"Hong Letao."
"What kind of person is she?"
I walked up to the officer and took over the questioning. "I'm Captain He!"
"Oh, Officer He, I'm Hong Letao's boss. She's always been a diligent worker, never careless. I don't know why she would die such a horrible death!"
"What time did she start work today?"
"Around 8 o'clock. She comes in at the same time every day!"
As we were talking, suddenly, next to Hong Letao's body, a female waiter collapsed to the ground, crying uncontrollably. She screamed, "I told you not to touch that locker, but you wouldn't listen!"
"Hong Letao, you died so horribly. Why did you leave me behind!"
Noticing her abnormal reaction, I approached her immediately and said, "Do you know Hong Letao?"
She trembled and stammered in fear, "Hong Letao and I were very close. Yesterday, I told her not to go near locker 404, but she didn't listen. There's a ghost in that locker—it killed her! She was killed by a ghost!"
Her voice was so restrained and twisted that even the nearby officers shivered slightly. Did she just say Hong Letao was killed by a ghost? And what's with this locker 404?
Upon further questioning, I learned that this waitress's name was Lu Huanxuan. She was a fellow villager of Hong Letao, and the two of them came to the city to work together years ago. They had a very close relationship. Last night, out of curiosity about the rumor of a ghost in Fuming City's locker 404, they went to investigate.
During their exploration, strange laughter was heard. Lu Huanxuan wanted to leave, but Hong Letao insisted on staying and even opened the locker. Nothing happened to her at the time, but she met her end today.
The legend claimed that a vengeful spirit resided in the locker and would claim the life of anyone who touched it. Although I felt like Lu Huanxuan's account was wasting our time, I still decided to have her take us to the so-called haunted locker.
We arrived at a plaza behind the Korean restaurant and found a row of densely packed lockers under the stairs, numbered 101 to 909. They were likely used by customers shopping upstairs to store their belongings.
We immediately located locker 404 and opened it. Inside, we found nothing—it was empty.
I figured it must just be a baseless rumor. Nearby, I noticed a surveillance camera facing the lockers, which might provide some clues.
I said to Lu Huanxuan, "Don't worry, Ms. Lu. We will find the person responsible for Hong Letao's death. Please take care of yourself."
"There's no killer—it was the ghost! Don't investigate any further! Boohoo!" Lu Huanxuan's emotions seemed agitated and somewhat unhinged. She kept mumbling about ghosts, so I decided not to bother with her.
I had a female officer comfort her while I returned to the police station. Our immediate tasks were to access the surveillance footage of the plaza behind the Korean restaurant and have Zhao Simeng examine Hong Letao's body.
At the technical department, I asked Li Hong to contact the plaza manager to retrieve the surveillance footage. Though I could have gone to the surveillance room myself, as the captain, I delegated such tasks to my subordinates.
Before long, we obtained footage of the lockers. The area was bustling with people throughout the day due to the plaza's popularity. I had an officer speed through the footage, adjusting from 2x to 128x playback. Finally, we spotted Hong Letao and Lu Huanxuan passing by.
By then, it was already quite dark. The two lingered in front of the lockers, seemingly discussing something. Several times, Lu Huanxuan tried to pull Hong Letao away, but the latter refused and insisted on investigating.
When they opened locker 404, the surveillance footage began to flicker strangely. I asked Li Hong what was happening. He explained that the camera feed had been tampered with.
Not again. I instructed Li Hong and Xie Deguang to continue reviewing the footage while I went to the archives department. There, I consulted with officers and learned about a past case involving locker 404.
Four years ago, a murderer had killed his daughter and hidden her body in the locker. The remains weren't discovered until days later. After the dried-out infant corpse was dealt with, rumors began circulating about strange noises and sightings of a baby running through the area at night.
The stories were varied and chilling. One officer said, "It's just urban legends to scare little girls."
"I understand, but the killer might be exploiting these rumors to commit murder!"
The officers in the archives agreed with my theory. After sifting through various files, I was exhausted and returned to my office to rest briefly. Soon after, I received a call from Zhao Simeng.
I assumed she wanted me to examine Hong Letao's body. When I arrived at the lab, my first question was, "Any results?"
"After comparison, we found the same type of pill in her system. It entered her stomach through her esophagus. The mechanism is identical for both victims," Zhao Simeng said, handing me the report.
I reviewed the findings and said, "That means only someone close to the victim could have gotten her to take the pills."
"Exactly. Hong Letao might have been taking other medication recently. If someone swapped her pills, they could have killed her."
This reminded me of the Han Xingxian case, where we had also suspected pill tampering but found no evidence against Li Mengman.
Now another person had died from these explosive pills. This was undoubtedly the work of a serial killer.
Not to sound pessimistic, but such cases rarely involve just two victims. Unless we catch the culprit soon, there will likely be more deaths.
I quickly went to the criminal investigation meeting room and had the technical team map out Hong Letao's social circle. The most suspicious person was her boyfriend, Liao Bowen. As someone close to her, he was most likely to have tampered with her medication.
I said, "This person had the opportunity to poison Hong Letao!"
"Right, even if we don't know his connection to Han Xingxian, we should detain him if there's evidence!" said Xiao Yuande.
"Understood. For now, we'll bring him in for questioning." I instructed the team to locate Liao Bowen immediately. Using phone tracking technology, we pinpointed his location as soon as he turned on his phone.