eurekapd Chapter 1099 discusses and analyzes the situation, determining the direction.
Chapter 1099 discusses and analyzes the situation, determining the direction.
"Summarize all new clues by 2 PM," Li Ming said, grabbing the file. A tea stain from the bottom of his enamel cup left a light brown mark on the table. "Chen Miao's taxi and the whereabouts of Sun Laosi are the two keys to unlocking this case; we must find them." As he walked out of the meeting room, the clock in the corridor pointed to exactly 10 PM. 72 hours had passed since Chen Miao's disappearance, and every minute that passed could wash away the evidence hidden in the brick kiln.
Xiao Wang wrote the last line in his notebook: "Check the call records between Sun Laosi and 'Scarface' and verify the rental information of the brick kiln." He looked up at the window, where the distant cornfields undulated in the wind like a green ocean, and the missing taxi might be hiding in some corner of this ocean, waiting to be discovered.
The police then focused on two aspects.
One is an investigation into Chen Miao's social relationships, and the other is the whereabouts of Sun Laosi.
When Xiao Zhou pinned Chen Miao's social relationship chart to the blackboard in the information center, the pin poked a hole in the words "Tongda Taxi Company." The names on the blackboard resembled a messy spider web, with red lines connecting labels such as "card-playing friends," "creditors," and "lovers." In the outermost dotted box, more than a dozen names hadn't yet been labeled with their relationships. "According to the call records, he contacted 28 people most frequently in the past three months," Xiao Zhou circled the name "Li Juan" with a marker. "This woman talks to him every Wednesday night for more than 40 minutes, the most recent time being 8:05 pm on July 12th."
Technician Xiao Ma rubbed his red eyes and pushed the summary of the phone call recording onto the table: "The first three minutes were flirting, then they suddenly started arguing. Li Juan said, 'If you don't pay me back, I'll go find your daughter.' Chen Miao called her a 'crazy woman' and finally slammed down the phone." He pulled up Li Juan's household registration information: "42 years old, unemployed, lives in an old neighborhood in the south of the city, has a gambling record, and owes nearly 100,000 yuan to loan sharks."
When they found Li Juan's house, the security door was ajar, and the house reeked of smoke and instant noodles. "Chen Miao and I are just gambling buddies," she said, touching up her lipstick in front of the mirror, the lipstick drawing a crooked line at the corner of her mouth. "He owes me 30,000 yuan in gambling debts, and he hasn't paid it back for six months. I bluffed him by saying I was going to find his daughter, but I don't even know where his daughter is." In a photo on the dressing table, Li Juan and Chen Miao were laughing with their arms around each other's shoulders, the background a smoke-filled card room, with a mahjong tile stuck to the edge of the photo.
"Where were you between 8 PM and midnight on July 12th?" Xiao Zhou's notebook lay open on the coffee table, the pen tip hovering over the "alibi" section. Li Juan suddenly raised her voice: "Playing mahjong in the card room! The owner and three of her mahjong partners can testify!" She pulled out her phone's transfer records, "You were gambling with someone at 11:47 PM, the WeChat transfer records are available, you can check the surveillance footage." The card room's surveillance footage did indeed capture her sitting from 7 PM to 2 AM, only going to the toilet twice, each time for no more than five minutes.
Chen Miao's card-playing buddy, Lao Wang, squatted at the entrance of the card room, twirling a chipped die in his hand. "Chen Miao is a terrible card player," he spat. "He got into an argument last Wednesday because he was caught cheating, and the other guy threatened to break his leg." Lao Wang pointed to the surveillance camera in the corner, "That guy in the black T-shirt, his name is Tiger, he's a loan shark, and he's sworn brothers with 'Scarface'."
Tiger's loan company was tucked away in a mezzanine of an office building, a faded advertisement for "small loans" plastered on the glass door. "I did lend money to Chen Miao at exorbitant interest rates," he said, fiddling with his gold chain, the clasp scraping against the table with a harsh sound, "but he paid it all back on July 10th, 52,000 yuan including principal and interest, I have a receipt to prove it." The handwriting on the receipt was indeed Chen Miao's, but the date was half-obscured by coffee stains, and the words "July 10th" were still faintly visible, perfectly matching the bank statement showing "52,000 yuan withdrawn on July 10th."
"Where were you on the night of July 12th?" Xiao Zhou stared at his left hand, where there was a knife scar on the web of his hand, with two similarities to the fingerprints on Chen Miao's shirt collar. Hu Zi suddenly laughed, his gold chain gleaming under the lights: "At the 'Heaven on Earth' nightclub. The manager and three girls can testify that I drank from 9 pm to 3 am. The credit card record for the bill is still there." The nightclub's surveillance footage showed him putting his arm around two girls as they entered a private room, and he didn't come out until 2:45 am, staggering.
Zhao Qiang, the owner of Chen Miao's taxi company, sat behind his large desk, his fingers flying across the calculator. "He's suing me for unpaid fuel subsidies?" Zhao Qiang flicked cigarette ash onto Chen Miao's complaint. "That's because he overstated his mileage. According to regulations, he should only receive 30,000 yuan, but he insisted on 50,000, and even said he'd report me to the tax bureau for tax evasion." He pulled up the company's attendance records. "Chen Miao was supposed to work the night shift on July 12th, but he took the afternoon off, saying he was going to see his daughter in a neighboring city."
This statement contradicts Chen Miao's GPS tracking data—his car never went to the neighboring city. Xiao Zhou found Chen Miao's divorce agreement, which stipulated that his ex-wife would have custody of their daughter and that he would receive 1500 yuan in child support each month. However, bank transfer records from the past six months showed that Chen Miao had only made two payments. "His ex-wife took their daughter to Shenzhen six months ago," Zhao Qiang added. "I heard from people in the caravan that Chen Miao never went to Shenzhen at all. His claim of visiting his daughter was just an excuse; he actually went to the neighboring city to see his lover."
Chen Miao's lover, Wang Li, worked at a beauty salon. Her figure in a pink uniform flickered in the mirror. "He did come to see me on the evening of the 12th," she said, her nails scratching white marks on the massage table, "but he left at 9 o'clock, saying he had to pick up a big order." The beauty salon's surveillance footage showed Chen Miao leaving at 9:05 PM, carrying a black leather bag, the same style as the tool bag he always kept in the back seat of his taxi. "He always carried a voice recorder in his bag," Wang Li suddenly said, "saying he wanted to record evidence of Zhao Qiang's tax evasion, and that he could get a large sum of money for it."
This clue gave the investigation a new direction. Xiao Zhou checked Chen Miao's bank statements and found an anonymous deposit of 30,000 yuan on July 10th. The remitter was a shell company, and the legal representative was Zhao Qiang's distant cousin. "This is very likely hush money," Xiao Ma analyzed. "Zhao Qiang wanted Chen Miao to drop the report, and Chen Miao pretended to agree but was actually still collecting evidence." He suddenly pointed to a small expenditure on the bank statement, "At 10:02 pm on July 12th, Chen Miao bought a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store near the pond. The shopkeeper said he was with a man wearing a hoodie at the time, and the two seemed to be arguing about something."
The convenience store's security camera had been broken for a long time, but the owner remembered that the man had a limp in his left leg, which matched Sun Laosi's features.