by Song Ying
Case investigation meeting. A dozen plainclothes officers were seated at three sides of a conference table, with Cui presiding at the head of the table.
Five desktop computers lined the wall to the right; a row of metal file cabinets, with a large city map on the wall behind, occupied the left. A drinking fountain and a yellow scale stood in the corner.
Cui called the meeting to order now that everyone was seated.
“Let’s start with the circumstances of Hu Guohao’s death. I want to hear what you all have to say, but based upon what we found yesterday at the scene, it appears to have been an accidental drowning. Still, questions remain, and we cannot discount the possibility that it was not an accident. Since Hu Guohao was such an influential figure, the Bureau has told us to step up the investigation and find out exactly what happened as soon as possible. I’ll be in charge of the investigation, with Yao Li and Xiaochuan on my team. I’ll increase the number if necessary.” Cui lit a cigarette before continuing. “Tian, the autopsy report, please.”
Tian Qing, medical examiner of the criminal investigation technical section, was seated to Cui’s left. He was wearing a dark blue T-shirt and a pair of trendy glasses. Opening a gray plastic folder, he looked around before beginning in a calm, unhurried manner:
“The deceased was a hundred and eighty-six centimeters tall. His head faced the shore as he lay on the beach, bare-chested, dressed in only a Lacoste swimsuit. There were dark red liver mortis spots on his chest, his fingers were pale from heavy pressure. The corneas were blurred, the eyes dilated to about point five centimeters, bloodshot corners. There was a large quantity of seawater in his respiratory tract and lungs. His nostrils were filled with mushroom-shaped foam, which is common in drownings.”
The officers listened with rapt attention to Tian, a graduate of a Shanghai medical school who had served as ME for five years and enjoyed an enviable reputation for his professional work.
He continued with his report:
“Based on my examination, we can confirm that Hu drowned between eleven o’clock on the night of the twenty-fourth and one o’clock on the morning of the twenty-fifth, the drowning most likely caused by a heart attack. His face was purplish blue, lips dark red, fingernails light blue, all signs of cardiac arrest. Cui and his team verified that Hu did have coronary disease, so it’s reasonable to assume that he suffered a heart attack and drowned. Also, there was no sign of violent assault on the body, except for a three-centimeter cut on his left breast just below the nipple and a small tear on the back left of his swimsuit. I checked it under a magnifying glass and it looks new. Other than that, I found nothing unusual.”
“Could the tear have been caused by the shark barrier?” Cui asked.
“No,” replied Tian, “I’ve talked to the tourist center at Lesser Meisha. Their shark barrier was made of a special type of rope, not wire mesh.”
“I see.” Cui nodded.
Xiaochuan, who was next to speak, gestured liberally as he went along.
“Everything the ME has said was borne out at the scene, but Yao Li and I spoke to many people at both Greater and Lesser Meisha, and we do have a few questions.”
He briefly described their visits to the hotel at Greater Meisha and to the area around Lesser Meisha, before asking an important question: “What happened to Hu Guohao’s clothes?”
“The staff at the Seaview Hotel told us that Hu was wearing a green polo shirt and white slacks when he came down to eat. If he went to Greater Meisha beach to swim, then his clothes should have shown up either in his hotel suite or in one of the beach lockers, but we did not find them in either place.”
Xiaochuan took a look around the table and then offered his own hypothesis. “There are only two possibilities: one, someone took his clothes; or two, he did not enter the water at Greater Meisha.”
“The latter is certainly possible,” offered Zheng Yong, a ladies’ man attached to the criminal investigation team. “Since his body washed up on Lesser Meisha beach, he may have gone into the water there.”
“That’s a distinct possibility,” another team member agreed.
Yao Li, who was sitting across from Xiaochuan and wearing an orange top over a pair of jeans, asked, “Then why didn’t we find his clothes on the beach at Lesser Meisha?”
“Right, why is that?” Zheng Yong wondered, resting his chin in his hand.
“That’s one of the mysteries confronting us,” Cui said. “Hu Guohao’s clothes could not have walked off by themselves.”
