Diary of a Criminal Investigator-Chapter 273: The Final Hours

A tall and thin young man came in, it was Erpi, as Xiaopang had mentioned.

"Mr. Liu Bai, you might as well save your breath. Although Xiaopang isn’t very bright, he’s not actually stupid."

Erpi was holding a hunting rifle and a plastic bag. When he opened it, inside was some pig head meat: "Have some. Tomorrow, when the time is up, whether we get the money or not, you’re dead."

In fact, Wang Guojun and the others never planned to let the person go.

If they got the money, Liu Bai would die.

If they didn’t get the money, Liu Bai would still die.

This was something they had agreed upon before the kidnapping.

Liu Bai, seeing Erpi come in, knew he had no chance of convincing Xiaopang.

But he still wanted to make one last struggle.

"Wang Guojun is not here now, there’s only the two of you. If you let me go, I’ll give each of you 40 million."

Erpi remained unmoved, placing the pig head meat in front of Liu Bai: "Liu Bai, don’t bother. Twenty million or forty million makes no difference to us, it’s an amount we’ve never seen in our lifetime."

"But we need to be alive to spend it."

"If you live, and go out to report us, then what good is four billion if I can’t spend it?"

"Killing you is the quickest solution."

"No, no!"

"You can’t kill me!"

"Kidnapping and extortion will get you at most ten years, but if you kill me, it’s murder! Murder demands a life for a life."

"Don’t kill me, I’ll give you all the money!"

Xiaopang opened the plastic bag, took out two pieces of pig ears and stuffed them in his mouth.

"Erpi brother, do we really have to kill him?"

"I like his songs."

Slap!

Erpi slapped Xiaopang: "Do you want to listen to songs, or do you want the money?"

"Money!"

"Then follow the boss’s orders. If the boss doesn’t return by nine tonight, we’ll kill him and flee!"

Criminal Investigation Team meeting room.

Qin Yong’s face was stern.

Chen Feng’s interrogation hadn’t achieved the expected results, but they got more crucial information from Wang Guojun.

Nine o’clock!

If Wang Guojun wasn’t back by nine, the people guarding Liu Bai would kill him.

"Captain Qin, is there a chance that Wang Guojun is bluffing?"

Zhang Hui presented his thoughts: "Their ultimate goal in kidnapping Liu Bai is to get ransom."

"Without the money, they’d just kill him?"

"Now is not the time to discuss if Wang Guojun is lying."

Qin Yong shook his head, looking at everyone: "Whether Wang Guojun is lying or not, we must find Liu Bai quickly!"

"Besides... Wang Guojun has already been caught, and he confessed to the crime of kidnapping Liu Bai. At this point, there’s no need for him to lie."

"Even if he is lying, we have to treat it as if it’s true!"

"So, we must find Liu Bai before nine o’clock tonight!"

"Do the traffic police have any leads?"

"Huijia Square has a daily traffic flow of tens of thousands of vehicles, tracking this... is very difficult."

"I don’t care, however difficult it is, we must find out."

"Wang Guojun refuses to disclose, vehicle information is the only clue."

Qin Yong was truly anxious now.

It’s less than eight hours until nine tonight.

"Have we identified the other two people who committed the kidnapping with Wang Guojun?"

Ren Qiang nodded: "We have some clues."

Wang Guojun had a criminal record, he was a repeat offender, and of course had a few loyal followers under his command.

"According to information gathered by Chen Feng, provided by Song Hui from Haotai Hotel, the people who kidnapped Liu Bai with Wang Guojun are one called Wang Junsheng, nicknamed Xiaopang."

"And another named Sun Xing, nicknamed Erpi."

"We’ve already sent people to investigate all possible hiding spots of these two."

"No results yet."

"We must hurry, as they wouldn’t have held Liu Bai far away. Otherwise, Wang Guojun wouldn’t have come back to cook for his mother."

"Most likely, they’re around Haizhou City."

"Additionally, let’s have the surveillance group track Wang Guojun’s path home this morning to see if there are any findings."

"Yes!"

With time running short, any possible clue was to be pursued by Qin Yong’s team.

However, nobody could be sure if Liu Bai would be found by nine o’clock tonight.

Crime Scene Investigation office.

While Lu Chuan and others didn’t have any tasks left, they weren’t idle.

"Any findings?"

Yang Sen shook his head: "There’s a sound like a cow mooing on the recording, but it’s not very clear."

Old Bai also shook his head: "When Wang Guojun made the extortion call, he used a voice changer to conceal his identity, which made the surrounding sounds unclear."

"Not clear, hard to work with."

After returning from the Haotai Hotel, they had been analyzing the extortion call Wang Guojun made to Xu Zhe.

Of course, the purpose of analyzing the call wasn’t to identify the voice owner.

After all, Wang Guojun was found and caught.

Liu Guodong wanted to see if through analyzing the background noise in the recording, they could determine any environmental features surrounding where Liu Bai was held.

That would certainly be better than searching blindly.

But the idea was full, and reality was bare.

Voiceprint analysis is now an essential tool for forensic identity verification.

Some cases don’t have video footage but do have recorded voice evidence.

Thus, voiceprint analysis becomes crucial in such cases.

Particularly in recent years, as telecom fraud cases have surged, the demand for voiceprint analysis has grown rapidly.

However, there are very few detectives who specialize in voiceprint analysis.

The Criminal Investigation Team in Haizhou City doesn’t have the expertise, and there isn’t even a voiceprint identification lab established in the province.

Voiceprint identification, unlike fingerprint identification, requires more aid from instruments for analysis.

Moreover, voiceprint identification started late in the country, and the establishment of lab facilities is still lacking.

However, some people are naturally sensitive to sound, and some detectives, after long periods of practice, develop a keen ear.

But such voiceprint identification cannot be used as legal evidence.

Concrete legal evidence still requires data analysis, through which specific frequency data can be isolated to serve as legal evidence.

What Liu Guodong and his team needed was simpler.

They just wanted to analyze the phone recording to see if there were any special environmental sounds.

But clearly, Yang Sen and Old Bai didn’t have the skills for this.

"Lu, come and give it a try, you’re young, your ears are good."

Lu Chuan had listened in a bit while Old Bai and the others were listening to the recording.

But to be honest, he didn’t find anything.

However, Lu Chuan still had an intermediate skill card for criminal investigation that he hadn’t claimed.

Maybe he should choose a voiceprint analysis skill?

He kept the skill card for solving cases.

And now, it might come in handy.

"System, claim the Intermediate Voiceprint Analysis Skill Card!"