Chapter 652

The clouds on the horizon were bright red.

The gathered dark clouds desperately squeezed their positions, but could only circle around the edges.

Some gray, tattered dark clouds constantly threw themselves at the red clouds, only to have parts of them snatched away, then retreated dejectedly.

Sometimes, some gray clouds would even be spat out by the red clouds, drifting listlessly on the edge of the large dark clouds—unable to integrate, unable to break away, and weak themselves.

Tao Lu exhaled a large puff of smoke, as if trying to assist the dark clouds, his whole body exuding a sense of discomfort.

Huang Qiangmin was tired of accompanying him, sighed, and said, "Director Tao, why don't you go back to the office to rest? When there's a result, I'll call you?"

"I won't be able to rest well if I go back; I might as well stay here." Tao Lu was unwilling to leave. He was waiting for the result of Jiang Yuan's case selection. If he left now, what if Jiang Yuan also got off work?

Huang Qiangmin brewed a fresh cup of tea for Tao Lu, drank two mouthfuls of water himself, and added, "Jiang Yuan is being serious. When he was in Ningtai, do you know how he picked cases?"

"How did he pick them?" Tao Lu was indeed interested.

"In order." Huang Qiangmin laughed.

"In order?" Tao Lu didn't quite understand.

"He just took out a stack of case files and solved them in order." Huang Qiangmin curled his lips and said, "You don't know, during that time, our entire county and bureau were running around everywhere. We were catching people everywhere; the county bureau's procuratorate and court couldn't keep up. For cases where jurisdiction could be changed, we sent them to places like Qinghe City. The whole city was busy!"

Tao Lu's eyes were about to light up as he listened. What kind of god-like police officer is this! He must have walked out of CCTV.

Huang Qiangmin continued, "Jiang Yuan is carefully selecting cases now, probably because he's afraid of picking a major case he can't solve, and also afraid that the cases he picks aren't important enough. He's a bit conflicted."

When he said this, Tao Lu not only felt psychologically comfortable, but even felt a bit grateful—Jiang Yuan was truly considering things for him.

Besides considering things for him, who would specifically pick such major and serious cases?

Solving cases is not a TV show. If you take a case and can't solve it, the aftermath is very troublesome. In fact, current cases are under a lifetime responsibility system. Even after you retire, someone might come to your door with a notebook to ask you about the case from back then. And when you think of an important piece of evidence, that is the moment the assassin is about to arrive.

For ordinary criminal police, a homicide is a homicide. While solving major and serious cases is certainly worth bragging about, taking the initiative to go after major and serious cases really requires a big heart.

In fact, those who can solve ordinary cold homicide cases are already the elite of the elite.

Tao Lu lit another cigarette, handed one to Huang Qiangmin, and smiled, "No rush, take your time, I can wait."

Huang Qiangmin nodded with a smile and resumed chatting with Tao Lu about trivial matters. Soon, Cui Qishan, Xiao Si, and Li Jiang, who came to the special task force to handle procedures, joined the conversation, and the atmosphere in the smoking area turned gloomy again.

The sky gradually darkened.

The lights in the office were blindingly bright.

Just as Tao Lu was smoking to the point of feeling like vomiting, he saw a super tall black shadow walk out of the office.

Tao Lu immediately poked the cigarette butt deep into a flowerpot.

"Director Tao." Jiang Yuan called out politely, then added, "I've picked a case, take a look."

Tao Lu naturally took the case file, steadied himself, and couldn't help but smile at his own expense. How far had things come that he was already feeling anxious about gains and losses? A criminal investigation detachment leader who would make mistakes as long as he did things and whose heart would stop beating when the phone rang in the middle of the night—whoever wants to do this job can do it.

After building his psychological defenses like this, Tao Lu looked at the case file in detail.

Although it was agreed to be a major and serious case, Tao Lu was still shocked by the content in the file: "The Corpse in the Rain Case?"

As everyone knows, crimes committed on rainy days are relatively difficult to investigate. There are several key points here, such as evidence being easily washed away by rain, the efficiency of equipment like cameras being reduced, and furthermore, there are relatively fewer pedestrians when it rains, and visibility is poor, making it less likely to have eyewitnesses.

Anyone who has studied a little criminology basically understands this principle. Cases like the Rain Night Butcher in Hong Kong were all carried out using the cover of rainy days.

Naturally, there are always criminals who think they are clever and choose similar methods to commit crimes. But among these, not many actually end up becoming cold cases.

"The Corpse in the Rain Case" is one of them.

When the victim of this case was discovered, it was by the side of a remote path. The path led to an abandoned quarry, and now not many cars or people passed by. It was only when nearby villagers occasionally passed by, smelled a foul odor, and went over to look that they discovered the corpse, which had already reached the giantism stage.

After the criminal police team arrived, the first thing they noticed was that the area around the corpse had been carefully cleaned. Then, based on the forensic expert's estimation of the time of death, it was determined that it was raining during the two days the body was dumped.

But if it were just that, the case wouldn't be crowned with the word "Rain." Over the next two months, two more similar cases were discovered.

The bodies were dumped in the wild, and it was raining around the time of death—the forensic strength in the capital is strong, so determining the time of death on a certain day is no problem at all. After the identities of the victims were confirmed one after another, there were also similarities: all three were female drifters accompanying tourists.

