kingnovel Chapter 964 All Clues Vanished Without a Trace
Chapter 964 All Clues Vanished Without a Trace
Chapter 964 All Clues Vanished When Xiao Zhou led the second group of police officers into the Hongyuan Group's office building, they were met with a cold, hard attitude and tight security. The group's financial director, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, said with a forced smile, "Officers, our company has always operated legally. What are you investigating?"
The officers requested to see the financial statements, only to find the accounts meticulously prepared, with every transaction supported by a reasonable explanation and supporting documentation. They attempted to investigate the business dealings between Hongyuan Group and Li Qingmin's company, but discovered that the two companies had no further contact after the partnership ended. A deeper investigation into Hongyuan Group's financial chain uncovered some shady transactions, but none were related to Li Qingmin's death.
When the police visited the employees of Hongyuan Group, everyone remained tight-lipped, either claiming they didn't know or that they were new and unaware of the situation. A timid accountant secretly slipped a note to a police officer that read, "Be careful of them," but when the officer tried to ask further questions, the accountant could no longer be contacted and had even quit her job.
Xiao Sun led the third group of police officers to the West City Wharf, but everything had changed. The surveillance equipment from back then had been upgraded and replaced many times, and the data had long been overwritten and deleted. They inquired everywhere and finally found an old security guard who had worked at the wharf for decades.
The old security guard sat in the dilapidated duty room, recalling: "Three years ago? The dock was in chaos back then, with people coming and going. Who remembers anything special?" The police officers showed him Li Qingmin's photo and asked him questions. The old security guard squinted at it for a long time, then shook his head and said he had no recollection of it.
Undeterred, they visited every small restaurant and grocery store around the pier, hoping to find witnesses. However, the answer they received was always, "It's been too long, I don't remember." Finally, at a run-down auto repair shop, the owner said he thought he had seen an unfamiliar car parked near the pier, but he couldn't remember the specific model or license plate.
To recover the surveillance footage, Xiao Sun and his technicians tried to find clues from the private surveillance cameras of nearby businesses. However, these cameras either had too low resolution or were stored for too short a time. Even when they found some blurry images, they couldn't determine whether they were related to Li Qingmin. The sheer volume of video data strained their eyes, but they still couldn't make a breakthrough.
Lu Chuan personally led the fourth group to Li Qingmin's hometown, Yunhe County. They visited Li Qingmin's neighbors and relatives again, but still found nothing new. Everyone's impression of Li Qingmin remained that he had "wandered away for many years and rarely returned."
They conducted an in-depth investigation into Li Qingmin's early life and found his former classmates and friends. In a simple teahouse, several elderly people with gray hair gathered together to chat. When asked about Li Qingmin, the old men frowned and tried hard to recall: "This kid was quite honest when he was young. I've never heard of him making enemies with anyone."
The officers then reviewed Li Qingmin's student records, examining his awards and punishments, but found nothing unusual. They also visited the local police station, searching for his past police reports and dispute files, but to no avail. Even his childhood squabbles with friends hadn't escalated into a seed of hatred.
The investigation by the four teams had lasted for weeks, leaving the officers exhausted, yet they still hadn't found a single crucial clue directly pointing to Li Qingmin's death. Every seemingly promising lead turned into a dead end upon closer examination. Lu Chuan stood before the whiteboard, his brow furrowed as he stared at the dense yet chaotic array of clues. Outside the window, the rain pattered softly, as if sighing for the case's deadlock.
The torrential rain pounded against the windows of the Criminal Investigation Division. Lu Chuan slammed his marker onto the whiteboard; countless red crosses severed all the branches on the clue map of Li Qingmin's case. "Let's review the financial records again! Even the anomalies to two decimal places..." His words were interrupted by the sudden bursting of the conference room door. Xiao Wang rushed in, soaking wet, the file folder in his arms still dripping water.
"Captain Lu! We've found a breakthrough!" Xiao Wang brushed aside the rain-stuck hair from his forehead and pulled out a yellowed employee registration form from a file folder. "When Li Qingmin's company was being demolished, I found a retired security guard. He said that in the six months before the company went bankrupt, the boss often met secretly with a young woman at the back door of the warehouse." He pasted a blurry screenshot from a security camera onto the whiteboard. In the image, Li Qingmin, wearing a suit, was helping a pregnant woman into a black car. The security guard remembered that the woman always wore sunglasses, but once the wind blew her scarf open, revealing a butterfly birthmark on the back of her neck.
The task force immediately retrieved Li Qingmin's call records for the three months prior to his disappearance and discovered a number ending in "7777" making daily calls. The technical team used base station positioning to pinpoint the signal source as Building 12 of the upscale residential complex "Emerald Garden" in Haizhou City. When Lu Chuan and his team knocked on the door of room 302, the woman who opened it was wrapped in a cashmere shawl, and a dark red birthmark on the back of her neck was particularly noticeable under the light.
"I am Su Man." The woman invited everyone to sit down; the baby bottle on the coffee table was still steaming. She stroked the baby's photo in the frame, her voice trembling: "The child just turned three, and looks exactly like his father." Under the cold lights of the interrogation room, Su Man's testimony took a sharp turn in the case: "Qingmin said the company's cash flow problems were a setup, and he was threatened while collecting evidence..." She suddenly covered her face and wept bitterly, "The last time he saw me that day, he handed me a bank card and said that if anything happened, I should take the child and run away."
The investigation revealed that three million yuan was deposited into Su Man's bank account the day after Li Qingmin's disappearance, and the source of the funds disappeared after seven intermediaries. A forensic paternity test on the infant confirmed that he was Li Qingmin's son with a 99.99% similarity.
"She has a perfect alibi." Xiao Wang pushed the surveillance disc into the player; Su Man was at the Maternal and Child Health Hospital for a prenatal checkup during the time of the incident. The registration slip, surveillance footage, and testimonies from medical staff were all complete. But Lu Chuan noticed that when she answered "when we last met," her ring finger unconsciously traced the marks on her wedding ring: "Check her marital history, and where that three million went."
When police officers visited Su Man's ex-husband's home, the elderly man who opened the door threw a stack of photos on the ground. The photos showed Su Man behaving intimately with the young master of Hongyuan Group, and the photos were taken a month before her divorce. Bank statements showed that after the three million yuan was deposited, two million yuan was transferred to shell companies under the name of Hongyuan Group.
"She was juggling two men." Lu Chuan circled Su Man's photo at the case analysis meeting. "Li Qingmin has evidence of Hongyuan Group's crimes. Su Man, as a double agent, must both keep her lover in check and pass messages to the mastermind." He pulled up the dashcam footage from the day of Su Man's prenatal checkup; the vehicle stopped for 17 minutes two kilometers from the crime scene. "Those 17 minutes are enough to complete a meticulously planned murder."