That brought a round of laughter. Cui lit another cigarette and continued. “There was something fishy about the cause of death. Tian Qing, why don’t you enlighten us?”
Tian adjusted his glasses before beginning, “After further analysis, we found two inexplicable details.”
Looking at the autopsy report in its gray folder, he began. “Let me start with the aspirin. CT scans of coronary arteries, clinical studies, and autopsy reports show that blood clots usually appear in the arteries of patients experiencing cardiac arrest, meaning that clots cause the attack. Aspirin was originally used to treat the common cold and rheumatic arthritis. Later epidemiologists discovered that people taking aspirin over long periods rarely suffer coronary disease. In further tests, medical researchers have found that aspirin has a thinning effect on blood platelets.
“After requesting Hu’s medical records from City Hospital, we checked his coronary artery scans. There were indeed blood clots. So there’s no question that they were the cause of his heart trouble. But when I checked the contents of his stomach, I found that he had been taking aspirin. As I said, aspirin can effectively prevent blood platelets from forming clots, so how could he suffer cardiac arrest?”
No one said a word.
“There has to be a reason.” Yao Li finally broke the silence. She glanced around the table and stood up. “I think there are two possibilities. First, he overexerted himself, and that led to cardiac arrest. Or, perhaps, he was given a tremendous fright.”
“What?” Several people spoke at once.
“For instance,” she said as she brushed the hair away from her forehead, “the sudden appearance or attack by a shark.”
“Maybe the cut on his chest was a tooth mark from a shark,” Zheng Yong commented.
There were snickers around the table.
“Be serious. We’re talking about an unexplained death!” Cui slapped the desk with his palm.
“Of course,” Yao Li continued, unruffled, “it’s also possible that someone terrified him, and that someone would be our murderer. That’s all I have to say.”
She sat down, her eyes fixed on Cui.
“Who’s next? Xiaochuan, what do you think?”
“Yao Li’s analysis makes sense, fatigue or shark, or a murderer. I’m leaning toward a murderer.” Xiaochuan turned the teacup in his hand.
“Why?” Cui asked.
“I don’t know; it’s just a hunch.”
“A hunch doesn’t cut it. You need evidence, solid reasoning.”
“The large quantity of sleeping pills in Hu Guohao’s stomach is reason enough for me.”
“Tian Qing, tell us about the sleeping pills.”
Cui patted the ME on the shoulder.
With everyone’s eyes on him, Tian began again.
“We found a large quantity of sleeping pill residue in his stomach fluids and his blood. The main drug ingredient was chlorpromazine, which is sold as Wintermin, a non-barbituate, commonly prescribed sleeping aid. Chlorpromazine is a powerful tranquilizer. Its primary function is to suppress the central nervous system. An overdose can cause temporary excitability, then sleepiness, and ataxia, which causes uncoordinated movements, tremors, coma, and depressed breathing, eventually leading to serious shock or suffocation from the shock. The threshold for overdose is anything over five micrograms per milliliter of liquid. In the most severe case, the patient succumbs from respiratory and circulation failures. The chlorpromazine in Hu Guohao’s blood was
four point two, clearly higher than the normal dosage, not enough to constitute a drug overdose, but enough to lead to a loss of consciousness.”
“But according to his wife, Hu was in the habit of taking large doses of sleep aids, and that was corroborated by his assistant,” Cui said. “So this doesn’t tell us anything.”
“Then we have to conduct an autopsy.” Xiaochuan blurted out.
Everyone sat up.
“Hu Guohao was one of the superrich, a major player in Shenzhen. Do you think all you have to do is ask for an autopsy?” Cui took the wind out of his apprentice’s sails.
“I think we ought to consider Xiaochuan’s suggestion, Chief,” Yao Li said in support of Xiaochuan.
“I brought that up, but Mrs. Hu won’t OK it,” Cui said, knowing that the criminal code dictated that family consent and signature would have to be obtained for autopsies in noncriminal cases.
“Why not?”
“She said she wants him buried whole. She doesn’t want his body defiled, and I can understand her sentiment.”
“Or maybe she’s just sure it was an accidental drowning,” Xiaochuan said.
“It’s probably more like ‘she believes’ it was,’” Cui said suggestively.
