Chapter 75
Chapter 75
“Lao Cao, don’t just stand there,” Wei Zheng said, pressing the call button and issuing his instructions. “Use whatever methods you have. Try to wrap up the interrogation before midnight tonight.”
Cao Lei gave a firm nod toward the surveillance camera, then sat back down in his chair. His expression was noticeably more serious than before.
“You’re saying you poisoned everyone and killed them, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“So you admit to the crime of murder?”
“Yes. I admit it.”
“Good.” Cao Lei stared fixedly at Pei Yuming. “Then start by telling me how you poisoned and killed them tonight.”
Pei Yuming licked his lips, clearly unable to endure Cao Lei’s strictly businesslike gaze. He instinctively lowered his head to avoid it, his eyes landing vaguely on the water bottle sitting on the left side of the partition. Only then did he say hoarsely, “We had just started eating when my wife asked me to decant the two bottles of wine Lu Dong had brought. I thought it was a good chance, so I poured the potassium cyanide I’d prepared in advance into them. Later, after the dry white on the table was finished, I suggested we drink the red wine that had been opened. I personally poured the poisoned wine for everyone, but I was afraid they might not all drink at the same time, so I found an excuse and said we should all have a glass together. They never imagined I would poison them, and they didn’t suspect anything, so they all drank it together. That’s about it.”
After he finished, even the trainee officers observing from the conference room shook their heads. His description of the murder process was far too casual.
Sure enough, the moment he stopped speaking, Cao Lei’s questions came.
“Before you added the poison, where did you keep the potassium cyanide?”
“In that vitamin bottle. Then I carried it in my pants pocket.”
“Do you remember what time you went to decant the wine?”
Pei Yuming thought for a moment, then said slowly, “Around five forty-five.”
“You said you thought decanting the wine was a good chance. Before your wife asked you to do that, where were you planning to put the poison?”
Pei Yuming’s expression went blank for a second before he said, “In the soup.”
“During our on-site investigation, we found that your wineglass on the table was empty. How do you explain that?”
“My wineglass was empty…” Judging from Pei Yuming’s expression, it seemed as if he had only just learned this, but then he appeared to suddenly remember something. “I… I did pour some for myself at the time, actually, but I didn’t drink it. After they all finished drinking, I poured the wine from my glass down the drain and flushed it away. Then I washed the glass clean and put it back where it was.”
“So you deliberately let us see that your glass was empty?”
“Yes.”
Cao Lei’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”
Pei Yuming avoided that scorching stare. He could feel cold sweat breaking out. Only now did he truly realize that Cao Lei was not some sympathetic listener at all, but a highly professional interrogation officer.
“Why?” Cao Lei pressed, giving him no time to make something up.
“I… I wanted to create the false impression that I wasn’t present when they drank the wine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Cao Lei looked at him thoughtfully. His gaze was not especially severe, yet Pei Yuming felt cold sweat beading out layer after layer. He even had the feeling that the man in front of him might not have believed a single word he had just said.
“You said just now that you found an excuse to get everyone to drink together. What did you say at the time?” Cao Lei asked again.
Pei Yuming stumbled over his words. “I… I-I said thank you to them for coming to the meal, for celebrating our twentieth anniversary with me and my wife, that I was very happy, things like that. Uh, that was it.”
Even he wasn’t satisfied with that answer, but to his surprise, Cao Lei didn’t get hung up on it. That caught him a little off guard.
“How did you get the potassium cyanide?” Cao Lei suddenly asked.
“How?”
“Yes. Ordinary people can’t get their hands on potassium cyanide through normal channels, and you wouldn’t have access to it in your usual work environment either. So where did you get it?”
This question truly stumped Pei Yuming. He had never even thought about that part. For an instant, he almost said he had bought it online, but then he realized that any online purchase would definitely leave a record. Whether he had bought it or not, the police probably knew better than he did by now.
But other than buying it from somewhere, what other channel could there be?
“Lao Pei?” Cao Lei pressed, giving him no time to think.
“I…” In his panic, Pei Yuming remembered the bottles and jars he had seen in the cabinet when Su Jin had been rummaging through it during his previous visit to the Laboratory. An idea flashed through his mind, and he said, “I took it from our hospital’s Laboratory. I often ride in Su Jin’s car after work. Once, I went to the Clinical Laboratory to wait for her, and when no one was around, I stole it.”
“When? Which day, specifically?” Cao Lei asked immediately.
“I… I don’t remember. Just recently.” Pei Yuming really couldn’t make up an exact date, so he could only play dumb. After all, if he actually named a specific day, there was no guarantee these officers wouldn’t pull the surveillance footage to verify it. If he hadn’t ridden in Su Jin’s car that day, wouldn’t he be exposed on the spot?
But Cao Lei was not that easy to fool. “You premeditated the murder of seven people, but forgot when you got the poison? Don’t tell me poisoning the wine tonight was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
“No, no,” Pei Yuming swallowed and raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, but he still did not dare meet Cao Lei’s eyes directly. “I’d already planned to do it today, but I’ve been too busy lately, and so much has happened, so I forgot.”
Cao Lei stared at him for a while, as if reluctantly accepting that perfunctory explanation.
“Then after you poisoned the wine, was there any potassium cyanide left in the vitamin bottle?”
If Cao Lei had asked him this two minutes earlier, he might have made up some random answer. But after Cao Lei’s rapid-fire questioning just now, his brain had instinctively gone on alert.
He wanted to end this tedious interrogation as quickly as possible. His greatest wish was for the police to convict him as soon as possible, so he could calmly face death and no longer have to suffer through regret, guilt, and despair.
But clearly, the police were not fools. He had laid so much groundwork earlier, and now he had suddenly confessed. Anyone would find that suspicious. And although the police had already obtained some physical evidence, if his statement was full of holes, he believed they would not convict him that easily.
Pei Yuming had lived for more than half his life. No matter how the people who knew him judged him, the word “stubborn” was always part of it.
That stubbornness had practically taken root in every cell of his body. As a result, once he set his mind on something, nothing could pull him back. He would not stop until he got what he wanted.
Death was the same.
He was determined to go down and reunite with his family and friends. He absolutely could not let mismatched testimony keep that from happening.
He began recalling the clues Cao Lei had offered at the start of the interrogation to coax him into telling the truth. He remembered that he had touched that bottle through the evidence bag. Right, Cao Lei had said potassium cyanide was crystalline. Why had he said that again?