The 21 suspects

My name is Peng Guoming, a criminal police officer, the moment the phone rang I knew that another murder had occurred.

　　Half an hour later, I arrived at the scene of the crime in my old Pusan. I was impatient for an umbrella, the night rain hit my face, the cold wet chill penetrated my bones, and my mood got worse.

　　"Captain, you're finally here." Female police officer Lu Tianqing ran towards me, she held an umbrella in one hand, a record book in the other, in my ear jabbered away.

　　"The deceased fell down the residential building at 1:33 a.m. The informant said they were in front of the door of the unit when they pressed the code and heard a loud "bang" and looked at their watches.

　　"The deceased's name is Zhou Lan, 27 years old, the police are contacting her family and landlord. According to the informant, they have seen the deceased come home with different men many times and suspect her of being in a special industry ......"

　　I looked toward the body on the ground. The woman was wearing only a bright red halter-night dress, lying on the ground in a "large" shape, her brown and chestnut wavy hair was drenched with rain, and the dark red blood stuck them in handfuls on the concrete floor, covering her features.

　　"Captain, where are you looking!" Lu Tianqing's cheeks were scarlet. I glanced at her strangely and calmly stated, "She's not wearing panties."

　　"Captain!" Lu Tianqing stomped her foot and ran away.

　　I stood up and looked around, did not find the dead man's shoes, so pulled out a water pen and ruffled the messy hair on the dead man's face.

　　The dead man's skull was cracked, bleeding from the mouth and nose, staring at a pair of large eyes, a very gruesome look, but vaguely distinguishable, should have been a great beauty in life.

　　Raising my head, I looked not far from the brightly lit door of the unit and overheard a man in his early thirties standing outside the cordon.

　　The man was holding a bright red umbrella, standing on tiptoe, squinting in the direction of the woman's dead body, looking vaguely nervous.

　　"You, come here!" I pointed at him and bellowed. Like a frightened mouse, the man threw down his umbrella and turned to run. I was not slow to pick up the umbrella, he had been pounced on by the police in the flower bed.

　　I instructed the police to handcuff him, and then walked towards the door of the unit with the umbrella. This is a mid-range block built in 2005, with electronic access control and elevators with cameras. The deceased's family lived on the 12th floor, a small one-bedroom unit. I went to look at the back stairs, then turned back to the door of the deceased's home, a cold, wet and cold wind to meet the face.

　　The door is facing a walkway, straight to the balcony, the balcony's floor-to-ceiling glass window shattered piece, the floor-to-ceiling glass window should be below the location of the dead body.

　　Lu Tianqing came up to me and said: "Captain, the case has been very clear, Zhou Lan and the murderer for sex, somehow, they quarreled. The murderer grabbed Zhou Lan's head in a fit of rage and crashed it against the glass window. Which he knew he was too hard, the glass shattered, and Zhou Lan fell downstairs and died."

　　She paused and whispered with emotion, "It's not a coincidence that the pieces on the side are tempered glass, but this one is the only one that the landlord has replaced." She sighed, "on the other hand, think about it, the body fell out of the window so far, you can imagine how hard the killer. If this piece is also tempered glass, Zhou Lan's head must be shattered." Her words just fell, the police officer holding a video tape panting and running over. He said happily: "Captain Peng, Officer Lu, we found the elevator surveillance video. Just as Officer Lu said, 12:38 p.m., Zhou Lan and a man got on the elevator together, behaving intimately. 1:25 am, the man alone downstairs, looking very nervous ......"

　　"It was 1:25, not 1:35?" asked Lu Tianqing sharply.

　　"Yes." The police officer nodded affirmatively, "He was holding a red umbrella, very solid."

　　Lu Tianqing's gaze fell on the red umbrella in my hand and mumbled, "He took the elevator downstairs and then possibly took the stairs and turned back, right?" Without speaking, I inserted the umbrella into the willow-leaf bottle by the door and took a few steps back to admire the bottle.

