ebookland Chapter 1111 Investigation of the Victim Zhao Hongwei
Chapter 1111 Investigation of the Victim Zhao Hongwei
An old man was squatting on the threshold weaving a bamboo basket. The bamboo strips flew between his knees, forming neat diamond shapes. When he saw the man in police uniform, the bamboo strips in his hand snapped in two with a "crack".
"Are you Mr. Zhao Decai?" Xiao Wang squatted down opposite the old man, handing him a thermos cup. The goji berries slowly unfurled in the hot water. "We found a body in an abandoned steel plant. Some features... might be related to your son, Zhao Hongwei." He flipped through the evidence photo album. The "Hongwei" tattoo on the deceased's left chest appeared as a blurry black on the printed paper, like a blot of ink spreading.
Zhao Decai's fingers suddenly froze, and the bamboo basket slipped from his knees. He trembled as he gripped the photo album, his fingertips repeatedly stroking the word "Hongwei." Suddenly, tears streamed down his face: "It's him! He got this tattoo on his twentieth birthday, saying he was going to achieve great things... That year they said he died in a car accident, but I didn't believe it!" The old man ran into the house, the earthen bed creaking under his feet. He pulled a rusty iron box from the hole in the bed. Inside, in a black and white photo, a young Zhao Hongwei was wearing steelwork clothes, the tattoo on his left chest shining in the sunlight, and a stainless steel watch on his right wrist—the butterfly clasp on the watchband perfectly matched the one found at the scene.
“His right femur was injured in the steel rolling workshop in 2018,” Zhao Decai pointed to his son’s right leg in the photo. “At the time, a steel coil fell from the overhead crane and caused a comminuted fracture. The doctor said he would have to wear a metal plate for the rest of his life.” He suddenly grabbed Xiao Wang’s wrist, his fingernails almost digging into the other’s flesh. “The person you found… does he have a metal plate in his leg?” In Xiao Wang’s pocket, the forensic doctor’s supplementary report was pressing against his back, with the words “Metal internal fixation shadow seen in the right femur, length 12cm” clearly visible.
The incandescent light in the village committee office flickered. When Zhao Decai's fingertip was pricked by the lancet, a drop of blood fell onto the sampling card, spreading next to the words "paternal sample." "Hongwei climbed over the transformer when he was a child and his left index finger was burned by electricity," the old man said, his voice trembling with tears as he looked at the bloodstains on the cotton swab. "His fingernail was always crooked. You... you look at the body and see if it looks like that?" Xiao Wang opened the scene investigation record, and entry 17 clearly stated: "Deformed nail of the left index finger, old burn scar visible."
Three days later, in the early morning, the provincial DNA comparison report lay on Li Ming's desk. When Xiao Wang burst into the office, the corner of the file folder scratched a white mark on the door frame. "16 STR loci are a perfect match," his voice bounced off the wall, "Parental index 99.999%, the deceased is Zhao Hongwei!" He spread out Zhao Hongwei's social security records. After "dying" in 2015, he worked in three building materials factories under the name "Zhao Hong." In July 2022, he joined Hongwei Building Materials as a warehouse manager. "His salary card has a fixed monthly expenditure, which is Zhao Decai's pension. The last payment was on July 10th, 3000 yuan."
The watch found at the scene yielded new findings in the technical department. The laser-engraved serial number inside the case, verified by the manufacturer, indicated it was sold to the steel mill's employee store in June 2014, with the purchaser registered as "Zhao Hongwei." "The wear and tear on the strap matches the characteristics of eight years of use," the technician said, magnifying a microscopic photograph of the clasp. "There's a 0.3cm scratch on the inside, perfectly matching Zhao Hongwei's record of being scratched by rebar at a construction site in 2016."
Zhao Hongwei's coworkers provided a more crucial clue. "His tattoo on his left chest is the word 'Hongwei'," Old Li, his roommate, gestured, "He said it was the name his father gave him, and he couldn't lose it. On the afternoon of July 15th, he was still talking to me about finding a batch of steel bars in the warehouse that were the wrong type, and he was going to report it to Manager Zhou." Old Li suddenly slapped his thigh, "That's right! He was wearing dark blue overalls that day, and there was a patch on his right elbow. I sewed it for him with a red cloth strip!" Xiao Wang immediately looked through the photos of the scene, and sure enough, there were red stitches mixed in with the fabric fragments on the deceased's right elbow.
While investigating Zhou Qiang's whereabouts, Xiao Wang's car was parked in the parking lot of Hongwei Building Materials for two whole days. Surveillance footage showed that at 3:17 pm on July 15, Zhou Qiang's black Passat drove out of the company, and the car's GPS track pointed directly to the First Municipal Hospital. "Zhou's mother suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage," the ICU head nurse said, flipping through the visiting records. "From 4:02 pm to 8:15 am on July 16, Zhou Qiang did not leave the ICU corridor. His signature is on our hourly patrol records, and the fingerprint comparison is correct."
The timestamps on the corridor surveillance footage flickered on the conference room wall: 18:23 on the 15th, Zhou Qiang bought bottled water from a vending machine; 21:07, he dozed off on the nurses' station counter; 00:45, he went to the restroom; 02:19, he asked a nurse for blood pressure medication. "He has a history of hypertension," the attending physician said, showing the prescription. "His blood pressure was unstable that night; it was measured again around 10 pm, 165/95 mmHg. In that condition, it's impossible for him to drive to the steel mill—the round trip would take at least 50 minutes, and he would also need to commit the crime and dispose of the body. The timing just doesn't add up."
More importantly, there's the gait analysis. Zhou Qiang's medical report showed that he tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in 2020, and his gait characteristics after surgery were "right knee eversion, stride width increased by 20%", while the size 43 shoe print at the scene showed "right knee valgus, stride width normal". "These are two completely different power generation patterns," Xiao Yang compared the cadence curves of the two on the projector, "Zhou Qiang's cadence is 85 steps/minute, while the cadence of the shoe print at the scene is 102 steps/minute, they can't be the same person."
Hongwei Building Materials' financial records show that Zhao Hongwei's salary was withdrawn in advance on July 15th, and the signature matched the one on file when he joined the company. "That afternoon he said he was going back to his hometown to see his father," the cashier recalled, "and asked me if there were any trucks going that way, saying he wanted a ride." This clue led Xiao Wang to re-examine the truck tire tracks at the scene—perhaps Zhao Hongwei was hitchhiking to the steel mill, rather than being forcibly transported.
When Xiao Wang returned to Zhao Decai's house, the old man was applying tung oil to a bamboo basket. "Hongwei, that child, has always been stubborn," he said, pointing to the certificates on the wall. "The arithmetic competition award he won in elementary school, it's still hanging there." The signature in the lower right corner of the certificate was crooked, and the radical of the character "宏" (Hong) was written particularly large. Xiao Wang suddenly remembered the watch he had found at the scene; the small characters engraved on the back, after being enhanced, were a stylized version of the character "宏."
The setting sun cast long shadows of the two men, and white smoke billowed from the distant steel mill chimneys. In Xiao Wang's notebook, the name "Zhao Hongwei" was circled repeatedly in red pen, next to a list of matching characteristics: tattoos, old injuries, a watch, patches on his work clothes, his signature habits… Each detail was like a piece of a puzzle, eventually piecing together a complete portrait. Next to Zhou Qiang's name, a clear cross was drawn, with the note "No time to commit the crime, gait inconsistent."
The case seemed to have reached a stalemate, with the killer still shrouded in mystery. But Xiao Wang knew that confirming the victim's identity was only the first step.