A Devil's Mind

by Gangxueyin

  The resentment mentality also had a certain effect. After killing someone, normal people feel fear, then remorse. Harassed by these two emotions, which come from recognizing what was done, the killer would begin to resent the victim. When the killer carried out the dismemberment, he’d be all the more determined and meticulous and would have used this to vent his unease. But afterward, he would again feel guilty, especially if this was someone he knew. This sort of emotion may be subconsciously embodied in the neat folding of the deceased’s clothes. He put the internal organs carefully into the plastic bag, worried that traces of blood would seep through.

  As for boiling the body, this involves relatively simple common sense, and Gu Feifei, the forensic pathologist, understood it clearly. Whenever you take a piece of meat from the freezer, you have to warm it up a bit and wait for it to thaw before cutting. After the murder, at first the killer didn’t know how to deal with the body, and only after a day or two did he decide to dismember it. That year was J City’s coldest winter, and the corpse was frozen solid. He couldn’t wait for it to thaw by itself, so he used boiling water to help it along, and the corpse naturally showed signs of redness, as if it had been cooked.

  The final step was getting rid of the corpse. How many trips did the killer make? Two. The killer had ridden a bus and dumped the head on Tiger King Mountain. Then, he dumped the rest of the body by bicycle. The starting point for the second dumping was the site of the act. After passing the psychological safety zone, the killer began to dispose of the corpse. This psychological safety zone had no deterministic value. It was mainly based on environment, means of transport, strength and energy, etc. In theory, the farther away, the better, but bodies had been dumped in the vicinity. For instance, in a dismemberment case in 2011, the killer disposed of the pieces of the victim in his own neighborhood.

  So the starting point for disposing of the corpse was the site of the act, and the ending point was the bank of the Gu River. The killer was clear about this. The choices of the other locations had a randomness to them. The dumping was mainly determined by weight, concealment, and whether the road was convenient. It’s impossible to know whether the killer dumped the corpse in the busy downtown area to challenge the police.

  The first plan to dump the corpse on Tiger King Mountain was to cover up the victim’s identity or to do everything possible to delay the police in finding out. Why didn’t the killer throw the head deep into the dense and isolated forest of Tiger King Mountain? The answer is quite simple. It sprung from a person’s natural fear of darkness and unknown danger. The previous night, Han Yin had tested Kang Xiaobei by saying he heard something moving in the forest. Kang Xiaobei, a gun-carrying policeman, had looked afraid. How much more fear would the solitary killer have felt? He was a murderous devil, not a real one.

  There was also this: in the Yin Aijun case, the determination that the killer had vast knowledge of the human anatomy and may have had professional experience was, in Han Yin’s view, giving too much credit. Dismemberments lasting longer than a week could not be called professional.

  Considering the four steps, the nature of the Yin Aijun case then becomes even clearer. It’s a fairly common case in which rape gets out of control, escalates, and then murder is perpetrated to silence the victim. After that, the corpse is destroyed to eradicate all traces of the crime. In this case, the killer’s actions reflected normal thought progressions without predetermination.

  In the Wang Li case, predetermination was everywhere, especially in replicating where the body parts were dumped.

  Copycat crimes usually have three kinds of motivation.

  Type one: clear-cut motivation. The killer attempts to distract the police by confusing them about a case in order to evade the law. For the Wang Li case, the risk factor for the killer imitating the earlier crime was too high. The risk of dumping the body parts in the busy downtown was clearly greater than any benefit. Thus, the motivation for imitating the corpse disposal was not congruent with type one.

