Chapter 4 Section 4

The body was found on the north side of the Kasai Bridge in the lower reaches of Arakawa, next to the Arakawa Sunamachi Riverside Park.An angler was moving in a small boat and found the body floating on the river against the dike.It was around five o'clock in the morning. It was an object wrapped in blue plastic paper, about tens of centimeters wide, and less than two meters long.The reason why this object floats is because there is a wooden ladder under it. At first the fisherman thought it was just an ordinary illegal discard, but when he looked through the binoculars, he found something that looked like a human ankle protruding from the end of the plastic paper, so he immediately called the police.

Police officers from the East City Branch rushed to salvage, and then they determined that the plastic wrapping was indeed a human body—a naked young girl, her face and fingerprints had not been damaged.It may be because it was placed on the ladder, so the body was not too wet, and it had not yet started to rot. It is speculated that it should be discarded immediately after death. Although the police started the investigation by dealing with the abandoned corpse case, because sooner or later it would turn into a homicide case, the investigators who came from the Metropolitan Police Department started their preliminary investigation from the direction of murder and abandoned corpse.

It didn't take much time to find out the identity of the corpse.The corpse was similar to the missing fifteen-year-old girl in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture. After comparing the fingerprints immediately, the police confirmed that the fingerprints of the two matched, and then contacted her father Shigeki Nagamine. Takashi Oribe from the Investigation Section 1 of the Metropolitan Police Department and Tsuna Nagazuka accompanied Nagamine to confirm the body.When Changfeng arrived at the Chengdong Branch, he was haggard like a patient, and his whole body was lost. Even so, when he actually saw his daughter's tragic death, Changfeng still cried hoarsely.His barking and roaring never seemed to stop.This profound grief also shook Oribe, who was so nervous that he couldn't move, and of course he didn't have the courage to say anything.

But what is surprising is that when Jiuzuka said to Changfeng: "After you calm down, we have some questions to ask you." Changfeng actually replied: "It doesn't matter if you do it right now." The expression made Oribe creepy.Because on that face after howling and crying, there was only hatred for the murderer. They decided to borrow the reception room of the Chengdong Branch to ask Changfeng.It is a rare situation for Hisuzuka to personally interrogate the family members of the victim. With a heavy but polite tone, Changfeng began to describe the situation when his daughter disappeared.He brought a notepad, and looked at the notepad from time to time to tell the time when Tuoma went out, the last time he called his daughter's cell phone, and so on.It looks like this notebook was only used after Ema's disappearance.

"Can I borrow that notepad?" Hisuzuka asked. "This? Yes." Changfeng hesitated for a moment, then handed it over. Hisuzuka was flipping through his notebook, and Oribe was watching from the side.The handwriting on it was very scribbled, and many things were written on it.One of them wrote: "The fireworks show ends at nine o'clock, and Tuma and the others leave around nine twenty?" This seems to be the message told to him by his daughter's friend. "Can you put it here first?" Kuzuka asked. "Yes, I hope it can help you." "This notebook is full of your thoughts, and you will definitely be able to use it to catch the murderer."

Hisuzuka's words seemed to irritate Nagamine, with a painful expression on his face, he shook his head. "Why did this child encounter such a thing...why do you want to attack that child?" Changfeng muttered to himself as if whimpering, then looked up at Oribe. "She was killed?" Oribe looked at the side of Hisuzuka, who slowly opened his mouth. "There's no way to tell yet. In any case, we don't know what the cause of death was." "Didn't he be strangled to death?" Changfeng touched his neck. "In terms of appearance, there is no such sign."

"No such trauma?" "From the looks of it, no." Oribe shifted his gaze from the side of his boss to the faces of his family members.Changfeng frowned, looking incomprehensible. "The body has been sent for a judicial autopsy, and the cause of death will be found out tonight." Hisuzuka said, "Whether it was a homicide or not may be judged after reading the results." "He must have killed him, right? Otherwise, why would he throw it into the river?" Changfeng raised his eyes. "Maybe the murderer didn't intend to kill the victim at first, but the victim died suddenly, so the murderer didn't know what to do with the body-this is very common."

"What...is it different from killing people?" Changfeng seemed a little regretful after a burst of excitement.He sighed. "Sorry……" "It's okay." Jiuzuka bowed slightly. "You're right, it's the same as murder. Whether it's intentional homicide or homicide is just a legal definition. So we will definitely track down the murderer and bring him to justice. I assure you .” Although the tone was very relaxed, what Jiuzuka said was very weighty, which seemed to make Changfeng feel that he was speaking from the heart. "Then I'll leave it to you." Changfeng bowed deeply.

Oribe and Hisuzuka sent Changfeng to the entrance of the sub-bureau together. They watched Changfeng get into the car driven by the criminal police before turning back. "Why didn't you tell him about the injection?" Oribe asked. "So what can I say?" "But Mr. Changfeng wants to know the cause of death." "He'll find out sooner or later. Is there any point in telling him our speculations at this time?" "Maybe it doesn't make sense..." Hisuzuka stopped and poked Oribe's chest with his mobile phone. "Remember, family members want to know everything, and they also want to know things they shouldn't know. But the more they know about the case, the more painful it will be. So try not to let the family members know, it is also the duty of the police."

"But if there is a problem because the victim has no information..." "It doesn't matter." After Jiuzuka finished speaking, he took a step forward. Unable to let go, Oribe hurriedly chased after him. Although Hisuzuka said that the remains did not look traumatized, this was not the case.Nagamine Ema's arm was internally bleeding from the injection, leaving traces little by little.That's definitely not left over from treating the disease.The methods and locations of the beatings were messy, and it was obvious at first glance that they were not done by medical staff.

