SFTD -Chapter 15 The Faceless Female Corpse (Part 7)

Ma Keke’s eyes widened instantly, and she glared at the two men angrily.

“So you’re suspecting me? Heh! If it were me, would I have gone to see her yesterday afternoon?”

Deputy Captain Bao widened his eyes and slammed the table hard.

“Answer the question! Don’t say useless things. We’re investigating Zhong Yishan’s cause of death, so we hope you’ll cooperate. According to the teachers and students, you and Zhong Yishan were close friends. Don’t you want to help the police catch the murderer?”

Ma Keke curled her lips disdainfully and rolled her eyes impatiently.

“I returned to school a little after three o’clock the afternoon before yesterday, definitely before four. At the time you mentioned, I should’ve been in the dormitory. I wasn’t feeling well, so I skipped dinner and rested.”

“Who can prove that?”

Ma Keke exploded instantly. She shot to her feet and slapped the table with her left hand.

“I shared a room with Zhong Yishan! Now she’s dead! Where am I supposed to find someone to prove I was in the dormitory?”

Zhou Hai stared at Ma Keke’s eyes and hands, then jerked his chin slightly.

“Sit down. A school is an area with extremely dense surveillance coverage. We didn’t come here just to question you. We’ll also verify everything through the security footage. You only need to explain things clearly. Why are you so agitated? Or could it be—you weren’t in the dormitory last night? Or—there was someone else in your dorm besides you?”

Zhou Hai’s calm, unhurried words instead placed immense pressure on her.

Ma Keke froze for a moment, then slowly sat back down. Her gaze flickered repeatedly as she cleared her throat.

“I was in the dormitory. What’s there to doubt? Checking the surveillance footage is even better. Saves me the trouble of finding a witness.”

“You’re Zhang Yang’s girlfriend?” Zhou Hai asked without pause.

“Yes.”

“Did you know Zhong Yishan also liked Zhang Yang?”

Ma Keke raised her head and looked at Zhou Hai.

“What does that have to do with the case?”

“Answer the question!”

“I didn’t know.”

Ma Keke was clearly becoming resistant.

“Tell us about your parents.”

“My father is Ma Guangming, the R&D department manager at Huanghai Pharmaceutical.
My mother is Liu Chunhong. She works in the Land Bureau’s cadastral department.”

The teacher from the academic affairs office kept glancing over. Ma Keke’s tone had been extremely aggressive, but seeing that the two police officers weren’t making things difficult for her, he stayed silent.

When the questioning ended, Zhang Yang also emerged from the next office.

Ma Keke immediately pouted pitifully and walked toward him. All the sharp arrogance she had displayed moments ago vanished completely. The two of them walked side by side toward the classroom.

Deputy Captain Bao tapped the transcript with his pen and said quietly, “Boss! We ran into a tough one. This Ma Keke is hiding something!”

“Don’t talk about that here. Let’s go check the surveillance footage first!”

As he spoke, Captain Wang turned around and thanked Teacher Jin, the homeroom teacher who had just walked out, before leading everyone out of the teaching building and straight to the monitoring room.

They needed to compare everyone’s entry and exit times against the statements. Lunch was hastily dealt with using instant noodles.

Zhou Hai’s phone suddenly vibrated. He pulled it out and saw it was Sister Zeng sending over the test results.

All the blood found on the murder weapon belonged to the victim alone.

The more than three hundred blood-soaked sand samples they had submitted also all belonged to Zhong Yishan.

None of the clothing, knives, fingernail samples, or anything else submitted for testing showed a second DNA profile.

Even Zhou Hai was beginning to feel a headache coming on. He forwarded the results to Captain Wang. After reading them, Captain Wang nodded at Zhou Hai and continued reviewing the surveillance footage.

Taking advantage of the moment, Zhou Hai grabbed Zhang Yang’s statement and glanced through it. Xu Biao leaned over curiously.

He saw Captain Wang ask Zhang Yang: “Is Ma Keke your girlfriend?”

Zhang Yang’s answer was actually: “No, just a classmate.”

Zhou Hai frowned tightly. Was it that Chen Qiushi and Ma Keke had misunderstood the relationship, or was Zhang Yang simply a frivolous playboy?

Xu Biao bumped Zhou Hai’s shoulder.

“What are you suspicious of?”

Zhou Hai pointed at that section of the statement.

“Ma Keke said she’s Zhang Yang’s girlfriend! But Zhang Yang…”

Xu Biao smacked his lips.

