Police officer Chen Shu

Chapter 792 Don’t take the usual path

After the two got into the car, the atmosphere inside became noticeably more relaxed.

Huang Mao was driving. While holding the steering wheel, he joked without thinking, "Hey, when I left this morning, I saw you frowning the whole time. I thought you were going to come and interrogate me. Hehe, I was a little scared."

"."

"Xiao Huang, I just didn't expect to gain so much from this trip."

"Yeah, I learned a lot too!" Yellow Hair said excitedly, chattering on and on. "Although this was my first case, I learned a lot from Captain Chen. Now, if I encounter another murder case, I'll be more confident."

He Chengfeng didn't answer, but raised his hand and touched the inside pocket of his shirt, where Chen Shu had forced two packs of yellow cigarettes and most of a tea cake into his pocket.

He hummed a few times with a self-deprecating tone.

They were all veterans who had worked in criminal investigation for so many years, yet they couldn't hide their thoughts, allowing a young man to see through them in no time.

I kept staring at the cigarette in the other person's hand and the tea leaves on the small table, and now I feel ashamed when I think about it.

It was a little embarrassing, but it was worth it!

Hey, these two things are something else!
After we solve the case, we absolutely must take him to Director Zhang's office!
He Chengfeng's hands trembled slightly. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, looking forward to the moment when he would finally triumph.

"Chen Da's observation skills, logical thinking ability, and helpful spirit are all worth learning from. Hey, He Da, what are you thinking about?" Huang Mao glanced at He Chengfeng sitting in the passenger seat during a break at the traffic light and asked suspiciously.

"It's alright! Let's go back to the office!"

He Chengfeng gave the order with a strong and resonant voice.

……

KM City, a criminal investigation team.

He Chengfeng returned to his unit and, full of vigor, arranged the interrogation work in the conference room.

The three suspects arrested at this time, Zheng Amei, Zheng Jie, and Wang Feng (wearing a baseball cap), were all detained in the detention center.

Based on Chen Shu's deduction, He Chengfeng selected two experienced investigators from the task force to give special attention to Zheng Amei.

After all, she was a woman from the countryside, so it was relatively easier to break through her defenses.

Next, an officer was assigned to lead his team to the rented apartment where Zheng Jie lived to collect the shoes he had worn and to collect shoe prints along the way.

The most important task naturally falls to him to lead the team, and Lucky Star with blond hair must be brought along; who knows, he might even have to help him curry favor with others.

He called on an experienced colleague from the criminal investigation department of the team, and together they headed straight for the five-star hotel where the crime scene was located.

Fortunately, the weather has been sunny these past few days. Although the exterior walls have been exposed to wind and sun, some shoe prints on the walls of the lower floors can still be extracted.

Several clear, partially shaped shoe prints were even found outside the window at the crime scene. They were somewhat incomplete, but the characteristics of the multiple prints were still quite obvious.

Then, the same shoe prints were found on the floor of the hotel room where Zheng Jie stayed on the night of the incident and on the table outside the window.

Undoubtedly, there was also mud on the grass downstairs, though not much, but enough to establish the facts of the crime.

When a decent person stays in a hotel, who would climb out of the window for no reason?

And coincidentally, I happened to be passing by the scene of a murder?
After finishing, he even climbed downstairs and slipped away.

Standing downstairs, He Chengfeng watched the investigators working on the exterior wall and thought to himself with smug satisfaction that the murder case would be solved soon.

After finishing the work of retrieving evidence at the hotel, He Chengfeng rushed to Zheng Jie's rented house to cooperate with the team members who had arrived earlier.

The shoe prints naturally match the hotel's style.

To my surprise, I found the shoes under the bed.

Bingo!

He Chengfeng picked up the transparent evidence bag in his hand, held it up to his eyes, stared at the men's sneakers inside, and said happily, "The evidence is complete. We can get him arrested even without a confession!"

Back at the Criminal Investigation Brigade, Cheng Feng and I first went to the captain's office to report on the work. Kunming is a big city, and murders happen occasionally, but a case like this one, where the scene was staged to look like a suicide, is something we haven't seen in years.

