gentry

Chapter 52 Who is the real murderer
In the afternoon, Luo Fei and Xiaoman walked into the building of the Fire Rescue Association and walked towards the inner hall led by the head of the Fire Rescue Association. At this moment, applause erupted from the inner hall.

When the president of the firefighting association led Luo Fei and Xiaoman into the hall, they saw a small award ceremony being held in the hall, a firefighter in uniform stood on the stage to accept the award, with a bandage on his arm.

At this time, the president pointed to the person on the stage and proudly introduced: "That is Du Jinbao. He was the first to arrive at the scene of the fire and rescued five people. He made a first-class contribution."

Xiaoman couldn't help feeling strange: "Didn't the firefighters rush to the scene together when they received the fire alarm?"

The president immediately explained: "The firefighting club has limited manpower. Except for the firefighters on duty, everyone else must come from their own homes to fight the fire as long as they hear the alarm."

"So he wasn't at the firefighting club when the fire broke out on Sunday night?" Luo Fei asked.

The president shook his head and looked at Du Jinbao on the stage with admiration: "No, it's his turn to rest on Sunday."

"It's a coincidence that a fire broke out as soon as he was resting." Luo Fei laughed.

The president looked at Luo Fei with displeasure: "What exactly do you want to know?"

"What unusual behavior did he do recently? For example, what strange words did he say?" Luo Fei asked more bluntly.

The president pointed at Du Jinbao with disbelief: "Do you suspect that he is an arsonist?"

Luo Fei said disapprovingly, "We're just investigating."

The president said angrily: "We firefighters put our lives at risk to save people. It is unreasonable for you to suspect us firefighters instead of arresting arsonists in the patrol room!"

Seeing the situation, Xiaoman hurriedly came to round up the field: "Don't get me wrong, we are just doing routine business."

"You went to the wrong place! I won't send you off!" The president turned and walked away angrily after finishing speaking.

Xiaoman looked at the president's back, turned his head and glared at Luo Fei, but Luo Fei still looked at Xiaoman with an arrogant and meaningless expression: "Next."

Afterwards, the two came to a small bungalow on Sichuan Road in the concession.

Luo Fei and Xiaoman walked into the unlocked house, and saw that the first floor was almost full of paintings.One of the paintings depicts various objects on fire, and although the objects are distorted, the fire is drawn very realistically.

Xiaoman stared at one of them, looked left and right, but was still confused: "What is this painting?"

"How can you understand the surrealist masterpieces of the great painter Jiang Cheng?" Luo Fei pouted at Xiao Man with a smile, then took Xiao Man's notebook and began to read, "Jiang Cheng, a painter of the new school who returned from studying in France, the symptom is delusion Syndrome, claiming that the end of the world is imminent, and that the guilty will suffer hellfire."

Xiaoman ignored Luo Fei and stubbornly walked towards one of the unfinished paintings.There are many villains in this painting, some are lying on their backs on the ground, some are sitting on the ground with their bodies curled up, and some are walking back and forth.

Xiaoman pointed to the canvas and asked Luo Fei: "You know, then tell me what these people are doing?"

Before Luo Fei could speak, Jiang Cheng came over from behind them.

"They were suffering another kind of torture. Some were lying on their backs on the ground, some were sitting on the ground curled up, and some were constantly walking back and forth..."

Luo Fei followed Jiang Cheng's words and said, "Above this entire piece of sand, there is a large area of ​​fire rain falling slowly... This is Dante's "Divine Comedy", Hell."

"Bosom friend..." Jiang Cheng excitedly held Luo Fei's hand, shaking it non-stop.

Luo Fei immediately felt awkward, and withdrew his hand in disgust, then took out Xiaoman's handkerchief, forced a smile at Jiang Cheng, and then hid his hand behind his back and wiped the paint on his hand.

"Where were you around ten o'clock last Sunday night?" Xiaoman immediately began to make routine inquiries.

