Next to the anti-theft door on the wall, about one ter above the ground, there was a chalk-drawn star. Such marks are generally those used by thieves as a signal for a burglary.
I rember Master once saying that they had cracked a case last winter, where the burglars had broken into a house and then killed the hoowner on a spur of the mont, and there was an inverted triangle drawn in front of that victim’s door.
It was only after interrogation that it beca known, that this was their line’s usual modus operandi; an inverted triangle represents a single female, an ’x’ denotes that nobody’s ho, and a ’o’ that there are people living there permanently.
After casing the place multiple tis with no changes, it would then be safe to make a move. Through that case, the anti-pickpocketing brigade had continuously cracked several related cases in succession, smashing a few burglary rings. Could Dong Chengwen’s ho have been targeted by thieves?
Zhou Ning looked around and, not far from the underground parking garage, spotted a surveillance cara pointed in the direction of Dong Chengwen’s garage roller door, and additionally, the exit to the garage was only about 100 ters to the right.
Turning back to the anti-theft door, he saw that it too was secured with a combination lock. As for the ground, it was very clean with hardly any dust; even after a close observation while crouched down, he found no residual footprints, except for so under the garage roller door.
At that mont, Yang Xuetong caught up, seemingly feeling that his first day’s performance was not satisfactory. He was eager to follow Zhou Ning’s footsteps, after all, wanting to integrate faster and keep up with Zhou Ning’s pace.
"Team Leader!"
Zhou Ning waved his hand.
"Collect those footprints, and lift fingerprints from this anti-theft door too, both inside and outside. I didn’t find a keyhole on the roller door; it probably has a remote control lock on the outside, and there should be a button inside the garage—lift fingerprints from there as well."
"Got it."
Yang Xuetong didn’t waste ti and imdiately got to work.
It was only then that Zhou Ning went upstairs. After searching for a while, he saw Xu Dayuan standing outside. With such weather, after walking around the site, one’s body would already be soaking with sweat. Xu Dayuan was wiping perspiration, and Mr. Zeng, having arrived at so unknown point, was chatting with him.
"Zhou Xiaozhou, any findings?"
Zhou Ning approached and handed over the clipboard he was holding, which contained a rudintary floor plan he had drawn up—three sheets in total, marking out the layout from the basent to the second floor.
"The origin of the fire was in the master bedroom; there’s no dispute there. But having looked at the ground floor and basent, I found that this villa has a total of three exits. There’s the front door, a back door behind the kitchen on the ground floor—I guess it’s for taking out trash or for a maid to clean the yard— and the basent garage directly connects to the underground parking lot.
In the dining room, I found a cake tray on the floor with an empty cake on top, with a card stuck into it that read ’Happy 8th Wedding Anniversary, Dear.’ I think we could check who, either Dong Chengwen or Fang Hua, picked up a cake on the 29th of June.
Additionally, the garage was empty, and no car was found on the parking space above the villa. According to what Dong Chengwen said, he drove out for twenty minutes on June 29th and then ca back—but where is the car?"
Xu Dayuan nodded continuously.
"The car is at Jingkou Branch Bureau. I’ve already asked them to deliver it to the technical departnt. I’ll have Zhenshan check the cake shop later; his team is also about to arrive in Jingkou District. Liu Yufei just called; she sent over so detailed information from Jingkou Branch Bureau’s investigation, including the villa’s architectural floor plan, and she also copied the surveillance videos. She’ll be here shortly."
As soon as he finished speaking, a taxi pulled up, and Liu Yufei got out. Xu Dayuan squinted his eyes. He knew that when Liu Yufei and Xu Kejiang were leaving earlier, they were in their car. Didn’t they offer her a ride back?
"Didn’t they give you a lift?"
Liu Yufei didn’t show much expression, just patting her pocket.
"The leadership agreed to reimburse the taxi fare."
Saying this, she rushed over to the small group and flipped open her notebook, revealing several surveillance video copies inside. Seeing the hand-drawn floor plan in Zhou Ning’s hands, she pointed to it and said:
"Their team’s printers weren’t working well, so I found it botherso and directly copied them onto the computer to bring back. These caras, number one and two, are to the left and right of the main entrance, while number three’s is the rear surveillance of the villa—it can see the north side wall of Dong Chengwen’s yard but not inside the yard.
"As for the rest, there are the community’s main gate, the surrounding walls, and the underground parking lot. This one is the cara pointing at Dong Chengwen’s garage."
Zhou Ning looked at the last surveillance video and asked:
"Did the people from Jingkou Branch Bureau ntion if there was anything wrong with these caras?"
"I asked, and they said there were no abnormal findings. However, they did copy a month’s worth of data—from June 28th to July 27th."
Zhou Ning lifted his phone, showing the others the pattern he had just photographed next to the garage’s anti-theft door.
"This was found outside the garage, and it looks like it’s been marked for quite so ti. I rember Master ntioning last year when they cracked a case that involved such markings."
