eurekapd Chapter 1139 Preliminary Site Investigation
Chapter 1139 Preliminary Site Investigation
Xiao Yang waded through the puddles into the culvert, the beam of his searchlight casting dappled patterns on the murky surface. The culvert was about ten meters long and three meters wide, the deepest part of which was above knee-deep, the bottom silt bubbling with black foam. "The body was lying supine inside the culvert, half-covered by a tattered canvas," he said, gently parting the canvas with a twig. The deceased's dark blue jacket was bloated from being soaked in the sewage. "The clothes were intact, but the pockets were turned inside out, as if someone had searched the body." Xiao Sun was measuring the distance from the body to the culvert entrance with a tape measure. "7.3 meters. A few pieces of clothing fibers, the same color as the deceased's jacket, were floating on the surface."
Li Ming stood at the entrance of the culvert, his gaze sweeping over the graffiti on the culvert wall—the words "Wang Lei was here" were blurred by water. "Watch out for scratches on the culvert wall," he whispered into the walkie-talkie, his boots grinding shallow dents into the damp cement. "Check for drag marks." The stench inside the culvert mingled with the putrid smell of silt, creating a suffocating atmosphere. The distant sounds of traffic were filtered into a muffled hum by the thick culvert walls.
Xiao Wang placed the interrogation record book on his lap, the pen nib pausing on the words "Zhang Tingfeng, male, 42 years old, road maintenance worker." "When was the last time you came to this culvert?" His pen cap was covered in grass seeds. Zhang Tingfeng suddenly pointed to the roadbed above the culvert: "The day before yesterday afternoon, I came to fill in the potholes by the roadside. The stone slab at the culvert entrance was properly covered, and I didn't smell anything strange." His fingers trembled in the morning light. "This morning at 6:15, I was checking the drainage according to regulations. I lifted the stone slab and saw something floating on the water. When I shone my flashlight over it, I found it was a person… The tarpaulin was something I just hooked to the bank with a shovel; I didn't dare touch the body."
Xiao Yang's searchlight stopped on the wall inside the culvert. About a meter above the water, there was a fresh scratch mark. A palm-sized piece of cement had been scraped off, revealing the gravel underneath. "The scratch mark has neat edges," he measured with a ruler. "It's 20 centimeters long and 5 centimeters wide. It was probably left when the body was dragged. There are also a few dark blue fibers embedded in the wall plaster, which match the material of the deceased's jacket." Xiao Sun found half a blurry shoe print in the silt at the culvert entrance. "It's about size 42. Most of the tread pattern on the sole is covered by silt. You can only tell it's a rubber-soled sneaker."
Li Ming's gaze fell on the half-empty suitcase floating beside the body. The suitcase was deformed, and one zipper had burst open, revealing several crumpled shirts inside. "Check the contents of the suitcase," he ordered into the walkie-talkie, his boots creating ripples in the puddles. "Look for any identification or receipts." The sound of rushing water in the culvert suddenly increased; upstream water was seeping in through cracks in the culvert wall, splashing fine droplets on the surface.
Xiao Wang's questioning turned to the details of when Zhang Tingfeng discovered the body. "The tarpaulin covered him quite tightly," Zhang Tingfeng gestured to show the tarpaulin covering the body, "only his two hands were visible floating on the water, the skin was white and wrinkled from being soaked, like...like a radish that had been soaked for too long." He suddenly remembered something, "The stone slab at the culvert entrance was put on from the outside, and when I lifted it, it felt quite heavy, not like it had been moved by the wind, like someone deliberately covered it." Xiao Wang noticed some dark blue threads on the handle of his shovel, the same color as the fibers Xiao Yang had found, but the material was different—it was the fabric of a maintenance worker's work clothes, probably from when he was pulling the tarpaulin.
Xiao Sun rummaged through a compartment in the suitcase and pulled out a piece of paper, swollen from being soaked in water. The words "K472" and "Zhengzhou" were barely legible. "It looks like a train ticket," he said, carefully placing the paper into an evidence bag. "The handwriting suggests it's from the last few days, but the exact date is illegible." Xiao Yang suddenly pointed to the corpse's wrist. "There's a light-colored mark here, like someone wore a watch or bracelet, but it's empty now; someone probably took it."
“This culvert is rarely used,” Zhang Tingfeng said, squatting by the roadside, shoveling away at the gravel. “Besides us maintenance workers, there are only occasional homeless people seeking shelter from the rain. Last month, I saw a man in a dark blue jacket loitering nearby, carrying a suitcase similar to this one. I thought he was waiting for a bus and didn’t pay much attention.” Xiao Wang’s pen highlighted something in the notebook: “What did that man look like?” Zhang Tingfeng scratched his head and thought for a long time: “He was in his forties, of medium height, a bit balding, but… I can’t remember exactly, it was far away.”
Xiao Yang's surveying light stopped in the silt inside the culvert, the beam piercing through the murky water and illuminating the edges of a metal object. "It looks like a watch," he said, putting on waterproof gloves and reaching into the silt to pull out a mechanical watch with a black strap. The watch crystal was broken, and the hands were stopped at 3:15. "There are engravings on the inside of the case, but they're covered in silt. I need to take it back to the lab to clean it." Xiao Sun found several scattered coins in the silt next to the watch, all one-yuan coins, with years ranging from 2015 to 2020.
Li Ming stood at the entrance of the culvert, gazing at the rising sun in the distance. Above the culvert, there was a fresh skid mark on the roadbed, the tire tracks gleaming darkly on the damp surface. "Check the passenger information for train K472," he instructed into the walkie-talkie. "Focus on male passengers who have traveled from Zhengzhou to this area in the last three days, around forty years old, and about 1.7 meters tall." His gaze shifted to the half-faded shoe print. "Xiao Sun, make a model of the shoe print and compare it with surveillance footage from the surrounding area to see if any similar shoe patterns appear."
As Xiao Wang closed his notebook, Zhang Tingfeng was still muttering about the man in the dark blue jacket. "If he hadn't had that accident, where would he be now?" the maintenance worker's voice held a hint of regret, his shovel scraping across the ground. Xiao Wang noticed half a work manual sticking out of the back pocket of his overalls; the cover read "National Highway 339 Maintenance Record," and the latest page stated, "May 12th, culvert drainage normal"—meaning that at least yesterday, there had been no abnormalities inside the culvert.
As technicians began pumping out the water from the culvert, Li Ming's gaze fell upon the murky surface. The identity of the deceased, why he was in the culvert, who dumped his body there… these questions weighed heavily on everyone's minds like the silt at the bottom of the water. The distant sound of traffic gradually intensified, and sunlight pierced through the thin mist, illuminating the stone slab at the culvert entrance. On the edge of the deliberately covered slab, several fresh scratches remained—like fingerprints left by someone dragging it, or question marks etched by fate.
As Li Ming's walkie-talkie emitted a crackling electrical sound at the culvert entrance, Xiao Yang was spraying luminol reagent onto the culvert wall.