Chapter 45.2: Key Holders
Although most people were fairly cooperative, too much time had passed, and many of their answers were extremely vague.
The people identified by the Luo family had merely been given keys. That only meant they had had an opportunity to make duplicate keys; it didn’t necessarily mean they were the murderer. One of their family members could have done it as well, so the scope of the investigation inevitably had to be expanded as much as possible.
On top of that, people who had grudges against the Luo family were once again brought into the investigation. They, too, needed to be checked out again.
All of this meant an enormous amount of work.
On the first day, Jiang Xia watched them head out full of energy. By evening, they returned looking like wilted eggplants.
The next day, the rookies once again forced themselves to perk up and went out, only to return that evening looking half-dead.
On the third day, the rookies were already heading out looking listless.
After that, everyone simply became numb to it.
As time went on, the notebooks used to record statements in the Criminal Investigation First Squad’s office began piling up as well. One notebook became two, then four, and eventually ten…
At this point, Jiang Xia was extremely grateful that she worked in the Technical Division.
The hardship and exhaustion went without saying. What she really couldn’t stand was spending day after day making virtually no progress whatsoever on the case.
Unfortunately, at this point Jiang Xia couldn’t think of any good solution either. All she could do was offer them some moral support.
Glancing at the sky outside, Jiang Xia closed her anatomy textbook with satisfaction.
Time to get off work. She had a day off tomorrow, so she could finally have a good rest!
＊
It was strawberry season, so Jiang Xia deliberately took a detour to the street where they sold vegetables and bought two jin of fresh strawberries before heading home.
Her mother was in the kitchen cooking. The bedroom door was open, and Jiang Ying was sitting on a small folding stool with her back to the bed. Clothes were strewn casually across the bed, and there was a small suitcase on the floor.
Jiang Ying was rapidly folding the clothes.
It was obvious she was preparing to go somewhere far away.
Jiang Xia froze for a moment. She put the strawberries on the table, walked to the doorway, and asked, “Sis, where are you going?”
Jiang Ying grabbed the shoulders of a shirt and shook it a few times to straighten it out before calmly answering, “I’m going to visit several communes around our commune to conduct some research.”
“That soon?”
Jiang Xia was extremely surprised.
How long had it been? Her sister’s workshop was already about to become a reality?
“What do you mean, ‘that soon’? We’ve been selling it for three months already.”
After folding the shirt, Jiang Ying said rather dissatisfiedly, “You have no idea how good my sales figures are. Unfortunately, the people at the Industry and Commerce Bureau don’t think much of such a small business. Fortunately, I happen to know the director of Hongxing Commune, and he’s quite interested in this. But you can’t just go begging people to buy from you. So I quietly contacted a friend working in Hongxing Commune and asked her to tell a few of the other communes about it. Now they’re all scrambling to have me come over.”
That’s pretty impressive.
Jiang Xia gave Jiang Ying a thumbs-up.
“Nice! So does that mean the workshop will be up and running soon?”
“Hard to say. This is only the beginning of a long journey.”
Jiang Ying shook her head.
She was essentially investing her expertise in exchange for a share of the business. The land, manpower, and money would all belong to someone else, so getting the position of factory director would certainly not be easy.
But no matter how difficult it was, she still had to give it a try.
There were so many potential partners. Surely someone would agree.
“Your sister is just making a fuss over nothing.”
Zhou Mei came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of food, looking quite displeased.
“What a great job the head chef at the textile mill was! But no, she just had to quit and go to the countryside to start some kind of dried-tofu factory. Who knows whether it’ll even work out? And the countryside is lacking in everything—how could it possibly be as comfortable as the city? She’s even dragging your cousin along with her. He finally found himself a livelihood, and now she’s going to make him lose that too!”
Ordinary people were, after all, naturally wary of risk. A little complaining was harmless. Jiang Ying simply let her mother’s words go in one ear and out the other, not allowing any of them to remain in her head.
“Aw, Mom, wasn’t that livelihood something Sis gave him in the first place?”
Jiang Xia was even more relaxed about it. A cook wouldn’t starve even during a famine, let alone now.
“My sister’s skills are so good that even if this doesn’t work out, she can just come back and find another job. With her cooking skills, there’ll be plenty of work units fighting to hire her.”
“You two always have an answer for everything. Every one of you has your mind completely on your work and doesn’t give a thought to your personal lives. Are you all trying to worry me to death?”
Zhou Mei pouted.
“All right, enough. Come eat. If you don’t, the food’s going to get cold.”
Jiang Xia promptly washed the strawberries and put them on the dining table.
From this point onward, the fruit would replace the main meal and become her dinner for the day.
There was no helping it. Her mother’s cooking was not only incomparable to her eldest sister’s—even the leftover mixed dishes from the cafeteria were arguably better.
