"Did you really pick up that bag of monkfish from the trash? Can you even find something like that in a garbage can?" The manager was shocked by the procurement officer's words.
While monkfish prices may not compare to those of luxurious seafood like Australian lobster and king crab, they are still far from cheap.
Who would throw a bag of monkfish into the trash? Especially when the fish were still relatively fresh and not yet spoiled, it was practically the same as throwing money away.
But soon, the manager figured it out.
There were human hands inside the monkfish!
The fish were problematic, which was why they were discarded in the trash. Any normal monkfish would never be thrown away like that.
Once he understood, the manager's lungs nearly exploded with anger. The hotel was now involved in this mess, and the procurement officer would have to take the blame!
If it weren't for him picking up these suspicious monkfish, would this have happened?
"Damn it, I'll fire that idiot later! What a jinx!" The manager glared viciously at the procurement officer.
Xu Mo and the other officers also realized this after the procurement officer spoke.
The bag of monkfish was thrown into the trash because the seller knew there was something wrong with the fish. They didn't dare to sell them openly.
"Be more specific, where did you find them?" Xu Mo asked again.
The procurement officer thought for a moment, "I can't really describe the place, but I can take you there. I remember the way."
Xu Mo looked at Chen Ke and said, "Take two people with you and go with him. Check the area."
Afterward, he turned to the manager, "Do you have gloves and sealable bags?"
"Yes, yes! I'll go get them for you!"
After Chen Ke left with two officers and the procurement officer, Xu Mo put on gloves and placed the hand found on the cutting board into a sealable bag. He then instructed the manager to pack the remaining monkfish to take back to the police station.
Since a murder case was involved, the hotel's kitchen needed to be sealed temporarily. The hotel would not be able to operate until the case was resolved.
The hotel manager and all the chefs were taken to the police station for routine questioning.
...
At the police station.
In the autopsy room.
The forensic examiner was cutting open the monkfish one by one, while Xu Mo watched from the side. He wasn't keen on getting his hands dirty.
"I've never had to 'autopsy' fish in an autopsy room before... This is really bizarre. After so many years as a forensic examiner, I've never seen such a method of disposing of a body. Who would chop up a person and feed them to fish? How twisted must someone be to do something like this?" The forensic examiner remarked.
The autopsy room was filled with a nauseatingly strong fishy smell.
The forensic examiner had seen many gruesome scenes, and while the smell was unpleasant, it wasn't the worst he had encountered. So, despite the pungent odor, he continued working without flinching.
Xu Mo smiled wryly, "I've never seen such a method either."
After half an hour, the forensic examiner had finally cut open all the monkfish brought from the hotel. Inside, they found more fragmented body parts and managed to piece together as much as possible.
"We've only found these body parts, mostly chopped-up limbs. There isn't much of the rest of the body, so we can't fully reconstruct the corpse. But based on what we have, the victim appears to be a young female, slender, and petite. She looks like she might not even be an adult yet."
Xu Mo nodded. What the forensic examiner said was consistent with what he could see.
However, this information wasn't particularly useful. With only limbs, they couldn't even identify the victim's identity.
From the fragmented body parts, neither Xu Mo nor the forensic examiner could find many clues. They couldn't even determine where the fatal injury was.
To find more clues, they would have to rely on Chen Ke's progress.
Just as he was thinking this, Xu Mo's phone rang. It was Chen Ke.
After answering, Chen Ke's voice came through the phone.
"Captain, I'm at the location now. I've taken a quick look. The trash can where the procurement officer found the monkfish is by the seafood market. There's a surveillance camera right across from the trash can. Maybe we can find something from it. I'm about to check the footage now."
"Okay," Xu Mo responded.
If there was a surveillance camera by the trash can, they might be able to find out who threw away the monkfish, and the case could move forward.
Ten minutes later.
Chen Ke finished checking the footage and sent the copied video to Xu Mo, along with a voice message.
"This person threw the fish away around 2:00 AM. He was well-wrapped, so we can't see his face, but based on his build, he seems to be a man."
Xu Mo watched the video Chen Ke sent and found that, as Chen Ke said, the person who threw away the monkfish was indeed well-wrapped, and his face couldn't be seen.
Chen Ke could only find this much. Afterward, he returned to the police station with the officers and the procurement officer.
Meanwhile, the officers in charge of interrogating the hotel chefs and manager had also finished their questioning.
The results of the interrogation matched their initial suspicions. The chefs were completely unaware of the situation and had no involvement. They only discovered the body parts inside the fish during the process of cleaning them.
Since they had no use keeping the chefs at the station, Xu Mo decided to let them go after instructing them not to disclose the case.
Aside from the chefs, the procurement officer also had little suspicion. The surveillance footage could prove his innocence.
The footage showed that the monkfish were thrown into the trash at around 2:00 AM, while the procurement officer picked them up at around 6:00 AM. Comparing the footage, it was also clear that the procurement officer was slightly smaller in build than the person who threw the fish away, so he was not a suspect.
...
The police station was filled with smoke.
The large office area was eerily quiet, with only the sound of cigarettes burning in the officers' hands.
The officers were all focused on reviewing the surveillance footage, not a single word spoken.
Since the victim's identity couldn't be determined, to solve the case, they had to start with the man captured by the surveillance camera near the trash can.
The monkfish containing body parts were thrown away by this man, making him the primary suspect. It was highly likely that he was the killer!
Although the surveillance footage only captured his figure and not his face, that wasn't a problem. At 2:00 AM, the seafood market was nearly empty, so it was easy for the officers to track him down in the various surveillance videos without needing to match his face.
After half an hour of tracking through the surveillance footage, the officers found where the man went after leaving the seafood market—an old residential area.
"This must be his home!" Li Chen perked up.
"Probably. Let's go check it out!" Xu Mo decided.
The group immediately set off for the old neighborhood...