While the officers from the various precincts patrolled around, we waited with bated breath in the station. Every time the phone rang, our hearts skipped a beat.
At eleven in the evening, Xiaotao asked curiously, "Song Yang, how can you be sure that there will be a murder tonight? Aren't the four suspects in detention?"
"It’s precisely because they are detained!” My lips curled into a bitter smile. “If a murder occurred at this time, it’s tantamount to declaring that they aren’t our suspects! Their arrest was peculiar to begin with. When I tried putting myself in the shoes of a man who wants to exonerate them, I realized that would be my next move."
Right then, the ringing of the phone interrupted our conversation. A while after Xiaotao answered, she stood up and asked, "Where?"
Upon hanging up, Xiaotao looked as if she had taken a bat to the head. "You were spot on. Under a bridge in Taoyuan District, two bodies have just been found!"
"Let's go!" I sighed, a sense of powerlessness striking me hard.
We rushed to the scene where the bodies were found. It was on the shoal where a concrete bridge crossed over the water surface. On the ground were two female corpses covered in bruises and blood. The police in the jurisdiction stood guarding the scene.
Instead of walking over to where the corpses were, we began setting up lighting equipment. The technical team marked the footprints, bloodstains and left-behind objects with evidence markers and took photos of the evidence. At a glance, I recognized that the footprints on the scene were exactly the same as those found in the previous two murders.
The man’s skill of substituting one for another was perfect. He managed to pull a fast one on us all, getting the police to become witnesses in proving the four young masters’ innocence!
Putting on rubber gloves, I started the autopsy. The two female victims were about twenty-five years old, both wearing thin shirts with numerous bruises on their hands, feet and face. They both showed signs of sexual assault. One of the victims lay near the water, her long hair floating like grass, while the other was close to the bridge pier.
The preliminary examination revealed that the time of death was four hours ago. Picking up the victim’s palm, I inspected it. One of the victims had neatly trimmed nails painted in several different colors while the other victim’s hands smelled of perfume with more than one type of scent. This suggested the victims were sales associates at a cosmetics counter. I also noticed binding marks that appeared to have been caused by a belt.
Both wrists and ankles showed traces of being bound and it seemed the victims were held in captivity for a period of time. I would have to see the contents of their stomachs to determine exactly how long.
After cutting the victims’ clothes, I found a needle hole near the first victim’s clavicle and the second victim’s waist. It seemed that the cause of death was the same as before. After being injected with an excessive amount of drugs, the victims were violently raped which led to sudden death.
In order to confirm my speculations, I listened to their internal organs with the Echolocation Rod and found a lot of liquid accumulated in the lungs of the victim lying by the water's edge.
A closer look revealed pinch marks on her neck. It seemed the victim was rather resilient and didn’t die immediately after being raped. The murderer then submerged her head into the water, forcing her to suffocate.
"What did you find?" Xiaotao asked.
"I’ve made quite a few discoveries but these aren’t important,” I sighed. “The task at hand is to prove that the murder was committed by someone imitating the four young masters."
I asked for a cotton swab and inserted it into the victim’s vagina. When I pulled it out, it was stained with sticky fluid and blood that had not yet solidified. Upon sniffing it, I confirmed the murderer had used a condom. I examined the body once more and came to the conclusion, "These injuries obviously deviate from the usual style of the four young masters."
"What’s different?"
"What is your initial impression of these two bodies?"
"The bruises!" Xiaotao answered truthfully.
"Yes,” I nodded. “The injuries are rather uniform and the blows weren’t that heavy. It’s not so much as abusing the victims as it is to deliberately make them look like this. This time, the murderer was imitating on purpose."
"There were also four perpetrators! Although they wore the exact same shoes as the four young masters, the depth of their footprints are slightly different, and one of them is a woman.”
"A woman?" Xiaotao was shocked. "How can you tell if it’s a man or a woman?"
I opened the Autopsy Umbrella and asked Xiaotao to turn on the ultraviolet light. Handprints appeared on the body, mainly on the legs and the hips. Although they were messy, it was easily recognizable that only three people raped the victims.
Why didn’t one of them partake in the rape? Either they couldn’t or they didn’t have that ability.
As I turned the Autopsy Umbrella, the wounds on the victim’s body appeared in different colors. Of course, they weren't colorful, but there was a difference in shades. Surprised, Xiaotao blurted, "I didn’t know your umbrella could do that!"
"The darker the color of the wound, the longer it’s been there,” I explained. “And the lighter it is, the shorter the age of the wound. It’s clear that the injuries were left by four different types of weapons."
Xiaotao nodded.
I pointed to them and analyzed, "The wounds caused by three of the weapons are relatively large, and only the wounds caused by the last weapon are relatively small. This suggests that the perpetrator either lacked strength or couldn’t bring themselves to injure the victim. And here’s an interesting detail–the perpetrator with the least strength didn’t attack the victim in the face!"
When I switched to examining the other corpse, my findings corroborated my conclusion from the first victim. One of the murderers refused to hurt the victims in the face. Thus, I deduced there was a woman among the murderers.
They were ordered by the Dog Trainer to orchestrate a murder. Hence, the lack of malice towards the victims. After all, it was only a job to them. And appearance, namely the face, was most important to women. Out of compassion, the female perpetrator avoided injuring the victims’ faces.
Pleased with the current developments, Xiaotao smiled, "With this evidence, it’ll be easy to prove it was the work of copycats."
"These are just inferences based on indirect evidence,” I said, shaking my head. “Can they stand up in court?"
"Evidence with sufficient arguments can determine the direction of the case," answered Xiaotao.
However, the suspects were four second-generation rich kids. They would certainly hire the best lawyers in the country to defend them. If we couldn't produce direct evidence, we would have to watch them go free.
"Besides, I’m only speculating there’s a woman among the four copycats. Perhaps he has issues in gender cognition or might just be an effeminate man!"
I took a closer look, staring at an obvious handprint for some time and noticed an abnormality. Picking up the clothes I had just removed, I spread them on the tarpaulin and twirled the Autopsy Umbrella. Very quickly, handprints appeared all over them.
"Can your umbrella show the Yang Energy Prints on cloth?" Xiaotao exclaimed.
"Of course not. These aren’t Yang Energy Prints but palm prints!"
After putting away the Autopsy Umbrella, I sprinkled a handful of seaweed ash onto a palm print. Gently blowing off the ash revealed an entire palm print. Though the palm lines were extremely clear, there were no fingerprints on any of the fingers.
"What’s going on?” Xiaotao wondered out loud. “The murderer has no fingerprints!"