Coroner Ke Xue

Chapter 71: Identifying Armor and Searching for Traces

After Kaito Kidd was blown away by the tornado, the scene completely exploded.

Police from the Metropolitan Police Department and Kidd fans joined forces and launched a large-scale search near the clock tower - they were all worried that Kaitou Kidd would be smashed into pieces like this.

Later, after some searching

The good news is that Kidd's body was not found.

The bad news is that Kidd most likely made it.

But neither the police officers involved in the operation, nor Minister Odagiri, who boldly appointed Hayashi Shinichi as his commander, or even the higher-level Hakuba Police Director, did not think this news was bad news.

Because although Kaitou Kidd was not caught, the Metropolitan Police Department won:

The Metropolitan Police Department's primary goal was not to catch Kidd, but to restore its image in front of the public.

And this operation tonight

Kaitou Kidd was imprisoned in a large net under the live camera, and was forced to jump up and down and howl by a dog.

His invincible image has completely collapsed.

Everyone can see that if it hadn't been for that demonic wind, Kaito Kidd would definitely have been killed this time.

This is a "natural disaster" and "accident" and will not have any impact on the image of the police.

Therefore, the Metropolitan Police Department rarely became the dominant party this time and made a beautiful turnaround.

Although the main force involved in this operation was probably civilian experts.

But at least the commander-in-chief of the operation, Hayashi Shinichi, was half of his own people specially hired by Minister Odagiri, and the police dog Caesar who stole the show in front of the camera was a regular employee of the Metropolitan Police Department.

When holding a press conference the next day, the spokesperson of the Metropolitan Police Department naturally deliberately downplayed the role of Kudo and Kyogoku Makoto in this incident, emphasizing Lin Shinichi’s resourcefulness, Odagiri’s understanding of people, and Caesar’s Loyal and reliable.

After some operations, the lost credibility of the Metropolitan Police Department will be restored.

Minister Odagiri expressed great joy for such success.

He even called Lin Xinyi overnight to express his commendation, and planned to hold a grand celebration party for him in the Criminal Department, and officially hired him as the Forensic Division Manager.

But Lin Xinyi declined the so-called celebration meeting temporarily.

Because, for him, this arrest operation is far from over.

In other words, this is just the beginning.

The next day, Sunday morning.

Kasumigaseki, Metropolitan Police Building, fifth floor.

This is the territory of the Scientific Investigation Research Institute under the Criminal Department.

The Scientific Investigation Research Institute, referred to as Kesouyan, is responsible for using science and technology to conduct criminal identification work. It is a brother department closely related to the forensics department.

The forensic department is equivalent to the technical investigation center of the domestic police station, and the scientific search and research department is equivalent to the forensic identification center.

Although the science search and research in this science world is far less powerful than the science research and research in reality, at least it is

DNA identification, poison identification, document identification, unknown substance identification, these basic identification tasks can still be undertaken.

"Lin, did you find anything when you asked me to come here?"

Detective Kudo hurried to Kosouken early in the morning.

He slept soundly after going back last night, and was woken up by Lin Xinyi's call for help this morning.

Although he and Xiaolan had to go on a date to Dorobiga Paradise at noon, Kudo Shinichi rushed over without hesitation when Lin Shinichi said that there were new developments in the failed case last night.

"There are indeed some discoveries."

"I just asked you to come over and help with reasoning."

Lin Xinyi said very frankly.

He knew that in terms of reasoning alone, Kudo's level was indeed higher than his.

"Oh?" Kudo Shinichi asked curiously: "What did you find?"

"nail."

"After I came back yesterday, I asked people from the scientific research team to help identify Kaito Kid's nails and nail polish overnight."

As the commander-in-chief of the operation holding the Sword of Criminal Affairs Minister Shang Fang, yesterday Lin Xinyi not only mobilized the equipment of SIT and the police dogs of the Forensic Section, but also asked the assessors from the Science Search and Research Institute to stay up late and work overtime at the Metropolitan Police Department.

"As a result, Kesouyan helped identify the ingredients of Kaito Kid's armor scale:"

"In addition to its own skin flakes, there are also graphite, clay, rubber, calcium sulfate and other substances inside."

Lin Xinyi slowly revealed the identification results of Kesouyan.

Kudo frowned and immediately caught something from it:

"Graphite and clay, these two things are the main ingredients of pencil lead!"

"And rubber is the main component of eraser."

"You mean, Kaito Kid has used pencils and erasers in the recent past?"

"That's right."

"The composition of human nail polish changes every day."

"The presence of graphite and clay in Kidd's nails indicates that he has just used pencils and erasers in the past two days."

Lin Xinyi nodded seriously and said solemnly:

"So, I speculate that Kaito Kid's true identity should be a male high school student."

"Huh?" After hearing such a leaping inference, Kudo immediately couldn't help but pointed out the loopholes in it: "Isn't this wrong?"

"How can you confirm that you are a high school student after using a pencil and eraser?"