  Type two: psychological motivation. This would arise from the second killer attempting to gain notoriety and a sense of accomplishment through imitating a crime he admired. In this kind of copycat crime, the killer pays even greater attention to the technique of the crime. The choice of victim is arbitrary. However, in the Wang Li case, the killer showed a love of red-colored clothing, and before dismembering her, he painted the victim’s fingernails and toenails and applied a lot of makeup. Han Yin believed something about Wang Li must have attracted the killer, such as her hair, height, or facial features. So, the killer had a specific image in mind that may have derived from a woman who’d subverted his value system and formed the earliest source of impetus for his abnormal psychology. He might have also stalked Wang Li for days or perhaps ran into her by coincidence, whereupon Wang Li became the initial prey in his campaign for revenge against women.

  After eliminating these two types, Han Yin believed the third type of motivation applied: the thrill the killer experienced from other people’s crimes, a type of psychological motivation. Han Yin wanted to explain how he reached this initial conclusion.

  Just as Gu Feifei had said, the cases were sixteen years apart. The killer may have totally changed from an amateur to a professional, a rapist killer who evolved into a deviate murderer. So how did Han Yin deduce that the same criminal did not commit these crimes? Naturally, this had to be comprehensively examined and considered using autopsy findings and behavioral evidence. However, Han Yin made an important basis for his conclusion via invisible evidence.

  Invisible evidence is evidence that only the killer knows and that the police can deduce through analysis. Thus, the invisible evidence in this case was that the two killers had differing attitudes toward the victim’s genitals.

  In the Yin Aijun case, the killer adopted a unique and subtler approach to dealing with the genitals. This reflects a sort of cautious self-preservation and reveals the fact of the rape. In other words, it reveals that the killer got his thrills from physical contact with genitals. In the Wang Li case, the killer neatly organized the genitals and internal organs and disposed of them without taking any intentional protective action. This shows that the killer and the victim had no genital contact, but this does not mean it was not a sex crime. Perhaps the killer got his kicks from dismembering the body.

  So with the previous external evidence and the analysis of how the killer got his thrills, Han Yin ultimately came to a clear conclusion.

  What about motivation? In the Yin Aijun case, what gave the killer a thrill? It must have initially come from the red clothing. Another thrill, of course, was from dismembering the body. In 1996, the killer would have been in the violent fantasy phase of his mental aberration. When he endlessly fantasized about taking revenge for his torments on some woman or some type of woman, the killer’s method of dismemberment provided him with a way, and he integrated this into his own fantasy. The result was a thrill he had never experienced before. For deviant criminals, obsession and pursuit of perfection are their common characteristics until one day they turn their violent fantasies into reality. Then they willingly take enormous risks to do everything in their power to follow what the killer did in the Yin Aijun crime in order to get his very first transcendent thrill. Han Yin believed that as the killer matured, future cases might show something creative.

  Han Yin had plunged into the report. He discarded the concepts of space and time and imagined the scene, recreating the crime and playing different roles. Sometimes he split into the two killers. Or became a dispassionate bystander. He did this to unearth the real criminal mind of the killer from the perspective of those involved.

  Near evening

  Hearing that Han Yin had not come out for lunch or dinner, Ye Xi went to the kitchen and boxed up side dishes and brought them to his room. He invited Ye Xi to look through the report and said he’d explain it in detail after eating. Ye Xi fell asleep against the headboard, the laptop on her chest.

 
; Han Yin knew all too well how tough it was to be in the criminal division of the police force. For a female police officer, it was even harder. Clearly, she was mentally and physically exhausted; otherwise why would she have fallen asleep in a single man’s room? Han Yin felt it deeply in his heart. It had been a very long time since he’d felt sorry for a woman in this way.

  He didn’t want to wake her, so he gently lifted the laptop off her chest. Then, half asleep, she let Han Yin lay her down on the bed. He removed her shoes, covered her, turned off the main light, and switched on a nightlight. In its glow, she slept sweetly, and Han Yin sat at her bedside, deep in thought. A sliver of warmth flowed through the cold, clear night.

  After a time, Ye Xi’s cell phone rang. Eyes closed, Ye Xi groped for the phone in her pocket and answered, mumbled a few words, and tossed the phone aside.