　　I barely knew the name of the bottle in this shape was "willow leaf bottle", but I couldn't say much more. But I can see that the bottle is brightly colored, well-made, porcelain white bottle body painted with a fiery red phoenix. After the umbrella is inserted into the mouth of the bottle, the two have a strange harmony, as if the bottle should be used as an umbrella stand.

　　I frowned slightly and looked around. The living room is cluttered with all kinds of everyday items, there are many I can not say the name of the porcelain, messy but elegant.

　　The chairs and coffee table in the living room showed signs of movement, as if a fight had taken place, and two slippers were scattered in the corner of the living room.

　　I walked into the bedroom and what caught my eye was the messy bed, the smell of lovemaking lingering in the air, the black thong curled up in a ball and dropped at the foot of the bed. I pulled open the drawer of the bedside table with a water pen and there were several boxes of condoms, different brands and models, neatly arranged inside.

　　I turned to check the other side of the nightstand and the ID card on the dresser caught my attention. I looked closely at the photo on the ID card and exclaimed, "The deceased is not Zhou Lan!"

　　The bewitchingly beautiful woman

　　All the information in the deceased's room showed that her name was Zhou Lan. But when I saw the mugshot of Zhou Lan's ID card, I found that she and the deceased did have some resemblance, but they were never the same person.

　　As expected, after dawn, the police followed the ID number and found Zhou Lan, who was thousands of miles away. According to her recollection, eight or nine years ago, she dropped her ID card while working in the mountains and seas. She went back to her hometown to get a replacement ID card and then got married and had children and never returned to Shanhai.

　　"Captain, at first I also think she and the ID card photo does not look like, is it because she has plastic surgery?" Lu Tianqing said to me.

　　She woke me up with a start, I took a big step to the door and asked the man with the red umbrella earlier with a cold face: "The Mina you talk about, what is her real name? What is your relationship with her?"

　　The man's name is Xie Yi, he strained his neck and shouted: "Just called Mina, we are friends, I really did not kill her, she voluntarily slept with me, before the accident, I went to buy condoms ......"

　　"How long have you known each other?" I asked.

　　Xie Yi replied with his head down: "Just ...... I met tonight." He explained eagerly, "But I've known her for a long time, she often goes to bars to catch men, she has a good figure and is gorgeous ......"

　　Lu Tianqing asked drily, "Did you not agree on the price afterwards, so you killed her in a fit of rage?"

　　"No, of course not. She does not charge money, sometimes in turn will pay the carriage fee."

　　Lu Tianqing open mouth, a face of disbelief, but I was not surprised, the body form and the house furnishings fully indicate that she is not short of money, not like a woman in the flesh business, at least not in the bar casually soliciting customers.

　　Xie Yi saw that we did not speak, anxiously explained: "I said all the truth, you send people to the bar will know when you ask ......"

　　"All right." Lu Tianqing interrupted him, "Do you know what she does?"

　　"I heard that she is a writer of both sexes, there are people who say that she is a honey adopted by the big boss, anyway, there are all those who say anything." When Xie Yi spoke, the police attached to my ear whispering report, the red umbrella is luminous, so the security guards at the gate clearly saw, he hurried out of the neighborhood gate at 1:28, seven or eight minutes later turned back.

　　I pointed to the red umbrella in the vase and asked Xie Yi, "Is the umbrella yours?"

　　"No." Xie Yi shook his head, "My umbrella is in the car. It's raining outside, she told me to take the umbrella at the door ......"

　　"That's right!" His eyes lit up, "She took a phone call before she let me go out to buy a condom, maybe she was trying to detach me ......"

　　"Nonsense!" Lu Tianqing carried the evidence bag and waved it in front of Xie Yi's eyes, "There is no call record on the phone at all ......"

