Chapter Fifteen: Analyzing the Course of Events Leading Up to the Crime

  "This...this...it's possible that the villagers didn't hear." Stammering, Guo Yang explained with a face full of anger to Liu Li: "Officer, you're slandering me like this, I...I won't accept it."

  Looking at Guo Yang's performance, Liu Li said lightly: "Not convinced? Wait a moment, I will make you convinced. The reason why I suspected you is that after killing someone, you left the biggest flaw."

  No matter how you think, the flaw you left behind is on those erased fingerprints. The person in charge of investigating the fingerprints just said that at the scene of the murder, except for the victim's fingerprints, no other fingerprints were found, including yours, which were also erased by the murderer.

  If the murderer only needed to erase his own fingerprints, why did he also wipe away yours? And so thoroughly at that? How did the murderer know which fingerprints were yours and which belonged to the deceased?

  There is only one reason that can explain all this, and that is the person who killed Guo Qin is you, Guo Yang.

  "When the water is too clear, there are no fish. If something is too clean, it implies that there's a problem. You were too careful in wiping away your fingerprints, fearing that one of them might reveal your identity. So you wiped down everything you touched, which is why the crime scene had no fingerprints except for the victim's."

  Sweat broke out on Guo Yang's forehead as he heard this, but he still argued stubbornly: "That could just be a coincidence. You can't determine that I'm the murderer just because my fingerprints weren't found at the scene of the crime, right? Where's the evidence? Your previous analysis was all theoretical, you don't have any actual evidence to prove it."

  "Little guy, you really don't shed tears until you see the coffin." Liu Li sarcastically said to Guo Yang, and continued: "Just now when you were telling me about the case, I found that your logical thinking is very strong. When defending yourself, you also have some foundation in anti-detection. You must have read a lot of books on criminal investigation."

  However, you're still a bit tender. After killing someone, although you set up the scene, you still left behind evidence of your crime. Since you want evidence from me, I'll give it to you. The evidence is on that school uniform soaking outside the house.

  "School uniform? What evidence would be on a school uniform?" Guo Yang asked dazedly.

  "Guo Yang, I think you've never washed a single piece of clothing from childhood to adulthood, right?" Liu Li asked. Upon seeing Guo Yang nodding, he walked over to the door and pointed at the basin with clothes soaking in it:

  "Earlier you said the clothes in the basin were soaked by the deceased that morning, but actually you were lying. This school uniform was something you yourself soaked in water after killing Guo Qin, in order to fake the scene, right?"

  "No, that school uniform was soaked by my grandmother in a basin this morning. She said she would wash it after finishing the household chores." After explaining, Guo Yang thought for a moment and added: "If you don't believe me, you can check it out, there are still my grandmother's fingerprints on it."

  After hearing this, Liu Li looked at Guo Yang and didn't speak until he had stared him into a daze. Then he said: "No need to test, I believe there are fingerprints of the deceased on this school uniform. Since you were able to hold the deceased's hand in the crime scene and write that R, it's also possible for the deceased's fingerprints to be left on this uniform. Just rub this uniform against the deceased's hands a few times and it will be done."

  Perhaps because the deceased was relatively diligent before death, there were no dirty clothes at home, so you had to take out this severely damaged school uniform. Although there were some stains on this school uniform, it looked normal when soaked in a basin.

  But because you had never washed clothes before, that's why the horse foot was exposed. Generally, people wash clothes first, then dig into the pockets of this piece of clothing to see if there are any stored items, and then take a look at the clothes to see if there is any damage.

  If there is a damaged area on the clothes, people usually do not soak and wash them. Because if you wash your clothes at this time, the damage to the clothes will be aggravated during the process of rubbing and washing. The usual practice is that the person concerned will first use needle and thread to sew the clothes well, and then soak and wash them after confirming that they will not aggravate the damage due to rubbing.

  At this point, Liu picked up the school uniform that had been soaking in the basin: "Take a look at this. The seam of the sleeve is open due to loose threads, and the sleeve and body are almost falling apart. Would the deceased have washed clothes like this without sewing them back together?"

  "To think that the deceased had washed clothes for a lifetime, would he not even understand such basic common sense? So I determined that this piece of clothing was not soaked in water by the deceased himself. Since that's the case, what you said earlier about the school uniform being soaked in the washbasin after getting up in the morning is clearly a lie. But why did you lie? The reason is simple: because you are the murderer."