The Forensic Doctor Better Than a Detective

”So from the surveillance footage, you can’t see what actually happened at all.”

He paused briefly, then continued his report: ”According to statements from several coworkers at the scene, they suddenly discovered the deceased lying on the ground.”

”One of them mentioned that just before they found him, he seemed to hear a dull ’thud,’ then they immediately called the police.”

”The coworkers pointed out that the position where the deceased was lying is exactly where the chalk circle is.”

”But no one actually saw with their own eyes how he fell, and no one noticed whether there was anything unusual beforehand.”

While listening, Jiang An paced slowly, his gaze sweeping over the cluttered surroundings.

Something suddenly occurred to Him, and He turned his head to ask, ”When they found the body, was he lying face down, or on his back?”

”On his back.”

Mr. Qin picked up the thread, his tone certain. ”And when the 120 emergency doctor arrived, they immediately did an ECG, confirmed there were no signs of life, and pronounced death on the spot.”

Jiang An nodded, walked over to the human outline carefully drawn in white chalk, and crouched down.

He examined the ground closely. The concrete surface was rough and uneven, with thick dust accumulated in the cracks, and scattered around were many small stones and bits of concrete debris left over from loading and unloading.

”Has this area been cleaned after the incident?”

Jiang An lightly brushed the ground with his fingers and rubbed a bit of sand and dust between them.

”No, it’s been kept exactly as it was.”

Mr. Qin crouched beside Him as well, pointing at the ground as he explained.

”Precisely because no one has cleaned it, and because there’s so much scattered debris here, we initially inferred that the process of him falling might not have happened in an instant.”

”If it was a sudden acute attack and he dropped straight down, the debris on the ground should have been knocked aside by the impact or left more obvious marks.”

”But as it is, the distribution of debris looks relatively natural, more like the body slowly tilted and gradually came to rest on the ground.”

”If he fell during a fight, there would definitely be signs of struggling and scraping around, and on protruding parts of the body—like elbows, knees, and forehead—you’d expect to see corresponding contusions or abrasions, but the preliminary autopsy didn’t find any such obvious external injuries.”

Jiang An pondered, his eyes fixed on the white human figure on the ground.

Mr. Qin’s analysis was indeed methodical. If a sudden violent altercation was ruled out, then the possibility that he had collapsed slowly due to illness surfaced.

But another question immediately rose in his mind: if it really was a sudden illness, what condition would the deceased have been in from the moment he felt unwell to when he finally collapsed? Did he call for help or struggle?

”Do you still remember clearly the exact posture of the body at the time? For example, how were his arms and legs positioned?” Jiang An pressed.

”The posture...” Mr. Qin narrowed his eyes slightly, recalling the scene when he first arrived.

”I remember both hands were naturally placed at his sides, and his legs were fairly straight, not noticeably curled up or twisted. Overall he looked quite calm.”

”Mm.” Jiang An responded, lost in thought, when he noticed Mr. Qin hesitating as if he had more to say.

”But...”

”But what?”

Mr. Qin paused, his voice dropping a notch. ”But at the time I noticed that at the corner of his mouth... there seemed to be some drool.”

”Not a lot, but the mark was quite clear.”

”This detail, I later consulted Professor Li from the medical university who came to guide us on scene.”

”His preliminary view was that if it was sudden cardiac death of cardiac origin or certain other acute conditions, the moment of death might be accompanied by transient pulmonary edema, which could cause a small amount of foamy secretions to flow from the mouth and nose.”

At these words, Jiang An’s pupils abruptly contracted. He locked his gaze on Mr. Qin’s face and asked, ”You said there were drool marks at the scene?”

”Why was such an important detail not mentioned at all in the original written report?”

Slightly abashed, Mr. Qin rubbed the back of his neck and explained, ”Oh, that... We did notice it at the scene, but the photos we took didn’t clearly capture the trace, so I didn’t include those photos in the file.”

”But I remember very clearly that on the front of his T-shirt, there was indeed a small patch of drool stain.”

”However, because there was no blood nearby, we initially judged it probably wasn’t closely related to the cause of death, so we didn’t pursue it as a key lead.”

He paused briefly, then added, ”The forensic professor raised a possible scenario: in acute death, the heart stops beating, but death is not completed in an instant; instead, there is a brief process.”

”During that process, the lungs may develop edema due to hypoxia, which can cause fluid in the respiratory tract and mouth to flow out naturally, forming a drool-like trace.”

”There’s such a theory?”

Unconsciously, Jiang An furrowed his brow, clear skepticism in his tone. ”In theory such a possibility exists, but to what degree would pulmonary edema need to develop to cause this? Wouldn’t other conditions need to act in concert?”

He did not continue to dwell on this issue. Instead, he stood up, let his eyes roam over the messy surroundings, and finally fixed on a row of low buildings not far away. He raised his hand and pointed over there. ”Is that the workers’ dormitory?”

”Yes, that was the temporary dorm for the site. No one has touched it since the project was halted, and all the doors are locked.” Mr. Qin followed his gaze and answered in a low voice.

Jiang An nodded, his tone decisive. ”Take me to see where the deceased lived.”

Five minutes later, the two of them stopped in front of the door of a prefab steel-sheet room.

The door was tightly locked, with a thin layer of dust on it, but through the window they could see the layout inside: eight simple bunks arranged in neat rows, with some personal belongings still scattered on the beds, as if their owners had only stepped out for a while.

Among them, the bed by the window looked especially crowded, piled with more odds and ends.

After staring for a moment, Jiang An said slowly, ”If I’m not mistaken, the bed by the window is Li Yong’s, right?”

Standing beside Him, Qin Feng nodded, his voice somewhat heavy. ”It’s his. The family has refused to come collect his things, and with the site shut down, all this has just been left as it was. No one’s touched anything.”

”Among his belongings, did you find any medication he was taking long-term?” Jiang An asked.

”Yes,” Qin Feng answered at once. ”He had some coronary heart disease meds stored in his drawer. His coworkers said he took them on schedule every day.”

”That was one of the major reasons we initially believed he might have died suddenly from illness.”

Deep in thought, Jiang An turned around and looked toward the cordoned-off crime scene a hundred meters away.

”If there had been any unusual commotion over there that night, could it have been heard from the dorm?”

”These color steel dorms are very poorly soundproofed,” Qin Feng said firmly. ”As long as the noise was at all significant, you’d hear it inside. Especially since it was nighttime when it happened—the site was much quieter than during the day.”

”Were there any other workers operating nearby at the time?”

”There were night-shift workers still working over in Phase Two, but Phase One here was completely shut down, so it was very quiet around this area.”

’We also reviewed the surveillance at the site’s entrances and exits, and we didn’t find any suspicious people going in or out during that period.’

Qin Feng paused briefly, then concluded in a cautious tone, ”Taking everything into account, at the time we still tended to believe death from illness was the more likely scenario.”

Without commenting either way, Jiang An listened quietly, then gave a slight nod and asked, ”Where is the body being kept now?”

”At the funeral home. It’s been in cold storage for some time. If we want to examine it, it’ll take a while to thaw.”

”That’s fine. We can wait.”

Jiang An’s tone was calm but firm. ”Once it’s thawed, arrange immediately for us to go to the funeral home and re-examine the body.”

Qin Feng asked softly, ”Mr. Jiang, after all this time, is there still any point in examining the body?”

At that, Jiang An paused for a second, then answered, ”Of course there is!”

He started walking toward the exit of the site, then looked back and added, ”By the way, I want to go through all the investigative materials on this case.”

”They’re all in my office. I’ll organize them for you as soon as we get back.”