  “Oh, for the love of—how could I have fallen asleep?” She rubbed her eyes and bashfully smiled at Han Yin.

  “You were really tired and needed the rest,” he said.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “Maybe two hours.”

  “You’ve been watching me the whole time?”

  Han Yin knew she was joking but couldn’t avoid feeling embarrassed. “I was wondering what I should do first, rape you and then kill you or the other way around,” he joked.

  “What’s the difference?” Ye Xi said and smiled.

  “You’re the division chief, and you’re asking me?”

  Ye Xi rubbed her forehead. “My brain’s been so overworked lately, I can’t think straight. Anyway, what did you figure out about the cases?”

  “The 1996 case was a rape that got out of control, and he impulsively killed her. The recent case was a murder of deviance. And who knows where that will end?”

  “So you’re giving a high-level overview of the nature of the two cases, then?” Ye Xi propped herself against the headboard. “Tell me about the killer.”

  Han Yin nodded and thought for a moment. “When you were asleep, I just kept wondering why the Yin Aijun crime would have made such a big impression on the current killer. I don’t believe it was only because of the red clothing or that the cutting techniques matched his fantasies. Where did he get his information? Newspapers? TV? Talking with people? Through these various channels, he could have also learned about even more vicious crimes, like Jack the Ripper or the Black Dahlia. So why did he set his mind on copying this particular one? I think he figured he could establish some connection with the 1996 crime because he must have personally experienced it.”

  “We’ve been going around and around, but we still can’t get to the bottom of the Yin Aijun case. It looks like my take on the Yin Aijun case is right, though the direction Deputy Head Hu and the others took wasn’t wrong either. What you said was true. Let’s say he personally experienced it. Consider the dumping sites in the first case, the hundreds of residents near the university who were questioned, the students and professors at Old Capital University, and the two colleges in the area. The dozens of police officers would have to be included, too. The scope is just too enormous.”

  “Hear me out.” Han Yin saw that Ye Xi was rather emotional and tried to calm her. “In my view, there are two possibilities. Either the killer had close personal contact with Yin Aijun or had been a key suspect in the case and had been repeatedly questioned. Therefore, at the time, he should have been near the same age as Yin Aijun and now must be around thirty-five. He’s a totally unremarkable male with few achievements and an ordinary life. He feels a degree of anger and disgust toward women. He may be unable to have normal sexual relations. The basis of this act was to punish women in general and to release all the suppressed emotions and lust. He had a specific target image in mind, and if we use Wang Li’s image as a blueprint, I figure such a woman would be thirty, look mature, and wear too much makeup. She also had that rather retro long, permed, curly hair parted to one side.”

  “It’s not an old hairstyle! It’s this year’s most popular retro hairstyle.”

  Even though Ye Xi wore her hair short, she was sensitive about hairstyles and current fashion. Han Yin had clearly said something he wasn’t qualified to comment on.

  Han Yin smiled. “An age-old image of a mature woman and violent fantasies often begin in one’s adolescence. So my view is that the woman the killer had a grudge against was actually his own mother. He must have grown up in a single-parent household. Or because of the father’s work schedule, he was mostly around his mother. He was dependent on his mother, and, in his eyes, his mother represented all women. If he had grown up like this, he experienced abuse, betrayal, or abandonment by her suddenly leaving this world. He’d have seen women so negatively that, even after growing up, he would have felt a strong disgust toward them and would have difficulty communicating with them. Even if he had married someone, I think the marriage would have been precarious or ended in divorce. He and his wife may be sleeping in separate bedrooms, or he may be living alone. Or, for economic reasons, he may have even moved back in with his mother, but he would have a relatively independent space.

  “The time between Wang Li’s disappearance and when parts of her appeared on the street was from early January first to early January fourth. This happened to be a public holiday, so I consider him to be a nine-to-five, ordinary sort of person. Low-key, composed, able to get along with others. His apprehension from his obsessive-compulsive issues, lack of self-confidence, and lack of creativity fostered such a profound sense of inferiority that even in finding his kicks he needed to imitate others.”

