by Zijin Chen
“You guys are a bunch of—” Zhao said, but Yan intervened, tapping Zhao on the arm.
“It’s fine. There’s someone watching on that street; they’ll see him,” Yan said.
Zhao hung up in a huff and called the officer by the side door. He had been there all day but never saw Luo. Zhao quickly got the taxi company on the line. They confirmed that Luo asked to be picked up at the front gate of his apartment complex. The plainclothes officer there was focused on the restaurants, so he didn’t see Luo either. The taxi driver said that Luo told him to drive east for a few minutes, and after five or six intersections he got out again. He had no idea where Luo was going.
Zhao’s face blanched. Luo had somehow given them the slip.
How were they going to find him again? They could check the surveillance cameras and ask people, but that would take time.
“It’s a race to see who can get to Li Fengtian first,” Yan said.
Zhao cracked a smile. “We have police at the entrance to his building. He’s walking right into the trap.”
“Exactly. Once he gets to Mr. Li’s house, the officers can arrest him. But we need good timing,” Yan said.
“I know,” Zhao said.
Chapter 64
The taxi stopped at Luo’s destination. He stepped out and looked around.
He was in a suburb of west Hangzhou, not far from his apartment.
He had waited eight years and lived in Hangzhou for three just so he could find the answer to one question. It was shockingly close now.
So close and yet so far. Suddenly he felt nervous.
He was finally going to get his answer.
But did he want it?
He took a deep breath.
The sky darkened. Luo knew that the police must have realized that he wasn’t in the restaurant anymore. He needed to act.
He made a fist, then relaxed, forcing his feet to move towards the shabby apartment complex that housed mostly migrant families.
The address was seared into his memory. He found the correct building and went straight to Apartment 302.
He stood at the door for a moment, hesitated, and took another deep breath. Finally he rang the doorbell.
“Who is it?” A woman in her thirties answered the door. A four- or five-year-old girl stood close behind her. She mimicked her mother. “Who are you looking for?”
For a split second, Luo almost thought that this was his wife and daughter.
But it was a fleeting thought. “I’m looking for Mr. Li Fengtian. Does he live here?”
“Fengtian, someone’s here for you,” the woman shouted.
“Who is it?” a thirty-something man said as he came to the door. He was lean and stared hard at Luo before concluding that he did not know him. “Who—?” he said in a confused tone.
“We’re investigating a matter and I need to ask you a few questions,” Luo said with perfect composure. He walked inside and closed the door.
Mr. and Mrs. Li were dumbfounded. He turned to his wife and said, “Go and watch television in the bedroom. This won’t take long.”
The woman took her daughter away, but not before giving Luo a hateful look.
Luo was disgusted by how easy it was to convince them that he was a police officer.
“What are you investigating, Officer?” the man asked.
“This is part of the fingerprinting project. Please let me see your hand,” Luo said.
Li Fengtian’s eyes flashed with alarm. Finally he acquiesced, slowly extending his right hand.
Luo took the man’s hand. Within seconds, his face turned white and he was frozen to the spot. He stared intently at Li’s hand without loosening his grip, finally asking the question he had been waiting to ask. “Eight years ago, a mother and child living in Apartment 201, Unit 1, Building 2, Heavenly Apartments, 186 Pingkang Road, Haishu District, Ningbo, went missing. Where are they now?
A look of fear spread across Li Fengtian’s face.
“Where are they?” Luo kept a tight grip on Li’s hand and looked sharply at him. His stillness was terrifying.
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand,” Li said, pulling his hand free and stepping back.
Luo repeated his question, this time with less power in his voice. “Eight years ago, a mother and child living in Apartment 201, Unit 1, Building 2, Heavenly Apartments, 186 Pingkang Road, Haishu District, Ningbo, went missing. Where are they now?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Eight years ago? Ningbo? I’ve lived in Jiangsu province for all that time,” Li protested, afraid to look Luo in the eyes. Li took another step back.
