Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter One : 6

“Corpse D, female, approximately three or four years old, about 90 centimeters tall, with no clothing or other textiles covering her body. Because she was lying face down and was at the bottom of the pile, the burning was not as severe, with third degree burns. The burns on her sides, especially her limbs, were more severe, and the skin showed coagulative necrosis.” Tang Xiaotang slowly reached out and gently turned her over: She was a very pretty little girl, with thin eyebrows, thin lips, and a pointed chin, resembling Daiyu from the children’s version of Dream of the Red Chamber, except her cheeks were somewhat thin… Her eyes were still half open, indicating that she was burned after death. If someone was burned to death while still alive, the high temperature would cause the victim to instinctively close their eyes tightly, with the tips of the eyelashes charred but the roots undamaged—this was not the case with those burned after death.

Tang Xiaotang’s gaze slowly shifted downwards, suddenly noticing a crucial detail. She brightened the LED light, carefully examining the little girl’s throat and neck, then whispered, “There are clear ligature marks on the victim’s throat, the ligature groove is deep, and there’s a figure eight pattern at the back of the neck. The cause of death is mechanical asphyxiation; it’s homicide.”

From the other end of the earpiece came Liu Simiao’s deep voice: “Okay, preliminary autopsy complete. Next, all the bodies need to be taken to the Forensic Pathologist research center for laboratory autopsies. I’ll leave that to Lei Rong later.”

Tang Xiaotang breathed a long sigh of relief. “Sister Simiao, I’ll go up now. You can come down and do the crime scene investigation—”

Liu Simiao interrupted Tang Xiaotang: “No, Little Tang, you do it.”

“Huh?” Tang Xiaotang was stunned. “Me? I’m not a crime scene investigation expert.”

“But a crime scene investigation only has one chance. No matter how many people go down afterward, it will only be considered a reinspection or verification,” Liu Simiao said. “This tunnel ventilation shaft is a narrow site. Two people have already gone down. If you come back up and I take over, there’s a chance we might unintentionally destroy some important evidence. You’re a graduate of China Police University; crime scene investigation is a required course, and you’ve mastered the basics. Since you volunteered to be the first to go down into the crime scene, I request, and I order, you to complete the initial investigation.”

Tang Xiaotang glanced at the little girl’s body and said into the Bluetooth communicator, “Roger! I’ve forgotten most of what I learned back then… Sister Simiao, please teach me how to do it.”

“Okay. The basic work of crime scene exploration can be summarized in two words: observation and searching. This is also the order of exploration, so let’s proceed in that order,” said Liu Simiao. “First, carefully examine the bottom and walls of the shaft, making sure you don’t miss any corner. Don’t rely on your helmet light for lighting; use a handheld flashlight instead. Don’t turn off the helmet light; use it as a supplementary light source. If you find anything, don’t move it. Take a picture of its original location with your phone, then use tweezers to extract it—a special reminder: watch your feet; that’s the easiest place for explorers to overlook.”

Following Liu Simiao’s instructions, Tang Xiaotang turned on her flashlight, crouched down, and meticulously examined the bottom of the square shaft inch by inch, like a CT scan. The shaft had a cross-sectional area of ​​three to four square meters. Because the ground entrance had always had a protective net, although the bottom of the shaft was covered with a thick layer of dust, and occasionally one could discern twigs, leaves, and rat carcasses from the ash, there was no other garbage. Outside the bodies, where the fire hadn’t started, if the dry powder on top was wiped away, the original color of the cement could even be seen. In contrast, the shaft walls were in much worse condition. On the side of the shaft closest to the pile of corpses, perhaps because the fire was too intense or because gasoline had splashed onto it when the criminal poured it down, the flames had clung to it, burning it into a large, ink-black patch. Combined with the unevenness of the shaft walls and the dry powder clinging to them, it looked like a large group of gray ghosts struggling to climb towards the shaft opening—a truly eerie sight. “Sister Simiao, I’ve finished inspecting everything. I’ve checked every nook and cranny, even the soles of my own shoes. Aside from the well walls being quite blackened, I haven’t found anything unusual. Besides the Vacheron Constantin watch, the only thing I found was a black Zippo windproof lighter, which is very likely the ignition source. Nothing else. The clothes of Corpse C were badly burned. I examined them but found no cell phone, keys, wallet, or anything else that could identify him… Of course, there might be traces of fingerprints, hair, or fibers, but they were basically all burned away.”

After listening to Tang Xiaotang’s report, Liu Simiao pondered for a moment and said, “What about the floodgate?”

“Floodgate?” Tang Xiaotang paused, her flashlight involuntarily shining on the floodgate. The narrow steel plate was fitted seamlessly into the door frame in the shaft wall, the lower half charred black, while the upper half retained its lead blue paint. “The door…the door’s okay?”

“Little Tang,” Liu Simiao said, “how do you think the criminal managed to throw these four bodies into the tunnel ventilation shaft?”

“They must have opened the safety net above and thrown them down one by one!”

“On the surface, many signs do suggest that the criminal opened the safety net and dumped the body from above. But don’t forget there’s a floodgate. So we can’t rule out the possibility that the killer transported the body from inside the Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway station into the tunnel ventilation shaft and then burned it. Removing the safety net at the ventilation shaft entrance was just a deliberate illusion created by the criminal to mislead the police investigation—”

Suddenly, Du Jianping’s voice came through the earpiece: “Simiao, allow me to interject, what you’re saying is unlikely. I asked Old Cai, and this floodgate is usually locked. There are only three keys to open it: one at the subway safety department, one at Western Suburbs Depot, and one in the duty room. Because it’s never opened in years, even Old Cai doesn’t remember where he put it and is going back to the duty room to look for it now. Besides, if the perpetrator wanted to sneak into the Saoshuling subway station, he would have to open the security door at Exit A. There are also three keys to the security door, just like the floodgate key, kept by the safety department, the depot, and Old Cai respectively. Old Cai always carried that key with him at all times. criminal How could he possibly get the keys to two doors and then carry four corpses down into the dark, deep subway station to set it on fire? Besides, I just walked from the subway station exit down to the floodgate area; the platform was covered in a thick layer of dirt, but I didn’t see any strangers’ footprints.”

Liu Simiao paused for a moment and said, “Director Du, I admit you have a point, but just to be on the safe side, I’d like to trouble Little Tang to check the door to see if it was opened before or after the fire.”

Tang Xiaotang crouched down again and examined the bottom of the door where it met the frame with a flashlight for a long time. “Sister Simiao, judging from the ash accumulated at the bottom of the door where it meets the frame, there are no signs of it being completely separated. At least this door definitely wasn’t opened after the fire. As for before the fire, like I said, even if there were any traces, they would have been burned to ashes.”

Liu Simiao sighed. Veteran detectives always said that crime scenes had “three fears”: first, being doused; second, being burned; and third, having a crowd watching. These three were the best ways to deface or even destroy evidence of a crime, and now that they’d been caught in this mess, there was really nothing they could do.

Just then, at the bottom of the shaft, Tang Xiaotang suddenly heard running sounds and shouts of “Found it! Found it!” coming from the other side of the floodgate. Then, the keyhole rattled, the door shook violently, and it swung open from inside of the subway station into the tunnel ventilation shaft—but because the corpses were blocking the way, it only opened a very narrow crack, just enough for Du Jianping to peek his head through.

“Director Du!” Tang Xiaotang greeted Du Jianping happily.

Du Jianping nodded to her, his gaze slowly sweeping over the shaft. He muttered, “See what I told you? This door is narrow; it can only be pushed outwards. The shaft isn’t very big either. If the murderer wanted to dump the bodies from the subway station here, he’d have to open the floodgate wide. But after piling up these bodies, the door won’t be able to close… Simiao, Little Tang, once you’ve finished your investigation, send someone down to remove the bodies.”