“That’s how rich young masters are these days! They think having women on both sides is perfectly normal. Online novels are full of stories about wives and mistresses sharing the same bed…”

Xu Biao wasn’t wrong. Such twisted values and worldviews really were poisoning today’s young people.

Zhou Hai glanced at the endlessly chattering Xu Biao and said nothing more.

By the afternoon, Captain Wang had the investigators verify the three students’ entry and exit times for the campus and dormitories through surveillance footage. Overall, there were no major discrepancies.

Looking at the time, it was already six in the evening. The investigation had once again reached a dead end.

Captain Wang and the others still needed to visit the technical division to retrieve Zhong Yishan’s communication records.

As for the vehicle Zhong Yishan had gotten into, technicians had managed to infer part of the license plate from the blurry footage, and Captain Wang needed to arrange personnel to investigate it.

Zhou Hai drove Xu Biao away first. Xu Biao stretched lazily.

“Let’s both get some proper sleep. Now we just have to wait for the data recovery from Zhong Yishan’s computer. Xiao Hu and the others probably won’t finish until tomorrow.”

Zhou Hai kept thinking things over. He always felt as though they had overlooked something, but that fleeting flash of inspiration escaped his grasp.

He repeatedly thought through the relationships among the five students around Zhong Yishan, but every line of reasoning ended in a dead loop.

After dinner, he dropped Xu Biao off at his apartment complex and drove away.

However, Zhou Hai still called the morgue freezer room.

He instructed them to thaw Zhong Yishan’s body. He wanted to perform another autopsy the next day.

Right now they lacked evidence, so they had to continue searching for clues from the body itself.

A full day of high-intensity work caused his headache to return.

His left eye felt as though needles were stabbing into it. Back during the car accident, shattered glass had pierced his left eye, and he had nearly lost the eyeball completely.

Although surgery had saved the eye, his vision in it was only 0.1.

Zhou Hai took painkillers and some medication to regulate eye pressure, then lay on the bed reviewing everything that had happened that day.

Gradually, he drifted into sleep, and for once slept soundly through the night.

June 25, 2014, 5:25 AM

The sky was only beginning to brighten when a phone call woke Zhou Hai again. The caller was Captain Wang.

All traces of sleep vanished instantly. Zhou Hai quickly swiped to answer.

“What happened?”

“Forensic Doctor Zhou, hurry to Municipal No. 1 High School. Another one’s dead!”

Zhou Hai shot upright in bed, fully awake.

“A girl?”

“Mm. The deceased is Ma Keke.”

Captain Wang’s voice was extremely hoarse. Clearly, he hadn’t rested all night.

Zhou Hai hung up and leapt out of bed, changed clothes, and rushed out.

Driving like the wind, he arrived at the gates of No. 1 High School.

At the same moment, a taxi stopped across the street. Xu Biao jumped out, his hair still sticking straight upward.

The moment Xu Biao saw Zhou Hai, he hurried over carrying his case.

The security guard had already seen the two of them yesterday, and with news of another death, he was frightened enough already.

He didn’t even try to stop them as they drove straight toward the dormitory area.

Not far after entering, an auxiliary officer was already waiting there to guide them forward.

Between the cafeteria and the dormitory district was a grove filled with pine and cypress trees.

Because the trees were tall and dense, they completely blocked the sunlight.

As a result, the ground was covered only with pine needles and dead leaves. The hardened earth did not have a single blade of grass.

A several-hundred-meter-long hollowed low wall separated the woods from the residential area.

When Captain Wang saw them, he quickly walked over.

“You’re here!”

Zhou Hai nodded.

“Captain Wang, tell us the situation.”

The two got out of the car and changed into investigation suits, putting on masks and gloves.

Captain Wang led them into the woods while explaining as they walked.

“At five this morning, we received a report from the school security guard. He said that during his morning patrol, he thought he saw a flash of light in the woods, so he hurried over to check. The guard was worried some mischievous students might have started a fire in the grove. After all, a student had just died a few days ago, so everyone’s nerves were stretched tight. But when he circled around from the back of the woods, he didn’t see anyone. Only when he got here did he notice a girl in a white school uniform sitting there. The guard called out to her a couple of times, but she didn’t respond. When he walked over and brushed aside her hair, he discovered it was Ma Keke. He reached out to check her breathing and realized she was already dead. Frightened out of his wits, he turned and ran, then immediately called the police.”

Zhou Hai froze for a moment.

“How did he recognize Ma Keke?”