Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 768 Video Analysis
Chen Shu leaned over, grabbed the mouse on the table, and clicked a few times on the file containing "Zheng Amei" on the computer screen to retrieve the video from the crime scene.

As the screen window opened, the scene began to replay.

"Brother Shu, what are you looking at?" Jiang Hai, one of the parties involved, was a little puzzled when he saw the video being played. It was the same video of the three of them entering the crime scene for the first time in the hotel corridor.

“The Conan book must have been found at the crime scene.” Chen Chuan wasn’t interested in the video content, but that didn’t stop him from teasing everyone. “Tsk tsk, there were only the three of us at the scene. Your book brother couldn’t possibly be investigating himself. The rest was just me and Xiao Hai. Tsk tsk, Xiao Hai, do you think it might have been you who got carried away by lust?”

"Brother Chuan!"

Jiang Hai was so angry that his face turned red. However, after spending a few days with him, he really couldn't do anything about this carefree senior brother. He always joked around regardless of the occasion.

I heard that in the Dongzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, apart from the top officer and executive officer, this senior colleague also teased other police officers, even senior officers, in the same way.

No wonder I'm still just a junior staff member after all these years since graduation!

Jiang Hai was dissatisfied, but what he didn't know was that, in private, this senior brother he looked down on was very popular in the bureau.

Thinking about it carefully, could someone who can joke around with even a deputy director like a friend be an ordinary ox or horse?
Sometimes you can tell how well someone gets along with their boss just by listening to their tone of voice and how they address each other.

A relationship where you can joke around is anything but ordinary, especially one like Chen Chuan's where you can chat freely whenever you meet, and he even gives you nicknames on the way. That's an incredibly close relationship.

Zhu Yiba knew Chen Chuan's mischievous nature; to say that Jiang Hai was a criminal suspect was more unbelievable than the sun rising in the west.

However, he was the first to react at this moment, since there was another person present besides the three of them.

Zhu Yiba's eyes widened in surprise. "Brother Chen, are you suspecting that hotel cleaner! That middle-aged woman in her forties or fifties!"

At Zhu Yiba's prompting, everyone held their breath and stared intently at the screen as it replayed the scene of the cleaner entering the room, discovering the body, and then calling for help.

To be honest, none of them noticed anything amiss.

After watching the video several times, Chen Shu pulled up the hotel corridor video from ten days ago, fast-forwarding and rewinding it four times, then showing videos from nine days ago, eight days ago, seven days ago, all the way up to the day of the incident.

Finally, Chen Shuchang, who had been tense, let out a breath and leaned back in his chair.

Upon hearing this call, the others knew that their leader had made up his mind, and they all breathed a sigh of relief, feeling much lighter.

Young Jiang Hai, unconcerned about saving face, directly expressed his bewilderment: "Brother Shu, I don't see anything wrong with these videos."

Zhu Yiba, who also failed to notice the problem, frowned and remained silent.

Chen Chuan, who had little interest in the case, crossed his arms and watched with great interest as his old classmate made his next move.

Sitting in the chair, Ma Rongcheng gripped the armrests with both hands and involuntarily stood up, feeling a long-lost sense of nervousness.

Those of them who specialize in technical investigations haven't experienced this kind of reasoning-based crime-solving scenario in a long time, but their expert status forces them to remain silent.

Chen Shu didn't try to be mysterious. He first switched the video surveillance to a scene from ten days ago, showing Zheng Amei pushing a sanitation cart in the corridor.

Click, pause, then zoom in on the image.

Chen Shu pointed to Zheng Amei's hands on the screen and said in a deep voice, "Look closely at her hands. Aren't they wearing gloves?"

The hotel's security cameras didn't have high-definition lenses, so the captured image was blurry. It's not entirely clear whether Zheng Amei was wearing gloves, but the position of her hands looked like the color of her skin.

Then, nine days before, eight days before, and until the day before the incident, Zheng Amei's hands were mostly yellow. Several times when she passed under the camera, it appeared that she was not wearing gloves.

Thus, it can be roughly deduced that Zheng Amei did not wear gloves for even a second during the nine days before the incident, and carried out the cleaning work naked.

Next, Chen Shu switched the video to the day of the incident and then switched the video speed back to normal.

The corridor was quiet that day, with only Zheng Amei pushing a cleaning cart full of hotel supplies such as towels and slippers, as well as cleaning tools, walking along the corridor.

"Hiss! It's turned white!"

Jiang Hai gasped. The cleaning lady in the video was wearing white gloves!
Zhu Yiba loudly questioned, "What a coincidence? It was worn on the very day someone died?"

The blond-haired man immediately chimed in, "There's definitely something wrong! This guy must be a murderer! Platoon leader, I'll go arrest him right now!"

Jiang Hai pinched his chin, treating Zheng Amei as a suspect, and pretended to be deep in thought: "She doesn't want her fingerprints to be left in the room? But it doesn't make sense logically. It doesn't seem to make any sense. She's a hotel cleaner, so it's normal for her to leave some fingerprints in the room."
"But she didn't wear gloves for nine out of the ten days she worked there, and then she put them on on the morning of the crime. It's hard not to suspect that she is the murderer. A locked room is a room that can only be called a locked room if the person doesn't have a room key."

