Chapter 258
Robbery and Murder Division chat group.
Luke voice: “The ninth bottle of mineral water suspected to contain cyanide resulted in one death and one injury, the injured person is currently out of danger, Marcus and I gave her a statement.
According to her, she and the deceased were friends and the two had arranged to climb a mountain together, after which the two had sex, one drank the mineral water and the other used it to wash her body, resulting in one death and one injury on both sides.
She claimed that she bought the bottle of mineral water at the Mountain Source Supermarket, two bottles in total, and one bottle of mineral water still at home.”
Susan sent voice: “I’m still at the scene of the crime, the coroner has completed a preliminary autopsy, the deceased Ronnie did die of cyanide poisoning, the time of death was around seven o’clock in the morning.
The victim had a strenuous exercise before he was born, so the toxin spread very quickly in the body, and the victim was poisoned in a very short period of time.
No defense wounds or binding bruises were found on the victim.
In addition, the technical team also completed the scene investigation, the mineral water bottles found at the scene contained cyanide and belonged to the same batch number as the mineral water bottles found in the subway.
Fingerprints of three individuals were found on the mineral water bottles, two sets of fingerprints belonging to the deceased and the injured, and the other set of fingerprints are unidentified.”
Jackson speculated, “Could the other set of fingerprints be those of the poisoner?”
The lieutenant grumbled, “Why are we chatting in a group to discuss the case, can’t we meet and discuss the case?”
Luke said, “Because this way we can share clues as soon as possible, in a while I’m going to go to Shan Yuan Supermarket to investigate, I have no intention to go back to the police station.
Lieutenant, you need to get with the times.”
“Are you calling me old in disguise?”
“I’m not.”
“That’s what you’re saying.”
Susan interrupted the two, “OK, back on topic. Jackson has a point, we should find the fingerprints on the mineral water belonging to a third person as soon as possible, it could very well be a break in the case.”
The vice squad said, “Should we remind Reed to hold a press conference, if the injured woman is not lying, there should be more than one place where the mineral water containing cyanide was dropped, in order to avoid more citizens being poisoned, I think it should be widely publicized.”
“I’ll suggest that.”
It’s not that Susan hadn’t suggested it before, but the police department executives had their own considerations, there is a time difference between opening a press conference, by the time the press conference is over what should have been drunk has already been drunk, it’s not certain if it will have an effect or not.
But this brand of mineral water company will certainly have an opinion, may also be a violation of the right to reputation to sue the LAPD, asking for sky-high compensation, who want nothing to cause a fuss.
But now it’s different again, there is a new toxic mineral water drop site, the uncontrollable factors have increased, and who knows if there are other toxic mineral water drop sites, this time it is necessary to spread the word.
Susan began to set up tasks in the group.
“Lieutenant, Jackson, you guys go to Jennifer’s house and investigate, make sure you find another bottle of mineral water.
Matthew, you’re in charge of investigating the source of the cyanide, cyanide is contraband in the United States, and it’s very difficult for ordinary people to get their hands on it.
Ramon, Jenny, you two contact the family of the deceased to identify the body, ask about his relationship with the injured before life, to see if there is any conflict between the two.
Luke, Marcus, the two of you go to Mountain Source Supermarket to investigate and confirm the source of the toxic mineral water.”
“Okay, Captain.”
The crowd replied and split up.
On the way, Blackie couldn’t help but ask, “Luke, do you think that injured woman Jennifer Kimble is suspicious?
She was the one who bought the mineral water, and she herself was only injured, but the people with her died.
Is it possible that a bitter trick was used?”
Luke thought for a moment, “Theoretically there is such a possibility, but for the time being, there is no relevant evidence and no motive for her to commit the crime, let’s see if there is any discovery from Ramon and Jenny’s side.”
In an open-ended poisoning case like this one, where the murderer and the deceased had no direct contact or stake in the case, the investigation was extremely difficult.
Luke had been considering the connection between the two locations where the poisoned mineral water was dropped.
The subway station?
Supermarket?
