Read Novel Full Chapter 294: One Page, Three Items
Chapter 294: One Page, Three Items
November 20, 11:00 a.m., the case-handling area on the first floor of the branch bureau.
A binding machine sat on the long table by the window, thread ends sticking out, nobody had put it away. Zhou Yu spread out two pages: one was the Decision to Return for Supplementary Investigation, the other the Supplementary Investigation Outline. The outline was just one page, with three lines at the bottom.
The case officer held his pen cap between his teeth, reading the decision first, then the outline. He read slowly, finger moving down line by line.
"Three items." He looked up. "Within a month, we'll process them on our end."
"The first one looks troublesome, but it's actually not hard," Zhou Yu said. "The September 19 emergency registration log page at Municipal No. 2 Hospital. We need a reproduced copy of the original, stamped with the hospital seal, with a notation that it's been verified against the original. The original page stays untouched. Photos taken on-site for the record."
The officer wrote as he went: "Original page untouched, copy stamped, photo taken."
"Also need to question people. Whoever was on duty at the triage desk around 7:30 that evening—pull the list, question them all."
"Question them about what?"
"About what she saw that day. Who came in with the patient, who said the line about how the injury happened, what two sentences she wrote down. If she can't remember, write that she can't remember. Don't fill it in for her."
The officer's pen paused. "That's not easy. The hospital's protective. Last time it took three rounds just to pull one medical record."
"She's not speaking for the hospital," Zhou Yu said. "She's the person who sat behind that desk. Ask her what she did that day."
The officer circled the characters "fen zhen"—triage—and moved further down.
"Second item. The WeChat transfer records between Qin Hao and Du Qiang on September 19. Who sent it, the exact time, the amount, what the note said. All of it. Pull the account data from the two phone numbers I gave you."
"If we have the numbers, we can pull it. Two or three days."
"Don't leave out the note field."
"The note field matters?"
"With a few extra characters in the note, two hundred yuan can be explained away as a favor," Zhou Yu said. "Get it written down clearly. Then nobody has to guess later."
The officer drew a line under "note."
"Third item." His voice dropped half a notch when he said it.
"Lawfully seize Qin Hao's phone and commission an examination of the electronic data on it."
The officer put his pen down and leaned back in his chair. "We discussed this one before. September 29, his mother called the station. Five words: 'Broke it, threw it away.' At the time it only went into the station's duty log. There's no separate page for it in the file."
"Who took the call?"
"It wasn't me that day," the officer said. "The duty roster will show who it was."
"Then add a page and attach it," Zhou Yu said. "Which day, what time, who answered, what was asked, the exact words of the other party. Photocopy the duty log entry and bind it behind."
"We never made a house visit to seize it," the officer said. "Leaving this item out would be defensible."
"No, it wouldn't." Zhou Yu said. "If you looked for it, write that you looked. If you didn't, write that you didn't. Upon request for production, not produced. Write down the date, write down where the person making the request was standing, write down the exact words."
The officer looked at him. "Prosecutor Zhou, even if I fill this whole page out, that phone isn't coming back."
"I know," Zhou Yu said. "But right now there's an empty box in the file. That empty box doesn't square with those five words from September 29. If I can't get the phone back, I still want one sentence on paper telling me why it disappeared on that particular day."
The officer picked his pen back up, drew a horizontal line under the third item, wrote "not sure," took a look, and crossed it out.
"The first two first," Zhou Yu said. "Don't leave the third one for the last day."
"We've got a month. We know the deadline."
The officer signed a receipt slip, noting that at 11:00 on November 20 he had received one copy of the Decision to Return for Supplementary Investigation and one Supplementary Investigation Outline containing three items. When he finished, he slipped the outline into the case cover. A torn stub of last year's summons still stuck out from the edge.
When Zhou Yu walked out of the building, wind squeezed through the gap between the two blocks. He turned his coat collar up and stood on the steps for a while, not leaving right away.
In that twenty-six seconds of footage, Qin Hao had a phone in his hand. On September 29, his mother told the police it had broken and been thrown away.
From September 29 to November 20 was fifty-two days. In those fifty-two days, what route that phone had taken—there wasn't a single character in the file.
He folded the outline copy into his inner pocket and walked toward the gate.
* * *
11:25 a.m., second floor of the Zhengping Firm.
The desk calendar spread open at the corner of the desk. Shen Zhixia had drawn a circle on the 28th, writing inside it "appeal deadline," and in the box below, "takes effect." He Lan's judgment was clear: fifteen-day appeal period, ending on the 28th. She'd drawn those two boxes the day before yesterday. Just now she'd only traced over the circle again.
Footsteps on the stairs. Lu Jibai came up and placed two stapled pages on her desk, the staple hole at the top.
"Picked it up at the window at 10:40. One copy for notification; I signed the return receipt."
She wiped her hands before touching it.
The first page opened with the applicant's name: Qin Hao, followed by his mother, then counsel. Below that was a paragraph of reasoning: Shen Zhi'an's older sister Shen Zhixia is a college alumnus of the prosecutor handling this case; the prosecutor once replied to her message with the four words "leave it to the school"; this may create a circumstance affecting the fair handling of this case, and the applicant requests his recusal.
Her eyes lingered on that section, then moved down.
