However, identifying the corpse was even more difficult.
The parts that could be identified were badly damaged, fingerprints and facial features were seriously destroyed, barely extracted DNA couldn’t find any matches.
A gangster like Jabba wouldn’t let his DNA, fingerprints, or other data end up in the police database.
They could only determine from rigor mortis that the corpse likely died between the evening of July 31 and the early morning of August 1.
That is to say, the victim died on July 31, but the body was only destroyed this morning.
Outside the apartment, in the hallway, Wolf stood side by side with several officers.
"Is there any surveillance nearby? Did it capture any suspicious person entering this room?" Wolf asked the officer beside him.
"No, sir, this is Area E, there’s no surveillance," the officer replied.
Wolf frowned, this was another impediment to solving the case.
"Police Chief Wolf." At that moment, an officer responsible for investigating the bathroom scene ran over and reported, "We found remnants of chromic acid cleaning solution in the water tank above the bathtub, and at the edge of the bathtub, we found cat hair."
"Cat hair?" Wolf was a bit incredulous, "Is there a cat in the house?"
"No, but we found slight signs of a cat’s presence," the officer continued, "The water tank is 500L, made of glass, sufficient to contain chromic acid cleaning solution."
"Furthermore, there is a hole underneath the water tank where there should have been a glass stopper, but it was not found at the scene," the officer added, then he pulled out a simple metal frame, "Inside the water tank, we also found this."
"What is this?" Wolf looked at the metal object, composed of three or four metal handles connected by small pulleys.
"Preliminary speculation, based on the information from technician Kirie, is that..." the officer hesitated, "it’s a labor-saving structure, making it easier to remove the glass stopper from the bottom of the tank."
"Glass stopper..." Wolf stroked his chin, his mind racing, considering the connection between these clues.
Died two days ago, body destroyed this morning, scratch marks on the hands, glass water tank, cat hair, missing glass stopper, labor-saving structure...
"Are you hungry?"
"Have some more."
"What a good boy."
A familiar voice came from the end of the hallway; Wolf turned to see Jiang Shu feeding a cat with a segment of sausage.
It was a tricolor tabby, sleek but with matted and dirty fur, seemingly a stray.
"Hmm?" Wolf walked over, crouched down, and joined Jiang Shu, watching the tabby eat the sausage, "Weren’t you going to buy some food?"
"Yeah, after buying it, I saw a cat by the road, so I threw a piece of sausage to it, and it followed me here," Jiang Shu took a bite of the sausage, then broke off another piece for the cat.
He looked at the cat, as if remembering something, "Right, this cat is quite clever; it had a glass stopper tied to its tail, and it knew to find me to help take it off."
"Glass stopper?" Wolf felt a surge of excitement.
"Yeah, this one," Jiang Shu pulled it out of his pocket, "It looked quite delicate, so I didn’t throw it away."
"You’ve been a great help," Wolf said, joy flickering in his eyes, taking the glass stopper and quickly running into the apartment’s bathroom.
He cleaned the glass stopper and then pressed it against the hole at the bottom of the tank.
It fit easily and perfectly, confirming that the glass stopper was indeed meant for the tank, but why was it tied to a cat’s tail?
If a member of the Deception Group killed Jabba, what was their ultimate goal?
As he pondered, a sudden inspiration struck Wolf and he successfully connected all the clues.
The crime scene must have looked like this:
Jabba was shot by a member of the Deception Group and his body was placed in the bathtub.
Then, they tied the glass stopper to the tail of the tabby cat, secured it along with a metal object, prepared the sedative, and injected it into the cat to make it fall asleep.
Next, they filled a glass tank with chromic acid solution.
So, when the cat woke up and found itself bound at the edge of the bathtub, it would inevitably struggle to escape; under the leveraged setup of the metal object, it could easily leave the bathroom with the glass stopper in tow.
This was just the second floor and the window was open, so the tabby cat would naturally flee the scene quickly.
The glass stopper would come off, causing the chromic acid solution to spill and fill the bathtub, thereby dissolving the body.
Wolf guessed that the Deception Group’s original plan was to have the entire body dissolved in chromic acid solution; given enough time, the police would be unable to determine the time of death from the body.
However, after the use of chromic acid solution, the hexavalent chromium ions would gradually convert to trivalent chromium ions and the color would change from red-brown to the ineffective dark green.
Thus, the police could only determine the time of destruction of the body from the solution, which would be from last night to this morning, subconsciously leading them to believe that the victim was killed during this time period, directing the investigation entirely in the wrong direction, as no living person was in the apartment at that time!
In Jiang Shu’s words, this was "Time Misdirection," delaying the actual time of death by two days, completely misleading the police.
However, fortunately, the Deception Group made three mistakes in their plans.
In fact, such mistakes were normal; the more intricate and complex a case, the more likely it was to encounter unforeseen circumstances and leave clues.
First, the cat hair and traces of the cat at the scene.
Of course, this would not attract much attention, as it was normal for a stray cat to sneak in when the window was open on the second floor.
Second, when the tabby cat left, it likely accidentally touched the victim’s hand, causing one of the hands to protrude from the bathtub and not dissolve, thus allowing the actual time of death to be determined.
Third, Jiang Shu accidentally found the tabby cat nearby and also recovered the missing glass stopper, which added a crucial piece to the puzzle of this mysterious case.
Using these methods and arranging such a process, combined with the information at the scene, Wolf could almost confirm that the body was likely Jabba’s.
Jabba was killed by another member for unknown reasons around the time of the theft at New Moon Hall, two days ago.
After organizing the entire sequence of events, Wolf relayed his speculations and reasoning to Jiang Shu.
"emm, sounds about right, and the logic is very meticulous," Jiang Shu mused after hearing the analysis, affirming, "That seems to be it, another case of Time Misdirection."
"Yes." Having received Jiang Shu’s affirmation, Wolf felt even more confident in his conclusions.
"But have you considered why, if they wanted to conceal the real time of death of the body, meaning they wanted to clear any suspicions, they would leave behind a fake music box and a camera?" Jiang Shu posed the question, highlighting a contradiction.
"Uh..." Wolf was taken aback; he had indeed not thought about that. He then looked expectantly at Jiang Shu, "Do you know?"
"I don’t know," Jiang Shu expressed helplessly, "Who can truly understand the thoughts of the Deception Group?"