to listen to his chatter. He had already seen many traces of human disturbance on the path: trampled weeds, fallen branches... Obviously, someone had passed by here not long ago.
After passing through the deserted garden, they came to a courtyard wall. Lao Qi said: "This is it."
The courtyard gate has long since decayed and fallen. When you pass through, you can see dead leaves all over the courtyard. The Yi Zhuang seems to have been rebuilt from the original flower hall. Half of the roofs of the wing rooms on both sides have collapsed, and the roof tiles are covered with weeds. Under the slanting sun, there are
Groups of bats were flying around in the air, and the broken wooden partition door with peeling paint was half-shuttered and creaked when the wind blew.
Although everyone was brave, they couldn't help but feel their hearts beating when they saw this scene, and they bravely pushed the door open and came in.
Stepping into the main hall, I saw seven or eight black lacquered coffins parked inside, placed on benches, covered with cobweb dust. In front of the coffins were wooden tablets, each with the name of the spiritual master written on it. Some of them were old and the handwriting was blurred. The room
The odor is pungent and gloomy, but there is no rancid smell: the coffin is filled with lime paper bags as usual, and for those who are sophisticated, there are fine ash wood ash, and the outside is covered with linen and lacquer that has been applied seven or eight times, making it airtight.
"The door on the back wall is at the back of this courtyard." The old man didn't want to stay here for a long time, so he wanted to lead them to the back.
However, Li Zhenguo stopped him: "Don't go, that's wrong." He pointed to the ground.
On the dusty ground, there were clear traces of footprints, leading all the way to a coffin.
Lao Qi screamed and fainted immediately. This shocked the policeman. Li Ziyu quickly picked him up and pinched him, finally waking him up. Li Zhenguo said: "Old man
Qi, why are you scared? It's obvious that someone has come in!"
Wu Xiang nodded and said, "Go over and have a look."
They carefully avoided the footprints on the ground and came to the coffin. Wu Xiang circled the coffin a few times and immediately discovered that there were cracks in the coffin lid and body, and there were obvious stains left on the paint in several places.
There are signs of wear and tear - someone has opened the coffin!
I asked the old man to come over and take a look. He was shocked when he saw it. The wooden nails on the coffin lid had broken. It had obviously been pried open.
This is a huge event. Although the coffin has not yet been buried, opening the coffin privately is equivalent to robbing the grave and digging up the grave. In the past, it was a serious crime. If the bereaved family has a certain degree of power, they will never let it go.
If there was a noise, he, a handyman in charge of the yizhuang, would probably lose his job! He was so anxious that he almost cried. He said anxiously: "What, what is going on! I have never left this key for a moment.
ah!"
Wu Xiang comforted him and said: "Old relative, don't be anxious. For now, the only way is to open the coffin and take a look before making a decision. Don't worry: as long as you cooperate with our work, the police will definitely clear your name!"
"
Lao Qi was already at a loss for what to do, so he quickly said: "But it's up to a few of my bosses to make the decision."
"Old Li, Xiao Li, let's join hands and let's open the coffin." Wu Xiang said, "Old Qi, you can also help me."
Although Lao Qi was unwilling in his heart, he had no choice but to listen to the police.
The four people worked hard together, and after hearing a few "squeaks", the lid of the coffin had been lifted. A few people looked inside intently, and the old man called out again: "Oh my God." Then he rolled his eyes.
This time, none of the three policemen could care about him. Inside the coffin was an object wrapped in oilcloth - similar to a human figure. There were specks of blood on it. Li Ziyu couldn't help shouting: "This is it!"
That's right, inside the coffin was the headless corpse that he and Zhao Gui found during last night's rainy night patrol and later disappeared!
The truth was revealed at this time. The missing headless corpse was moved into Yizhuang by the murderer while they were returning to look for him, and was hidden in the coffin.
The coffins in the charity village are used by relatively wealthy people. They are large in size and can accommodate two corpses without any problem. Unless the coffins in the charity village are to be shipped or buried, no one will care about them for many years. Even if they are exposed one day, times have changed.