Which was the first source?
Could it be that someone bought mineral water in the supermarket and put it in the subway station, this person was really doing charity work, but it was just a pity that he bought the poisoned mineral water.
There is also a possibility that the poisoner intentionally used two poisoning locations in order to avoid the police locking down the scope, dispersing the police force, expanding the scope and increasing the difficulty of the investigation.
It’s useless to speculate alone.
The most important thing now is to find relevant evidence.
Shan Yuan Supermarket is located near the Korean community, the number of Asians on the road has increased significantly.
Blackie parked his car in front of the supermarket, Luke and Blackie got out of the car one after the other.
Today was a sunny day, the sun was blinding, Luke wore sunglasses to observe the surrounding situation.
Xiao Hei also swept a glance and laughed, “Ooooh, these girls are all dressed up in fashion ah.”
“Korean chicks are indeed nice.” Luke pulled his sunglasses down and took a few glances at the big white legs as well.
Blackie spread his hands, “I’m just saying that they dress fashionably and I want to buy a set for Julian too.”
Luke laughed, “Take you to the Japanese community some day, they dress fashionably there too.”
“I really mean the clothes.”
“I look at chicks, you look at clothes, there’s no conflict.” Xiao Hei suddenly became serious, making Luke still a little uncomfortable, was it overkill?
Shan Yuan Supermarket was opened near the Korean community, the pedestrians in this neighborhood were mainly Korean and white, not many black people.
Luke and Blackie walked into the supermarket, the size of the supermarket is not too big, about 300 square meters or so, the shopkeeper has both white and Korean, the supermarket guests are almost half and half.
Luke and Blackie turned around in the supermarket, the variety of food is very rich, both white people like to eat food, but also Korean people like kimchi, more importantly, there is also the Vixen brand mineral water, which is the purpose of Luke’s two people came.
Luke took out a bottle of Vixen mineral water from the cold drink case and walked to the checkout counter.
A white female cashier gave Luke a look, “Sir, you only need a bottle of mineral water?”
“That’s right.”
The white female cashier picked up the mineral water bottle and scanned it, “$0.20. Also we have a promotion at the supermarket, a case of 24 bottles is only $4.”
Luke asked, “What about a case of 12 bottles?”
“There’s no campaign for 12 bottles for now.”
“Do many people buy this mineral water?”
“It’s okay, but most people buy the whole case, it’s a better deal.”
“Is your boss around?”
The white female cashier looked at Luke somewhat warily, “What’s your business?”
Luke flashed his badge, “LAPD, I need to see your boss, and also, from now on Vixen brand mineral water is not allowed to be sold to the public.”
“Why?”
“This is not the time to explain, do as I say, understand?”
“Just a moment, I’ll call the boss.”
Soon a white man came over, “I’m the owner here, which one is LAPD?”
Black flashed his badge, “I’m Detective Marcus, Robbery Murder Division, and this is Lieutenant Luke.”
“Robbery Murder Division? Why would my supermarket mess with your department?” The white man gave a puzzled look and waved his hand, “Come on, let’s talk in my office, this isn’t the place to talk.”
The trio entered the office behind the supermarket, which was a bit cluttered, “SORRY, I was a bit late last night settling the accounts, I haven’t had time to clean up yet.” The white man tidied up briefly, pointing to a two-seater black sofa, and
“Have a seat.
To introduce myself, my name is Osmond Simpson and I’m the owner of this supermarket.”
“You usually take care of the supermarket yourself?”
“That’s right, I’ve tried hiring a professional manager before, but it was a mess, a supermarket of my size has to run itself, otherwise it’s hard to make a profit, there are too many doors.” Osmond sighed and patted his heart, “I’ll never open a supermarket again in my next life, it’s too tiring.
Two officers, what can I do for you?”
Luke pulled out a picture of the injured woman, Jennifer, “Do you recognize her?”
Osmond picked up the photo and looked at it, “No, don’t recognize her, what’s the problem?”
“This lady claims to have come to your supermarket yesterday, does that ring a bell?”