Jiang thought for a while: "I'm on the road."

"What are you doing on the road in the middle of the night?" Xiao Man looked at Jiang Cheng suspiciously.

"Looking for inspiration." Jiang Cheng blurted out.

Xiaoman sighed: "What inspiration?"

"Of course it was the inspiration for painting fire."

"Isn't it looking for inspiration to set fire?" Xiaoman said half-jokingly.

Jiang Cheng laughed loudly: "Hahaha, little girl, fire doesn't need to be set off by anyone. Fire has life, and fire is a life so grand that you and I can't see its whole picture..."

Luo Fei winked at Xiaoman at this moment.Xiaoman understood, and suddenly threw a fist. Jiang flashed nimbly, and Xiaoman slapped the canvas with his palm.

Jiang Cheng immediately exclaimed: "Ah! My painting! I have been painting for a month, and you ruined it like this."

Xiaoman apologized repeatedly in embarrassment: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit your painting."

What Luo Fei and Xiaoman didn't expect was that Jiang Cheng looked at the painting and suddenly laughed again: "Hahaha, that's great, it's really a stroke of genius. You see, this is the sin of the world slapped by the hand of God. The sub enhances the pattern of the whole painting, bravo!"

Luo Fei and Xiaoman looked at each other in blank dismay.

After leaving Jiang's house, it was getting late, and the two of them finally returned to Sullivan's apartment after a day of tossing around.

In room 203, Luo Fei and Xiaoman sat on the sofa and looked at the three people's information posted on the wall, and started a discussion about who is the real culprit.

"The three of them have no alibi, and they all have mental problems, but there is no definite motive for arson." Luo Fei said slowly, stroking his beard.

"In terms of skills, one hand has no strength to restrain a chicken, and the other arm is injured. I think only the painter is the most suspicious." Xiaoman pointed to Jiang Cheng's photo and said.

Luo Fei shook his head: "Skills can be faked, injuries can also be faked."

Xiaoman stood up impatiently: "Just go and search all three houses."

Luo Fei showed doubts: "One is a university professor, the other is a meritorious firefighter, and the other is a famous painter. If no evidence is found, it will have a bad impact. Unless there are definite doubts, the police station will not issue a search warrant. of. "

"Then let's go on..." Xiaoman turned around, but Luo Fei was not by her side, but plunged into the pile of documents on the table to search.Xiaoman stepped forward to look through the information Luo Fei had found.

"Don't move!" Luo Fei suddenly grabbed Xiaoman's hand.

Xiaoman blushed and quickly withdrew her hand: "What is this?"

"The files of all the victims of the three fires, I believe that the murderer did not select the target by accident, as long as the connection between them is found, the next target of the murderer can be predicted." Luo Fei said very fast.

Xiaoman reflected for a while, then nodded: "Did you find out?"

Luo Fei quickly looked through the information while shaking his head: "No...it doesn't matter at all..."

Xiaoman, who felt that he couldn't help, sighed: "Why bother, we have locked three suspects now, as long as we keep an eye on their every move, once one of them sets fire, we can get all the stolen goods immediately."

"Yes, but spotting is the job of your patrol house, not my detective consultant's job."

"Is there anything I can help with?" Xiaoman stepped forward to pick up a document, but Luo Fei snatched it away.

"No, you won't be able to help, it will only reduce efficiency." Luo Fei said without raising his head.

"I'm a police detective, and besides, no matter what you do, it's always faster for two people to work together than one person." Xiao Man stared at Luo Fei and retorted.

"Are two people reading faster than one person? Are two people playing the piano faster than one person? Two people take a bath..." Luo Fei was taken aback when he said this, and then continued to search for information in silence.

"Shut up, no one wants to take a shower with you."

Xiaoman chopped off her feet angrily, turned and left, and when she reached the door, she tapped the calendar on the wall.

