lcionline Chapter 1090: Case Closed
Chapter 1090: Case Closed
“I know the hopper at the sand and gravel plant starts at five o’clock every morning, hoping the machine will shred the body…” His voice grew softer and softer, “I didn’t expect to be startled by the patrolling security guards as soon as I dragged it to the warehouse, so I had to throw away half of the arm and run away.”
Xiao Zhou pulled up Li Baotian's call records. The mysterious number was indeed the black card he'd obtained under a false name. The last call lasted 47 minutes, precisely the negotiation before the incident where Wang Kaisheng refused to hand over the steel. "Where are Wang Kaisheng's torso and other limbs?" Xiao Zhou pressed, his pen hovering over the record book. Li Baotian's lips trembled: "Buried... buried in the wasteland behind the logistics park, wrapped in a waterproof tarpaulin..."
As Li Baotian was escorted to the crime scene for identification, his right leg trembled uncontrollably in the bumpy police car. Outside the window, Wang Kaisheng's truck was being towed back to the station, the tarpaulin still gaping open—an old wound left by Li Baotian during a robbery years ago, which, ten years later, had become a blood-red bond connecting two lives. Xiao Zhou looked at Li Baotian's handcuffed hands, with dark blue fibers embedded under his fingernails, like an inescapable chain.
Outside the interrogation room, technicians were comparing Li Baotian's DNA with trace amounts of skin flakes found on his work clothes at the sand and gravel plant. Xiao Zhou rubbed his aching shoulders. Morning light streamed through the blinds, casting a golden line over the words "previous robbery conviction." He recalled the words of Wang Kaisheng's wife, Zhou Lan: "He always said driving long distances was like walking a tightrope..." And waiting at the end of that tightrope was a bomb of hatred planted ten years ago.
As Li Baotian was being taken away, he suddenly turned back to Xiao Zhou and said, "I didn't actually want to kill him. I just wanted... I just wanted to take back what was rightfully mine." Xiao Zhou didn't reply, but just looked at the disability in his right leg—it was from a fall he sustained last year while fleeing from loan sharks. The irony of fate seemed particularly sharp at that moment.
On the screen in the information center, Li Baotian's crime trajectory gradually became complete: from the robbery at the service area to the dismemberment at the logistics park, and then to the dumping of the body at the sand and gravel plant, each node matched the surveillance footage and physical evidence perfectly. Xiao Zhang printed out the last comparison report. Li Baotian's DNA matched perfectly with the black hair found in the gap of the truck's cab floor mat; it was the hair that fell out when he dragged Wang Kaisheng.
Xiao Zhou picked up the report and walked to the window. The sunlight outside was perfect, illuminating the steps in front of the Criminal Investigation Detachment building and the crimes hidden in the blind spots of the surveillance cameras. He knew that solving this case was not only to comfort Wang Kaisheng's soul in heaven, but also a powerful counterattack against the hatred and greed that festered in the darkness. As long as there are people like them who stick to their posts, the truth will never be buried.
The day after Li Baotian was arrested.
As the police car rolled over the speed bumps at the entrance to the gravel pit, Li Baotian's handcuffs clanked coldly against the bumps. He stared at his distorted reflection in the car window, the scar on his right eyebrow gleaming bluish-purple in the morning light—a mark left from robbing Wang Kaisheng ten years ago, now crawling like a worm under his skin. Outside the window, Xiao Yang was sketching outlines beside the hopper with chalk, the white powder contrasting sharply with the reddish-brown soil, suddenly reminding him of the bloodstains splattered on the tarpaulin when dismembering the body.
“This is it.” Li Baotian’s voice was muffled by his mask, unclear and indistinct. He stopped precisely at the chalk circle Xiao Yang had initially marked as the “location of the severed limbs,” 2.3 meters from the west wall, perfectly matching the forensic measurement of the limb’s length. Xiao Wang held up a photo of the scene; the folds of the blue tarpaulin in the photo overlapped with the trembling of Li Baotian’s fingers at that moment: “How did you get him off the motorcycle?”
Li Baotian's Adam's apple bobbed violently as his gaze swept across the slope at the edge of the material yard. "It was four in the morning that day. I parked my motorcycle under that old locust tree," he said, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the handcuff chains. "The seat cushion was covered in mud, which I later wiped with a rag, but there must still be marks left." He pointed to the scratches on the ground, where silver-gray paint residue remained, consistent with the test results of the worn area on his motorcycle's fuel tank. "I dragged him towards the warehouse by his right wrist. His watch chain got caught on my trouser leg, and that's when the chipped crown was made."
Technicians immediately used a laser rangefinder to calibrate the measurement. The length of the drag mark from start to finish was 3.7 meters, exactly matching Li Baotian's confession of the dragging distance. Xiao Wang noticed a slight bulge in the trouser leg near Li Baotian's right knee—inside was a steel plate used to fix an old injury. This explained the "abnormal forefoot pressure in the size 44 hiking boot print" discovered during the on-site investigation: the shift in the center of gravity caused by the limp resulted in the shoe print being darker on the left and lighter on the right.
As Li Baotian entered warehouse number 17 in area B, he suddenly gasped for breath, the chains scraping against the concrete floor with a grating sound. “I placed him here,” he crouched down, tracing an arc with his finger on the ground. “His head was against the corner of the wall, the tarpaulin hadn’t covered his face, and his eyes were still open.” The dark red stains in the corner of the warehouse wall were tested and found to be splattered blood, perfectly matching the forensic report’s conclusion that “blood vessels were still bleeding when the limb was severed.” And the area his fingertip traced was exactly the “location corresponding to the occipital contusion” recorded by Zhang Lin.
"How long did you stay here?" Xiao Wang pressed, pointing to the bulging part of the tarpaulin in the photo. Li Baotian's shoulder suddenly twitched, and the chains clanged against the ground. "About ten minutes. I wanted to find a rock to weigh him down so the patrol wouldn't find him." He pointed to a pile of rubble in the southwest corner of the warehouse. "There's a piece of angular bluestone there. When I moved it, I scraped off a piece, and there must be my fingerprints on it." Technicians quickly extracted a faint fingerprint from the stone, the pattern of which perfectly matched Li Baotian's left index finger.
When Xiao Wang asked him to recount his actions during the dismemberment, Li Baotian's right hand suddenly spasmed. "I used a utility knife to cut from here," he gestured the trajectory from the shoulder joint to the elbow, the angle of the blade perfectly matching the 45-degree angle formed by the "oblique separation plane" in the forensic report. "When I made the third cut, the blade got stuck in the bone, and I had to step on his arm to cut it off—that's why there are those scratches on the inside of the humerus." Measurements showed that the depth of the dents in the warehouse floor matched the heel height of his size 44 hiking boots, confirming his confession of "stepping for assistance."
Reaching the conveyor belt gear assembly, Li Baotian's breathing quickened. "His jacket got caught in the gears," he said, staring at the jagged edges. A strand of dark blue fiber, hardened by engine oil, still clung to the teeth. "It was this black one. We tried to pull it out for ages, but couldn't. The fiber must be stuck to it." Xiao Yang's camera zoomed in, revealing a clear double-stranded weave structure in the fiber, perfectly matching the fiber composition of the truck tarpaulin the forensic examiner had found in the fingernails of the severed limb.