“Tell me. Where are they?” Luo said, approaching Li.
“What are you talking about? What are you doing here?”
“You know perfectly well. Where are they?” Luo continued to approach slowly. In one swift movement, he grabbed Li’s neck.
“What are you doing?!” Li said, struggling to loosen Luo’s grip.
Mrs. Li ran into the living room. “What are you doing? Stop it!” she screamed. “Keke, go back to Mommy and Daddy’s room.” She closed the door between the living room and her bedroom and turned back to Luo. “You’re scaring my daughter! What do you want? Police aren’t allowed to rough up people like that!”
“I never said I was a police officer,” Luo said disdainfully.
“Then who the hell are you?” Mrs. Li snapped.
“I’m the man who used to live in that apartment,” Luo answered, never taking his eyes off Li.
“What is this?” Li shouted. “You’re out of your mind!”
Mrs. Li pulled Luo off of her husband and pushed him towards the door. “Get out of my house, you madman! Now!”
Luo pushed her away and glared at Li. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Where are they?”
Mrs. Li grabbed Luo’s hair to drag him away. In a fit of rage, Luo kicked Mrs. Li to the ground, grabbed a chair, and smashed it into pieces on the floor. He cut his hand, but he didn’t notice the blood. “Where are they?” his voice boomed.
Just at that moment, someone knocked loudly at the door. “Open the door! This is the police!”
Li and his wife each gave Luo a few more punches before Mrs. Li opened the door. Eight or nine plainclothes officers stood outside.
The leader of the squad flashed his badge at Mrs. Li. “We’re with the Hangzhou Police. What’s going on here?”
Mrs. Li was shocked. She had no idea how so many of them got to her apartment in such a short time, but she didn’t dwell on it. “Officer, this deranged man attacked us. Arrest him!”
The officers all streamed into the room and restrained the now-bloody Luo, while the other officers confiscated his bag. The leader of the squad frowned and handed the bag to another officer so he could call his superiors. “Yes, sir. He doesn’t seem to have any weapons. Copy that. We will wait at Mr. Li’s apartment.”
He hung up and turned back towards Luo and the Lis. “Wait here, please.” The officer heard the child crying and said to Mrs. Li, “You can go to your child.”
After Mrs. Li left the room, the plainclothes officers stood next to the door, silent.
“What—what happens now?” Li said, looking panicked.
“We are waiting for my superior,” the officer said brusquely. He turned to stare at the wall.
Luo stood still, staring into empty space, as if time had lost all meaning.
It was twenty minutes before the doorbell rang.
A grim-faced Captain Zhao entered the apartment. First he looked at Li Fengtian, and then he turned and appraised Luo.
Luo looked right back at Zhao with a neutral expression on his face.
Zhao nodded hello and said, “Luo Wen. Why don’t you come with me to the bureau?”
“OK,” Luo said, without the slightest trace of panic in his voice.
“Take him away,” Zhao said abruptly.
An officer handcuffed him on the spot.
“What’s th
e meaning of this?” Luo asked in a challenging tone.
“You know what this is about,” Zhao said. He gave Luo a cold look.
“I think there has been some mistake.”
“We’ll work that out at the bureau.”
The arresting officer escorted Luo to the car.
Zhao pointed to Li. “Take him away too.”
“But why do you want to arrest me? You interviewed me a few days ago!” he protested.
The officer handcuffed Li.
Mrs. Li rushed into the room just as her husband was being handcuffed. She pulled Zhao’s arm and shouted, “What are you doing now?”
Zhao pushed her firmly away and quickly exited the apartment, followed by the crowd of policemen. Both wife and child were crying, refusing to let go. Li had to be pulled away.
Luo was already on the street when he heard the mother and child shouting and crying. He stopped and turned his head towards the sound, a tiny smile on his lips.
