Skin - Chapter 5

“You’ll let me interrogate?” Cheng Yun was a little nervous, “But I have never done it before.”

　　”Then practise this time.” Meng Zhao didn’t give her a chance to refuse.

　　Lu Shichen was suspected of committing a murder, and the suspicion against him seemed a bit strange. The situation was very suitable for a newcomer like Cheng Yun to practise.

　　Since Meng Zhao became the Deputy Captain, he had basically been responsible for taking care of all the interns in the team. It was one of the reasons why Director Xu likes Meng Zhao. Although Meng Zhao had a bit of a temper, he was really helpful to the interns. The people he cultivated could improve their investigative ability and stress resistance ability in a short period of time.

–·+·–

　　Lu Shichen was always punctual and drove to the city bureau half an hour later.

　　He drove a Porsche Panamera and wore a long thin black windbreaker. As soon as he got out of the car, he attracted a lot of attention.

　　There was no shortage of second-generation rich people in the Municipal Bureau, but such high-profile ones were rare.

　　Cheng Yun was sitting by the window. She was worried about the interrogation for a while. She tilted her head and saw a long-legged handsome guy appearing downstairs. Judging from the time and temperament, he had to be Lu Shichen.

　　Lu Shichen was walking towards the city bureau building. Cheng Yun stood up with great discernment and pointed to the door to Meng Zhao: “Brother Zhao, Lu Shichen is here. I’ll take him to the interrogation room first.”

　　A few minutes later, Meng Zhao glanced at Lu Shichen’s clothes passing by the door.

　　Meng Zhao sat for a while before getting up. In fact, he was quite tired of dealing with Lu Shichen. Lu Shichen seemed to be wrapped in a paper bag, which was very fake.

　　Meng Zhao took the case information and walked to the surveillance room next to the interrogation room. He put on headphones and observed the situation in the room through the double-sided mirror.

　　Before the interrogation started, Cheng Yunzheng and Zhou Qiyang were talking about something.

　　Lu Shichen turned towards the double-sided mirror and looked in Meng Zhao’s direction. It was obvious that the surveillance room could not be seen from the interrogation room, but Meng Zhao inexplicably felt that Lu Shichen could see him at that moment. He had the illusion that he was looking at himself.

　　The feeling was a bit strange. He stared at Lu Shichen.

　　Lu Shichen suddenly opened his lips slightly and mouthed something. Meng Zhao understood. The two words Lu Shichen said were ‘wild dog’.

　　In high school, Lu Shichen had angered him like that.

　　With a ‘pop’ sound, Meng Zhao slammed the information in his hand onto the table. The staff member responsible for the video recording was suddenly frightened and looked at him slightly panicked.

　　Meng Zhao took off his headphones and threw them on the table, then opened the door of the next room: “Xiao Zhou, please come out and let me interrogate him.”

Chapter 5

　　In the interrogation room, Meng Zhao pulled up a chair and sat down. Cheng Yun didn’t know why. She didn’t know why Meng Zhao suddenly changed his mind and wanted to interrogate Lu Shichen in person. But it was undeniable that her pressure was relieved a little. After all, the person opposite didn’t look very easy to deal with.

　　Meng Zhao didn’t speak at first, just stared at Lu Shichen. When Meng Zhao first arrived at the city bureau, the director of the pre-trial department tried to persuade Meng Zhao to transfer to his department because Meng Zhao’s eyes were very suitable for interrogation. Even if he didn’t speak and just stared at the other person silently, he would inflict some sense of oppression on the other person.

　　But now, it obviously did not work for Lu Shichen. Lu Shichen sat opposite him with a relaxed posture, as if he was not summoned for an interrogation, but had just come to have an appointment to drink a cup of tea. While Meng Zhao stared at him, he also looked at him with interest. Staring at Meng Zhao, he laughed as if he found it interesting.

　　”Have you started recording yet?” Meng Zhao asked.

　　Cheng Yun realised that his question was referring to herself, and she immediately said: “Not yet, do you want to start?”

　　”Wait a minute,” Meng Zhao opened the information and calmly responded to Lu Shichen’s words in the morning, “It’s strange that the top student who returned from abroad was actually suspected of committing crimes.” Before Cheng Yun next to him could react, he already continued, “Start recording. Name?”

　　”Lu Shichen.” The other person looked very calm.

　　Cheng Yun quickly held the pen and started recording.

　　”Where were you from 9 to 10 pm on April 13?”

　　”At home,” Lu Shichen did not shy away, “Then, I went out for a while.”

　　”Where did you go?”

　　”Does Officer Meng know about the building near the crime scene?”

　　To Meng Zhao’s expectation, Lu Shichen was surprisingly candid compared to the time in the morning. He continued to ask: “Why did you go there? What did you do?”

　　”I went there because… the resident upstairs left me a note, saying he had something important to give me.”