, then it really becomes a no-brainer case.
Although there is a lot of noise when corpses are hidden in open coffins, Zhenbo Garden is known as a "haunted house". Even if there are any strange noises late at night, ordinary people would not dare to come and investigate.
Li Zhenguo was secretly surprised. This murderer was really not simple! This person could carry a headless corpse into a "haunted house" that had been abandoned for a long time on a dark rainy night, calmly open the coffin and hide the body, and then quietly leave and hide.
He went to Widow Wang's home. In the morning, he discovered the police's search network. He killed Widow Wang who might be his accomplice without hesitation, and calmly arranged a suicide scene. Then he used the Shanshan Guild Hall as a passage to quietly escape from the dragnet set by the police.
And leaving can be said to be courageous and knowledgeable.
Now that the body has been found, Wu Xiang immediately sent Li Ziyu to report to the city bureau, and also asked the city bureau to send police and police officers to conduct a comprehensive on-site inspection of Zhenbo Garden and Wang Xiuzhu's house.
As for how the murderer locked the back door and entered Zhenbo Garden, it is not difficult at all. It turns out that there is a small door dug into the back door of Zhenbo Garden, and there is a small latch on the door. People can lower their heads.
When entering, as long as you open the small door in advance, you can lock the door outside, return to the garden, and then bolt the small door. It does not affect the opening of the lock outside.
The explorers not only found a headless corpse from the coffin, but also found a discarded knife - a butcher knife used for cutting pork. There was a name on the handle of the knife, which was the "Fu Changyu" pig shop in Scissors Lane. According to forensics personnel
Comparing the marks on the body's wounds, it was believed that they were the knife used to cut off the head.
Although the local police station did not receive a report, the loss of a knife in the pig shop was not a big deal, and it was normal for no report to be made. To be on the safe side, Li Zhenguo sent Zhao Gui to ask if the butcher knife had been lost.
Zhao Gui came back soon and said that the bank had indeed thrown away a butcher knife a few days ago, but because it was of little value, he did not make any announcement about it.
There are two sets of footprints extracted from the ground of Yizhuang. One set belongs to the same person as the footprints found on the small door of the back passage, and the other set should be women's footprints from the size. After comparison, they belong to Wang Xiuzhu's footprints -
It can be seen that Wang Xiuzhu is also one of the participants in the murder.
The explorers found fresh blood stains covered by soil in the wing of Wang Xiuzhu's house, and found tiny blood spots spattered on the walls and wooden doors, confirming that this was the scene of the crime and beheading. They also dug out blood from the earth stove hearth.
Fragments of unburned satin fabric were found. Two unburned shoe soles were also found.
It was already early morning after the on-site investigation was completed. Wu Xiang took Li Zhenguo and others back to the city bureau and immediately held a case analysis meeting.
Based on further on-site investigation, they initially came to the conclusion that the murderer and Wang Xiuzhu conspired to kill the victim at Wang Xiuzhu's house and beheaded the victim. They stripped off the victim's clothes and stuffed them into the furnace to burn.
He also used incense to stun his old enemy, stole a stick and an oilcloth, wrapped the body in the oilcloth and carried it to the back door of Zhenbo Garden where the murderer had already stepped.
Unfortunately, during the transportation, they saw a patrolman patrolling with a lantern, and they hurriedly abandoned the body and fled. However, the patrolman left after discovering the body, giving them a chance. The murderer followed the original plan and used Wang Xiuzhu's late husband's leftover body to kill him.
The key opened the back door and the body was transported to Yizhuang for hiding as planned.
Then they returned to Wang's house. The next morning they found that the street was blocked and the police were conducting an investigation. The murderer thought it was too late and must escape as soon as possible. Before escaping, he killed Wang Xiuzhu and arranged it to be a "suicide" in order to silence him. Then he found the key and
Pass through the back door of Zhenbo Garden and quietly escape through Shanshan Guild Hall. (To be continued.)