Animal Detective

Chapter 257 - 232: Case Closed, You’re Under Arrest

In ancient times, the Ningshan area was a land of rivers and lakes.

It was filled with rivers and lakes.

Later, a vast network of canals and waterways was dug to meet the needs of agricultural irrigation, water transport, and flood control.

Some were very shallow, only about a meter deep, with limited width.

But those meant for boat traffic were deeper, possibly reaching depths of 3 meters or even more.

The waterway before them, called the Xuntang, was one of the latter.

It was once one of the transport canals running from Pingzhou to Ningshan, navigable by larger cargo boats.

The river was 53 meters wide; it was written right on the concrete bridge next to them.

As for the depth, it had to be over 3 meters.

And since it was an artificially excavated canal, the depth near the banks wasn’t much different from the center.

A Wuling Sunshine minivan is 1.8 meters tall, so it could be completely submerged at the bottom.

Plus, there was silt at the bottom. The vehicle would sink into it a bit, making the water depth more than sufficient.

The water wasn’t very clear either. Standing above and looking through more than a meter of it, you wouldn’t be able to see a submerged minivan.

Most importantly, thanks to the development of land transport, small canals like this one had been abandoned. Any boat traffic now used the Grand Canal.

At most, you’d only see small maintenance boats passing through.

As for it drying up, that was even more impossible.

At this moment, Shen Xin, Liu Jie, and the others stood on the concrete bridge, watching the water rescue team at work in the canal below.

This was within Pingzhou’s jurisdiction.

Therefore, Liu Jie had coordinated with the Linshui South Forest Branch to find a rescue team. Their criminal investigation division captain, a man named Wei Wenbin, had also come over.

Now and then, passersby on electric scooters would stop to watch curiously.

Wang Cheng leaned over the railing, his eyes fixed on the scene below. "Chief Liu, they still haven’t found anything. Could we have been wrong? Thinking about it now, just sinking the van in the river... doesn’t that seem a bit reckless?"

"What if someone was nearby and saw him? Or what if someone discovered it later? They’d still be able to trace it back to him."

"Also, how did he even sink the van? Did he just drive it straight in? Isn’t that a little dangerous?"

Shen Xin nodded thoughtfully.

The scenarios Wang Cheng described were all possible.

The main issue was that they had been searching for a while now, focusing on the area near the concrete bridge where Zhou Hui had slowed down to observe, but they hadn’t found anything yet.

’Did Wang Cheng and I guess wrong? Did Zhou Hui choose a different way to hide the minivan?’

’Maybe he rented a house and drove it into the yard, planning to lie low and deal with it later?’

’Or maybe he got a box truck and just drove the van right inside to haul it away?’

If you really thought about it, there were many ways to cover your tracks.

"No!"

Liu Jie waved his hand dismissively. "Zhou Hui’s behavior was abnormal. That proves there’s something here."

"Most importantly, you can’t be a Monday-morning quarterback and assume Zhou Hui—or any suspect, for that matter—is some kind of genius."

"For most criminals, just having the presence of mind to evade surveillance, case the area beforehand, and think to dispose of the vehicle by sinking it in a river shows a high level of counter-surveillance awareness. That alone is pretty rare."

"In my personal experience,"

Liu Jie looked at Shen Xin and the other young officers.

He was clearly giving them a lesson.

"You can give the suspect some credit for being clever, but most of the time, they aren’t nearly as smart as you think."

"Take Zhou Hui. He hit and killed a living person on an open road in the middle of the night. Put yourself in his shoes. Even if he planned it all out beforehand, he would still be terrified."

"As the saying goes, things never go according to plan. What if another car came from the opposite direction and saw him?"

"That kind of uncertainty puts immense psychological pressure on a person. In many cases, they won’t have time to make a rational decision."

"Besides, when you’re premeditating a murder, it’s hard to consider every single detail. Looking back, you can see that sinking a van in a river has plenty of flaws; it’s not a perfect plan."

"But at that moment, it was probably the best idea he could come up with."

"That’s why, you see, he couldn’t help himself. He had to come back and check to be sure, because he also knew his choice at the time might not have been perfect."

"And that’s precisely why I believe the minivan is right here."

Shen Xin thought for a moment and realized Liu Jie had a point.

To be honest, the fact that Zhou Hui had chosen to run Yang Maocai down with a car instead of just stabbing him already showed a degree of cleverness.

"Chief Liu, your experience is really something else. I’ve learned a lot."

Shen Xin immediately put on an expression that showed he was eager to learn.

Beside him, Wang Cheng was a bit more bashful and just nodded thoughtfully.

Just then, one of the workers below waved his hand and reported that they hadn’t found anything in this section of the canal.

Liu Jie picked up his walkie-talkie and pointed north.

The concrete bridge ran east-west, while the canal ran roughly north-south.

About two hundred meters to the north, it converged with two other waterways.

Liu Jie pointed north and said into the walkie-talkie, "Head that way. See that electrical tower? There’s a small path over there, probably for maintenance. If the suspect was driving, he might have used that path."

There was indeed an electrical tower in the distance, right at the junction of the waterways.

He gestured back in the direction they had come from and explained to the others, "Look, coming from that direction, the only way to get the van into the river would be to drive through the farmland."

"The crash happened at the end of August. They grow double-crop rice here, and at the end of August, the rice plants would have just been tillering. The fields would have still been flooded, and the ridges between them are too narrow. I’ve considered it, and it would have been very difficult for him to force the van through there."

"Only that small path on the other side would be just right."

Shen Xin looked and saw that it was true. He immediately praised Liu Jie for his meticulous observation and thorough consideration.