Upon review, the prosecutor handling this case has no close kinship with any party in this case, has no interest in this case, and did not participate in the investigation of this case; at the outset of handling this case, he made a written report to this office concerning the above circumstances. The circumstances cited by the applicant do not fall within the statutory grounds requiring recusal. The applicant's recusal request is hereby dismissed. A second prosecutor has been additionally designated to co-handle this case. If the applicant disagrees with this decision, they may apply for review once after receiving this decision. During the review period, the case proceeds as normal.
The signature at the bottom was the Chief Procurator's, dated November 20. At the very bottom, one line of small print: copy to defense counsel.
She read the page through a second time, stopping at that middle sentence.
"'At the outset of handling this case'—which day was that?"
"The case was accepted on the 13th," Lu Jibai said. "'At the outset' means in the first few days after he got the file. The Qin family's paper wasn't submitted until the 19th. For them to write the words 'at the outset,' that page had to have been written before the recusal motion."
"There's no date on the paper."
"Which is why it says 'at the outset.'" He set his pen down. "The vaguer the wording, the earlier it was written."
She pushed the paper forward half an inch. "My name appears twice on this page."
"Both times written by them."
"I didn't cross it out."
"Nobody crossed it out for you." He pulled the paper back to the middle of the desk and tapped the last lines. "It falls under this sentence: 'not within the statutory grounds requiring recusal.'"
She looked down at the text, then glanced again at "a second prosecutor has been additionally designated to co-handle."
"There was no one else in that room on the 18th."
"Designation doesn't mean presence." He said, "An extra name on paper is there so the pages that follow don't all bear the same person's name."
He Xiufen came up with two bowls of soup, the bases clunking against the tabletop. She picked the page up and read it, very slowly, her finger moving across the characters. When she finished she put it back and used a bowl to hold down one corner.
"This page—you're looking at the top paragraph," she said. "They're looking at the last two characters."
"Which two?"
"'Bo hui.' Dismissed." She pushed the chopsticks toward them. "The top paragraph is written for everyone on both sides to read. The two characters at the bottom are where they signed. The longer the top paragraph, the lighter those two characters weigh."
She lifted her bowl and took a sip of soup, then added: "They left the review clause in there because someone's supposed to take it. Once it's taken, this page is finished."
[Thud. The words written first are the ones that hold off the words written later.]
She slipped the two pages into the case file and in her notebook, under the 20th, recorded: Dismissed; second prosecutor additionally designated to co-handle; one review permitted. Her pen paused at the word "review" before touching it down.
* * *
November 21, 2:50 p.m. The landline on the first floor of the noodle shop rang.
He Xiufen's hands were still dusted with flour. She grabbed the receiver and tucked it against her shoulder.
"It's me, Chen Maolin." The voice on the other end said, "If Lawyer Lu is there too, that's fine."
"He's not here," He Xiufen said. "Whatever it is, tell me."
"Just a heads-up," the voice said. "The review petition went in this morning. That paper of yours is going to make another round."
"The paper says you can request review once," He Xiufen said. "You're walking the road written on the paper."
"I'd also like to pass a word to Lawyer Shen." His voice dropped half a notch. "Her name is written on the first page. On the review petition, it'll be written again."
"Printed names don't make the paper any thinner," He Xiufen said. "What you submit is paper. What we keep is paper too. One more sheet is nothing."
There was a two-second pause on the other end, then the line went dead.
He Xiufen put the receiver back, wiped her hands on her apron, and said toward the stairs, as if announcing: "Let him review. One more sheet of paper, not scared of that."
Shen Zhixia stood motionless at the top of the stairs. Lu Jibai came down from the second floor, notebook in hand.
"The case management office called yesterday afternoon," he said. "The case has been returned for supplementary investigation. The clock on the prosecution review period resets."
"What are they supplementing?"
"The outline moves between the procuratorate and the police," he said. "Defense counsel doesn't get to see it."
She opened the notebook to the page dated the 17th. Below the three gaps she'd added a line with only the word "phone," followed by blank space.
"So it's the three things we submitted."
"Not necessarily identical." He spoke slowly. "But the three gaps are still in the same places. If he can't get it back, he still has to write down why he couldn't."
* * *
5:05 p.m. Zhi'an pushed open the noodle shop door, dropped his backpack onto a stool, and looked at his sister's face first.
"What does 'returned' mean?"
"It means it's not over yet," she said.
"So I go to school tomorrow as usual."
"As usual."
He Xiufen brought a bowl of noodles from the stove and set it by his hand, nudging the vinegar bottle toward him. "If they call you in, you go. Don't wait for them to ask twice."
Zhi'an grunted and lowered his head to eat.
* * *
9:00 p.m. Only one desk lamp remained lit on the second floor.
She spread out a blank sheet of paper and copied four lines onto it. The first three were the three things He Xiufen had said on the evening of the 16th—not one character changed:
One is in the hospital. One is in WeChat. One is in someone's pocket.
On the fourth line she wrote: That phone.
When she got to the first line, her pen stopped.
That line referred to a page in the emergency registration log. On that page, the chief complaint read "beaten by someone," and the medical history read "accidental fall"—the same pen, two lines apart.
The person who wrote those two lines was not on the paper.
That person might still be sitting behind that desk today, or might have changed shifts, might have changed buildings.
No one had asked her yet.
[Thud. The paper is missing a person.]
She closed the notebook and pushed the lamp a little toward the wall.