Chapter 15 Chapter fifteen

It is not easy to forget someone.You think you are trying to forget, but what you are doing is actually collecting.Maybe all you can do with your whole life is to hide that person and those things in a corner of your heart, as if it never appeared.But on a certain day of a certain year, that person and those things will appear unexpectedly again, like a shooting star piercing the sky, passing sharply across your heart, leaving a piece of brilliance and some tiny pains. But reducing contact with a person is not so difficult.All you need to do is to make yourself too busy to breathe, and delete the long-stored number on the phone, hoping that the string of actually irregular numbers will gradually become blurred under the curtain of time.Interestingly, time is my natural enemy when looking for the truth as a forensic doctor, but it is also the only god I can rely on when I hope to forget.

With the help of time, the god of eternity, everything develops as I wish. On a hot summer afternoon, facing a desk that has never been moved, it suddenly occurs to me that I am trying to forget , but in fact, how much can I remember about her.That smiling face used to appear in front of me every day, but now, when she smiles, I can't remember how much her eyebrows bend, and how the corners of her mouth are raised. I shook my head, unwilling to fall into these meaningless fantasies. I was looking for something to keep me busy when I heard the phone ring. It was so great to have a case at this time, I almost jumped up with joy.

It was the Zhongshan Road Fire Brigade who called.Interactions between forensics and fire brigades are nothing new, especially when fires involve casualties.However, the fire brigade has the reputation of "evidence terminator" in the entire technical squadron of the Criminal Investigation Brigade. When it comes to the destruction of various evidence by fire hoses and fire extinguishing foam, everyone in the technical squadron has endless regrets and helplessness. .But this time my luck was surprisingly good-the fire brigade went there, but the fire did not burn. It’s not surprising to say that there was no fire, but the fire brigade was called because the residents of the community smelled a gas leak, but they couldn’t knock on the door on the third floor that gave off a choking gas smell. The neighbors were afraid of fire and explosion, so they went to Called the fire department.

That's why the fire brigade was the first to arrive on the scene, not us.The fire brigade had a plan in advance to deal with this situation. They quickly used hydraulic shears to tear down the security window on the third floor. When they went in, they saw that the person was already dead, but it was obviously not caused by gas poisoning, so they contacted us. Soon I rushed to the area where the crime occurred with a heavy toolbox, and the brothers from the fire brigade stopped me, saying that a jar of gas had leaked out, and it would take at least two hours before I could enter safely.Afterwards, they whined and left with the siren on, leaving me standing downstairs stupidly alone, not going, let alone going.I also have to prevent people from accidentally entering the dangerous area with possible explosions. This is the job assigned by the fire brigade before leaving.

The firefighters walked too fast, and I was still a little dizzy standing on the stairs.It doesn't sound like my job to keep people from straying into dangerous areas?Alas, forget it, I can understand that I am protecting the scene from being vandalized.Thinking of it like "Ah Q", I feel much more relieved.But these two hours are really not a good time.The heat alone is enough. I heard that a gas leak may cause fire and explosion. The surrounding residents surrounded me three floors in and three floors outside.Seeing that I'm the only person here in a police uniform standing around doing nothing, some ugly words come out.

"Hey, you look like you are so big, standing like a wall, what's the matter with you standing at the door with such a big toolbox and not doing any work? Did the soy sauce go to the wrong place?" A loud voice suddenly sounded .As soon as he finished speaking, the whispers in twos and threes instantly turned into roars of laughter. To tell the truth, this cynicism bores me more than the summer heat.But I didn't reply, and I didn't smile bitterly. Looking at the circles of white sweat stains faintly showing under the sweaty vest of the uncle who was speaking, I was very considerate of his eagerness to go home to enjoy the cool.

The scene is always so closed, and it is not a problem not to let them go home. I walked into the scene without waiting for two hours.Although the windows had already been opened by firefighters, and the air in the room was no longer lethal enough to burn and explode, the smell was still unspeakable.It was not the smell of corpses that forensic doctors were used to and was familiar with, but the smell of some kind of chemical raw material. Originally, liquefied petroleum gas for daily use has no smell.But in order to make people more alert to the danger of leakage, manufacturers add this kind of smelly "mercaptan" to liquefied petroleum gas, which is what we usually call "coal gas".The composition of the mercaptan and the gas released by the weasel is exactly the same.