  “You can confirm for sure that the killer was a man?” asked Ye Xi.

  “If the motivation to dismember the body wasn’t purely to shut her up, then it was overkill or sadistic tendencies. Ordinarily, those motivations are about acting on a sexual desire, so the possibility of the killer being a man is extremely high. If the killer is a woman, it would not merely be a psychological problem but would possibly involve a pathology like schizophrenia.”

  “I understand. We need to have a targeted, large-scale investigation of male suspects implicated in Yin Aijun’s case, search for any psychologically disturbed females involved in the case, and conduct some routine surveys. Am I right?”

  “You could put it that way, but I still tend to favor the killer being a male. If it’s really a female, then apart from the useful point of having been involved with Yin Aijun, the rest of the criminal profiles wouldn’t stand up.”

  “The possibility of a female committing the crime is actually pretty slight, and there would be aspects related to capability and strength that would be problematic.” Ye Xi suddenly tapped her head, as if thinking of something. “God, my memory! Only when I mentioned a female did I remember why I came here. I wanted to tell you the results of the tech survey at Tiger King Mountain today. Those footprints belonged to at least five people, and one was a woman. They’re still running comparisons of the tire tracks.”

  “A group? With a female?” Han Yin fell silent as he pondered this.

  PART 2

  THE MYSTERY OF THE ABUSED CHILDREN

  6

  SERIAL DISAPPEARANCES

  The next day’s morning meeting

  The task force discussed Han Yin’s report. Because this was essentially the final delineation on the nature of the case, the relevant leaders, including J City PSB Chief Wu Chengqiang, all attended.

  As expected, halfway through the report, Hu Zhiguo and Fu Changlin, among others, had difficulty containing their anger. They interrupted Han Yin and fiercely questioned the objectivity of his report. Ye Xi restrained herself and proposed letting Han Yin finish reading the report before anyone questioned him. Han Yin calmly responded to every question. But Hu Zhiguo and the others were unable to calm down, and the meeting ended in a deadlock.

  Bureau Chief Wu’s secretary barged into the meeting room, went straight to the bureau chief, and whispered to him.

  The bureau chief’s expression grew serious, and
he slammed his fist on the table. “Quiet, everyone! Early this morning, about a dozen migrant workers living in the Red Flag Street area of the Southern Tombs District gathered in front of city hall to complain that our people are prejudiced against them and not working hard enough to solve crimes. Specifically, from last March, Red Flag Street has had a string of missing children incidents. To date, six such incidents have occurred. The youngest missing child is nine years old, the oldest, sixteen. The first incident occurred early this year. The most recent happened yesterday afternoon. The municipal party committee has instructed us to immediately search for the missing children. Deputy Chief Hu, Chief Ye, and Professor Han will follow me to city hall to find out more about the cases. The rest of you, go to the Southern Tombs Branch station and await further instructions.”

  Yesterday, around seven o’clock, Wang Cheng and Song Juan, a married couple who own a stand at the fruit market on West Red Flag Street, closed up shop and headed home, where they found the door locked and their daughter, Wang Hong, missing. Her backpack was also gone. The neighbors hadn’t seen her, and their daughter’s teacher said she had walked home a little after four o’clock.

  They had just moved from the countryside a month before, and their daughter was slow to warm up to others. She always walked straight home after school, so where would she have gone?

  Wang Cheng and his wife were frantic. They went up and down Red Flag District’s main street, calling out for Hong. Several good-hearted neighbors came out and helped them look, but they didn’t find a trace of the girl. So the couple went to the police station to file a report. Since Hong was sixteen and had only been missing a few hours, the police advised the couple to check in again with their relatives, friends, and the girl’s classmates. Wang Cheng begged and pleaded, but the police refused to send someone out. Beside themselves, the couple knelt down and bowed out of desperation.