Apricot's Revenge

by Song Ying

  He took out a city map of Shenzhen and stared at the area near Dapeng Bay.

  If Nan’ao was indeed the crime scene (because of the algae and the briefcase, both of which pointed “consciously” to the fishing village), Zhong Tao could not have committed the murder and dumped the body on the beach at Lesser Meisha within twenty-five minutes. He had a perfect alibi.

  But what if he reversed the process? That is, instead of Nan’ao, the crime scene was a spot reachable in twenty-five minutes. That would be Lesser Meisha, at a secluded spot near the barbecue ground. Then Zhong Tao would have had the opportunity to commit the murder.

  But how could he explain the algae in Hu’s lungs?

  “The type of algae found in the body ascertains the place where the person drowned.” That was the ME’s analytical principle. Algae that could only have appeared in Nan’ao was found in Hu’s lungs, which was why the police determined that he had drowned there. But all that really proved was that Hu had taken in water with red tide somewhere near Nan’ao. In fact, there were two possible reasons for how he had Nan’ao water in his lungs.

  One, he drowned there and breathed in the local water.

  Two, he was somewhere else, but breathed in Nan’ao seawater and then drowned. Someone would have to have transported Nan’ao water to wherever Hu was killed. If so, this was a methodically planned, meticulously executed murder that required several conditions:

  One, the murderer had intimate knowledge of the red tide trend in Nan’ao.

  Two, the murderer had the time and opportunity to get water from Nan’ao.

  Three, the murderer had a way to lure Hu to the scene of his death.

  Nie had checked the local papers, where he’d found reports on red tides, available to anyone who cared to look them up. Zhong Tao was smart enough to hit upon the idea and form his plan. He could easily fulfill the second condition: from June twenty-second, when severe red tides appeared in Nan’ao, to the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, before the reunion at 7:00 P.M., he had at least fourteen hours to make the round trip.

  Based upon what the police later learned from Hong Yiming, any person who could meet all three conditions had to be well known to Hu and trusted by him; otherwise, he would not have been so easily called away by a brief phone call. Zhong fit that description well also.

  As for Hu’s briefcase, it had been intentionally tossed at the elementary school to lead the police to Nan’ao. In fact, it wasn’t found until five days after the murder, though no one gave that much thought, since everyone knew that it had been dumped in the weeds and was hard to see. The boy who found the briefcase had relieved himself at that spot three days earlier, and had not seen it. Nie Feng had talked to the boy, a chubby kid called Lai Zhai, on his short trip to Nan’ao.

  Nie suddenly felt energized by the thought of a new scenario:

  —the primary crime scene was near the barbecue ground at Lesser Meisha beach,

  —the secondary crime scene was the stone jetty where Hu’s body was dumped, and

  —Nan’ao (the school athletic field or the beach) was a fabricated crime scene.

  His conclusion: the murderer had cleverly gained time by manipulating locations, thus creating an alibi. He went for his phone and called Xiaochuan’s cell.

  “Ah, it’s you, Nie Feng.” Xiaochuan sounded sleepy. “It’s three in the morning. What’s so urgent it can’t wait?”

  “I’ve seen through the blind spot in Hu’s murder.” Excitement turned his voice shrill.

  “Really?” Xiaochuan was jolted awake; he shot out of bed.

  Nie gave him a brief account of his deduction and reasons.

  “Nan’ao is a fabricated crime scene. Hu was very likely murdered at Lesser Meisha.” Nie was clear and direct in his instructions: “Call your boss right away and tell him that the area around Lesser Meisha Resort needs to be searched one more time.”

  “How about the area outside the villa?”

  “That, too. Using the barbecue ground as the radius center, search any place that can be reached in ten minutes on foot.”

  “Got it.”

  — 3 —

  Team Leader Cui was dubious after listening to what Xiaochuan had to say.

  “Could this Western Sun fellow be that good?”

  “What he’s come up with doesn’t sound groundless to me,” Yao commented.

  Bureau Chief Wu, in uniform, walked in at that moment to check on their progress.

  “Xiaochuan has something for us,” Cui said.

  “Tell us.” Chief Wu sat down.

  Xiaochuan repeated what he’d heard from Nie.

  “We’ve already searched the area near Lesser Meisha. Should we do it again?” Cui asked Chief Wu.

  “Better safe than sorry,” Chief Wu said decisively. “Get your men together and comb the area by the barbecue grounds. Following Mr. Nie’s suggestion, search the area within a radius of ten minutes by foot. Don’t miss anything, not even a rabbit hole.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The area singled out by Nie was more like a fan-shaped semicircle, since the south side abutted the bay of Lesser Meisha. They divided the area into three sections:

  First, the crescent-like Lesser Meisha Resort, some four to five hundred meters from east to west, including spots like Chao Kok, Lovers’ Lane, the barbecue grounds, the swimming area and beach, the lockers and showers, Haiting resort cabins, Haiyun Pavilion, Bihai Teahouse, and Mei Yuan.

  Second, the streets outside the resort’s main entrance, including shops, guesthouses, the entertainment district, homes of Lesser Meisha residents, etc.

  Third, the Lesser Meisha Hotel and surrounding buildings beyond the east gate.