It was the smell that alarmed the neighbors, who called the police. As soon as I walked into the bedroom, I figured out why the fire alarm was running so fast.A family of three died unexpectedly, this is a tragedy of extermination! The death of more than two people is a major criminal case, and the words "major criminal case" hit my heart one by one like stones dripping with blood. No, since it is a major criminal case, I must be careful and careful, and not miss any details on the scene.After inspecting all the doors and windows at the scene, I found that I really should thank the brothers of the fire brigade who I just slandered.Complete anti-theft windows and solid anti-theft doors, if they didn’t use professional hydraulic shears to tear down the anti-theft windows and open the door, I would have to take a skull saw and slowly saw the steel bars, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk in until tomorrow this gate.

After confirming that the anti-theft doors and windows did not show signs of being pried, I smiled wryly. Could it be another murder case in a secret room?What kind of charades is God playing with me this time?I can't help but bow my head in meditation. In fact, the doors and windows were not destroyed, and there are many possibilities for the murderer to enter and exit the scene: 1. The murderer has the key; 2. The murderer knew the victim before, and the victim opened the door; 3. The murderer and the victim did not know each other, so it was the murderer The door was cheated open; 4. The sweltering weather caused the owner to not close the door, and the murderer took advantage of it.

Although this is indeed a clue, I still can't confirm anything, so I can only continue to search for clues at the scene. Another important clue was the source of the gas leak—the all-too-common gray gas tank.It is now lying quietly in the living room.But the living room is obviously not where it should stay, not to mention, there is a section of the gas pipe that has just been cut on the pressure reducing valve of the gas jar. The other end of the cut gas pipe should be under the stove.Going to the kitchen and squatting down, I really touched the neat break of the gas pipe. A transparent shadow seemed to appear in front of my eyes. He bent down and cut the gas pipe, and dragged the gas tank to the living room like a gust of wind.