　　"It's not this phone." Xie Yi towards? Allowing the industry to thumb meal obeisance to serve second?" She has two cell phones, the other is an Apple phone, I watched her answer the phone, but also saw the caller ID ...... I just didn't see the name clearly, I only saw it was three words."

　　I saw his appearance is not like a lie, then instructed the police to start a carpet search, be sure to find the phone, he went downstairs to find the reporters to understand the situation. Soon, I learned from their mouths, the unit building at least six unmarried men and the deceased had sexual relations, two other married men had coveted the deceased, but was rejected by her.

　　Until dawn, the police still did not find the disappeared Apple phone. I finished watching the surveillance video at the entrance of the district, and arranged to line up the occupants of the building, especially the above eight men.

　　Lu Tianqing stood next to me biting her lip lightly. I asked her, "What do you want to say?"

　　"Captain, this case is simply a secret room murder case, the case is very clear. But the deceased's private life was extremely chaotic, even if we find traces of the murderer remaining at the scene, it only proves that he was there, not that he killed someone, and also, even if we find that phone, we don't know whose name it was registered under ......"

　　I glanced at her and instructed her formulaically, "You go and investigate the financial source of the deceased, maybe you can find her true identity."

　　"Yes!" She turned and ran upstairs.

　　The coroner's preliminary judgment was that the deceased had wounds on her hands and feet in addition to those left by the fall from height, and he could not determine whether this was rape, or rough sex.

　　I walked into the crime scene and stood in front of the dead man's bookshelf, my eyes fixed on the spine of the novel titled "Physical Needs". There were two versions of the novel in simplified and traditional Chinese, all unopened and supposedly authored by the deceased.

　　"Captain, there is a discovery!" The police excitedly held a few shoe boxes out of the deceased's bedroom.

　　Lu Tianqing stared at the shoe box bundles and bundles of hundred dollar bills, exclaimed: "Here are more than one million, the deceased would not be a bank robber, right?"

21 suspects in the mysterious case

　　teenage girl

　　In view of the deceased in the home reserves a lot of cash, tracing the source of income has also become a dead end. After the police confirmed that the deceased was not Zhou Lan, Lu Tianqing took the photo of the deceased and compared it to the national list of wanted criminals, which turned out to be nothing, and the missing persons database had no clues.

　　The police investigated the social relations of the deceased, excluding those men who had a solid alibi, leaving 21 men who had sexual relations with the deceased. Public Security Bureau police force is limited, there is no way to launch an investigation into them at the same time.

　　Three days have passed, the criminal investigation team is a sad cloud, we all hope that the media's investigation notice, but the people who called claiming to know the deceased are all saying the same thing, that she is Zhou Lan.

　　In the midst of all the turmoil, I took the time to finish reading the novel "Physical Needs". The novel tells the story of a young girl who accidentally receives a fortune after she leaves her career as a child prostitute, after which she moves around among different men and dies of venereal disease in her prime.

　　Perhaps in most people's eyes, this is purely a sexy novel, but when I finished reading this novel, my mood was like the winter rain outside the window, wet and cold. The responsibility of the police is to track down the truth and give justice to the dead, but the world is never black or white. Many times, the truth is not equal to justice. How do I choose this time?

　　"Captain, the 17th suspect's statement." Lu Tianqing voice is hoarse, eyes full of blood, "Captain, she met men and asked them if she was pretty, while posing with style, or else she took the initiative to tease them, I think she is either a sex addict, or psychologically abnormal. I say this unkindly, but I truly feel that she herself is partly to blame for her death."

　　Really? She was partly responsible for her death?

　　That finally made me make a decision.

　　I crushed out my cigarette and instructed the police to go to the university to investigate the female students who suddenly dropped out of school eight or nine years ago. Judging from the scene environment, the deceased's family is very well-off, one of the parents should be engaged in traditional cultural research, probably related to porcelain, her biological mother should have passed away.

　　Early the next morning, I was again woken up by the phone ringing and rushed to the Public Security Bureau.

