Case Files 013

Dog's blood, how could that be found on the lipstick? It definitely didn't come from the lipstick itself, so someone had to have stained the cosmetic with dog's blood, it couldn't have been Liu Fei'er so it had to be the kidnapper. I closed my eyes and pulled on my hair.

There weren't that many things inside Liu Fei'er's room but there were some interesting items. So why would the kidnapper be interested in a lipstick? If I was the kidnapper and I was browsing the room out of boredom at night, I might look at Liu Fei'er's state of the art computer and never the cosmetic. I opened my eyes, the kidnapper was probably a woman. Only a woman would be interested in Liu Fei'er's high class make-up. Perhaps she had not come into contact with such high end cosmetic before and wanted to try one out. A woman with dog's blood on her lips, why would there be dog's blood on her lips? I was suddenly reminded of another person, a man who fed on dog's blood. Was it them who were behind this kidnapping? When Zhao Mingkun was at Lin Fen, we didn't run into Lai San so where was Lai San now? After his operation was shut down, he was forced to turn to kidnapping? But it was still too early to tell…

"Xiao Wu!" Xiao Liu shouted from the ground floor. "All the security guards are here, you can come down now." I shared a look with Gu Chen and went down the stairs. The security guards plus the patrols, they lined up in 3 rows at the living room. They looked imposing and refreshed. According to the butler, the guards recommended here didn't have any criminal background and some of them were still in university. Working here provided them with a salary of 5000 RMB per month and there was a bonus at the end of the year so the treatment was not bad. There had never been any cases of misdemeanour. I looked at the guards and said loudly, "I'm not going to waste time, you must already know why you're here. You've heard about what happened this afternoon, but I'm not suspecting anyone who is here. I only wish to ask, is everyone here? Is anyone missing?"

The lead security guard looked around and frowned. "Er Zi, where is the university student you're supposed to lead? Where is he?" Er Zi was a heavily-tanned, muscular man, he looked honest and trustworthy. He looked around and said, "You mean Xiao Wang? Huh, I saw him early this morning, why did he disappear to? Has anyone else seen him?" Everyone shook their heads in response, no one knew where this Xiao Wang was. Looking at this, I knew that something must have gone wrong. I asked hurriedly, "Who is this Xiao Wang? What is his full name, how old is he, where did he come from? Tell me everything!"

The lead security guard said urgently, "Er Zi, if your people are missing, you should have reported it sooner. If this is the opening the kidnappers used, we'll all be in trouble. Do you not understand that? This is bad." I stopped the lead guard and said, "Reserve the lecture for later, tell me everything now or else you would be seeing a dead body instead!"

Er Zi hurriedly gave me the info about Xiao Wang. Xiao Wang's full name was Wang Yikai, 24 years old. He graduated from Dong Xing City's Shi Fan University. He was unable to find a suitable job after graduation. He joined the team here after he passed the exam. He had worked there for a year already. Wang Yikai was not a local, he rented a room at Dong Xing City and lived alone unlike the other guards who lived at the hostel. Within Er Zi's patrol group, when asked about their opinion regarding Wang Yikai, they said the kid was condescending because he was the most educated among the team.

After today's lunch, Er Zi led everyone on the patrol and Wang Yikai was still present then. "Is your team responsible for patrolling the compound around Mr. Liu's bungalow?" I was reminded of something, "The patrol lasts about 5 minutes every round?'

Er Zi answered, "I've not really counted the time but our team has 6 people, 3 responsible to patrol the front of the bungalow and 3 the back. Xiao Wang and other 2 were responsible for patrolling the back. Was Xiao Wang around during the noon patrol?"

"Yes. But halfway through, he claimed that he suffered from a stomach ache." One of them answered. "He practically doubled-over. We stopped because we were concerned about him. We only continued when he felt better. Then he excused himself to use the toilet and we hadn't seen him since."

"Then, where is his rental home located?" I asked.