It might be used as a typical case and reported throughout the city or even the province.

Thinking of this, He Chengfeng felt a jolt as if he had been electrocuted. Even though he was a veteran criminal investigator in his forties, he could not suppress the restlessness in his heart.

"Good! Good! Good!"

After listening to the report, the battalion commander was equally excited and exclaimed "Good!" three times.

Although he didn't solve the case, he was quick to react.

A few days after learning about this unusual case, he immediately contacted Deputy Director Li, who was in charge of criminal investigation, and quickly set up a special task force.

Since Deputy Director Li is the team leader, he naturally has to be the deputy team leader.

Although he had just been transferred from the position of director to the criminal investigation team as captain and was not very familiar with homicide cases, none of this prevented him from serving as the deputy team leader.

Take Director Li, for example. He's a veteran traffic police officer from the traffic police detachment, yet he's not the official leader of this special task force. Doesn't that seem perfectly reasonable?

If you can't handle a case, can't you at least give an order and say "execute according to plan"?

The newly appointed deputy team leader clapped his hands and laughed, casually dangling a rosy picture in front of his deputy captain: "Haha, well done! Lao He, it looks like you're guaranteed a second-class merit this time. Okay, you go ahead and get busy, get the case sorted out for me!"

After leaving the office, He Chengfeng went to the forensic office. All the evidence had been wiped clean, and the reports were ready.

Xiao Li, who was in charge of issuing the report, stood filling out the form and casually said, "Hey, Captain, these pieces of evidence can only be considered circumstantial evidence. What can you do if someone says they just like to do things unconventionally?"

"Xiao Li, just focus on your work. You don't need to worry about the rest."

He Chengfeng waved his hand dismissively, thinking that with so much physical evidence in hand, if he still couldn't resolve the situation, he might as well take off his hat and leave.

Do you really think he's been a detective for nothing all these years?
As a result, reality dealt him a heavy blow.

Zheng Jie remained silent, and Zheng Amei also failed to obtain conclusive evidence. The baseball cap was just for show; she knew nothing.

The police officers handling the case brought so much evidence that Cheng Feng thought was acceptable to the bureau for approval, but the legal department rejected it outright, giving the same explanation as their own investigator.

There is no direct evidence.

The investigation has once again reached a stalemate.

"What an idiot! He climbed up to someone's window and still says there's no direct evidence?" He Chengfeng stood by the window in the office, biting his cigarette butt hard, and cursed, "Does it have to be in someone's bed to be considered direct evidence? You've really gone stupid from studying!"

Both the surveyor, Xiao Li, and the legal officer in the bureau graduated with master's degrees and then entered the police force through recruitment exams.

They obtained senior law enforcement qualification certificates internally and passed the national judicial examination externally, making them authoritative figures on paper at least.

To most people, especially those born in the 80s and 90s who have gone through a lot of exams, these two are already considered to be extremely impressive.

However, for veteran police officers like He Chengfeng who have extensive practical experience at the grassroots level, they were somewhat disdainful.

They often regard their past experience as a valuable asset, believing that practical experience is far more important than theory. While advanced law enforcement qualifications and judicial examinations place more emphasis on theoretical knowledge of laws and regulations, criminal investigation work requires keen insight and rapid response capabilities.

These things are not found in books.

For example, in the case of Zheng Jie's murder, Cheng Feng was inherently more concerned with whether the case was solved quickly. On the other hand, young people like Xiao Li, who follow the established procedures and are raised under exam-oriented education, place more emphasis on procedural compliance and legal rigor.

In the past, when police officers went to the procuratorate to review cases, they would personally guide the young women on how to organize their thoughts.

Later, as the young woman grew older and developed a sense of self-reliance, the two began to arm wrestle, and in a fair comparison, they were evenly matched.

Now, the balance of power has shifted, and the investigations are basically guided by the anticipated trial outcome. Wherever the young lady points, the brutes follow.

This is also a factor that explains why torture and forced confessions were prevalent in the past, but are becoming less and less common today.

(End of this chapter)