The investigators speculated that it should be a stimulant, and Oribe felt the same way, and Hisatsuka probably thought so too.It is very rare for a large amount of drugs to be given at once, resulting in acute poisoning and heart paralysis. Of course, as Hisuzuka said, this is just speculation, maybe Nagamine Ema was poisoned to death, or maybe the injection of drugs is not directly related to the cause of death.But what did it matter if she told her father what information she had so far?Oribe thought about it. In the evening, the results of the forensic autopsy came in.Oribe and others, as well as the investigators from Hisatsuka's group, all gathered in a room in the Metropolitan Police Department. "The cause of death should be acute heart failure. The residual urine in the deceased's body showed a positive reaction, which is drugs." Jiuzuka held the information and slowly spit out these words. All the thirteen investigators present seemed to be sighing. "Then we can't prosecute the case as a homicide case." A veteran detective named Mano said. "Let's talk about this kind of thing after the murderer is caught!" Hisuzuka said in a soothing tone. "Using drugs to kill minors will arouse great attention in society, and the media will also cause commotion." "Do you want to trace it from the drug line?" The other detectives asked. "Of course we have to trace it from that line, but don't expect too much. I think the murderer may not know anything about drugs—at least not familiar with the dosage." Hisuzuka continued to look at the information. "The dosage of the injection was messy. Someone at the scene may have understood it, but the injection technique was still very bad. It must have been re-injected several times in order to find a vein. The above is the opinion of the forensic department. Those who are familiar with drugs, do you know? would do such a thing.” One of the detectives clicked his tongue. "Anyway, some dead brat must have gotten 'ice cubes' from somewhere, and then used it casually with a half-joking mood." Hisuzuka glared at the detective. "How do you know it's a dead brat?" "No, this..." "Don't have unscrupulous thoughts." Hisuzuka said, looking at the information. The air in the room became very heavy.Oribe felt weird, and everyone seemed to feel the same way.What the hell is this?he thinks.He had just been assigned to this department not long ago. "The murderer shouldn't know the victim, right?" Mano changed the subject. "It should be." Hisuzuka continued to look at the information and replied. Oribe can also understand this statement.The face and fingerprints of the corpse were not damaged. It can be seen that even if the identity of the corpse is confirmed, the murderer is not worried that the police will follow the line to find him. "If that's the case, why bother to throw away the corpse?" Mano rubbed his chin. "Wouldn't it be better to just throw it into the river?" "Maybe it's because you don't want to be discovered too early? If you are discovered too early, it will be easier to find witnesses." Oribe said. "In this case, it is better to tie a heavy object directly to the corpse, so that it will sink to the bottom of the river faster. Anyway, it will float up in the end. At least this can delay a little time. But the murderer tied the corpse to the ladder, as if on purpose Don't let it sink in." "Ah Zhen, what exactly do you want to say?" Jiuzuka looked at the veteran detective. "The murderer wanted the body to float away." "Floating away? Why?" "One of the purposes is to make it difficult for us to identify the target of the investigation. After the corpse drifts downstream, it will be more difficult for us to determine where the murderer discarded it. The scope of the investigation will inevitably expand, and it will be more difficult to collect witness intelligence." "Actually, the investigation is inherently difficult. People from the mobile investigation team also said that no one will pay attention to the drifting objects on the Arakawa one by one." Hisuzuka said this, scanning everyone's expressions, and then looked at Mano. "What about other reasons?" "This is my own guess, maybe it's not a decent idea for you to scold again." Kuzuka smiled wryly. "It's okay, let's talk about it." "Could the murderer be somewhere not far from Arakawa?" "Why do you think so?" "Abandoning the corpse is a huge project, and it is necessary to fully grasp the situation at the scene. It will be discarded in Arakawa, which means that the murderer is very familiar with the place. But he also hopes that the corpse will float as far away as possible, which has something to do with the murderer's mentality. gone." "That is to say, the murderer feels that the corpse is always near his residence, which makes him feel very uncomfortable, doesn't it?" "That's it." Tsukasa nodded, but said nothing.He seemed to be thinking about something. "In this way, don't choose Arakawa in the first place, wouldn't it be better to throw it somewhere else?" Oribe said. "If possible, the murderer wouldn't have to spend so much trouble." Mano replied. "But the murderer couldn't think of anywhere else." "If it's in the upper reaches of Arakawa, it's very close to the place where Nagamine Ema disappeared." The other detectives said, "If Ah Zhen guessed right, the murderer abducted the girl not far from his residence, and then The corpses were discarded nearby. The range of activities of this murderer is really small.” "That's right. I think the murderer used a car when kidnapping people and dumping corpses, but he shouldn't drive around very often. The car may not belong to the murderer. There is another possibility: the murderer may It’s someone who has just obtained a driver’s license and has no long-distance driving experience.” "Ashin!" Hisuzuka looked at his subordinates with puzzled and reproachful eyes. "Sorry, I'm being too subjective." Mano readily apologized. "It's okay to analyze the appearance of the murderer, but it's not good to have a preconception. It's true for others, and it's true for yourself." Mano said sorry, then bowed his head to apologize. "Starting tomorrow, the investigation headquarters will officially start operations, everyone wind me up!" Everyone answered: "Yes." After disbanding, Oribe captures Mano. "Hasn't the team leader considered the possibility that the murderer is a teenager?" Mano shrugged slightly, staring at the junior detective. "It's because he was convinced that it was so, so he didn't dare to say it." "what?" "So we have to be like him." Saying so, Mano put his index finger on his lips. --------------------------------- Notes: