flstandardbreds Chapter 997 Identification of the Male Deceased
Chapter 997 Identification of the Male Deceased
"Director Zhao, this is Li Ming." After the call connected, he went straight to the point: "Li Xiaoman from your jurisdiction may be a key witness in a series of murders. I request that we activate the cross-regional cooperation mechanism!"
In the office of the Anxing League Criminal Investigation Detachment, Director Zhao hung up the phone and immediately summoned officers. "The letter of assistance from Dongchuan is of great importance!" He projected Li Xiaoman's information onto the whiteboard, "Focusing on checking the attendance records and medical records of the ore dressing workshop from 2018 to 2020, and interviewing her colleagues and neighbors!"
Veteran police officer Zhang Jianguo volunteered: "I used to be a teacher at the fluorine mine's affiliated school, and I still have some connections." He drove to the mining area's residential compound, where the slogan "Safety in Production" still remained on the mottled red brick walls. He knocked on a door, and retired miner Old Chen squinted as he looked at a photo: "I remember this girl! She always ate alone in the corner of the canteen, and later she had trouble walking; I heard her bones became as brittle as biscuits."
Meanwhile, in the archives, young police officer Li was struggling with a mountain of cardboard boxes. "Found it!" he suddenly cheered. Inside the dusty brown paper bag, Li Xiaoman's employment registration form clearly recorded her place of origin, ID number, and emergency contact—a phone number labeled "cousin," but which was already out of service.
A more crucial discovery came from the medical department. The yellowed diagnosis report, dated March 2020, was alarming: "Multiple occult fractures of both ribs, T-score of bone mineral density -4.2, immediate removal from the high-fluoride environment is recommended." The attending physician, Dr. Zhou, recalled: "This girl was extremely stubborn; she refused to be hospitalized, saying, 'I'd rather die than not save enough money to go home.'"
When Li Ming dialed Director Zhao's number again, the other party's voice was tinged with tired excitement: "We've got the basic information! After Li Xiaoman resigned, she worked at a steamed bun shop near the mine area, and suddenly disappeared in early 2021. We retrieved the surveillance footage from that year, and the last footage showed her getting into a black van..."
信息飞速传回东川。小王盯着地图上古蒙到东川的直线距离，突然注意到李小曼日记本里夹着的车票——2021年11月15日，乌特至东川的长途客车。&34;她是发病后才来的东川！&34;他抓起报告冲向李明办公室，&34;凶手很可能是在她最脆弱的时候......&34;
Li Ming pressed his finger heavily on Li Xiaoman's photo. The red mole at the corner of the girl's right eye seemed to be silently accusing her: "Notify Zhang Lin to re-examine the time of injury to the skeleton! Contact the transportation department; we must find that missing black van!"
Over the next few days, the entire criminal investigation team conducted an investigation into Li Xiaoman's interpersonal relationships, and the investigation into the van was also ongoing.
In the Criminal Investigation Division's meeting room, the whiteboard was covered with photos of Li Xiaoman, her medical records, and photocopies of train tickets. Next to these documents, the X-ray of the male skeleton looked particularly cold. Li Ming circled the words "Brother Hao" in red pen in Li Xiaoman's diary, then turned to Xiao Wang and Xiao Zhou: "Now that we've confirmed the female victim is Li Xiaoman, let's dig deeper into her network of relationships. That repeatedly mentioned 'Brother Hao' is very likely the owner of the other skeleton."
Xiao Wang and Xiao Zhou immediately split up. Xiao Wang led the officers back to the attic where Li Xiaoman rented a room, where they found a rusty iron box under the dusty bed. Besides yellowed photos and a pregnancy test report, deep inside the box was a concert ticket stub, dated May 20, 2020, with the words "Anniversary with Peng Ge" written in blue ballpoint pen next to the seat number. Meanwhile, Xiao Zhou found a breakthrough in Li Xiaoman's phone's cloud backup: a number labeled "Peng" had no communication records after November 14, 2021—a date that highly coincided with the time of death determined by the skeletal remains.
"Check the owner information for this number!" Xiao Zhou stared at the screen, his voice tinged with suppressed excitement. When the system displayed the owner's name as "Zhang Peng," aged 38, he immediately pulled up the missing persons database. The man in the photo was wearing a black jacket, with a crescent-shaped scar on his neck, perfectly matching the shape of an old scar on the occipital bone of the male skeleton. But the more crucial evidence came from dental records: the porcelain veneer restoration Zhang Peng had undergone three years ago at Haizhou Stomatological Hospital, its material and placement perfectly matching the characteristics of the restoration found in the skeleton's mouth.
To further confirm Zhang Peng's identity, Xiao Wang visited the freight company where Zhang Peng had worked. The warehouse manager pulled out a dusty attendance sheet, pointing to the record from November 2021: "Old Zhang took leave that day, saying he had to deal with an emergency at home, and he hasn't shown up since. We went to his rented apartment, and the landlord said he had already moved out and hadn't taken his belongings." Inside Zhang Peng's rented apartment, the officers found a lighter engraved with "JP"—this abbreviation differs from the "JC" on the button clutched in the remains at the construction site by only one letter, likely a mistake during hand-engraving.
As the investigation deepened, more clues gradually pieced together the relationship between the two. Li Xiaoman's neighbor recalled often seeing a tall man carrying her up and down the stairs: "The girl had difficulty walking, and the young man was always very careful, his eyes full of tenderness." Zhang Peng's colleague revealed that he suddenly started frantically borrowing money in the second half of 2021: "He said his girlfriend was seriously ill and needed money for surgery. He even pawned his ancestral jade pendant, but in the end, he still couldn't raise enough money."
The criminal investigation team discovered unusual transfer records in Zhang Peng's bank statements. On November 13, 2021, an account ending in 4789 transferred 50,000 yuan to him, and the entire amount was withdrawn the next day. Bank surveillance footage confirmed that Zhang Peng was the one withdrawing the money, but he appeared flustered, constantly looking back as if trying to avoid something. Tracing this mysterious account revealed that the account holder was a business with a long-cancelled business license, and the registered address pointed to an abandoned hardware store on the outskirts of the city.
When officers arrived at the hardware store, the iron door was already heavily rusted. After breaking down the door, the damp air was filled with the pungent smell of rust and blood. On the cement floor in the corner, large, deliberately cleaned-up dark red stains were faintly visible; luminol testing confirmed they were human blood. Hidden in a shelf compartment, police found a bloodstained wrench whose material and size perfectly matched the blunt force trauma found on the male skull. Even more shocking, a ledger was hidden deep in a drawer, filled with numerous cash transactions. The entry for November 14, 2021, read: "Resolved the problem, 11 settled."
At this time, Zhang Lin's second examination results also came out. The time interval between the deaths of the two skeletons was no more than 24 hours. The male skeleton had been hit multiple times with a blunt object, while the female skeleton had been suffocated before falling from a height.