　　Along the way, the police reported to me on the phone that the deceased's name was Wang Jingwen, her mother passed away nine years ago, her father remarried, and she chose to run away from home. His father's name was Wang Zhaohua, a professor of Chinese studies at the university, and his biological mother was a porcelain merchant.

　　I walked into the criminal investigation team and saw from afar a young girl of 14 or 15 years old with her head down, sitting at the table. She was wearing a school uniform, her hair cut short in the ears, her hands on her knees, her fingers crossed.

　　"Captain." Lu Tianqing walked to me, pointing to the young girl in the room and said, "She is the sister of the deceased Wang Jingya, her parents are not in Shanhai, she took the initiative to find the Public Security Bureau to identify the body, and said that you can not be late for school, I just called you."

　　I glanced at her with displeasure. I know, they all say behind my back that I have a wake up call.

　　Lu Tianqing smiled sarcastically and reported, "Wang Jingya is nominally the step-sister of the deceased, there is no blood relationship, but I heard from the neighbors that they are half-sisters. According to rumors, Wang Jingwen's birth mother had a car accident because she learned that her husband had an illegitimate daughter outside. Wang Jingwen also moved out to live alone because of this reason. My guess is that her family's cash was either left behind by her birth mother or given to her by her father."

　　I popped up, "How old is Wang Jingya's birth mother?" Lu Tianqing froze for a moment and said, "Look at the photo, the early 30's look, captain, how old she is and the case has something to do with it?"

　　I did not deny it and pushed open the door of the conference room. Wang Jingya looked up at me and lowered her eyelids again. She took out a group photo from her school bag and pushed it to me, saying calmly, "This is her photo, taken on New Year's Eve this year, when she came home. Mom and dad were away on business, and I couldn't watch TV, so I didn't see your search notice."

　　I looked at her carefully, her demeanor has a maturity that does not match her age, in a few words, she has explained things very clearly.

　　I looked down and examined the photo. On the photo, Wang Jingya and her parents were snuggling intimately, and Wang Jingwen was sitting on the sidelines, more like an outsider. The photo was taken 11 months ago, and my earlier speculation was correct: Wang Jingwen had undergone microplastic surgery during this period to make herself look more like Zhou Lan.

　　This act represents a denial of self-identity. I was almost 100% sure that my reasoning on the case was accurate.

　　Sure enough, when I said that because Wang Jingya was underage, the identification of the body could only be done by her parents, she angrily yelled, "Shame on her, she had nothing to do with our family nine years ago! All these years, she has only come back this one time to ask for money from her father ......"

　　"Why do you say she's shameless?" I pursued, "How do you know she's shameless?"

　　Wang Jingya looked at me with hatred and did not make a sound. I saw her emotional, signaled Lu Tianqing to send her out, and said to her, "Your father is coming home on the evening flight today, we will go to him."

　　"No going to look for my dad!" Wang Jingya tilted her little face and screamed, "You guys take me to identify the corpse, I can recognize it."

　　I silently put a psychiatrist's business card in front of her. She stared at me with wide eyes, and suddenly, she grabbed the card, tore it to pieces, and ran out without looking back.

　　I looked at her back and told myself that my decision was not wrong. Beyond the Law

　　I sat in my office smoking a cigarette, with the interview transcripts of 21 suspects on my desk. I didn't need to turn the file over, as if I could already see Wang Jingwen's eyes as she looked at them.

　　She wrote in "Physical Needs" that depravity ignites the body's needs, and carnal pleasures seem like a bottomless pit, and I am the slut who does not know how to satisfy. I used the hard-earned money from selling my flesh to buy fresher flesh. Only the strong body of a man can make me satisfied. I would drown in their panting and rhythm.

　　Her "thirst" was not a physical need, it was a twisted psychological need! I became more and more irritated and pushed away the questioning transcript.

　　I just didn't expect that Wang Jingya would come to me again, standing on the roadside under the office building, holding a red umbrella. She said Wang Jingwen had nothing to do with their family, she could identify the body, let us not go to her father.

