Diary of a Criminal Investigator

Originally, since the Maternal and Child Health Hospital lost birth certificates, the hospital has strengthened its management in this area.

According to Director Chen of the Health Department, every day after work, two doctors from the Health Department must count the number of birth certificates.

"We just count the handover record, and the responsible doctors must sign to confirm."

"Moreover, at the end of the day when the incident occurred, I was also in the office, watching them lock the remaining birth certificates in the drawer with my own eyes."

"Then everyone left work together, so it’s impossible for our doctors to have taken them."

Lu Chuan casually raised a doubt, not really believing that the doctors on duty at the time committed the theft.

Zhang Hui nodded toward Lu Chuan.

After the incident, Zhang Hui first suspected the doctors who had access to the birth certificates.

But there was no gain.

At that time, there were three doctors in the office, plus Director Chen, making a total of four people.

Two of them were counting the birth certificates, and Director Chen stood by with another doctor, chatting.

So it’s unlikely any doctor swapped out and took away the birth certificates.

Unless all four of them are lying and colluded in the crime.

Otherwise, they truly went missing.

"We’ll wait until after work, once everyone’s gone, I’ll go check the scene again."

Lu Chuan was puzzled for the moment.

His strength lay in analyzing the scene of an investigation.

But this case’s scene was essentially destroyed on the first day of the incident.

Even if the suspect left footprints, fingerprints, or other hair and skin flakes, a week has passed, and now those traces are long gone.

Plus, Lu Chuan had just glanced at the office door, and it was crowded inside and outside.

It’s still incredibly busy over there now, so Lu Chuan could only wait until after work to go and check the scene.

During the time waiting after work, Lu Chuan went again to the hospital’s security duty room.

He asked the staff there to export surveillance footage from the days around the incident.

"We’ve reviewed all these videos."

Zhang Hui smiled wryly.

"Found nothing."

"The items were lost last Tuesday, we checked the surveillance from a week before the incident."

"The Health Department of the Maternal and Child Health Hospital is located in the administrative office area, not in the medical area."

"So basically no one is in the building after work at night."

The work of the Health Department differs somewhat from other departments because entering birth certificate information requires aligning with the network system’s schedule.

The system’s opening hours are set and only during work hours.

Entry at other times isn’t possible.

So, although the Health Department is busy during the day, there’s pretty much no overtime.

At 5 PM, the system automatically shuts down, and any pending entries have to wait until the next day.

"Besides a cleaner appearing, no strangers were around."

Lu Chuan knew that an unsolved case on Zhang Hui’s plate must be difficult.

As expected, points he could think of were all investigated by Zhang Hui.

"Is there any chance the surveillance footage was swapped?"

Zhang Hui shook his head: "Oh, the hospital’s security department is separate from other departments, and we’ve investigated the people inside."

"The surveillance system has a separate maintenance service, without the key there’s no way to edit the footage."

"The Maternal and Child Health Hospital has experienced medical disturbances before, where relatives injured doctors, so they installed HD surveillance cameras."

"To facilitate evidence acquisition, their surveillance equipment is quite advanced, as is the system, making it virtually impossible to swap the footage."

"I even had people from the city’s technical identification center come and look, and our computer experts’ answers were pretty much the same."

"Moreover, I’ve investigated all the security personnel; their education isn’t very high, only one graduated from junior college, and the rest all graduated from high school. They can barely use computers, let alone edit or swap videos."

This is puzzling.

Could the birth certificates really disappear on their own?

Soon it was 5 PM.

The system had shut down, and all those waiting to process birth certificates had finished, anyone who hadn’t would have to come back the next day.

The doctors from the Health Department could now prepare to go off duty.

This time, Lu Chuan watched the entire process of them counting the birth certificates.

It wasn’t particularly complicated.

In the whole Health Department, only one computer can enter birth certificate information.

Thank you, the account and password for entering birth certificate information are shared, but all doctors and the director know them.

It’s public use.

After work, the doctors take out the remaining birth certificates from the drawer and inspect them, comparing them with the number entered into the system that day.

If there’s no issue, the duty doctor puts them back in the drawer and locks it.

This process is complete.

"Who has this key?"

"The key is in the cabinet, our doctors use it as per the duty roster."

Director Chen pointed to a file cabinet in the corner.

The key is in an unlocked drawer of the file cabinet.

The office is different from home—although locked, the key doesn’t necessarily have to be taken home.

When Lu Kang watched over office work, it was the same—some things required locking, but after locking, you couldn’t take the key away.

Because if the key is taken, and something comes up, it would be a problem if people can’t open it.

So the key is kept somewhere else in the office.

"Our department has a total of four doctors, plus me, making five people."

"Because there is a lot of information to enter into the system daily for birth certificates, we take turns entering it."

Lu Chuan nodded.

"Has the lock on the drawer been changed?"

"No, it’s still the original lock."

"We noticed the birth certificates were missing when Xiaoli, who was on duty, opened the drawer Wednesday morning when we arrived at work and found them gone."

"Moreover, when we count the birth certificates, it’s the doctor on duty that day and the one taking over the next day that count together. Only when verified is it signed in the transfer log."

Director Chen handed over a log, which was the signature book for doctors’ shift handovers.

"For so many years, we have strictly followed this regulation, and there have never been any mistakes."

Each birth certificate has a serial number, and if one is wrong, lost, or damaged, it must be registered and explained.

So everyone is very careful at work.

Sometimes if there’s damage or deterioration, the Health Department has to write a report, and damaged items must be returned before being reissued.

So, according to Director Chen, the person who stole the birth certificates is very familiar with the Health Department’s work procedures.

Even knows exactly where they keep the drawer key.

So when stealing, there was no forced entry.