What is the murderer going to do?Using gas poisoning to kill?This doesn't make sense.The cause of death of the three deceased was not gas poisoning. No one can be killed a second time, and there is no need to turn on the gas for those who are already dead.Burning corpses to destroy evidence?So why didn't he light the fire in the end?Everyone has been killed by him, and no one can stop him anymore.Also, the strange thing is that apart from the cut-off place under the stove, the gas pipe has a second break near the pressure reducing valve, which is a bit superfluous. The broken end of the gas pipe cut from the stove is neat and tidy, but the opening near the pressure reducing valve is messy and rough. I stroked the opening of the gas pipe and felt suspicious. Was it more than two people who committed the crime?This is more reasonable.Three people were killed!I look tall and tall, but let alone three people, even if three chickens are put here for me to kill, I will still be very busy. The murderer panicked? This is also normal.No one can stay in the same room with three dead people and not feel scared, except for the forensic doctor. I really only had a wry smile. Of course, these inferences are all based on my conviction that the deceased had another cause of death, which has nothing to do with liquefied petroleum gas.Please forgive me for having to use the somewhat awkward name of "liquefied petroleum gas" here, instead of the more familiar "coal gas" or "liquefied petroleum gas".Strictly speaking, "liquefied petroleum gas" includes two products: liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas. The former is a by-product of the petroleum industry, while the latter is extracted from nature. The chemical composition of the two is completely different.In a less strict but easy-to-understand way: If you use a gas jar at home, it is mostly liquefied petroleum gas, and if it is pipeline gas, it is mostly liquefied natural gas. The chemical composition is different, of course the physical and chemical properties and toxicity are different.Interestingly, liquefied petroleum gas is heavier than air and liquefied natural gas is lighter than air. In other words, if there is a gas tank leak at home, you should stand up straight to check it, but if the pipe gas leaks, you should squat down to check it. And what you will never believe is that LNG is non-toxic and harmless. Of course, I don't mean that if you use piped gas at home, you can sit back and relax.In fact, "gas poisoning" in the mouths of ordinary people and even professional doctors is a very vague concept. In the eyes of our forensic doctors, it can be divided into at least the following four poisonings with completely different causes, pathogenesis and pathological changes: liquefied petroleum gas poisoning (Liquefied petroleum gas can directly cause poisoning), carbon monoxide accumulation poisoning caused by insufficient combustion of liquefied petroleum gas (including liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas), carbon dioxide accumulation poisoning of liquefied gas combustion products, and hypoxia caused by excessive concentration of liquefied natural gas ( Liquefied natural gas, although non-toxic, is not breathable). For forensic doctors, different causes of death represent different inspection methods and different corpse phenomena, which must not be confused. For example, liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas have one thing in common, that is, they both need a lot of air to burn: the combustion of a liquefied petroleum gas or liquefied natural gas requires more than 30 times the volume of air.Therefore, the "gas poisoning" in the mouths of ordinary people or doctors is in most cases due to poor ventilation, carbon monoxide poisoning caused by insufficient combustion of liquefied petroleum gas, or poisoning caused by the accumulation of carbon dioxide produced by combustion. In the case of accidental death caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, the skin and even the internal organs of the deceased usually turn pink and tender due to the accumulation of carbon monoxide.I am so familiar with this red color that I can almost tell the cause of death just by looking at the corpse. Sometimes I think sadly that this may be the biggest difference or helplessness between forensic medicine and being a doctor: as a doctor, your knowledge can fight against death; while forensic medicine, you can only watch the tragedy all over again Happens over and over again. The cause of death of the three victims in this murder case is obviously not gas poisoning. Even if you are not a forensic doctor, you can easily guess their cause of death. One woman's head was even tightly wrapped with two layers of plastic bags. Cause of death: asphyxiation.Method of death: homicide.Who, and what kind of deep hatred, caused this tragic family extermination to happen? The trace team hasn't come yet, I can still take a good look at the scene. The three dead fell in different rooms, a young woman, an elderly man and an elderly woman.The telephone line in the living room was unplugged.This shows that the murderer has mastered the initiative of the scene and can do whatever he wants. In addition to the most obvious evidence such as the three corpses, the gas tank, and the unplugged telephone line, there is another phenomenon worth noting at the scene, that is, there are traces of turning in the room. For example, the drawer of the TV cabinet in the living room was opened. In the drawer of commonly used medicines in the family, some medicines were scattered on the ground, the coffee table was not in its original position, and there was a broken teacup on the ground next to it.The large wardrobe in the bedroom has a similar phenomenon, and the clothes in the large wardrobe are thrown on the ground in a mess.Usually, this kind of situation suggests that the murderer’s motive for committing the crime is probably seeking money. Then, what is the reason that making seeking money has turned into killing?I could not understand. If it is robbery-type crimes such as theft and robbery, how does the perpetrator easily open the firm anti-theft door? I stood in a messy scene, and the image of the hostess smiling happily when cleaning the room and wiping sweat slowly emerged in my mind. Her almost transparent figure appeared in front of the coffee table in the living room, and then disappeared without a trace as if being blown away by a gust of wind. Is she reluctant to leave, or is there something she wants to tell me? I curled up on my sofa like a bird with folded wings. I like this relaxed posture when thinking about problems. It can minimize my perception of the outside world and focus on wandering thoughts.The current case makes me feel a little strange. Many clues cannot be reasonably explained. I need to concentrate on connecting all the clues together and think again. To a large extent, the process of case detection is like a jigsaw puzzle.Every piece of evidence found at the scene and every clue in the case is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. If they are all placed in the right position, the whole case will be like a scroll with smooth lines.But the biggest difference between case detection and jigsaw puzzles is that you can't get all the pieces at once, and even some pieces you can never get. Now we have some more fragments than when we first went to the scene: the footprints prove that there is only one murderer, although one person killed three people in a row without alarming the neighbors, this seems to be the plot of a martial arts movie rather than reality , but Weicheng is quite confident in the result. I also personally went to see all the footprints extracted at the scene. There is indeed only one murderer. But there are some fragments that we haven't found yet, some of them are possible, and we are doing our best.The identities of the victims have been confirmed, namely the daughter-in-law, mother-in-law and father-in-law. The criminal investigation team is doing its best to find the whereabouts of the son of another member of the family.This son, who has not yet appeared, cannot be excluded from my list of suspects for the time being. And some other fragments, we will never be able to get it.The criminal had a certain awareness of anti-investigation. After committing the crime, he cleaned the scene carefully, but his fingerprints could not be found on the scene. It is a reality that criminal investigation work has to accept that some fragments that are forever missing must be faced.I rubbed my aching temples. But it's not the missing pieces that bother me the most, it's the vague feeling that some pieces have been misplaced by us.The picture of the whole case does not feel "fluid", but I can't tell what is wrong, which puzzle piece is put in the wrong place.