With a snap, Jiang Hai clapped his hands and declared with certainty, "She is the murderer!" Chen Chuan smiled broadly, but his words were like knives piercing his junior colleague, who aspired to become an outstanding criminal investigator.

"Xiao Hai, have you forgotten what our expert Ma said?"

Upon hearing his unreliable senior's words, Jiang Hai couldn't help but get goosebumps all over his body, and asked in a trembling voice, "Wh-what did you say?"

Chen Chuan tilted his head slightly, his face beaming: "The presence of disguised shoe prints indoors is a case of big feet wearing small shoes. Look at this lady's figure, doesn't she look like someone with big feet?"

Jiang Hai deflated like a punctured balloon, immediately becoming listless.

Chen Chuan laughed heartily. He loved watching Jiang Hai's emotional ups and downs; it was hilarious, just like Chen Shu back when they were still studying at the police academy.

Expert Ma Rongcheng agreed with Chen Chuan's opinion, but he was even more surprised and impressed by Chen Shu's unique investigative thinking, which connected these two completely unrelated things.

He subconsciously glanced at the policeman from another province standing beside him. Under the incandescent light, Officer Chen's square face was cold and serious.

Chen Shu did not pause the video to provide any explanation; he simply let the video continue playing along the timeline until the deceased's door was opened.

With a "click," Chen Shu paused the video by pressing the spacebar. He then deliberately cut the video into a specific timeline, specifically the scene from when Zheng Amei entered the corridor until she opened the door, and played it repeatedly.

"Did you figure anything out?" Chen Shu tapped the table and asked.

The crowd shook their heads.

After a while, Jiang Hai was the first to realize: "It seems...it seems like this cleaning lady has been stalling for time?"

Chen Shu snapped his fingers and affirmed, "That's right! When I first discovered this situation, I just thought she was waiting for a specific time. When I asked at the scene, the cleaning lady named Zheng Amei told me that the deceased had asked her to come and clean the house early the next morning. So, when I saw her dawdling in the corridor, I wondered if she was waiting for the time the deceased had requested."

“But,” Jiang Hai followed Chen Shu’s train of thought, exploring step by step, “there’s absolutely no need to stand in the corridor to wait. Doesn’t that obstruct the guests’ passage? If it’s just about waiting time, she could have waited in the linen room in the corner. She could even hide from the cameras and play on her phone there!”

Chen Shu nodded: "Correct. This is the first point of doubt. Continue."

Feeling affirmed by someone he admired, Jiang Hai's confidence naturally soared, and he continued to speculate on the reasons: "But why would she wait in the corridor?"

As he spoke, Jiang Hai pointed to Zheng Amei's expression as she looked towards the end of the corridor on the monitor: "I noticed that she seemed to keep looking in that direction, um, she looked several times."

“Very good,” Chen Shubang added to Jiang Hai. “That’s where the hotel elevator is located.”

"Elevator," Jiang Hai murmured, as if a firefly was floating in his mind. He tried to catch it, but no matter how many times he tried, he couldn't. The firefly continued to fly slowly around.

Then, the image of Xiao Jianghai in his mind suddenly jumped up and reached out to grab it.

Snap! Got it!
"The elevator!" Jiang Hai's eyes lit up, and he jumped up. "Brother Shu! I know! I know! She's waiting for someone to come! She's waiting for someone to come! To prove that she's the first person to open the door and go in! So that other people can enter the room at about the same time as her!"

“This is the second point of suspicion.” Chen Shu nodded with satisfaction, then stopped the video from repeating and started playing again from the point where it had been previously stopped.

In the video, Zheng Amei opened the door to the room with her right hand, which was wearing a white glove, and then let out a scream. Chen Shu then led his men into the crime scene.

Chen Shu used this segment as the standard and started playing it on repeat.

"Is there a third point of doubt?" After his initial elation, Jiang Hai quickly calmed down and frowned as he stared at the second video that Chen Shu had screenshotted.

This is a short clip of only five or six seconds, showing Zheng Amei opening the door and entering the room, then suddenly screaming, attracting the three people who came out of the elevator earlier.

By the way, these three are Chen Shu, Chen Chuan, and Jiang Hai, who came back after eating mutton soup.

For a long time, no one noticed the problem.

"Hurry up, Book, tell me quickly!" Chen Chuan urged impatiently.

“The time is not right.” Chen Shu paused the video and pointed to the timeline, saying, “The person entered the room, and it took five or six seconds before they screamed. That’s too long.”

Jiang Hai, his eyes practically glued to the monitor, clasped his hands together in realization: "I get it! The body was hanging right next to the toilet door. Anyone who entered would have seen it immediately! There's no way it would have taken six seconds for them to scream!"

Ma Wing-shing asked, "Is it possible that after the cleaner entered the room, he took a phone call at the door, or did something else that we can't see on the surveillance footage, which is why it took so long?"

Chen Shu finally laughed and said, "I just want to know what she did in those six seconds."

(End of this chapter)