“No, there are so many customers in the supermarket, at least hundreds every day, it’s hard for me to have an impression of every customer. What happened to her?”
“She bought two bottles of Vixen brand mineral water from your supermarket, and this morning she took one of the bottles of mineral water with her on a run up the mountain, she and a male friend shared a bottle of mineral water, resulting in the death of one of them and the injury of the other, and we found out that the mineral water contained the highly toxic ingredient cyanide.
Therefore, this brand of mineral water should not be sold to the public for the time being, and customers who have already purchased this brand of mineral water should also be notified not to continue drinking it.
Because there might be cyanide in other mineral water as well.”
“Even buy Karma, are you telling the truth? This …… is too scary.”
Blackie said, “We in the Heist and Murder Division never joke around, or what do you think we’re here for?”
“Wait, can we be sure that bottle of water was bought at my store?”
“That’s what we’re here to investigate.”
“To investigate how? Do you need me to do anything?”
“First, we need to check the surveillance to see if the woman in the photo actually came here to buy mineral water.
If she bought it here, we need to investigate the source of the toxic mineral water.”
“Even if that bottle of water was bought from my store, there’s no guarantee that it was poisoned when she bought it, could she have poisoned it herself? It’s entirely possible.”
“You’re right, that’s why we came here to investigate instead of just taking you into custody.”
“I am not going to poison my own supermarket! I’m not a fool, it wouldn’t do me any good.”
“So, we have the same goal, getting this matter straightened out will benefit you, and us.”
Osmond sighed softly and said helplessly, “OK, let’s do as you say, the surveillance video is in this room.”
Osmond opened his computer screen and switched to the surveillance video feed.
Luke swept the screen, “We’ll check the surveillance ourselves, go tell the cashier that no more Vixen brand mineral water is allowed to be sold.”
Osmond spread his hands, “What about other brands of mineral water?”
If he hadn’t asked, Luke probably wouldn’t have said anything, but now that you’ve asked, there’s nothing polite about it, “All mineral water is off limits, be smart, you won’t make more than a few cents for every extra bottle of mineral water you sell, but if you sell an extra bottle of poisoned mineral water, it’ll probably cost you everything, I’m sure that you should know that better than I do. ”
“OK, you’re the boss.” Osmond exited the office with a depressed face.
Luke started to check the surveillance, according to Jennifer’s statement, she came to the supermarket around two o’clock yesterday afternoon, Luke started to check the surveillance video around two o’clock, and he found Jennifer’s figure.
The other party went to the checkout counter and the cashier took out items and scanned them, among them were two bottles of mineral water.
Luke pointed to the cashier on the screen and said to Blackie, who was off to the side, “Go to the car and get the fingerprint detection device, then call her in, we need to compare her fingerprints.”
A few minutes later, the office door opened and Blacky returned to the office with the cashier and his boss, Osmond.
Osmond asked, “Lieutenant Luke, does this case have anything to do with my cashier?”
Luke turned his computer screen to the group and pointed to Jennifer, “This is the female victim of the poisoning, and the surveillance video proves that she did come to your supermarket and made a purchase, and it was this cashier lady who helped her check out.
We need to ask her some questions.”
The owner, Osmond, turned to the female cashier aside and said, “Joey, you don’t have to be nervous, just answer truthfully.”
“What the hell is going on? Am I not entitled to know too.” The female cashier was bewildered with a hint of wariness.
Luke gave a brief overview of the situation and pointed to Jennifer’s video, “Does she ring a bell with you?”
The female cashier looked away, “Yes, she’s been in our store and we don’t have a lot of black customers in our store, so I’m somewhat impressed.”
“This young lady was poisoned this morning, and the reason why she was poisoned was because she used the mineral water sold in your store. We found three people’s fingerprints on the mineral water bottle and would like to test if one set of fingerprints belongs to you.”
“You suspect I did the poisoning?” Joy, the female cashier, took a step back, showing a nervous and uneasy look.
“No, on the contrary, it’s only normal to have your fingerprints, if they don’t have your fingerprints, then they are probably those of the murderer.”
