Chapter 79 Interrogation Part 1

Officer Tang thought it over quickly. What was more important to him - the survival of the careers of his colleagues here, or the possible destruction of the criminal defence lawyer from the public defender's office?

If the lawyer didn't find out about Sun Tianwei's involvement, perhaps there could still be a way out for her, and for the precinct. Because the public has to know about Sun Tianwei's interference for them to even form an opinion about it!

If the lawyer did find out and kept it quiet, she would be safe from the Sun family's retaliation. Hopefully, she will pick the wise decision.

The second option was still the lesser of the two evils, because there was a chance of survival. If they went against the Sun family, it was guaranteed annihilation.

There was a reason why Sun Jingwei had never spent any time in a holding cell, despite all his youthful delinquent behaviour.

Officer Tang sent a mental note of apology to Lawyer Lian, he can only hope that Tianwei would be merciful enough and not try to harm her in any way.

The last thing anyone needed, or wanted, was a human rights abuse case on top of a murder.

Officer Tang made his decision. He sighed and led Tianwei to the room behind the one-way mirror.

"Please keep as silent as possible and do not leave the room," he told Tianwei. Tianwei nodded agreeably now that he had gotten his way.

He then began the interrogation of one of his oldest officers, Ma Lin Tao.

"Sir! I swear I'm innocent!" Lin Tao yelled the moment Officer Tang entered the room.

From behind the one-way mirror, Tianwei smirked at the faint look of exasperation on Xingzi's face. Clearly her client wasn't all that good at listening to her, which was not surprising. No one wanted to listen to her, least of all him.

"That's what we're trying to find out," Officer Tang said. "So let's start from the very beginning, when did the victim arrive in our holding cell?" He knew the answer from his call records, but he wanted to see if they would corroborate it.

"Around 10.30pm? I think?" Lin Tao scratched at his jaw, thinking back.

"Our station only got the call that you were dispatched at 9pm. Then the car returned with the prisoner and she refused to give us her personal details! If not for you letting us know that her name was Xiumin and she was that woman in Sun Jingwei's porn video, we'd never know. I would have put her name as Xiao Mei."

"And then what happened?"

"And then we just put her in the holding cell." Lin Tao shrugged. "What else were we supposed to do? It was so late already!"

"Was she alone?" Officer Tang asked.

"Yes, we didn't arrest anyone else that night. Boss, even if we had, we also wouldn't put them with her! She was just laughing crazily to herself the whole night, pulling at her own hair. I thought she was possessed."

"So she was really noisy for the whole night?" Officer Tang asked, with a commiserating look.

"You'd bet." Lin Tao nodded. "She made more noise than the drunkards we usually arrest for actual public disturbance."

"Then how is it that you could have supposedly fallen asleep on shift?" Officer Tang asked angrily. "Sleep so deeply that someone could have snuck into our precinct and silenced her once and for all? Do you take the precinct as your bedroom?"

Bingo. Tianwei wanted to applaud Officer Tang, but he had to keep quiet.

" I - " Lin Tao began to splutter.

"Kindly refrain from trapping my client with your questions," Lian Xingzi interrupted. "We have no proof that my client was lying."

Tianwei scoffed behind the mirror, but Xingzi continued.

"The woman could have stopped laughing sometime in the wee hours of the morning. As my client's shift lasted from 8pm to 8am, there's no way any human could have made noise for all 12 hours."

"She could," Lin Tao couldn't help but chime in. "I think if she had enough energy, she really would."

Xingzi shot him a death glare, and Tianwei laughed behind his fist. Lian Xingzi, you poor woman. Forced to defend idiots. See? You should have just become a prosecutor like I suggested. But no, you had to pick the losing side.

"Quiet," she said warningly, and Lin Tao fell silent.

"Fine," Officer Tang continued. "Then you said that you fell asleep after eating supper. What did you order, when did you order it and what time did you eat it?"

"Er… I ate fishball noodles with extra noodles and dumplings? Boss I just ordered from Lao Peng's noodle shop down the street - you know it, you've eaten there before! I was feeling hungry after all the excitement and her screaming, so I ordered a bigger size than usual. Then I ate it around… midnight? Or 1 am. Then I got tired and fell asleep."

"I see," Officer Tang twitched at the easy admittance of Lin Tao sleeping on duty. "Then what time did you wake up?"

"..." Lin Tao looked at the table, keeping silent.

"WHAT TIME." Officer Tang repeated. "Better answer me properly you punk!"

"Stop threatening my client!" Xingzi protested. "He has the right to remain silent."

Office Tang glared at Lin Tao, who was still determinedly looking at the table, refusing to meet his eyes.

"So you mean to tell me, you got a food coma from eating too much, fell so deeply asleep when you're on duty that a murder was committed right under your nose? And you didn't realise it until hours later, we wanted to interrogate her and then you realised she was dead when she didn't wake up?"

"That's not - " Lin Tao protested, but Officer Tang was on a roll.

"Fuck Lin Tao, what kind of idiot are you!" Officer Tang exclaimed in disappointment. "You're such a - "

"Kindly refrain from personal attacks," Xingzi interrupted.

"Sir! I also don't know what happened. You know me, usually I eat like this on the night shift all the time, but this was the first time I fell so deeply asleep after eating! You have to believe me!"