…

20 minutes later, we arrived at Wang Yikai's home. This was a countryside locale quite a distance away from the bungalow. The scenery was quite beautiful too but there were a lot of small houses that peppered the area. Looks like this place was built specifically to accommodate the staff that worked at the coastline bungalows. Er Zi pointed at a red brick house on a hillside, telling us that it was Wang Yikai's home. I nodded and signalled for Gu Chen to follow. We pushed on the door lightly and realized it wasn't locked. I shoved it open and saw that the place was empty. The first thing that I saw was the bed, the bedsheet was well made and the pillow sat neatly on top of it. It looked like it had not been slept in. Beside the bed was a simple closet, the collapsible kind, instead of a door, it used a piece of cloth as cover. I pulled down the zipper in the middle of the cloth, the closet was empty. Turning to the side, there was a table. From the indentation of the dust, there were 3 rectangular pieces that had recently been removed.

There was another door inside the room, it led to the toilet. "If you ask me, this kid has to have played a part in it." Gu Chen said inside the small room. "When the kidnapper made their move, the kid pretended to be sick to distract the other patrols so that the kidnappers had the chance to escape." Gu Chen nodded along to his hypothesis. "Plus, since the kidnappers were able to avoid all the surveillance, it meant that they must be very familiar with the security of the bungalow, someone from the inside must have helped them with that. This Wang Yikai is highly suspicious. Look, all the clothes have been removed and the door wasn't even locked, he must have left in a hurry."

I shook my finger. "You only got half of it correct."

"What do you mean?" Gu Chen turned to look at me.

I said, "Wang Yikai is suspicious, no, I mean he is definitely the insider, you're not wrong about that but the latter half, you got it all wrong. First, Wang Yikai didn't leave in a hurry. His home is only so big, if he had to take away all the clothes inside his closet, he at least had to fold them first so they could fit inside the luggage bag." I pointed at the bed. "The best place to do that is on the bed but look, the bed is fully made. Either he didn't fold his clothes there, or he stayed to make the bed after he folded all of his clothes."

Gu Chen nodded, and then I pointed at the table. "Now look at this table, it's very dirty except for 3 rectangular spaces. Based on the sizes, it should be a 15.6 inch laptop, keyboard and mouse pad." That was quite easy to deduce and it was confirmed by Er Zi. "Yes, when I was here before, that was where his computer was."

I snapped my fingers. "So therein lies the problem, he had taken his time to put away his clothes and computer, but he didn't lock the door when he left? That is contradictory. If a person was in a hurry to escape, would they stop to arrange their stuff so neatly before they took off? Plus, if he had been bribed, why would he come back to take his old clothes and computer? He could have used the money to buy new ones."

Xiao Liu frowned. "So he wasn't bribed? Wait, but you said he is the insider. Hmm… Perhaps that is the man's nature, he's a cool and collected person. He came back to pack his stuff after Liu Fei'er's disappearance. He took his sweet time because he knew still had time, as the investigation would be focused on the daughter's disappearance first."

I shook my head. "If he is that cool and collected, he would have done better at distracting his colleague. He wouldn't have put on such an amateurish performance that practically shone the suspicion on himself." I then pointed at the door. "The door wasn't locked! It's the same question, if he had the time to come back to pack up his stuff, why didn't he lock the door? The door lock is the oldest kind, the one that uses an external lock, he could have easily locked it from outside. There is only one explanation."

"What is it?"

"After Wang Yikai got to work, someone cracked the lock and took away Wang Yikai's computer and clothes." I explained, "Wang Yikai never really returned home but someone wanted to create the impression that he had." I walked out from the room and continued, "And why? It's because the kidnappers want to misdirect us away from the truth. There's no need to stay here anymore, I have 100 percent confidence that after Wang Yikai escaped using the excuse of toilet break, he had already been taken by the kidnappers."

Hearing that, everyone was silent except Er Zi who didn't seem to understand the implication. "What do you mean by taken?"

"He was probably killed to keep him silent." I said lightly, "And it should happen near the bungalow compound. Er Zi, do you know any place within the bungalow that has no surveillance and is rarely used?"

Er Zi thought for a while and then nodded. "Yes, actually there is such a place. The compound is connected to the mountain at the northern side. There is an iron fence but the fence comes with a door. That is to make it convenient for Mr. Liu's family to use should they wish to go on a nature walk but they are too busy to really employ it. Basically no one will go there. The place has no cameras and we, the patrols, rarely go there as well!"

Wang Yikai was most likely dead somewhere on the mountainous woods.

"Bring us there now."