The unification of the three cases, plus the fact that each corpse and the area around the dumping site had been carefully cleaned, and the victims were all sex workers—the favorite of serial killers—made the time point of "raining" stand out.

Knowing how to use the weather and choosing vulnerable victims—such a clearly professional killer would naturally receive extra attention.

And the killer's actions also showed that the killings were planned, not impulsive.

It is actually very difficult for normal people to have three enemies that they still need to kill after careful consideration.

Therefore, such a killer is essentially killing for the sake of killing, not for profit. This speculation naturally attracted a large amount of police force from the criminal investigation detachment. Especially after the third case occurred, Tao Lu not only mobilized troops but also invited experts from the ministry and foreign aid.

But none of them were able to solve the case.

Fortunately, after the three cases, no similar cases occurred for the next half year, leading Tao Lu and others to once think that the killer had disappeared.

However, the fourth case appeared again three years ago. It was the same type of female drifter accompanying tourists, the same dumping of bodies in the wild, the same rainy day dumping, and the same carefully cleaned crime scene...

Then, the killer hid again.

Tao Lu never expected Jiang Yuan to choose this case and couldn't help but say, "The case you chose is indeed a major case, but wouldn't the difficulty be too high?"

His gaze swept toward Huang Qiangmin. Didn't you say Jiang Yuan was picking a major case that was easy to solve and valuable? How did it become such a high-difficulty major case?

Huang Qiangmin could understand Tao Lu's gaze. He coughed twice and first used rhetoric to defend himself: "Let's just say, among cold cases, are there any major cases that are easy to solve? They are all unsolved major cases, and it's not necessarily true that big cases are harder than small cases, right..."

"The resources invested in major and special cases might be a hundred or a thousand times that of small cases!" Tao Lu said, "The Corpse in the Rain Case was also looked at by heavyweight technical experts from the ministry. If it really..."

"How long did the technical experts look at it?" Jiang Yuan didn't ask who they were, nor did he wait for Tao Lu to finish speaking, interrupting him slightly impolitely.

Tao Lu was a bit surprised. He recalled for a moment and said, "They looked at it for a total of over an hour, and then gave us over an hour of technical analysis."

"Over an hour is only enough to finish looking at the case files and photos. If they spent more time looking at the photos, they could only skip through the case files." Jiang Yuan was too familiar with the work mode of technical experts because he worked the same way. For most cases that came to his door, being able to invest over an hour of time was already considered giving a lot of face.

Technical experts provide appropriate technical guidance or counseling based on existing conditions, which is similar to a teacher explaining problems to students. It focuses on inspiration and support; it's impossible for them to overstep their authority and help you solve the case directly—that service can only be Huang Qiangmin-style.

Therefore, it's better to have your own technical experts, even if they are a level lower. The work done over several hours or days is not necessarily worse than that of a technical expert. Of course, if you are strong enough yourself and can get guidance from high-level technical experts, the effect will certainly be better.

Jiang Yuan's level is already high enough, perhaps even stronger than the technical experts Tao Lu invited.

However, most people have not yet been able to clearly understand this point.

Tao Lu hesitated slightly and added, "It was agreed that you would decide the case, so naturally, you should decide. That... did you see something?"

"It's just a suspicion for now, but..." Jiang Yuan held the case file, paused, and said, "The third case is highly likely to be a copycat crime!"

"Copycat? How..." Tao Lu was greatly shocked. The amount of information here was too huge.

You don't have to be a serial killer to know that for a copycat crime, you first need to know the details and methods of the copied target. But unlike abroad, in China, for cases like serial killers, before they are solved—and even after they are solved—they are not necessarily made public. Even if they are, it's only superficial stuff, rarely involving details.

So, if the third case is a copycat crime, how did the killer get the details?

Tao Lu was terrified by the thought!

Thinking further, if the third case is a copycat crime, what is the fourth case?

Jiang Yuan opened the case file directly and said, "Many details of the third case were done correctly. When I first looked at it, I didn't immediately notice the difference. However, seeing the autopsy photos, the difference between the two killers is huge. Although both used daggers, the weight and shape of the daggers, the state and hardness of the blades were different, and the force application method of the users was even more different. In this way, even if the stabbing positions were similar, one could still distinguish that the killer was not the same person."

Jiang Yuan's level of tool mark identification has reached LV6. When used at a crime scene, he can see what kind of tools and what methods were used to cause various marks. Currently, this skill is mainly mastered by trace examiners.

And in forensic pathology mastered by forensic experts, although they also need to infer the injury-causing tools, this point alone is not as good as tool mark identification.

In fact, Jiang Yuan's forensic pathology has also reached LV4. Even in the capital, he is still worthy of the title of technical expert.

Tao Lu didn't understand the technology, but he understood what Jiang Yuan said. After a little thought, he asked the last question: "Could it be an accomplice?"

"Not ruled out, but it doesn't look like it. Moreover, the fourth case used the same weapon and method, which is quite special." Jiang Yuan stretched his slightly stiff neck and said, "I think this discovery is enough to reopen the case."

Tao Lu nodded blankly, and was shocked.

The corners of Huang Qiangmin's mouth couldn't help but reveal a 66.6-degree smile. What he likes to see most now is other city's criminal police captains looking at his Jiang Yuan with shock and foolishness.

"As expected of a big metropolis, the cases are flashier than in our small county." Huang Qiangmin maintained his smile.