　　There was a slight pause between “because” and the following words. The index finger of Lu Shichen’s hand resting on the table was slightly raised. Meng Zhao judged what Lu Shichen was thinking in this brief moment, and he continued to ask: “Do you still have the note?”

　　”I threw it away, it was just a piece of waste paper,” Lu Shichen said. Seeing Meng Zhao frowning and staring at him again, he paused for a while and said, “But I remember the content on the note, do you want to hear it?”

　　”Say it.”

　　”Mr. Lu, I am Zhou Yan, the resident living in the apartment above yours. I have something important to tell you. Can you please come to the demolition area near Huating Street around 9pm on April 13th? I will be waiting for you downstairs at Building 7. This is a very important matter, so please do come. Zhou Yan, 138XXXXXXXX.” Lu Shichen recited the contents of the note at a leisurely pace.

　　To be honest, Lu Shichen’s voice was quite pleasant. Compared to before, the tone seemed to be darker. But now was not the time to worry about that. Meng Zhao observed the expression on Lu Shichen’s face. Lu Shichen was the most difficult type of person to deal with. Even when he said the most unfavourable things to himself, the expression on his face would not change. There was no fluctuation at all.

　　To deal with a person with such kind of facial paralysis, micro-expression analysis classes were not very useful.

　　Meng Zhao twirled the pen in his hand twice, which was his habitual movement when thinking. Memorising the long list of contents together with the phone number verbatim may seem a bit suspicious to ordinary people, but Meng Zhao clearly knew that Lu Shichen had that kind of a photographic memory.

　　”So you went there on time at 9 o’clock that night?” Meng Zhao asked.

　　Lu Shichen thought for a while: “It’s not considered on time.”

　　Based on Lu Shichen’s words, Meng Zhao pieced together the whole story of Lu Shichen’s involvement in the case.

　　A week ago, Zhou Yan went downstairs to look for Lu Shichen, but Lu Shichen was not at home that afternoon, so Zhou Yan left a note and posted it on Lu Shichen’s door. One day later, Lu Shichen arrived home, took one look at the note, tore it off and threw it into the trash can. According to Lu Shichen, he had no intention of going there at that time.

　　But at around nine o’clock on the night of the incident, Lu Shichen finished his work and suddenly thought of the matter, so he called Zhou Yan. The call was connected, but there was only a slight friction sound on the other end, and the other party remained silent.

　　Lu Shichen felt that something was a little strange, so he changed his clothes and went out, driving to the demolition area. However, when he got downstairs in Building 7, he found that Zhou Yan was not there.

　　”So you called Zhou Yan on the night of the incident? Let me see the call record.”

　　Lu Shichen took out his phone, tapped the screen twice with his fingers, brought up the call history interface, and pushed the phone in front of Meng Zhao.

　　Meng Zhao looked at the time on it – 21:07 on the evening of the 13th, and the call time was 9 seconds, which was consistent with the time on Zhou Yan’s mobile phone.

　　If Lu Shichen was telling the truth, then the person who answered the phone and remained silent had to be the murderer.

　　However, there was no physical evidence for the content of the note, and Lu Shichen may be lying. If Lu Shichen was lying, Meng Zhao quickly thought about the possibility in his mind. Lu Shichen first avoided surveillance and strangled Zhou Yan, cleaned up the crime scene, then called Zhou Yan and connected with Zhou Yan’s mobile phone. Ten minutes later, he appeared on the surveillance camera again. Was his brain circuit that twisted?

　　With Lu Shichen’s indifferent personality, if he could kill someone without leaving any trace, would he go around in such a big circle and get himself involved in the case?

　　But the topic returned again— how did the dog hair appear on Zhou Yan’s body?

　　Meng Zhao swiped the screen of his phone and saw a red-lettered record of missed calls for Zhou Yan’s number.

　　”You called him later and he didn’t answer?” Meng Zhao looked up at Lu Shichen.

　　”Switched off.”

　　Was the phone really switched off or was Lu Shichen deliberately creating evidence to his favour? Meng Zhao stared at him for a while, then looked down at the call records. There were no more clues in the call records, so Meng Zhao returned the phone to Lu Shichen.

　　”Have you ever met Zhou Yan from when you received the note to today?”

　　”No.”

　　”You didn’t know Zhou Yan before? Can you guess what he wanted from you?”

　　”I don’t know, I can’t guess it.”

　　”Since you received the note left by Zhou Yan and even called him,” Meng Zhao stared at Lu Shichen, “then why didn’t you share such an important piece of information in the morning?”

　　”I guessed Officer Meng might enjoy discovering clues on his own than me revealing them.”

　　Meng Zhao ground his back molars. If the audio and video equipment weren’t turned on, he would have punched Lu Shichen on the face.

　　The phone vibrated. Meng Zhao looked down and saw a message from Li Jin: “Captain Meng, Zhou Yan’s family asked when the body can be collected.”

