Forensic Forensic - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Wang Haixia lived in an upscale residential complex, and the security guard at the gate had never witnessed so many police cars roaring toward her. After showing his badge to the security guard, Luo Jianan drove to the downstairs of Wang Haixia’s residence. As soon as he got out of the car, he saw a special police vehicle with a “SWAT” logo painted on the side parked not far away. He quietly walked around to the passenger side and followed Qi Ming toward Chen Fei and the director.

Qi Ming saw him using himself as a blast shield and asked in confusion, “What are you doing?”

“Safety first. I heard the robbers had knives.” Luo Jianan shrugged, his expression slightly uneasy.

“Didn’t you say ‘fear’ isn’t in your dictionary?”

“Who said I was afraid? Better safe than sorry.”

Miao Hong patted Luo Jianan on the head from behind, then said to Qi Ming, “Don’t listen to this kid’s boasts about being fearless. Tell him a couple of ghost stories and you’ll understand.”

Qi Ming couldn’t help but tilt his head and smile. He’d known about this for a long time.

The police station had learned that the suspect, Yan Zhengbin, had entered Wang Haixia’s home early in the morning at knifepoint and held her hostage. A neighbor heard commotion coming from Wang Haixia’s home, knocked on the door but received no answer. Then, from the hallway window, they saw Wang Haixia being held at knifepoint by a man in his forties sitting on the living room sofa. They immediately called the police. Based on the neighbor’s description, the police confirmed the man to be the wanted criminal, Yan Zhengbin.

“We have no idea what’s going on inside the room. The suspect has drawn the curtains. The SWAT sniper is on standby, but they can’t find a suitable angle.” Chen Fei explained the situation to his team, with the director listening nearby. “We don’t know his purpose for kidnapping Wang Haixia. The building’s entrances and exits have been secured. Xiao Luo, Miao Hong, Dawei, Xiao Xu, follow me upstairs. The SWAT team will assist in the arrest.”

Qi Ming saw a hint of hesitation in Luo Jianan’s eyes, but he was certain it wasn’t out of fear of the impending action.

Upstairs, after relieving the SWAT officer guarding the door, Chen Fei gestured. Miao Hong knocked on the door, quickly dodging aside and shouting, “Police! Listen up! Anyone inside! Drop your weapons, cover your head, and come out.”

Something hit the door with a muffled thud, followed by Wang Haixia’s scream. Chen Fei acted decisively, ordering the SWAT team to use battering rams to break down the door and was the first to rush in. Luo Jianan followed him into the room. Upon seeing the gleaming blade, he grabbed a flowerpot from the doorway and smashed it in. Yan Zhengbin, startled by the banging of the door, was stunned in his tracks when a flowerpot slammed into him, causing his grip to loosen and the knife to fling out. He only managed a cry of pain before Qiao Dawei and Xu Jie pinned him to the floor.

Kicking the knife away from the floor, Luo Jianan pressed his knee against the suspect’s back, pulled out the handcuffs, slapped them in, and shoved him out the door. Miao Hong sat down on the sofa, whispering words of comfort to Wang Haixia, who was shaking like a sieve.

——————

As they were escorting the suspect into the police car, Luo Jianan barely had time to catch his breath when he heard a stern voice from behind, “Luo Jianan, come here!” Seeing Luo Jianan’s expression turn as if the world had ended, Qi Ming turned to look at the source of the voice—a police officer in a SWAT uniform, over fifty years old but still in great shape. With sharp eyebrows and eagle eyes, he looked a bit like Luo Jianan at first glance.

“Dad, you’re here too. I didn’t see you earlier.” Luo Jianan rubbed his neck as he walked over, looking reluctant.

“Of course I can’t see you avoiding me.” Luo Weidong frowned slightly. “Stand up straight! What’s wrong with you?!”

Luo Jianan immediately dropped his hands, straightened his back, and glared at his father, mumbling, “Give me some face, Dad. I’ll scold you when we get home.”

Luo Weidong suppressed his temper and said, “Go home? How many months have you been home? Luo Jianan, listen to me now! If you don’t come home, you’re going to move out of your grandfather’s house and live wherever you want!”

