kvmb Chapter 1083 Investigating the Red Truck
Chapter 1083 Investigating the Red Truck
"There's a hole in the left chest of the jacket, the edges are charred black." Xiao Sun measured it with a ruler, "2.1 centimeters in diameter, looks like it was burned by a high temperature." He turned the jacket over, and there was reddish-brown clay stuck to the fabric, the same composition as the hiking boot print. Xiao Yang's gaze fell on the half-open cigarette pack sticking out of the pocket: "Hongtashan cigarettes, the butt is still inside, damp like it's been soaked in sweat." He chuckled, pinching the edge of the cigarette pack, "Qiangzi is certainly not tidy, he didn't even put out the cigarette butt."
The photo shoot took a full forty minutes, with close-ups of every button and every crack. When they got to the hem of the coat, Xiao Sun suddenly pointed to a dark red stain: "This isn't machine oil." He touched it with pH test paper, which immediately turned dark green. "It's blood, and it hasn't been washed with water; it must have been splattered." Xiao Yang immediately adjusted the camera angle: "Photo 112, bloodstain morphology analysis, belongs to the same person as the bloodstain next to the hopper."
As they surveyed the area towards the red truck, the sand and gravel became increasingly loose. Xiao Sun's heel sank into the sand, pulling out a clod of earth embedded with a metal piece: "What's this?" He used a geological hammer to break the clod, and the silver fragment glittered in the sunlight. Xiao Yang brought a magnet close, and the fragment was immediately attracted: "It looks like a fragment from a truck exhaust pipe; there are welding marks on it." He crouched down to examine the ground; next to the tire tracks were a series of messy footprints: "A size 44 hiking boot; the pressure point on the forefoot is deeper than next to the hopper, indicating this person was running."
The truck cab became a key area for inspection. When Xiao Yang opened the passenger door, a smell mixed with sweat and engine oil hit him. His camera panned across the blood-stained gauze in the storage compartment: "Image 156, the teeth marks on the edge of the gauze look like it was bitten." Xiao Sun was inspecting a wrench under the floor mat; the blood on the hammerhead had dried to a dark brown: "There are skin tissue fragments in the wrench groove; we'll have to use a DNA extractor." He suddenly exclaimed, pulling a long black hair from the seat gap, "This length doesn't look like a man's."
The gravel pile in the truck bed wasn't level. Xiao Yang used a probe to dig down, hitting something hard about 15 centimeters from the surface. "Dig carefully," he said, pressing Xiao Sun's hand down, "Don't disturb the shape." Two entrenching tools were used to carefully dig, and half an hour later, a silver watch chain was revealed. The wear marks at the break matched perfectly with those on the remains. "Screenshot 189, the relative position of the watch chain and the gravel," Xiao Yang's voice held a hint of excitement, "This means Qiangzi threw the watch chain into the truck bed. Why didn't he take it with him?"
By the time they reached the quarry wall, the sun was already setting. Xiao Sun stopped at a hole in the barbed wire; the hooked fibers matched perfectly with those on his coat. "The hole is 1.6 meters high," he said, measuring the gap's width, "53 centimeters, just enough for a person to pass through. The soil outside has fresh trampling marks, size 44 hiking boots, matching the shoe prints in the quarry." Xiao Yang suddenly pointed to the ditch outside the wall: "Look at the floating objects on the water." A corner of a blue tarpaulin peeked out into the murky water, its edges frayed and torn.
When the camera reached the 273rd photo, it suddenly warned of "insufficient memory." Xiao Yang sat on the investigation kit, reviewing the photos, while Xiao Sun arranged the 17 evidence bags he had collected by number: "3 fiber samples, 5 bloodstain samples, 4 soil samples, 1 cigarette butt, 1 watch chain, and 1 wrench." He counted the items on the list, his brow furrowing. "Besides these, we haven't found anything that directly points to the murderer."
Xiao Yang's finger slid across the camera screen, stopping at the burn hole in the work jacket: "The shape of this hole is strange; it doesn't look like it was burned by a cigarette butt." He pulled up a photo of the truck engine; the exhaust pipe was located just below the driver's seat to the left. "It might have been burned near the exhaust pipe, but why would it burn a hole?" Xiao Sun suddenly remembered something: "Could the engine oil in the muscle of the stump have gotten from this jacket?"
The setting sun cast long shadows of the two men. The conveyor belt in the material yard had stopped, leaving only the mournful sound of the wind whistling through the sand and gravel. Xiao Yang put the last bag of soil samples into the box: "Send these back to the lab tonight, focusing on checking the DNA in the cigarette butts, comparing the fiber composition, and analyzing the stress at the broken chain." He stood up and brushed the sand off his pants. "Although we haven't found any major clues, piecing these fragments together will eventually reveal the outline of the truth."
As Xiao Sun locked the investigation kit, he noticed Xiao Yang was still taking pictures of the hole in the wall. In the twilight, the gap resembled a peeping eye, silently watching the evidence scattered throughout the storage yard. "Let's go," Xiao Sun tugged at his arm, "the lab lights are on, waiting for us." Xiao Yang pressed the shutter one last time. In the viewfinder, the ditch outside the hole shimmered faintly, the blue tarpaulin completely submerged, like a secret that refused to speak.
On the way back, the box containing the evidence swayed gently in the back seat. Xiao Yang, watching the streetlights flash by outside the window, suddenly spoke: "Whose do you think that long black hair is?" Xiao Sun tightened his grip on the steering wheel: "Maybe it's Qiangzi's accomplice, maybe… just someone passing by." Silence fell in the car, broken only by the soft rustling of the evidence bag, exceptionally clear in the night. They both knew that these seemingly scattered clues would eventually reveal their hidden connections in test tubes in the lab. And the figure hiding outside the wall would ultimately be dragged back into the sunlight by this silent evidence.
As Li Ming pinned the photo of the red truck to the blackboard in the dispatch room, a spotlight from the material yard swept across the window, casting a moving patch of light on the photo. "Xiao Wang, you're in charge of thoroughly investigating this truck," he said, pointing to the rope in the truck bed in the photo. "From the purchase record to its whereabouts over the last three months, every refueling and every repair must be meticulously documented." Chalk dust from the edge of the blackboard was blown by the wind and landed on Xiao Wang's open notebook.
Xiao Wang took Xiao Zhang to the vehicle management office first. The metal cabinets in the archives gleamed coldly. When the staff member flipped through the registration information for the red truck, his brows furrowed: "This truck is second-hand. The original owner transferred it to someone named 'Li Zhiqiang' last year, but the registered address is fake, and the contact number is not in service." He pointed to the transfer contract in the file folder, "The fingerprints at the signature don't match any identity information; it's clearly forged."
While reviewing the surrounding surveillance footage, the images resembled faded old photographs. Xiao Zhang pressed the fast-forward button repeatedly: "Captain Wang, look, last Wednesday, this truck stopped at the entrance of the building materials market. The driver was wearing a sun hat, and his profile looked a bit like the 'Qiangzi' the old worker mentioned." The man in the surveillance footage was loading steel bars into the truck bed, wearing a silver watch on his left wrist—the watchband was completely different from the one on the severed limb; the watch chain was solid and gleamed coldly in the light.