"You'd better be more efficient, time waits for no one." Xiaoman then closed the door and went out.After hearing this, Luo Fei stopped his hands suddenly, stared blankly at the calendar, and murmured repeatedly: "Time...time..."

The next day, Luo Fei locked himself in the house all day, and no one would knock on the door to open it.In the evening, Xiaoman, who came back from the arresting room, looked at the closed door of Room 203, wanted to go to see it, but was afraid of being disturbed, and finally went back to her room.

The anxiety of the case seemed to make the time irritating and lengthy. Xiaoman hit the sandbags in the room for a while, and Luo Fei always appeared inexplicably in front of him, and the funny thing about being hit by a sandbag on the bookshelf while practicing boxing together that night look.Thinking of this, Xiaoman stopped slowly and looked at his watch, it was almost midnight.Xiaoman threw down the gloves, opened the door and came to the corridor window, and jumped into Luo Fei's room through the window with ease.

Xiaoman originally wanted to see what he was doing when Luo Fei was away, but when he entered the room, he was stunned.

A large sheet of white paper was spread out on the floor of the living room, on which a coordinate was drawn and the year was marked, and all the materials were spread out on it, filling the floor.And Luo Fei is currently crawling up and down on it.

Xiaoman walked over on tiptoe carefully: "Luo Fei..."

Luo Fei immediately reprimanded: "Don't move, you stepped on a victim."

Xiaoman quickly put her feet away.

Only then did Luo Fei look up: "What's the matter?"

Xiaoman handed over a record: "This is the tracking record of the three suspects. No suspicious behavior has been found all day today."

"How is the situation with Wang Jifu?" Luo Fei asked while looking at the records.

Xiaoman sighed and said: "He's fine, he's been discharged from the hospital. The patrol room interrogated him, but he still insisted that he neither knew the arsonist nor the victims of the previous fires. We have set up around his house Patrol officers, he took sick leave and hid at home every day."

Luo Fei nodded and continued to lie down: "Okay, I understand, you can go...wait."

Xiaoman turned around in a hurry: "What's the matter?"

"Hovens said that he will attend a banquet the day after tomorrow and would like to invite you to go with him as his female companion." Luo Fei said indifferently. , but the swaying eyes betrayed his uneasy heart.

Xiao Man, who thought that Luo Fei would leave him to help, couldn't help but wonder: "Ah? When did it happen? Why did you ask me to tell me?"

"You should ask him about this yourself, go out if you have nothing to do, I'm here to interfere with my investigation." Luo Fei looked up at Xiaoman, waved his hands repeatedly, and continued to crawl around among the piles of papers .

Xiaoman looked at Luo Fei, turned and left helplessly.

The next day, two porters carried a heavy wooden box up to the second floor and put it down at the door of Luo Fei's room with a bang.One of them knocked on the door while panting heavily: "203 Luo Fei."

Then, in the next few days, Xiaoman could see freight workers delivering goods to the opposite room.Xiaoman opened the door to ask Luo Fei, but Luo Fei ignored him and shut the door hastily every time.

As for the arrest house, Javert was still sending people to monitor the movements of the three suspects 24 hours a day, but there was still no valuable news.

As for Xiaoman, she has suffered even more at home these days, not only because of the complicated and confusing case, but also because the room 203, which had been quiet all along, began to make all kinds of strange and earth-shattering sounds.Xiaoman lay in bed every night and could hardly fall asleep.Even Wang Susu's big Wang was listless and dozed off during the day. The distressed Wang Susu came to the door several times, but no one answered, and he let the door yell and scold.

That night, there was a loud explosion from the opposite door, and Xiao Man jumped out of bed in shock.He ran to the door of 203 and knocked hard on the door.

"Luo Fei, Luo Fei, are you alright?" Xiao Man shouted anxiously.

After a while, the door was opened a crack, and Luo Fei with a scorched face poked his head out and shook his head at Xiao Man: "It's okay." Then he slammed the door shut again.

Xiaoman was left alone, dumbfounded.

(End of this chapter)