“Have some sense, Dad! Mom’s asking me to go on a blind date the moment I get home, and I’m only 26! Why is she so anxious?!” Luo Jianan’s stubborn temper flared up. While it was perfectly legitimate for a father to scold his son, at a police scene in front of his colleagues and superiors, saving face was too much of a burden, wasn’t it?

“A blind date is just a meal, what’s so hard about it? Your mom asked you to come home because she’s worried about you. She can’t sleep without you!”

Luo Weidong was known for doting on his wife, even when he was young. After retiring and returning to the SWAT team, he could go home and go to work every day. Seeing his wife sighing after a phone call with their son made him want to take Luo Jianan home and give her a beating. In Luo Jianan’s words, “If my mom is happy, my dad is happy. If she’s unhappy, my dad’s world is falling.”

“Go back home on the weekends, okay?” Luo Jianan wasn’t worried about where to live, but hearing that his mother couldn’t sleep made him feel guilty. He had been undercover for three years without a single call home. He was heartbroken to hear his grandmother say his daughter-in-law cried all night long, holding a picture of her grandson.

It’s just a blind date, Luo Jianan thought. Of course, his mother’s sleep quality was more important than his own stiff facial muscles.

——————

Yan Zhengbin emerged from the interrogation room with a bump on his head from a flowerpot. He sat down on a chair in the interrogation room, the lights on, revealing his partially bald forehead swollen and shiny. Chen Fei personally interrogated him, while Xu Jie took notes. Aside from Miao Hong, who was recording Wang Haixia’s statement, everyone else was in a cubicle adjacent to the interrogation room, watching the surveillance footage and waiting to hear the suspect’s confession.

A full hour passed, and Yan Zhengbin didn’t utter a single syllable. He had been arrested in the act of committing a crime; the burglary was a certainty. The trial now focused on Wang Xinji’s murder. Experience tells us that the real murderer often remains silent for a long time after being apprehended. However, some people’s silence isn’t due to an unwillingness to confess, but rather to racking their brains for a plausible excuse for their actions.

After a while, Miao Hong emerged from the meeting room and called Chen Fei into the cubicle.

“According to Wang Haixia, Yan Zhengbin wanted her to go with him. When Wang Haixia refused, he threatened her with a knife.” Miao Hong handed the transcript to Chen Fei. “Wang Haixia said she didn’t know Yan Zhengbin and had no recollection of ever meeting him.”

Chen Fei frowned slightly, then turned and walked back to the interrogation room. He rested his hands on the interrogation table and stared directly into Yan Zhengbin’s empty eyes. “Tell me, where do you want Wang Haixia to go with you?”

Yan Zhengbin shifted slightly, looked up at Chen Fei, and a strange smile curled his lips. “To the ends of the earth, we’ll live together.”

Chen Fei and Xu Jie exchanged glances, then asked, “Are you in a relationship?”

“She’s very shy and won’t admit it.” Yan Zhengbin was short, and the railed interrogation chair made him look even smaller. “But she has me in her heart, I know.”

“She said she hasn’t seen you.”

“I told you she’s very shy. She went to the fishing port every day lately, and we saw each other several times a day.”

Remembering Wang Haixia’s words about taking Wang Xinji to inspect a project, Chen Fei asked again, “Have you seen Wang Haixia and Wang Xinji go to the fishing port together?”

At the mention of Wang Xinji’s name, Yan Zhengbin suddenly struggled against his handcuffs. Xu Jie, seeing this, snapped, “Stay put!”

Yan Zhengbin tilted his head and stared at the gray, bare wall, his cheek muscles visibly tensing.

After watching this on the monitor, Qi Ming said, “A typical paranoid personality—suspicious, stubborn, and living in her own delusions.” He wrote a note and handed it to Luo Jianan, asking him to deliver it to Chen Fei. The note read “murder for love.” Luo Jianan pondered it and felt Qi Ming’s words made sense. Wang Haixia’s constant tendency to press her br3asts against someone’s arm could easily lead to the misunderstanding of her relationship with someone else.