Joey said, “I didn’t poison it, but if the mineral water was bought at the store, I could have come into contact with it when I checked out.”
“That’s right, that’s what I was going to say, we just wanted to make sure that the mineral water was bought at your store.” Luke explained.
After the words were clear, the female cashier was relieved before she cooperated with Blackie to do the fingerprint identification.
The identification results, the female cashier’s fingerprints and the set of fingerprints on the mineral water bottle did not match.
The boss laughed: “Do not match? That means the bottle of mineral water was not bought from our supermarket, and the poisoning has nothing to do with our supermarket.”
Blackie looked down at the fingerprint detector, “Is this thing not allowed? Why can’t it match?”
Luke had seen the full shopping video and he wasn’t panicking because Jennifer had bought two bottles of water at that time and the female cashier had only scanned one bottle of water and hadn’t touched the other, so there was only a fifty percent chance in itself.
Luke turned to the female cashier and asked, “If I buy two bottles of the same mineral water, will you touch them both with your hand?”
“Not necessarily, I would definitely pick up one of the bottles and scan the code, the other bottle of mineral water would probably not move it if I didn’t have to, and just multiply by two at the checkout.”
“So who do you think might end up touching the other bottle of mineral water?”
The female cashier glanced at her boss and shook her head, “I don’t know.”
“I’m not asking you about the poisoner, but would a supermarket employee touch a mineral water bottle under normal circumstances?”
Joey thought for a moment, “The stocker needs to adjust the position of the stock and might move it.”
“You’re right.” Luke craned his head to look at the boss on the side, “Get all your employees over here, I want to identify your fingerprints.”
The boss was a little reluctant, “Is that necessary?”
“Of course, starting with you first.”
Soon, one by one, the supermarket employees were called into the office to have their fingerprints taken.
Among them, the fingerprints of a female store clerk of Mexican descent were successfully compared with the fingerprints on the mineral water bottle.
The female clerk was asked if she had ever touched a mineral water bottle, and she said that she had touched many things in the supermarket.
The other party has a legitimate reason to touch the mineral water bottle, Luke also did not find signs of lying, note down the other party’s identity information and let her leave.
The Mexican shopgirl might not have been the poisoner, but it proved one thing, the poisoned mineral water was sold from the Mountain Source supermarket.
The owner, Osmond, already had an ironic look on his face and might have to pay a large sum of money in compensation.
“Mr. Simpson, now you can explain the source of that bottle of mineral water.”
Osmond said helplessly, “The Vixen brand mineral water in my store are all directly picked up through the manufacturer, even if there is really a problem, it’s still the manufacturer’s problem, it has nothing to do with our supermarket.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to set aside the relationship, this doesn’t make any sense, what we need to do now is to find the problem in order to find out the identity of the poisoner. If we can’t find the poisoner, the responsibility of your supermarket will be even greater, I believe you should understand this.”
“But I really don’t know ah, I swear I don’t have the slightest connection with this matter, I poisoned the goods in my own store unless I’m crazy and stupid.”
“Don’t you get excited.” Luke soothed, “I’ll ask and you answer.”
“You ask.”
Luke watched his expression as he inquired, “How long have you been selling this Vixen brand mineral water?”
“About a year or so.”
“Have there been any problems before?”
“No.”
“Has there ever been a similar poisoning incident in your supermarket before?”
Osmond hesitated slightly and bowed his head slightly, “No.”
Lying.
Luke sensed that he was showing signs of lying and pressed, “When was the last time there was a poisoning incident at the supermarket?”
“I told you, no.”
Lying.
“Look up.” Luke’s tone was serious, “Osmond, are you not aware of the seriousness of the problem now that someone has been poisoned.
The police will be questioning and investigating on a large scale and in many ways, not just questioning you alone.
There are so many people in your store, after I give you a statement, I will also give them a statement.
Don’t think the police won’t know if you’ve lied.”
Osmond blushed a little, still scowling.
