The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1043 Missing Persons Investigation Fails

"The surveillance footage shows you were there on the 10th." Xiao Zhou pushed the screenshot onto the table; the yellow excavator in the image stood out starkly in the twilight. Old Chen's breathing suddenly quickened, and his paper cup slammed to the ground. "I...I just went to test the newly replaced hydraulic hose!" His explanation was weak and feeble, and the veins on his neck bulged. "I really didn't know there were people buried underneath!"

For the next two hours, no matter how much Xiao Zhou pressed him, Lao Chen repeated the same excuse. When asked if he knew the deceased, he suddenly coughed violently: "I don't even know all the people on the construction site!" His voice was trembling with sobs, but when he mentioned the name "security guard Chen Hai," his eyelashes trembled imperceptibly.

As night fell, Xiao Zhou closed his notebook, and the red light on the recorder finally went out. Old Chen slumped into a plastic chair, staring blankly at the police tape outside the shed. Although there was no direct evidence linking him to the murder, his evasive answers and deliberately avoided details, like hidden reefs in the fog, reminded the investigators that this seemingly ordinary complainant might be hiding a secret more unsettling than the rotting corpse.

Meanwhile, following Li Ming's instructions, Xiao Wang conducted a thorough investigation into the security guard, Chen Hai.

Xiao Wang and his team rushed into the temporary workers' quarters at the construction site that very night. A damp, musty smell mixed with the stench of sweat hit them. More than thirty bunk beds were crammed into the tin shack, and faded safety signs were still pasted on the walls. Xiao Wang shone a flashlight across the beds and found half a pack of Double Happiness cigarettes on a metal cabinet in the corner—the composition of which matched the tobacco fragments extracted from the deceased's fingernails.

"Chen Hai? That security guard who loves to take advantage of others." Old Zhou, a fellow worker, spat out his betel nut, his plastic slippers making a screeching sound on the cement floor. "Last month, I saw him stuffing scaffolding fasteners into a woven bag. He got caught by the foreman and was fined three days' wages." Xiao Wang squatted down and pulled out a greasy canvas bag from under the bed. Inside were six neatly stacked pieces of cut rebar, the cut edges still sticky with fresh sawdust.

Following this clue, Xiao Wang led his team to raid the construction site warehouse. When the manager opened the iron gate, his cell phone was still vibrating in his pocket, and bundles of cables were piled in the shadows between the shelves. "Chen Hai always says he'll patrol when he's on night shift, who knows what he's up to!" The manager wiped the cold sweat from his brow. Surveillance footage showed that for the past three months, every Wednesday morning, a figure wearing a security guard's hat had been loitering in the warehouse. Although he deliberately kept his head down, his build perfectly matched Chen Hai's.

More crucial evidence came from the scrap metal recycling station. The station owner turned pale the moment he saw the police, and pulled a ledger from deep within a metal cabinet. On the yellowed pages, scrawled in pencil, were the words: "Chen Hai, 12 pieces of rebar, purchased at scrap metal price." The technician found a USB drive in a hidden compartment of the ledger; the recovered data contained records of construction materials entering and leaving the site, with some of the rebar's destinations marked with the name "Chen Hai."

“He would always cut the entire steel bar in half with a cutting machine during his patrols late at night,” the recycling station owner shouted, clutching his head. “He would cut it into half-meter-long pieces and hide them in the trunk of the patrol car.” Xiao Wang pulled up the GPS records of the construction site patrol car and found that during the week of the incident, the vehicle’s trajectory deviated from the planned route multiple times, stopping near an abandoned factory two kilometers away from the construction site.

When the search team arrived at the abandoned factory, moonlight streamed through the broken windows onto the scattered steel scraps. Metal shavings remained on a cutting machine in the corner, and there were obvious drag marks on the ground. However, upon closer examination, technicians discovered that these marks had been there at least a month prior, completely inconsistent with the time of the deceased's death. More importantly, none of the biological samples collected from the scene contained any evidence related to the deceased.

In the interrogation room, Chen Hai sat slumped in an iron chair, his security guard uniform wrinkled like dried pickled vegetables. "I admit to stealing the steel bars!" he suddenly raised his head, stubble and snot clinging to his face. "My child needs surgery, and the construction site is withholding wages. I really had no choice..." When Xiao Wang pushed the deceased's photo in front of him, Chen Hai's pupils contracted sharply, but he quickly shook his head: "I don't know him! I'm only responsible for patrolling every day; I don't even recognize all the workers!"

To verify Chen Hai's statement, Xiao Wang led a team to visit all the surveillance cameras around the construction site. After seven days and seven nights of screening, they finally found footage from a hardware store's camera: at the time of the incident, Chen Hai was buying spare blades for a cutting machine in the store, and the clear footage showed him haggling with the owner for ten minutes. The shop owner pulled out the ledger, and the purchase records on it perfectly matched the surveillance footage.

“He’s just a petty thief, he has nothing to do with the murder.” Zhang Lin’s voice came through the phone. “The autopsy results showed that although the tobacco residue under the victim’s fingernails matched the cigarettes Chen Hai often smoked, no skin tissue or DNA was extracted.” Xiao Wang stood in front of the whiteboard, listing Chen Hai’s theft clues separately and crossing them out heavily with a red pen. Outside the window, the rain poured down, the raindrops pounding against the glass, just like his heavy heart at that moment—another clue had gone cold, but the truth remained hidden in a deeper fog.

On the night the body was discovered, the electronic screen of the Criminal Investigation Division glowed with a ghostly blue light in the dead of night. Thirty-seven computers were neatly arranged, and the sound of keyboards clicking echoed in the silence. Xiao Zhou stood in the middle of the information verification team, looking at the tired figures of his team members—Xiao Wang's hair was a mess, Lao Zhou's glasses were stained with coffee, and the new intern, Xiao Lin, was rubbing her bloodshot eyes, her face pale in the cold light of the screen.

"There are 4372 missing persons records in the city in the past six months, and we must complete the screening tonight." Xiao Zhou's voice echoed in the empty office. He grabbed a mug and gulped down a mouthful of strong tea that had long since gone cold. The bitter taste made him frown. "Focus on men aged 45 to 50, especially those who have had stomach surgery."

Xiaolin stared blankly at the screen. Most of the photos in the system were blurry, some even just photocopies of ID cards. She mechanically clicked the mouse, enduring the long wait caused by the system lag with each page she scrolled through. "This damn system is frozen again!" she suddenly slammed her fist on the keyboard in frustration. "These 'low similarity' messages just keep coming on and on, I'm going blind!"

Old Zhou took off his reading glasses and wiped the lenses with the corner of his shirt; the verdigris on the temples had turned black. "All the files before 2019 were handwritten," he said, holding up a yellowed file, the handwriting blurred by water stains. "These characters are so illegible, like scribbles; matching them is harder than climbing to heaven." His voice was full of exhaustion and helplessness. After speaking, he buried himself in the mountain of paper files again.

Xiao Wang was responsible for verifying information with the person who reported the case by phone.