　　Meng Zhao stood up from his chair: “I’m going out first.”

　　Cheng Yun looked up at him: “Then…” She hid her hand under the table and pointed to the opposite side, meaning to ask what to do with Lu Shichen.

　　”We’ll talk about it when I get back.” After Meng Zhao finished speaking, he opened the door of the interrogation room and walked out.

　　In the forensic room, Li Jin was leaning on the table, instructing her new assistant Hai Song to input the autopsy records into the system.

　　Seeing Meng Zhao coming over, Li Jin straightened up and said, “Captain Meng.”

　　Li Jin was in her early thirties. Not only was she very skilled, but she also had one trick that everyone in the city bureau had to obey. She would wear 8cm stilettos every day to dissect corpses and while going out with the criminal investigation detachment. She was impeccable and stable.

　　Li Jin was originally 1.7 metres tall, but no one knew where her obsession with high heels came from.

　　Li Jin, who was wearing 8cm high heels, was slightly shorter than Meng Zhao. Meng Zhao walked to the body and said, “Let me take another look.”

　　Meng Zhao observed the strangulation marks on the neck of the corpse. Judging from the scattered strangulation marks, the murderer attempted it many times to strangle the person to death.

　　”Is there a rope?” Meng Zhao asked.

　　”I’ll look for it, there should be one.” Li Jin walked to the locker next to him, rummaged around and found a hemp rope and handed it to Meng Zhao.

　　”Hai Song,” Meng Zhao called to Hai Song, who was typing into the system, and walked next to him, “stand up and help me.”

　　As soon as Haisong stood up, a rope was put around his neck, and then he was dragged back two steps by a force that he couldn’t resist. He made two “uh-uh” sounds in his throat with difficulty breathing.

　　Meng Zhao quickly let go of him. Hai Song covered his neck and coughed with a red face: “Captain Meng, you don’t have to carry out an ambush like that…”

　　”Sorry, let’s do an experiment.” Meng Zhao handed the rope to Hai Song, “Here, I’ll give you a chance for revenge. You strangle me.”

　　”How dare I? I…”

　　”It’s okay,” Meng Zhao said, “Just don’t strangle me to death.”

　　Haisong put the rope around Meng Zhao’s neck, and only with his encouragement did he dare to use force. Meng Zhao’s position was at the same level as Li Jin’s, and he was considered his superior.

　　”Stop, don’t move.” Meng Zhao reached out and touched the hemp rope around his neck.

　　After Haisong took off the rope, he walked to the body, pressed his fingers lightly on the strangulation marks and said: “Looking at the cross positions of the ropes, these were all strangled from behind. Only this one was strangled from the front, which shows that the murderer strangled Zhou Yan from behind when he was not paying attention. Then after knocking him down, he gave him this fatal blow from the front, right?”

　　Li Jin nodded and said: “Yes, you want to infer the height of the murderer based on the direction of the marks? This is not easy to estimate accurately.”

　　”It doesn’t have to be too accurate,” Meng Zhao said. “Look at the traces of strangulation from behind, which are slightly downward. It means that the murderer should be shorter than Zhou Yan, or about the same height as him. Most likely he would not be taller than Zhou Yan or too short.”

　　”That’s true. If the murderer was much taller than Zhou Yan, it would’ve been difficult to use his strength if he was lower down.”

　　After leaving the forensic room, Meng Zhao walked down the stairs and pondered. Zhou Yan was 1.73 metres tall, and Lu Shichen…

Meng Zhao roughly estimated Lu Shichen’s height. He himself was 183 centimetres tall. Lu Shichen was slightly taller than him, around 187?

　　If an adult man with a height of 187 cm wanted to strangle a person with a height of 173 cm, it should not cause such a lower strangulation mark according to common sense.

Besides, Lu Shichen would not know that the mandibular position close to the hyoid bone was the most vulnerable and fatal part of the neck.

　　Meng Zhao walked down the stairs, his phone vibrated, and Cheng Yun sent a message:

　　【Brother Zhao, Lu Shichen said that his lawyer is here and he applied to meet with the lawyer.】

　　The lawyer arrived so quickly? Lu Shichen won’t find his father here, right?

　　Meng Zhao lowered his head and replied to the message: 【It’s okay. Let him go. Ask him to keep his contact open at all times.】

　　【Is the suspicion against him cleared?】

　　【That’s right, there’s not enough evidence against him.】

　　Meng Zhao went down to the second floor and bumped into Lu Shichen who was stepping out of the interrogation room. At the same time, he also saw Lu Shichen’s father, Lu Chengze, standing not far away. As he guessed, Lu Shichen had indeed contacted his father.

　　More than ten years ago, Lu Chengze helped Meng Zhao’s uncle win a lawsuit. He was considered a benefactor of his family. According to etiquette, Meng Zhao had to go up and say hello.