Chapter 961: Another Murder Case

“Sigh!”

Chen Shi sat in his office, rubbing his face in frustration. Lin Dongxue knocked and entered, “Captain, feeling down? I heard about what happened between you and Captain Peng.”

“Did I do the wrong thing?”

Lin Dongxue sat down in front of him, “There’s no right or wrong here. Put yourself in his shoes. If it happened to us, would you rather I disappeared or be found quickly?”

Chen Shi gave a bitter smile, “I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Exactly, such things are hard to accept no matter how they come. Give Captain Peng some time.”

“Yeah.”

Chen Shi nodded and picked up a sheet of paper, “I organized those accidental death cases. I noticed this person always commits the crimes on Wednesdays, which means he has a stable job. Killing is his ‘side job’.”

Chen Shi called Lin Dongxue over and spread a map on the nearby coffee table, marked with various colored dots.

“His activity is mainly in Longyang District. If these are random thrill killings, based on geographic profiling, I think he lives around here.” Chen Shi pointed to an area.

“What about these other points?”

“Those don’t fit the pattern.”

“Does that mean he didn’t do those? Or maybe there’s more than one killer?”

“More than one?” Chen Shi considered, “But thrill killers rarely work in groups. They prefer to enjoy the thrill alone. If it’s a group, there would be another motive, but I can’t see any reason for killing these ordinary people.”

“Today is Thursday. If the killer only strikes on Wednesdays, we have a week until the next one. Should we continue investigating the domestic violence case? Can you handle both?”

“Domestic violence case?” Chen Shi sighed. “Unless there’s another incident, we don’t have much to go on. There are too few clues.”

“We haven’t really examined the ‘Life Equation’ found at the scene.”

“True, I meant to show it to Peng, but then things happened.”

“Can the information department make sense of it?”

“Worth a shot!”

They took the paper to the information department and asked the colleagues there to look into it. The officers, all with science backgrounds, passed the paper around, each expressing bewilderment. They said the equation was a mess, with many undefined variables, making it incomprehensible.

Just then, Xu Xiaodong rushed in, “Captain, we have a case!”

“Let’s go!”

The officers arrived at a café near People’s Square. The patrons were gathered around a well-dressed woman lying on the floor, her face twisted in pain, with blood at the corners of her mouth, and her body contorted.

Seeing the police arrive, the manager breathed a sigh of relief and approached Chen Shi, “This woman is a regular. She comes every morning. This morning I was washing cups when I heard a thud. I thought something fell, but when I looked, she was on the floor, struggling, then she stopped moving. Scared me to death… It’s not food poisoning, right? She drank coffee I brewed, and other customers had it too.”

“Which table was hers?”

The manager pointed to a table with half a cup of coffee and an unfinished tuna sandwich. Chen Shi smelled them, detecting nothing unusual. To be safe, he had them collected for testing.

The accompanying forensic officer examined the body, “Captain, she’s been dead for less than two hours, likely from poisoning.”

“Are you sure?” Chen Shi asked.

“There are scratch marks on her neck, discolored lips, bloodshot eyes, and vomit in her throat—all clear signs of poisoning.”

Chen Shi lifted the victim’s head and saw a distinct needle mark on the back of her neck, similar to the one on the domestic abuser. He called Lin Dongxue over, who said, “Same method, clearly the same person. But it’s only been a day?”

“If it’s really him, he would have left something.”

Chen Shi searched the victim’s coat and handbag, finding an envelope with “Life Equation” written on it, followed by a dense cluster of formulas.

“It’s definitely the same person!”

Chen Shi surveyed the area, “Her seat is over there. How did she end up here…” Then he noticed a back door. He opened it to find it unlocked, leading to an alley.

He asked the manager, “Is this back door usually unlocked?”

“It’s a delivery entrance, not for customers, but Xiaoya knew about it.”

“The victim’s name is Xiaoya?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me everything you know about her.”

The manager recalled that Xiaoya was likely a high-earning white-collar worker from a nearby office building. She drove a luxury car, wore different clothes every day, changed her hairstyle weekly, and often met with successful-looking men for coffee.

Such a woman naturally attracted attention wherever she went. The manager didn’t converse with her much, only occasionally greeting her.

“Did she come here this morning to meet someone or sit alone?” Chen Shi asked.

The manager thought for a moment, “I remember she said ‘I’ll call you later’ when ordering. I think she was meeting a client, but no one showed up until she collapsed.”

“Do you know where she worked?”

“No, she never mentioned it, but she always had a strong fragrance. It might sound disrespectful, but sometimes it was so strong it didn’t smell like perfume.”

Chen Shi thanked the manager, who left. He turned to Lin Dongxue, “I still don’t know what the ‘Life Equation’ is, but I think the killer wants to tell us the victim deserved to be killed, just like the domestic abuser.”

“We found someone on the surveillance.”

“Let’s take a look.”

The café’s surveillance camera, facing outside, showed a man in a suit and bow tie looking inside around 9:30 a.m. After a brief glance, he turned and left.

Earlier footage showed Xiaoya entering, followed by three or four customers.

Based on the time of death, the man in the bow tie arrived just as Xiaoya was dying. Chen Shi said, “This could be the person she was meeting. Seeing her collapse, he left. Also, I noticed the bag was zipped. The envelope was likely placed before the incident, probably by Xiaoya herself. The killer must have posed as the person she was meeting.”

“Didn’t Xiaoya know what her contact looked like?” Lin Dongxue asked.

“It seems she didn’t. The man in the video looks like a secretary. He was probably sent to deliver something.”