Luke chided, “I’ll say it again, raise your head.”
Osmond slowly raised his head and Luke continued, “Osmond, I’ll ask again, has there ever been a similar poisoning incident before?”
“Uh …… I don’t know if it’s considered a poisoning incident, but there were indeed customers who reported that their stomachs were ruined because they bought something from the store.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything before? Why did you lie.”
“I didn’t want to look for trouble. Besides, I don’t think the two things are necessarily related, the customers before just ate bad stomachs, it wasn’t very serious, it’s completely different from this poisoning.”
“It’s not up to you to decide if there’s a connection, when was the last time?”
“About half a month ago, around August 10th.”
“Tell us about the last time.”
“Uh …… On the morning of August 11th, a customer of Korean descent approached me and said that he had bought a bottle of red wine from me yesterday under the brand name of Kafira, and that after he drank the red wine he started to get a stomach ache, and that he and his wife squatted on the toilet all night.
His wife had been so weak that she went to the hospital to see a doctor and asked me to give him an explanation.
After hearing this, I didn’t believe it. I’ve been working in the supermarket for so many years, and this is the first time I’ve heard someone say that drinking red wine will give you a stomachache.
Even, at first I thought he was here to cheat money.
Just as we were arguing about this, another customer came and also said that there was something wrong with my red wine, similar to what happened to the Korean customer.
That’s when I got a little worried.
In order to settle the matter, I compensated them with a sum of money, a very large sum of money, and I had worked for nothing for the past six months.
So I don’t really want to bring it up.”
“What about all that red wine?”
Osmond sighed, “I threw it away.”
“Why did those red wines cause the guests to have diarrhea?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, I run a supermarket, if it was known that there was a problem with food safety, no guests would come back in the future, so I chose to compensate privately.”
“How many guests in total bought the faulty red wine at that time?”
“Two.”
“Were they both the same brand?”
“Yes, Kafira.”
“Do you know the identity of those two?”
“I can’t remember, but there are records.”
“Let me know when you find out.” Luke other a business card.
“Okay.”
“Two poisonings at your store in just ten days? Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“I don’t know, and I’m trying to figure this out more than anyone else.”
“Have you offended anyone recently?”
“Being in our industry, we have to deal with a lot of people every day, it’s inevitable that conflicts will occur, about half a month ago, I fired two employees who were slacking off, they weren’t suitable for the job and couldn’t cope with the job requirements.
It was reasonable and legal for me to fire them.”
“You think they were getting back at you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Send me their details in a moment.”
“I will.”
“Do you have any other suspects besides these two employees?”
Osmond thought carefully, “It seems like …… there was a woman who was suspicious, she came to the supermarket and wandered around, stayed for a long time in the supermarket, and only bought some pickles when she left.”
“Tell us the exact time, and her physical characteristics.”
“It seems to be August 22nd, yes, we had an event at the store that day, around 3:00 p.m. She was an Asian woman in her mid-forties, wearing a white T-shirt, sneaking around, and stayed for at least twenty minutes to half an hour.
Afterwards, I even asked an employee about it, and she had been in our store more than once, and each time she stayed for a long time.
Could it be that she took advantage of the employees’ inattention to put the poisonous mineral water on the shelves?”
Luke didn’t say anything, and with a flourish in his computer, he checked the surveillance at the time Osmond said and found the figure of the suspicious woman, “Is it her?”
Osmond came over and looked, “It’s her, the more I think about it now, the more suspicious it is.”
“She only bought pickles?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a membership card?”
“I asked the cashier afterward, no.”
“Did she have transportation?”
“No.”
Luke clicked on the surveillance outside the supermarket, from which he could see the parking lot outside the supermarket, which had empty spaces, but the woman didn’t linger in the parking lot, but left on foot in the other direction.
Luke once again carefully observe the Asian woman’s surveillance video, this woman from entering the supermarket to leave a full twenty-five minutes, and behavior is not like buying customers, most of the time stay in the surveillance dead corner.
With Luke’s years of criminal investigation experience, this woman definitely has a problem.