It wasn’t that her mother was genuinely terrible at cooking. After all, once Jiang Ying came home, she was usually too lazy to do anything and simply wanted to eat food someone else had prepared, so she’d made an effort to teach their mother how to cook.
Unfortunately, their mother had her own rhythm.
Salt was always added in “just a little,” while oil was something she avoided whenever possible. And the resulting flavor…
It was like eating grass.
Jiang Ying hadn’t even left yet, and Jiang Xia was already grieving.
Her own cooking skills were basically nonexistent too. If their mother was going to be responsible for cooking from now on, wouldn’t she be living an even more miserable life than a rabbit?
If only I’d known, I wouldn’t have put all my experience points into forensic examination and tracking. I should’ve saved some for cooking!
Is it still too late for me to start teaching myself how to cook?
Thinking about adding points to her system, Jiang Xia suddenly remembered her own reputation bar.
During this period, her reputation points had been steadily piling up, climbing all the way to 467. It probably wouldn’t be long before she reached the maximum.
Jiang Xia pulled up the system screen that no one else could see. Looking at the detailed records, which were filled with nemeses and accompanied by a few scattered fellow professionals, she fell silent for a moment.
What skill would the system draw for her once she reached the maximum this time?
It would be nice if it were something related to cooking.
But a cooking skill related to crime…
Jiang Xia had a feeling that probably wouldn’t be anything good.
Never mind.
Jiang Xia silently closed the system.
Hopefully, whatever skill she was forced to draw this time wouldn’t be too useless.
＊
Municipal Public Security Bureau
Another ordinary workday.
After taking a day off, Jiang Xia was fully recharged. She walked straight into the Criminal Investigation First Squad’s office.
Most of the First Squad’s members were out at the moment. Only Deputy Captain Zeng Jun and Guo Xiaofang, a rookie from the Second Squad, remained behind, sorting through the interview records they had accumulated over the past few days.
Six or seven notebooks were piled up in front of each of them, and their faces practically screamed the word “misery.”
Jiang Xia picked up one of the interview notebooks and flipped through it as she asked, “Captain Zeng, you still haven’t found the suspect?”
“No.”
Zeng Jun sighed.
“So far, we’ve investigated everyone who had access to the keys, along with their family members and anyone who had a grudge against the Luo family. Quite a few of them had the opportunity to commit the crime, but after the interviews, we confirmed that the likelihood of them being involved was relatively low. We’re now going back over everything from the beginning to see if we’ve missed something.”
Good grief.
No wonder they’d accumulated so many interview records. They’d already ruled out that many people?
Jiang Xia flipped through the records, then got up and walked over to the large blackboard hanging in the office.
It was covered with densely packed names.
Starting with the victim at the center, a web of the Luo family’s relationships radiated outward. From there, they had traced the people to whom individual members of the Luo family regularly gave their keys, as well as people who had conflicts with them and were therefore considered potential suspects.
Quite a few names had been circled in red, then crossed out with white chalk.
Jiang Xia stared at the blackboard, gradually falling into deep thought.
The victim’s family had never lost any of their keys. So where exactly had the duplicate key come from?
Assuming their investigation hadn’t made a mistake—meaning the culprit hadn’t simply taken the original key somewhere to have it copied—was there any other way they could have made a duplicate?
The answer was yes.
For example, if someone caught them off guard and forcibly pressed the key into a bar of soap or a block of paraffin, then poured melted plastic over the impression, they could obtain a key. The resulting key wouldn’t be particularly precise, but it would be accurate enough to open the front door.
However, the scratches left by a plastic key wouldn’t be the same as those left by a metal one. And Jiang Xia was certain that what she had seen was a metal object.
So the key had still been duplicated at a roadside key-cutting stall.
And having a key copied by hand wasn’t particularly slow. If someone secretly took the key, had a duplicate made, and quickly returned the original, there was indeed no way the Luo family would have noticed.
In that case, the person must have been very close to the Luo family—someone who could come and go freely without arousing suspicion.
From that perspective, it wasn’t surprising that this person would also know where the Luo family kept their money.
Jiang Xia thought again about the circumstances surrounding the victim’s grandmother leaving the house.
It was very similar to the first case she’d handled. The victim’s family member had left the house due to a highly coincidental circumstance. In situations like this, the possibility of someone from the surrounding neighborhood being the culprit was extremely high.
Close to the family, frequently in contact with them, and living nearby.
The potential pool was still enormous.
But what if they added all the people Captain Tan had already ruled out?
Jiang Xia spoke up. “Captain Zeng, is it possible that the people we’ve ruled out really aren’t involved, and the culprit is someone else?”
“I know what you mean.”
Zeng Jun looked up, his expression somewhat helpless.
“After all, it doesn’t take long to have a key copied. If someone secretly took a key, had a duplicate made, and returned it afterward, the Luo family wouldn’t have noticed.”