"People who use pencils and erasers are everywhere in all ages and in all professions!"

Unlike in China, Japan’s mechanical pencil culture is very popular.

In China, pencils are generally only commonly used by primary school students and majors studying drawing, but in Japan, primary schools, junior high schools, high schools, and even many college students and office workers all like to use mechanical pencils to take notes.

There is no way to deduce the conclusion that "Phantom Thief Kid is a male high school student" just based on the fact that he has used pencils and erasers.

"Of course it's more than that."

Lin Xinyi smiled lightly and added:

"But I can confirm that Kaitou Kid is a male high school student. It's actually because of those tiny nails."

"First of all, women's nails look different from men's nails:"

"The surface of female nails is smoother and lighter in color. The longitudinal ridges of the nail lines are fewer, lower and smoother. They are denser and generally parallel than those of men. They have better regularity than men's."

"So, just seeing those nails, I knew that Kaitou Kidd must be a man."

"Yeah." Kudo Shin nodded:

It’s easy to understand how to judge gender from fingernails.

"What about high school students? How to confirm this?"

"Confirm by the thickness of your nails."

Lin Xinyi answered methodically:

"As people age, their nails will gradually thicken and become darker."

"The average nail thickness is 0.5 to 0.75 mm, and the nail thickness of people aged 15 to 30 is about 0.5 to 0.6 mm."

"And Kaitou Kid's fingernails are only 0.51 mm thick."

"So, I can boldly speculate that he is very young, and narrow the estimated age to 15 to 20 years old."

"I see." Kudo Shinichi pondered for a moment, and then asked instinctively: "But this doesn't rule out the possibility that Kaito Kidd is a college student, right?"

"It really cannot be completely ruled out."

"But, he is most likely a high school student——"

"Because of calcium sulfate, as I said before, there is still a lot of calcium sulfate in his nail polish."

"And calcium sulfate is the main ingredient in chalk."

"So Kaitou Kidd has not only used pencil erasers recently, he has also used chalk, or helped erase the blackboard."

Lin Xinyi explained his reasoning process and was worried that the national conditions were different, so he asked Kudo specifically:

"Kudo, your high school also has students on duty, right?"

"According to the roster, one will be rotated every day." Kudo Shin nodded.

And he completely understood what Lin Xinyi meant:

The only people who leave a lot of chalk dust in their nails are teachers and students who use chalk frequently.

In college, teachers rarely ask students to go to the blackboard to do questions.

The work of wiping the blackboard is also completed by the school property personnel, and students on duty will not be responsible for it.

"So, Kaitou Kid is a high school boy who has only recently come into contact with chalk, pencils and erasers."

"Judging from the large amount of chalk dust between his fingers, it is very likely that he was the one on duty for the past two days who was responsible for cleaning."

Kudo briefly summarized Lin Shinichi's reasoning.

At the same time, Kudo couldn't help but feel slightly surprised:

Unexpectedly, a small fingernail could reveal so much information about the mysterious thief Kidd.

This scientific investigation technology, which he had never been exposed to before, was more powerful than he imagined.

"Kudo."

After Lin Xinyi finished talking about his findings, he added:

"The main reason I asked you to come here this time is to help you narrow down the scope of the investigation."

"After all, there are so many high schools in Japan. Even if we narrow the scope to Tokyo first, the workload will be too much to investigate so many high schools."

Due to workload, Lin Xinyi has boldly ruled out the less likely possibility of "the thief is still a junior high school student" for the time being. But even so, if only high school students are screened, the workload is too heavy for the Metropolitan Police Department to complete.

Therefore, Lin Xinyi had to try to invite Kudo over.

But Kudo did not answer directly. Instead, he asked curiously:

"Troubleshooting? How do you plan to investigate?"

"We can't drag every male high school student to have their DNA and fingerprints compared, right?"

"It's very simple."

Lin Xinyi replied calmly:

"Prioritize checking the list of students on duty for these two days."

"If the student on duty can't get the result, he can go directly to the school to check——"

"I have preserved the scent of Kaito Kidd, so that Caesar can take action when the time comes."

Yes, human scent can be preserved for a long time.

Activated carbon is used to absorb odors from the items left behind by the suspect and stored under vacuum or freezing. The odor can be effectively preserved for 6 months to 3 years.

Even for "antique" scents that have been preserved for 3 years, the success rate of police dog identification is over 50%.

“It’s okay”

Kudo Shinichi once again gained some insights.

Then, he smiled slightly and said slightly playfully:

"In that case, we should be able to find Kaitou Kidd soon."

"Oh?" Lin Xin was surprised:

Could it be that Kudo has been able to pinpoint the scope of the investigation to a specific high school?

A famous detective is indeed a famous detective. How did you deduce this?

"signal."

"It was the secret code Kidd left on the clock dial that completely exposed him."

Kudo Shinichi gave the answer.

Cracking codes is his specialty as a detective.