“What do you mean, Chief?” Xiaochuan was confused.
“Use your head.”
Cui passed cigarettes around, and columns of white smoke quickly rose in the conference room. A heavy smoker himself, Cui smoked while focusing a penetrating gaze on Xiaochuan.
Xiaochuan ventured a guess. “Do you mean she wants to believe that her husband’s death was an accident?”
“Yes, that’s what I think.” That was what Cui had taken away from his interview with the widow. He could not shake the feeling that there was something hidden in Zhu Mei-feng’s comment of “he thought he was invincible.”
“But why?”
“Let’s try to figure it out.” Cui’s gaze swept the table. “Who benefits most from Hu Guohao’s death?”
The officers exchanged looks.
“Mrs. Hu,” someone blurted out.
That woke everyone up.
“Right. Hu owned fifty-four percent of Landmark’s shares. He had an ex-wife but no children, and his parents died many years ago, so legally speaking, Hu’s death means that Zhu will inherit his shares.”
“Oh!” was the consensus response.
“So, it makes no difference to Zhu whether Hu accidentally drowned or not. But if it wasn’t an accident, or more precisely, was murder, then she would be the prime suspect, so a smart woman like her would never agree to an autopsy. And if it was an accident, then she’d naturally consider an autopsy unnecessary.”
“But, there are really two more beneficiaries,” Cui continued.
All eyes were trained on him.
“One is his deputy CEO, Zhou Zhengxing.” Cui cleared his throat. “He’s the second biggest Landmark shareholder. Employees say he’s the leader of the local faction, and has had his eyes on Hu’s position for quite some time. Also there was a major disagreement between the two; Zhou adamantly opposed Hu’s plan of investing in Tiandongba.”
Xiaochuan then reported on what he’d learned from Landmark employees.
Tiandongba was a plot of 160 acres east of the Yantian Sanatorium and a few hundred meters from the ocean. A prime location, it was a bargain financially, but carried a high degree of risk, because Yantian was hard to access. It was a long-standing problem that was brought up year after year and was a frequent topic in the media. If the area could not be made more accessible, real estate development along Shenzhen’s east coast would be greatly impacted. Yantian was separated from Liantang by only a single tunnel, but the land there cost a thousand yuan a square meter less. Hu Guohao had set his heart on turning Yantian into an “oceanview luxury villa” development.
A few days before Hu’s death, he and Zhou Zhengxing had engaged in a heated argument. Hu, who would allow no one to appropriate power where major decisions were concerned, was a risk-taker, while Zhou was understated and cautious. Despite their contrasting natures, they had been able to get along, at least on the surface, up till now. This time, however, irreconcilable strategic differences in approach had led to an open clash.
Someone had overheard Zhou say, “Tiandongba looks like a piece of choice pork, but in fact it’s a chicken rib, tasteless though you hate to throw it away.”
“Who cares if it’s a chicken rib? Give me a bone, and I’ll gnaw on it,” Hu had replied. “How can you possibly find success if you lack the spirit and determination to gnaw on a bone?”
“I’m against betting the survival of the company on such a risky venture.”
“Would Landmark be where it is today if we hadn’t taken risks?”
“No matter what you say, I’m against buying Tiandongba.” Zhou had dug in his heels.
“Very well then, I’ll turn it over to a vote by the Board,” Hu had responded coldly.
The conversation had ended, and as Zhou stormed out of Hu’s office, he ran into the director of marketing operations, Huang Hongli. Huang was surprised to see the dark look on Zhou’s face. The dispute was making the rounds throughout the company the next day.
“Based on what we know about Landmark, with Hu’s unexpected death, Zhou is the most logical person to become the next CEO,” Xiaochuan explained.
Cui then pointed out a third beneficiary.
“The last one to benefit from Hu’s death is Hong Yiming, CEO of Big East Realty. We’ve learned that Hong was the last person to see Hu alive on the evening of the twenty-fourth. But more importantly, Big East Realty was Landmark’s only competitor among bidders for Tiandongba. Everyone in the real estate business believed that Landmark and Big East were the only two real contenders for the land at Yantian. Now with Hu Guohao gone, Tiandongba could very well fall into Big East’s clutches.”