“The problem is, if we think about it that way, the pool of suspects becomes far too large. Who doesn’t drop by someone’s house for a visit these days?”
That was true, too.
These days, neighbors weren’t like they would be after the real-estate boom, when people could live across the hall from each other for ten years without even knowing their neighbor’s surname. Back then, dropping by each other’s homes was incredibly common, which made it virtually impossible to investigate everyone.
Just when they’d found a possible direction, reality had shot it down. Jiang Xia couldn’t help but furrow her brows.
After pondering for a moment, she still spoke firmly.
“A lot of people may have visited the Luo family, but ordinary visitors would have a hard time knowing where the Luo family kept their money. In other words, this person must have been very familiar with the family. And the time when Old Mrs. Luo left the house that day was completely random. If the culprit wasn’t nearby, there was no way he could have known that nobody was home.
“So there probably aren’t many people who satisfy both of those conditions, right?”
“There aren’t many.”
Zeng Jun nodded.
“If we exclude the people who were suspected earlier, there are only two left. One is Luo Tianming, the second younger brother of Luo Weidong’s father. He lives in the alley behind their house. The other is Yao Xiaocui, the mother-in-law’s sworn sister.”
He explained, “Yao Xiaocui’s situation is simple. She was the one who called everyone to hurry up and go buy cloth that day, and her entire family was at work. She simply didn’t have the opportunity to commit the crime.”
“As for this Luo Tianming, he had a lot of contact with the Luo family and lived nearby. Unfortunately, he had terrible luck. Back then, the family had prepared a betrothal gift for his older brother, and after his brother got married, they started preparing one for him. But then the natural disaster hit, and they had no choice but to exchange everything for food rations. They kept putting it off until he was quite old. By then, he couldn’t find a good match anymore, so he ended up marrying a mute woman.”
“Although his wife had a disability, their family actually lived fairly well. Their children all had jobs, too. But Luo Tianming happened to be on leave that day. He said he had been repairing the stove at home the entire time. A neighbor did see him when they came back around noon, but that witness isn’t particularly solid.”
Zeng Jun paused for a moment before continuing.
“Captain Tan did suspect him at one point, but there was nothing unusual whatsoever during questioning. The family’s circumstances hadn’t changed either, so we ruled him out as well.”
The second son. His wife was mute.
Jiang Xia faintly sensed the stench of resentment.
In families with many children, there were always countless hidden conflicts, and the second child was often the one most easily overlooked. If the parents played favorites to an excessive degree, resentment could accumulate without anyone realizing it.
He had been held back from starting a family and building a career, and the wife he eventually married was disabled as well. Could Luo Tianming really have harbored no resentment at all?
Hard to say.
As the saying went, abuse can breed loyalty. After being subjected to psychological manipulation for a long time, many people actually became more obedient, more grateful, and more eager for their parents to depend on them.
But extreme loyalty always had an opposite side.
And once it flipped, that intense hatred…
Jiang Xia pondered for a moment before confirming again, “So did Captain Tan question him this time, or did he question him three years ago?”
“Of course it was this time.”
Zeng Jun said, “Who would have thought to suspect him three years ago?”
Jiang Xia shook her head.
“Then it would’ve been very difficult for that interrogation to uncover anything unusual.”
For many criminals, their emotions tended to fluctuate the most immediately after committing a crime and during the days that followed.
After all, right after committing a crime, it was difficult to stop thinking about the consequences or worrying about whether they’d left something behind that could be discovered by the police.
At that point, they often engaged in all sorts of behavior: hiding things, making inquiries, or even returning to the crime scene to cover their tracks. Psychologically, they were extremely fragile, like frightened birds startled by every little movement. This was generally when the police had the easiest time detecting something unusual.
But as time passed, the criminal’s emotions would gradually stabilize, and they would become increasingly confident. They wouldn’t panic when facing the police anymore. At that point, even an experienced veteran detective skilled in interrogation would have a hard time finding any cracks in their story.
There had been no inconsistencies during questioning, and there had been no suspicious large expenditures…
Jiang Xia’s brows knitted even tighter.
What other angle could they investigate from?
Luo Tianming. Luo Tianming…
If he really was the culprit, then there must have been something unusual about his behavior in the days surrounding the crime. And his wife, who slept beside him every night, would certainly have noticed something.
With that thought, Jiang Xia immediately looked up.
“Captain Zeng, did Captain Tan question Luo Tianming’s wife?”
“Hah.”
Zeng Jun couldn’t help laughing. He shook his head. “Jiang Xia, what are you talking about? She’s mute. How could Captain Tan—”
Before he could finish, Zeng Jun suddenly realized what she meant. He slammed his hand down on the desk.
“That’s right! We can question his wife too!”
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