After reading the note, Chen Fei stepped into Yan Zhengbin’s line of sight and asked, “Do you think Wang Xinji is trying to steal Wang Haixia from you?”

Yan Zhengbin suddenly burst into laughter. “Why would that old man steal my woman? He’s unworthy! He abandoned his wife and children for a mistress, and wouldn’t even give his own son money when he came asking for it. What a loser!”

“It seems you know him quite well,” Chen Fei said, motioning Xu Jie to take note of the rest of his words as he paced slowly. “Are you following him?”

“I heard he’s a university professor. At first, I thought Haixia wouldn’t be able to endure hardship if she followed him, right? I “A fisherman isn’t a good match for Haixia, she’s so beautiful.” Yan Zhengbin snorted disdainfully. “Later, I found out he was just a janitor at the university. What’s all this pretense? I caught him taking his mistress to a seafood restaurant at the pier. You didn’t see how close their heads were to each other, hugging and kissing. Pah! Shameless! He could be her father!”

Fade Chen stopped, put his hand on the back of his chair, lowered his body, and asked, “So you’re going to stand up for Wang Haixia?”

“What man would let the woman he loves suffer?” Yan Zhengbin asked.

“That’s right. Protecting the woman you love is a man’s responsibility,” Chen Fei continued, following Yan Zhengbin’s words. “For you, the only way to solve this problem once and for all is to eliminate Wang Xinji completely?”

Yan Zhengbin’s eyes froze, and he muttered, “I didn’t intend to kill him… not at first. I just thought about talking to him… He said I misunderstood, that the girl wasn’t his lover, and Haixia wasn’t his girlfriend… But I saw it all, literally, Haixia hanging on his arm at the dock… And I thought, how could Haixia like a man like that? No, he had to disappear, or else Haixia wouldn’t know how badly he’d deceive her…”

“And then you decided to poison Wang Xinji with pufferfish?” Chen Fei continued.

“I’ve been fishing with my father since I was fifteen or sixteen. Back then, there weren’t so many big boats, and the fish we caught didn’t smell like diesel. They were delicious.” Yan Zhengbin’s eyes grew empty again. “Pufferfish soup is the best, but it’s poisonous, so many people don’t dare eat it. And now with the pollution, everything we catch is thrown away, which is such a shame… I collected a few and invited the old guy to my boat. I told him it was all a misunderstanding and I wanted to make friends with him… But he didn’t dare eat it, so I drank the soup right in front of him.”

Hearing this, Chen Fei was slightly surprised. “How are you okay?”

That eerie smile returned to Yan Zhengbin’s face. “I’ve been eating that stuff since I was a kid. Besides, I only took a sip, and he drank the whole pot… ‘Desperate to eat pufferfish,’ I think you’ve heard that saying.”

Chen Fei nodded. “Go on.”

“The old man lay motionless in the bottom hold. I steered the boat into the river. The water there was filthy and rotting quickly. There was a sewage pipe upstream, and it was buried in the mud, so it couldn’t float.” Yan Zhengbin swallowed. “When I got back, I found the old man’s head still hanging from the propeller. Ha, a ghost lingering.”

Xu Jie coughed to the side, picked up his cup and drank water in big gulps, suppressing his physical discomfort. The first time he went to the scene, he vomited bile and had nightmares for a month, unable to eat. He gradually got used to it. But that’s how criminal police are, especially the serious crime unit. They handle all homicide cases, and someone has to bear the brunt of it.

After more than twenty years of criminal police work, Chen Fei had long since mastered the art of imagining anything. He took the transcript from the table and handed it to Yan Zhengbin: “Yan Zhengbin, you will be arrested for murder. Here is your confession. Sign and fingerprint it.” Then he added. “You’ve truly misunderstood. That young woman is Wang Xinji’s biological daughter.”

Yan Zhengbin was stunned for a moment, then lowered his head and covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking.

Author’s note: 0-0 Nan Dad, your son inherited nothing else from you, but his devotion to his wife…

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