PART 9
REACHING THE SAME END BY DIFFERENT MEANS
Chapter 65
Luo had been at the Criminal Investigation Division of the Zhejiang Public Security Bureau for two days.
Yan walked into Zhao’s office early in the morning and found Zhao in his chair, smoking a cigarette. “Has he confessed?” Yan asked.
Zhao stubbed out his cigarette and grunted. “I haven’t let him sleep for the past two days. He looks exhausted—but he keeps repeating that he’s innocent.”
Yan had the vague feeling that something wasn’t right. “Have you officially arrested him?”
“No, I don’t have any evidence. How do you expect me to get an arrest warrant?”
“So right now, you’re . . .”
“I’ve summoned him here to help with the investigation.”
“You can only restrict his freedom for a maximum of twenty-four hours. You’ve kept him for at least thirty hours now . . . That’s against bureau policy, isn’t it?”
“I know the policies better than you do, Yan,” Zhao said in an irritated tone.
“You can’t just extort confessions like this!” Yan said angrily.
He stood to leave.
“Wait, where are you going?” Zhao said, standing up.
“Back to the university. I don’t want to be involved any longer. Good luck.”
“Yan, hey, wait!” Zhao ran to the door and pulled his arm. “Who said that I am extorting a confession from Luo?”
“You’ve already violated bureau policy by keeping him for more than thirty hours and not even letting him sleep. Isn’t that—”
“I’ll admit, in the past, a lot of bureaus bent the rules in order to get confessions,” Zhao said, interrupting him. “But we don’t do that anymore, at least not in Hangzhou. I believe that extorting confessions is morally wrong. Besides, in a case as important as this one, I wouldn’t dare try a tactic like that—it could get me in a load of trouble. If Luo retracts his statement or he complains to a former colleague from the Ningbo PSB, I could be charged.”
“So what are you doing?” Yan said, unconvinced.
“Relax.” Zhao patted Yan’s shoulder and gave him an easy smile. “Last night, when we had almost reached the twenty-four-hour limit, I got one of my men to take Luo out to the entrance gate of the bureau. We let him get out of the car, then gave him a new summons to bring him back in.”
“So that’s how you’re handling this?” Yan was dumbstruck.
“That’s right,” Zhao said proudly. “The law has never determined exactly how many summons in a row constitutes a consecutive summons. To be honest, I wouldn’t use this if I didn’t have to, but I can’t think of any other way to crack Luo Wen.”
Yan gaped at Zhao. “You . . . you’re . . . you’re just going to take him in and out of the bureau every day? You could detain him indefinitely!”
“Well, in theory, yes,” Zhao said uncomfortably. “But he can’t keep this up forever, can he? He has to confess.”
Yan looked down and thought for a moment. Then he looked at Zhao. “Can I interrogate him?”
“Of course,” Zhao answered, without hesitation. “This is a local-level police station; I’m the boss of everyone here. I’ve spoken to my subordinates and told them you’re a criminal investigation expert, and anyway, the older officers know you. As long as nobody tells the Public Security Bureau, we’ll be fine.”
“Thanks,” Yan said, nodding gratefully.
“No, I should be thanking you. If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t even have a primary suspect. How confident are you that you’ll get him to talk?”
“I don’t know, but I have to try. I just never expected him to go to Li’s apartment completely unarmed,” Yan said.
“The good news is that Mr. Li has already admitted to his crimes,” Zhao said, waving a stack of papers. “We’re just investigating the details now.”
Yan took the papers from Zhao and scanned them briefly. He then handed them back to Zhao and turned to the door, sighing quietly at the difficult job ahead.
Chapter 66
The moment Yan walked into the interview room he saw Luo’s weary face.
Luo was in the prime of his health—he wasn’t even fifty yet. But two straight days of interrogation was testing his limits.
A coffee and a box of cigarettes were in front of him. Luo had already gulped down countless cups of coffee, but he hadn’t touched the cigarettes. That didn’t surprise Yan. There was also another officer in the room taking notes.
