Ch. 62 - The Case of the Dismembered Body in Daxing County [Part 3]
The Famous Detective of the Red MansionThis chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
Wiped out all the trace marks on her limbs?!
Wang Gaosheng felt inexplicable. According to common sense, the self-healing function would disappear after death, so all the scars on the body would freeze. If the culprit wanted to erase them, he might have to wait until the body was completely rotten.
Besides, he really couldn't think of any other way.
Fortunately, Sun Shaozong didn't let him guess. He slightly raised his chin and motioned, "Try to join her arms together again."
Wang Gaosheng immediately identified her left arm, which was cut into two sections, and then carefully spliced them together to form a new arm with almost no cracks.
After joining them up, Wang Gaosheng couldn't help but distinguish, "My Lord, this fracture fits perfectly, which shows that the culprit's knife technique is ruthless. Therefore, I suspected that Butcher Hu had killed him in the beginning."
"The murderer is not just cruel."
Sun Shaozong shook his head and said, "What really shows his exquisite knife technique is actually the trick he made at the fracture."
The trick he made at the fracture?
Wang Gaosheng was confused and separated the broken arm again. He looked carefully for a moment, but he couldn't see anything strange at all.
"If you really can't see it, you might as well touch the bone of the upper half of the broken arm first!"
As soon as Wang Gaosheng gritted his teeth, he simply took off his gloves and fumbled carefully on the cross-section of the bone.
At first, his eyes were full of confusion, but gradually, the confusion turned into horror. Finally, he couldn't help shouting, "The... The fracture groove on this bone is carved!"
However, the bone spurs and grooves at the original fracture at first glance didn’t look strange, but if he were to touch them carefully, he would find that they were a little too round, especially the inner side of those grooves, which really didn’t look like natural fractures!
"That's right!"
Sun Shaozong said in a deep voice, "Not only that, some muscles were secretly removed from the broken limb, making the fracture thinner than originally and closely fitting with the fracture below. So if you don't observe it carefully, it's difficult to find that a finger-wide section of this arm has actually been removed!"
Hearing this, Shen Dan, Zhou Da, and others couldn't help but take a breath, not only sighing at the evil mind of the murderer but also at Sun Shaozong’s uncanny ability to judge.
However, after Wang Gaosheng was excited, he couldn't help but have some doubts, wondering, "Taking so much trouble just to hide the fact that this woman had been tied up before, is it a little too cautious?"
"The murderer must have wanted to hide more than that!" Sun Shaozong shook his head and said, "Just based on the evidence we have found now, it is impossible to infer what he really wants to hide."
With that, he turned to Shen Dan and said, "I have also carefully checked the cellar in the backyard of Butcher Hu's house, Deputy County Governor Shen. It's possible to hide someone in it for a short time. Once it's more than half a day, I'm afraid they will die of suffocation!"
"Not to mention he had hired two guys in his butcher's shop. There are often neighbors going in and out of the backyard too. Thus, he can't hide the woman at all."
"If he is holding the woman elsewhere, he can discard the body on the spot. There is no need to take the body home and bury it."
"As for Zhou Liang, he and his wife live in a compound without a fence around them. They can't hide their entrance and exit from others, let alone detain the dead for a long time."
"According to my inference, Zhou Liang probably met the murderer who intended to bury his head on his way home. Maybe the murderer deliberately framed it on him, or maybe there was an accident that made Zhou Liang mistake the head for pork and take it home."
"Afterwards, the murderer might as well go the whole hog. He buried all the remaining bodies in the wasteland outside the back wall of Butcher Hu's house, intending to frame both the father and son-in-law."
Shen Dan listened attentively, but looking at his appearance, he was obviously still a little confused. Zhou Da reacted a little faster and blurted out, "In this case, the murderer should know Butcher Hu and his son-in-law, and it is very likely that he lives between the two families!"
"That's right!"
Sun Shaozong confirmed his speculation, but then he couldn't help but smile bitterly, saying, "Unfortunately, Butcher Hu and his son-in-law's family are more than half of the Eastern City apart, which is still too large. If we want to find out the murderer, we may need more clues."
At this point, Sun Shaozong couldn't help but stare at Shen Dan again. If it weren't for this stupid Deputy County Magistrate's delay for the best detection time, it wouldn't be...
"My Lord, My Lord! Look at this?!"
At this time, Wang Gaosheng happily dragged something in front of Sun Shaozong.
Sun Shaozong looked intently, it was a small wooden thorn stained with blood, about the length of the nail cap and the thickness of the matchstick.
Because the door plank for carrying the body was a little bad, Sun Shaozong also found several similar wooden thorns and sawdust when he was checking the body. But since Wang Gaosheng was so serious about offering what he found, it was certainly not as simple as the sawdust falling from the door plank.
So Sun Shaozong carefully twisted the wooden thorn, put it under his eyes, carefully observed it for a while, and twisted it with his thumb and index finger, and his eyes immediately burst into a dazzling expression!
He then grabbed Wang Gaosheng and asked, "Where was this thing found?!"
Wang Gaosheng hurriedly said, "In the thigh fracture of the body, I wanted to check how much flesh the murderer cut, but I accidentally touched this wooden thorn!"
"That shouldn't be wrong. It is indeed that “justice has long arms!”
Sun Shaozong sighed and immediately ordered, "Deputy County Magistrate Shen, send someone now to inquire about those famous carpenters in the east of the city who have lived alone for a long time."
"I'll do it now!"
After Shen Dan was ordered to leave, Zhou Da was still a little confused. He leaned forward and looked at the wooden thorn curiously and inquired, "My Lord, how can you conclude that the murderer is a famous carpenter with this small wooden thorn alone?"
"The color, density, and pattern of this wood can be seen as superior wood at a glance. This quality of wood, let alone ordinary people, even ordinary carpenters, dare not process it wantonly. But look at this wood thorn, it is a triangle as a whole, with two knives in the front and one knife in the back. The lines are extremely smooth, and the person is obviously used to dealing with precious wood!"
"That's why I concluded that the murderer must be a famous carpenter!"
After these words, Shen Dan led a young Yamen servant back to the inner hall and introduced him to Sun Shaozong, "My Lord, Li Sanbiao's father is the most famous old carpenter in the East City. Any carpenter-related matters cannot be concealed from his family."
Li Sanbiao had obviously already been explained. Before Sun Shaozong asked, he bowed down and said, "Report to the Assistant Prefectural Magistrate, it's not difficult for any famous craftsman to get a wife. I'm afraid only Carpenter Zhang, who has a name in the East City, is still not married!"
"Carpenter Zhang?"
"Yes, because he is good at carving all kinds of statues and Buddha statues, he got such a nickname. This Carpenter Zhang's face was burned when he was a child, and he can be frightening in the daytime, so no girl is willing to follow him."
Since he looked so scary, no one should dare disturb him at ordinary times. In this way, he has a better chance of committing a crime!
Sun Shaozong hurriedly said, "Do you know where Carpenter Zhang lives?"
"This..."
Li Sanbiao scratched his head and said, "He should not be at home now."
"What?!"
Shen Dan was surprised and suddenly shouted, "Did that guy flee in fear of crime?!"
"No, no, no!"
Li Sanbiao hurriedly explained, "In fact, recently, large families in the city have been competing to build other homes, and all craftsmen with some skills have been wanted! He seems to have gone..."
With that, he wrung his eyebrows and thought for a while. Suddenly, he clapped his hands and said, "That’s right, he went to work in the Jia family of the Rongguo Mansion!"