　　"Last winter, the day after you turned 14 years old, you looked for her ......"

　　"No!" Wang Jingya screamed.

　　"In nine years, the only time she came home, it was for you, right?"

　　"No!" Wang Jingya denied hysterically. I pursed my lips and watched her. Suddenly, she threw down her umbrella and asked me with a smile, "Do you have to break up our family? I will tell everyone that you pushed me." She hooked the corners of her mouth and took a big step backward, followed by another big step.

　　I didn't expect her to be so determined, let alone a child with such a deep attachment to her family. I had no time to think about it, I jumped over and hugged her. We rolled a few times on the road, in the sound of cars braking one after another, I could only feel the pain, not only the sting of the body, but also the shock of the mind.

　　"Get two policewomen to watch her!" I bellowed to the police who came at the sound, "Go to Wang's house now, go to Wang's house and wait for her father!"

　　An hour later, Lu Tianqing and I rushed to Wang Zhaohua's villa in the suburbs. I sat on the sofa in the living room without saying a word, and Wang Jingya, protected by two female police officers, sat on the side.

　　When Wang Zhaohua pushed in the door, I showed my police officer's card and asked straightforwardly, "Mr. Wang, where is your cell phone?"

　　"What?" Wang Zhaohar's eyes fell on Wang Jingya. My heart pulsed with disgust and I forced my anger to repeat: "Where is your phone?"

　　"You guys picked up my old phone? I went abroad a few days ago and lost my phone at the airport, this is a new phone." He pulled the phone out of his pocket. I didn't take his phone, I just questioned him, "Did you see your daughter before you left the country? Your eldest daughter, Wang Jingwen."

　　Wang Zhaohua froze, his eyes fell on Wang Jingya again, and I knew what he was afraid of, I could not wait to go up and punch him. Seeing him shake his head, I pressed on, "Do you know Wang Jingwen's cell phone number?"

　　"I ......" Wang Zhaohua once again looked towards Wang Jingya. I waited impatiently and took out my cell phone to press Wang Jingwen's cell phone number.

　　A crisp cell phone ring came out of Wang Zhaohar's drag box.

　　"Why is Wang Jingwen's cell phone in your suitcase?" I looked at him.

　　Lu Tianqing stepped forward and snapped Wang Zhaohua's wrist. Wang Jingya cried out: "No, it's not possible! I listened to you and never went looking for her again ......" She sobbed, incoherent, "I shouldn't have gone to her ...... I'm not like her ...... I won't become like her, I don't want to be without a home ......" I walked silently to Wang Zhaohua's box, from the corner of the compartment to find the Apple phone. I saw the "headset" status on the screen, pressed cancel without a trace, and turned my head to question Wang Zhaohua: "You said you hadn't seen Wang Jingwen, but her phone was inside your suitcase, and there was a record of your call at 1:00 a.m. on December 11 ......"

　　"I was wrongly accused!" Wang Zhaohua still had a baffled expression, "I did go to her house three days ago, but it was daytime, and she was the one who asked me to go there ......"

　　"Be honest!" Lu Tianqing took out handcuffs and handcuffed his hands, "That day in the middle of the night, you went to Wang Jingwen and saw her fooling around with a man, and you pushed her downstairs in a fit of rage, didn't you?"

　　"No, I didn't!"

　　"Someone saw you calling her, and you said no!" Lu Tianqing pinned him to the back of the sofa chair, "I checked, you left Shanhai on the morning of the 11th flight. You rushed to the airport after killing someone, just in time!"

　　"No, I don't know what you're talking about!" Wang Zhaohua desperately denied it. Lu Tianqing escorted him to the police car.

　　I looked back and Wang Jingya was sitting on the sofa, her face was full of confusion and she had forgotten to cry.

　　I signaled the police to take her out and quietly left a psychiatrist's business card on the table.

