The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1243 Surrounding Surveillance Investigation

“Start by checking the surveillance footage at the main road checkpoint at the foot of the mountain. Focus on the time frame around 4 PM yesterday when Zhang Baode saw the motorcycle, and the period 3-5 days before the body was dumped,” Xiao Wang pointed to the map on the screen, marking several key surveillance points. “The main road is the only passage in and out of the mountains. The suspect must have passed through here to transport the body. Carefully examine every black motorcycle and don’t overlook any details.”

Team member Xiao Li was in charge of operating the monitoring system, and the camera quickly switched to the surveillance footage from the main road checkpoint. At 2 p.m., a black motorcycle entered the frame, with a red helmet hanging on the handlebars, and the motorcycle looked somewhat old. "Team Leader Wang, look at this one!" Xiao Li paused the camera and zoomed in on the details of the vehicle. "The color of the motorcycle and the helmet match, but I don't see any white scratches on the side of the motorcycle, and there's no black cloth bag tied to the back seat. It doesn't seem to be the right one."

Xiao Wang leaned closer to the screen and observed carefully: "Where's the driver? Can you see his physical features?" Xiao Li adjusted the camera angle and shook his head helplessly: "The driver was wearing a helmet and a mask. We can only see that he is about 170 centimeters tall and of medium build, which is consistent with our estimate of the suspect's height. But we can't see his face, so we can't confirm his identity."

The two continued their investigation. From 2 PM to 5 PM, a total of 8 black motorcycles appeared at the main road checkpoint. Three of them matched the description of "old motorcycles with red helmets," but they either lacked the white scratches, the black cloth bag, or the drivers' height and build didn't match. None of them fit Zhang Baode's description of "suspicious motorcycles." "Could it be that Grandpa Zhang is mistaken? For example, the white scratches are on the other side of the motorcycle, or the black cloth bag was added later?" Team member Xiao Zhang couldn't help but ask.

Xiao Wang shook his head: "Although Grandpa Zhang is old, he remembers the key details very clearly, so he shouldn't be wrong. If we check the surveillance footage of the surrounding towns and villages, the suspect may not have taken the main road, but instead took a detour through the country roads to avoid the checkpoint surveillance."

Next, they retrieved surveillance footage from rural roads in three townships surrounding the mountains—most of which were installed by villagers themselves, resulting in blurry images and unsatisfactory angles. In one surveillance video from a small road in a western township, at 4:30 PM, a black motorcycle flashed by, with a black object vaguely visible strapped to the back seat. Due to the poor image quality, its exact shape was unclear, and it was impossible to see if there were any white scratches on the motorcycle.

"Track this vehicle! See which direction it went!" Xiao Wang asked Xiao Li to retrieve the surveillance footage of the subsequent sections of the road, but there was only one camera on this path. After the motorcycle passed by, it disappeared into the fields, and there was no further footage. "This path leads to an abandoned factory to the north. It's a remote area, and it's very likely the suspect's hideout or the primary crime scene," Xiao Wang marked the location of the abandoned factory on the map. "Tomorrow morning, we'll go there to conduct an on-site investigation and see if we can find any clues."

After reviewing the surveillance footage from "yesterday afternoon," the team members began examining footage from "3-5 days ago"—this was based on the time the body was covered by fallen leaves, used to estimate the time the body was disposed of. At 1 AM three days prior, a main road checkpoint camera captured a black motorcycle with a long object covered by a tarpaulin on the back seat. The driver was wearing a helmet, obscuring their face. "This timeframe is too suspicious; no one would specifically ride a motorcycle up the mountain at this hour," Xiao Zhang said excitedly. "The thing covered by the tarpaulin might just be the body!"

Xiao Wang, however, was more cautious: "Let's check where this vehicle went first." Through subsequent surveillance tracking, they discovered that the motorcycle eventually drove into a village to the east. The team contacted the local police station and found the owner of the vehicle—a villager named Zhao Jianjun. He had indeed ridden the motorcycle to a neighboring village to pick up fertilizer three days earlier in the early morning. The cover on the back of the motorcycle was a fertilizer bag, which was unrelated to the disposal of the body, thus ruling him out as a suspect.

From afternoon until late at night, Xiao Wang's team checked 12 surveillance cameras on main roads and rural roads, reviewed nearly 20 hours of surveillance footage, and screened out 15 suspicious black motorcycles. In the end, all of them were eliminated for reasons such as "inconsistent features", "having an alibi" and "reasonable purpose". No motorcycle that completely matched Zhang Baode's description was found, nor were any other suspicious persons or vehicles found.

"This suspect is too cunning. Can he really just disappear into thin air?" Xiao Li rubbed his sore eyes, his voice full of exhaustion. "Either the surveillance cameras didn't capture it, or even if they did, we couldn't confirm it. When will this investigation ever end?"

Xiao Zhang sighed, "The body is highly decomposed, making it impossible to identify. Now, even the only clue—the means of transportation—has stalled. This case is just too difficult."

Looking at the densely packed surveillance footage on the screen, Xiao Wang felt a little heavy-hearted, but he still mustered his spirits to comfort his team: "Don't be discouraged. Surveillance investigation is a meticulous task. Not finding any clues doesn't mean there aren't any; it just means we haven't found them yet. Tomorrow, we'll split into two groups. One group will go to the abandoned factory in the north for on-site investigation, while the other group will continue to expand the scope of the surveillance investigation, checking footage from 5 to 10 days ago. Maybe we'll find something new."

He paused, then added, "Also, contact the technical department and send them the photos of the suspicious motorcycles we've selected. See if we can enhance the image quality using technical means and find more details, such as blurry license plates or the driver's physical characteristics. Maybe we can make a breakthrough."

At 1 a.m., Xiao Wang arrived at Li Ming's office with a completed surveillance report. "We've checked the surveillance footage on the main road and in the surrounding towns, but haven't found any suspicious motorcycles matching our description," he handed over the report. "However, we found a motorcycle with what appears to be a black object strapped to it in the surveillance footage on a side road in a western town. It disappeared in the direction of the abandoned factory to the north. We plan to investigate that on-site tomorrow. Also, the technical department is processing the blurry footage of the suspicious motorcycle, hoping to extract more information."

Looking at the report, Li Ming nodded and said, "Thank you for your hard work. Surveillance investigation is never easy, especially in rural areas where surveillance conditions are limited. Tomorrow's on-site investigation needs to be thorough. The situation at the abandoned factory is complicated, so be careful. Also, have Xiao Zhou speed up the investigation into the deceased's identity. Combine this with the missing persons information system to confirm who the deceased is as soon as possible. We might be able to find new clues from the deceased's social relationships."

Stepping out of the office, the night was deep. Xiao Wang stood in the branch's courtyard, gazing up at the starry sky. Although the surveillance footage review hadn't yielded any major findings, he knew that each review was narrowing down the suspect pool, and each elimination brought them closer to the truth.