206 Visit and Investigation
“Yes.” Zou Sheng coldly showed his police badge, took out a pen and paper, and asked, “Can we talk inside?”
“Yes, yes, yes.” The man hurriedly moved aside, his fingers accidentally knocking against the door frame at the side. He was clearly uneasy.
After Zou Sheng entered the house, he realized that the furniture in the house was very old. It did not look like something the two of them had bought, but like an inherited ancestral home.
The man asked Zou Sheng to sit on the sofa in the living room and personally poured him a glass of hot water. Then, he sat opposite the woman and rubbed his hands nervously. “Is the person who died in the field really my mother?”
Zou Sheng looked at the information and asked, “Is Lin Ya your mother?”
“Yes, yes, yes.” The man look a little sad. He exchanged glances with his wife and explained, “We didn’t dare to go and look. We heard that someone had died and we were frightened. My wife said that if it was really my mother, the police would come looking for us. It wouldn’t make a difference if we didn’t look.”
Zou Sheng hurriedly glanced at the empty bottle of spirits on the table and said calmly, “Did you drink last night?”
“Yes.” The man nodded and said, “I drank with my mother. Yesterday, the child was one month old and my mother stayed for dinner. My mother only left at ten o’clock.”
Zou Sheng took notes and asked, “You didn’t see her again, right?”
“That’s right. I didn’t expect something so serious to happen to my mother. She’s already in her seventies, but she died like that. How are we going to hold our heads up in the village in the future?”
The man had obviously found out about the situation through other means, but he was still very submissive towards his wife. He had restrained himself and not even gone to take a look. This showed that his shame was far greater than his sadness at losing his mother.
“Did the old woman have any enemies?”
Zou Sheng was just asking routine questions, but to his surprise, the woman who had been sitting silently at the side suddenly said, “Yes! The villagers ostracized us. His mother often quarreled with them. That Chen Kuan always took the lead to bully our family. He went around saying that we forced Mom to move out. He made so much noise that the entire village knows and thinks that we’re unfilial!”
“You didn’t force her to move out?” Zou Sheng was amused. He stopped writing and looked up.
“Of course not!” The woman slapped her thigh indignantly. The child in her arms was still innocently sucking her fingers. “His mother was unwilling to affect us, so she took the initiative to move out!”
“The old woman took the initiative to build a shed outside?” Zou Sheng obviously did not believe her.
The woman could tell that he did not believe her and quickly explained, “It’s true! When we got married, we couldn’t afford a house. At that time, something was wrong with our health and we didn’t have a child for so many years. Now that we finally have a child in our old age, we want to give him the best. This old house only has two rooms. When the child grows up, he can’t sleep in the same bed as us. Because of this, his mother took the initiative to move out.”
“When did she move out?”
“Only a few months ago. When I saw that it was getting cold, I even asked my husband to bring her back for the winter,” the woman said reasonably, completely absolving her and her husband of any responsibility.
However, no matter what they thought, the old woman had met her death. It was meaningless to pursue what had happened when she was alive. The only thing they could do now was find the murderer as soon as possible.
In the police station, Shen Yin quickly rushed out a report after the autopsy and went to Team Three’s office for a meeting.
Wu Zheng sat at the head of the table and gestured for Zou Sheng to show the photos of the victim on the big screen.
“Sister, sit next to me.” Zou Sheng eagerly moved a chair for her and placed the printed information in front of her.
Shen Yin sat down and gave a simple report. “The time of death can be further narrowed to between 11 p.m. and 12 a.m. The cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation. The murder weapon was the stockings wrapped around the victim’s neck. The knife wound on her chest is thought to be caused by a fruit knife. There’s nothing special about it. Other than that, I found nothing in the victim’s stomach, which means that the victim didn’t eat anything last night. Most importantly, the victim didn’t suffer sexual assault.”
“That’s normal! The victim is already in her seventies. Only a perverted murderer would have killed her!” Zou Sheng felt a chill just thinking about it and goosebumps broke out all over his body.
Meng Heng frowned and found something suspicious. He suddenly asked, “She hadn’t eaten anything? Brother Zou went to visit the victim’s son. Didn’t he say that it was her grandson’s one-month-old celebration yesterday? Why wouldn’t she have eaten anything?”
“She really had not eaten.” Shen Yin spread her hands helplessly and explained, “The victim only drank a little wine and didn’t eat anything. The victim was killed almost immediately after she left her son’s house. She wouldn’t have the chance to digest the food. I’m sure of it.”