　　Two hours later, Lu Tianqing rushed into my office, handed over the case file and said angrily: "Wang Zhaohua still does not admit that he killed Wang Jingwen, but we not only have the deceased's cell phone, but also found his fingerprints in the deceased's home and back stairs, so he can not afford not to admit. The couple who reported the case also said that while they were looking at the body, they were not sure if anyone had taken advantage of the chaos to leave ......"

　　I let Lu Tianqing ramble in my ear. Of course Wang Zhaohua would not admit to the murder, because the murderer was not him, Wang Jingwen committed suicide!

　　She carefully laid a trap, first inquiring about Wang Zhaohua's itinerary, asking him to meet, then deliberately taking his cell phone, and stuffing her own phone into the compartment of his luggage, opening the headset auto-answer mode.

　　Wang Jingwen took Xie Yi home in order to pretend to answer the phone in front of him, deliberately let him see the words "Wang Zhaohua", and prepared a very eye-catching red umbrella for him.

　　Unfortunately, Xie Yi did not see the name on the phone clearly, which makes the case become confusing.

　　Lu Tianqing saw the phone records on the phone as key evidence, in fact, it was after Xie Yi went downstairs, Wang Jingwen used Wang Zhaohua's phone to connect her own phone, which left the call records. Before she rushed out of the floor-to-ceiling glass window and pretended to be pushed downstairs, she must have smashed Wang Zhaohua's phone and flushed it into the flush toilet.

　　"Captain, how did you suspect Wang Zhaohua?"

　　I perfunctory her: "It's simple, those 21 suspects are not sincere to her, and how can hate out of love?"

　　"Also, but ......" Lu Tianqing frowned, "Just now at Wang's house, Wang Zhaohua seems to be very afraid of Wang Jingya to say something ......"

　　"You think too much." I interrupted Lu Tianqing. In fact, I had suspected at the first sight of the corpse that it was a case of suicide disguised as a homicide, after all, who would meet a guest wearing only a sexy pajama on such a cold winter night?

　　When I saw the door of the deceased's home has a channel facing the balcony glass, almost already sure that the deceased used this channel to help run, crashing through the glass window, pretending to be a homicide.

　　I signed my name in the lower right corner of the dossier handed over by Lu Tianqing. No one will ever know that Wang Jingwen used her own life to set up her own father, Wang Zhaohua, and that I, in turn, was her accomplice.

　　Epilogue

　　The police informed Wang Zhaohua's wife to go to the Public Security Bureau without telling her what had happened. Her husband's and daughter's cell phones were not working, so she hurriedly drove to the police station.

　　But when she opened the car door, a white envelope floated down at her feet. She panicked and pulled out the letterhead, and a few lines of elegant handwriting fell into her eyes.

　　Auntie.

　　When I learned that you followed him at the age of 14, I no longer hated you because you were as much a victim as I was.

　　I didn't run away from home because he couldn't wait to marry you before my mother's bones were cold. Mom ran off the road and died on the spot, nor was it because she learned of your existence and that of Jing Ya.

　　There was only one reason for everything: he, my real father, raped me on my 14th birthday.

　　Ten months ago, when Jing Ya suddenly appeared in front of me, when she told me that she was 14, I knew that my nightmare was repeating itself in her.

　　On New Year's Eve, I came home with poison, and I planned to end the filth forever, but I didn't have the courage to kill.

　　Auntie, Jing Ya and I were both sick. I tried to pretend I was someone else, but there was no way I could forget the nightmare 14-year-old, and eventually, I became the slut of all people.

　　Jing Ya was also sick. She was so attached to her "father" that she thought everything was normal. She knew it was wrong, but she tried to hold on to her so-called "family" and was willing to be threatened by him for the sake of the word "father".

　　I was hopeless, so I took him away, taking away the root of the filth.

　　You must remember to take Jing Ya to the doctor and not let her follow in my footsteps.