This news piqued everyone’s interest, for if Hu Guohao’s death was not an accident, then the prime suspects (those who would benefit from his death) would be:
1. His wife, Zhu Mei-feng;
2. His deputy CEO, Zhou Zhengxing;
3. Hu’s business rival, Hong Yiming, CEO of Big East Realty.
Following agreement on this preliminary conclusion, Cui began planning the next step in the investigation.
“In order to get to the bottom of Hu’s death, I’m going to ask for a judiciary autopsy.”
Finally, closing his notebook, Cui said, “Xiaochuan and Yao Li, you two check on the three suspects’ whereabouts from eleven p.m. on the twenty-fourth to one a.m. on the twenty-fifth. Make sure they all have alibis.”
“We’re on it, sir.”
— 2 —
The Ming Tien Café in Nanyuan. A small coffee shop in green hues, with a tasteful interior design.
Nie Feng sat at a table by the window upstairs. A ponytailed waitress in a green uniform brought him a glass of ice water.
“What would you like, sir?”
“Coffee.”
“Our Blue Mountain is the best,” Ponytail recommended.
“OK, I’ll have that.”
Nie was not picky about his coffee, but he’d heard of the famous Blue Mountain and decided to give it a try.
Soon Ponytail brought him a steamy Blue Mountain in a dark brown bone-china cup. It had a wonderfully rich aroma. Nie tore open a small green paper sugar packet and began stirring the coffee with a tiny stainless-steel spoon, after pouring in some Ming Tien creamer.
Ponytail stood to the side, staring at him. She had small eyes and a garlic-bulb nose on a round face, reminding him of his nanny. He glanced at her and smiled.
“Are you here by yourself?”
“I’m waiting for a friend.”
“A girl?”
“A police officer.”
“Oh.”
Nie picked up his cup and took a sip. It had a subtle fragrance, not all that different from the cafeteria coffee at the Sheraton in Sichuan. He’d heard that Blue Mountain was
considered the aristocrat of coffee, but to him it was nothing to write home about.
“It’s slightly sour.”
“That’s the Blue Mountain flavor, sir,” she said, both to explain and praise the coffee.
At that moment Nie saw Xiaochuan rush in; he waved from his table.
“Sorry I’m late. We had a meeting about the case this afternoon,” Xiaochuan apologized as he sat down across from Nie Feng.
“That’s all right. I just got here.”
“What would your friend like, sir?” Ponytail asked as she flashed Nie a fetching smile.
“Coffee for me, too,” Xiaochuan said.
“Blue Mountain, or charcoal roast?”
Xiaochuan took a quick look at the fancy menu and ordered the cheapest one.
“Bring me a cup of Ming Tien coffee.”
“Where are you staying, Mr. Nie?” Xiaochuan asked after the waitress left.
“At the Publishing Bureau guesthouse. It’s cheaper than a hotel.”
“This place isn’t bad.” Xiaochuan looked around him.
The green shop sign, the oval logo, the cheerful music, and friendly service were all part of Ming Tien’s brand. The beige linen window coverings were raised, so customers could look down at the heavy traffic.
“I like the place,” Nie Feng said.
“But you didn’t ask me here for a cup of Ming Tien coffee, did you?”
“Coffee’s the main reason, of course, but there’s something else, the Hu Guohao case.”
“Yesterday at Landmark, I noticed you were very curious about Hu’s death, Mr. Nie.”
“Please call me Nie Feng.” Nie paused, before deciding to be straight with the officer. “How should I put it? Maybe it’s professional sensitivity, but I don’t think Hu’s death was an accident. And he’s on the cover of our next issue. Since I interviewed him and wrote the article, I feel I need to follow up for the sake of the magazine and our many readers.”
“I share your feeling about Hu’s death.” Xiaochuan was somewhat animated. “But we’re still looking for clues.”
“‘Beauty is everywhere. And to our eyes, it’s not a matter of the lack of beauty but a lack of discovery.’ The same is true with clues, I think.” Nie looked at Xiaochuan.