Xu Dayuan glanced over and nodded continuously.
"Last year, we cracked a case that indeed had such markings, like triangles, circles with crosses, but never a marking with a star. I’ll ask the pickpocket squad later, about the aning of this marking. The scene has been surveyed, so let’s wrap up here—we won’t head to the Jingkou Branch Bureau."
Zhenshan, go investigate the cake shop, Mr. Zeng, follow up with Mr. Zhao for the photos, and check the information of that wine bottle; Yufei, look into Dong Chengwen’s social connections and see if he had any enemies.
A big-shot lawyer with such a reputation gets implicated in a homicide. Other than a cousin, no one else is coming forward to help. According to Mr. Ma’s reactions, it might be because he was ruthless in his tactics and was feared by others—wouldn’t such a person have quite a few enemies?
Based on what we’ve just discovered from our investigation, if soone really threw a Molotov cocktail into the fire from the north side cloakroom, then Dong Chengwen’s suspicion would be cleared. But who would want to do this?
What would they achieve by doing this? Apart from seeking revenge, I can’t think of a second reason. After all, even if Dong Chengwen were sentenced to death, his estate would still go to the Dong Family, so let’s all get moving quickly."
Liu Yufei and Mr. Zeng hurriedly affird and Zhou Ning took a copy of the video before they each drove away with their respective teams. Mr. Zhao and his team ca down from upstairs, stripped off their survey suits, looking like they had just been fished out of the water; Xu Dayuan hung up the phone and glanced over.
"You’ve all worked hard, but hurry up with the lab tests for what you’ve found. It looks like you’ve collected quite a few fingerprints, right?"
Zhou Ning nodded in agreent.
"We found so physical evidence and fingerprints. We’ll send them for examination imdiately. Xu Da, it would be best to contact a scene investigator from the fire departnt. I would like to have the lab simulate the fire scene to see how much accelerant is needed to spread the flas quickly and prevent escape, and then compare it with the footage from the surveillance."
Xu Dayuan patted Zhou Ning on the shoulder.
"Zhou Xiaozhou, you head back first. I’m going to visit the fire departnt. Don’t rush the special case eting; let’s wait until your lab results co back. Of course, if I manage to contact soone from the fire departnt, I’ll go directly to the lab to find you. As for a second autopsy, I think it’s not urgent. We can wait until I get back and review the autopsy findings together."
Zhou Ning nodded, no nonsense, and left with Mr. Zhao and the others.
Back at the technical departnt, Mr. Zhao took Yang Xuetong to submit the evidence for examination, which was also to inform the lab in advance since they were people from their own second group.
Zhou Ning went straight to the lab where Liu Yongxin quickly ca over.
"Mr. Pang told you’ve taken over an arson case, one that has already been investigated by Jingkou District?"
Zhou Ning nodded and recounted everything to him, including the statents from Li Chengbin. Liu Yongxin nodded continuously and signaled Mr. Qu to co over.
"You’re the expert, so quickly review those surveillance tapes to see if anything was missed. Mr. Xia, can we simulate this fire scene?"
Xia Momo furrowed her brows and looked at the floor plan Zhou Ning had sketched by hand.
"I need exact data—room dinsions, wall height, the distance from the courtyard wall to the villa, as well as interior decoration arrangents. Everything has to be digitized before we can analyze."
Zhou Ning knew that while the calculations sounded simple, if the data was even slightly off, the results could be significantly different. He turned to Zhu Xingxing.
"Zhu Xingxing, go to the office and bring all the files to the lab. I rember there’s a mobile hard drive in there with the floor plans, although those are for the rough-house layout; I’m not sure if they’re usable."
Zhu Xingxing hurried to get them.
"The rough-house layout will do. After all, you’ve been to the scene. Tell in detail about the differences between each location and the rough-house layout, and we can make adjustnts. This won’t be a problem."
The files were quickly brought back, and Zhu Xingxing, looking intrigued, followed Xia Momo in uploading various blueprints, docunts, and videos from the mobile hard drive. Reviewing the blueprints, Zhou Ning recalled so details and pointed out that Dong Chengwen hadn’t made significant changes to the villa beside a few spots, especially the size of the open doorway in the cloakroom.
"Were there no large pieces of glass or mirror shards in the cloakroom?"
"No, the glass remnants on the scene were from the windows shattering and the fragnts of the green glass bottle. The glass on the makeup table had shattered in place, not exploded outward."
Xia Momo looked puzzled.
"For such a large cloakroom to not have a dressing mirror is quite unusual. And speaking of which, since their house had a nanny room on the basent level, where is the nanny?"
Zhou Ning paused.
Right, such a large villa, spanning over six hundred square ters—if they could afford to live in a place like that and were celebrating their eighth wedding anniversary, surely they wouldn’t expect the wife to clean the house and take care of the children, would they?
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