At the sight of Yan, Luo tried to muster up some energy, sitting up straight and smiling serenely. “The police have got it all wrong. I’ve repeated myself many times already: this has nothing to do with me.”
Yan sat down slowly, without taking his eyes off Luo. He finally said softly, “So you’re not admitting to it?”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be admitting to,” Luo said, taking a deep breath and shaking his head slowly.
“Well, I do: you committed five murders and abetted a sixth.”
“Five murders? Abetted a sixth?” Luo said. “I didn’t realize that a math professor could make so many counting mistakes.”
Yan narrowed his eyes. “I know you didn’t kill Xu Tianding, but if it weren’t for your involvement, the police would have found the killers within a few days.”
Luo shook his head, as if everything Yan said was completely inconceivable.
“I have to hand it to you: you are a very talented criminal,” Yan said.
“Like I said before, none of those murders have anything to do with me,” Luo said with a frustrated sigh. “Do you have any proof? And besides, if I committed those murders, don’t you think I could finish the job without leaving any clues? I used to work in criminal investigations. Hypothetically I would make it impossible to recover the victim’s body.”
“Yes, I know that you could eliminate every last hair follicle and fingerprint at the crime scene. But you wanted to accomplish something else,” Yan said.
Luo rubbed his nose.
“As soon as I suspected you, I was plagued by questions. Why did you leave a Liqun cigarette in the victims’ mouths when you didn’t even smoke? I went to Ningbo to learn more about your past. That’s when I finally understood why you left those clues. You wanted the police to discover them.”
Yan paused to take a sip of water. “It’s easiest to explain in chronological order. You rejected a more effective weapon like a knife in favor of a jump rope. The jump rope had two important advantages. First, it had two handles, which made it easier for you to leave fingerprints and easier for the police to lift them. Second, it made it easier to show that the killer was left-handed. A knife would not make Li Fengtian’s left-handedness so obvious.”
Luo couldn’t help but smile. “Why would I make things so complicated for myself? If I failed, wouldn’t that make it easier for the police to catch me?”
“You wouldn’t fail. You’re Luo Wen, the brilliant forensic scientist,” Y
an said, looking Luo directly in his eyes.
Luo shook his head before downing the rest of his coffee.
“After you killed your victim, you put a Liqun cigarette in his mouth. The killer smoked Liqun cigarettes.”
“I don’t smoke,” Luo said bluntly.
“Yes, but you wanted the police to think the killer did.”
“And why would I do that?” Luo asked.
Yan didn’t answer. “One of your victims was from Shandong province. You wrote the word ‘local’ next to his body but made it look like his work. You wanted the police to think the killer was a Hangzhou local. Finally, you left a piece of white paper with the provocative phrase ‘Come and get me.’ In a city as big as Hangzhou, murders happen every single day.”
“I know that Hangzhou is a big city,” Luo said calmly.
“The district PSB would pay attention to the case and assign someone to investigate it, but one or two officers was not enough for you,” Yan continued. “You needed a massive response, and you could only achieve that by provoking the police into putting a lot of resources into the case. The sign was effective: the media loved it. The police made the case a high priority.”
“So let me get this straight: in your opinion, I committed the crimes, but I wanted to get caught as soon as possible?”
“Exactly,” Yan said, nodding.
“Then you don’t need to interrogate me, just put me in a mental hospital!” Luo said with a laugh.
“Your motive was for the police to find and catch a different killer.”
Luo sneered but fell silent.
“Eight years ago, you came back from a business trip. When you opened the door you found it empty. No wife, no daughter, no dog. The floor had been wiped clean. Something very wrong had happened.”
Luo looked at Yan and clenched his teeth. It still felt like yesterday.
The fear had started at the bottom of his stomach and spread throughout his body. For eight years, the same nightmare woke him in the night. All the furniture was carefully arranged and the room was spotless.