  On the day of the search, roughly a hundred policemen conducted an extensive and intensive search of the three areas, looking as if they would dig into the ground to identity the murder site if they had to. They were very thorough, searching the wooded area behind the barbecue ground and the caves under the wooden bridge at Chao Kok, but no clue of value was found.

  Zhong Tao and his schoolmates had spent the night of the twenty-fourth in resort cabins, a row of single-story beige houses separated by low, see-through fences. According to records at the reception desk, they had rented four double rooms, each bed costing 168 yuan, which included passes to the swimming area and a self-serve barbecue dinner. The guests were given keys to their cabins, which allowed them to come and go on their own. That meant the resort staff had no idea whether Zhong and Ding had returned to the cabin, and if they had, what they’d done there. And, since more than a month had passed, and many guests had used the cabins, it would have been impossible to find any trace of them. A search of the cabins yielded nothing.

  The Green Bay Teahouse consisted of a line of small bamboo pavilions nestled against a shaded path lined with coconut palms. Each was under twenty square meters in size and came equipped with bamboo chairs, tea tables, and sleeping accommodations. In addition to enjoying a restful cup of tea, tourists could spend the night there if they liked. Young waitresses in blue tie-dyed blouses were on hand to provide services related to tea drinking. Zheng Yong led officers in a search of every pavilion and questioned every waitress. It appeared that neither Zhong nor Ding had been there that night, and they found no trace of Hu Guohao.

  Next to the enclosed plum garden behind the Green Bay Teahouse were the luxury guestrooms of Haiyun Pavilion and the shower rooms. By the time the police finished combing through these places, they had completed a thorough search of the Lesser Meisha Resort.

  They found nothing.

  That did not preclude the possibility that Zhong Tao and Ding Lan had left the resort during those twenty-five minutes. While there was no record of their using the main entrance or the east gate, they could have found another way to exit. In fact, the search team made a discovery after the search spread to the other two sections.

  Xiaochuan and Yao Li stumbled upon an unexpected clue when they went to search the Lesser Meisha Hote
l. A walk of five minutes took them from the barbecue ground to the east gate, which opened to the hotel’s tennis court and its surrounding greenery. They skirted the tennis court, crossed a parking lot, and arrived at the hotel’s side entrance; once inside they took the corridor to the left and reached the hotel lobby after passing the day spa.

  The sparkle of the lobby’s green marble floor was enhanced by the mirrored posts. This was their second visit to the hotel; on the day after Hu’s corpse was found on the beach, they’d come to check on his stay at the hotel and look for his clothes. They’d shown their badges and asked around, but none of the staff on duty that night had seen him.

  The service manager walked up from behind the counter. It was the same woman as last time.

  “Hello, officers.”

  “We need some more information about June twenty-fourth.”

  “But it’s been over a month.” The manager did not seem inclined to cooperate.

  “Can you tell us who else was on duty that night?” Yao asked.

  “Hmm.” The woman turned and called out to a staff member, “Go get Ah-fen.”

  When Ah-fen, a short, chunky girl with freckles arrived, Xiaochuan showed her two pictures of Hu Guohao.

  “Did you see this man on June twenty-fourth?”

  Ah-fen studied the pictures and shook her head.

  “How about this one?” He handed her another picture. It was a shot of Zhong Tao.

  “He looks like a guest who was here that day.”

  “Really!” Xiaochuan and Yao Li nearly shouted. Ah-fen pointed to a corner of the verandah teahouse.

  “He was sitting at a table over there, with a pot of milk tea.”

  A post blocked all but a corner of the black granite tabletop. Xiaochuan saw a rattan chair.

  “Why do you still remember him?”

  “He looked different, like he was waiting for someone,” Ah-feng recalled. “And, it was a woman who picked up the check.” She told the officers that she’d asked the woman where the man had gone, and the woman had told her he’d gone to the bathroom.

  “Is this the woman?” Xiaochuan showed her Ding Lan’s picture.

  “Yes, that’s her!” Ah-fen recognized her immediately.

  Xiaochuan and Yao Lin looked at each other knowingly.

  “Do you remember what time it was?”

  “Yes, it had to be around seven thirty in the evening.” Close to the time when Hu got his call.

  “Look at this again. Did you see this man around the same time?” Xiaochuan pointed at Hu’s picture. Ah-feng examined the picture carefully and shook her head again.

  “No.”

  For members of the criminal division, the unexpected discovery that Zhong Tao and Ding Lan had been present at the Lesser Meisha Hotel on the evening of the twenty-fourth was like a shot in the arm. After a month of spinning their wheels, the investigation team seemed ready to solve the case.

  The focus of the search now moved to the third section: the streets and residential area around the resort. Rows of restaurants, hotels, guesthouses, clubs, pubs, and hair salons lined the slope beyond the resort. A brisk walk from the barbecue ground out to the main entrance to the business district took six to seven minutes.

  After checking every retail concern and talking to anyone remotely related, including hotel and guesthouse registration desks, restaurant owners, club managers, waitresses, salon workers, and more, the police found nothing. The last place to check was the residential area, which presented problems, owing partly to the squat, simple rentals that were scattered here and there.

  With a young local cop as a guide, Cui began the search with Xiaochuan and Yao Li. Behind the houses a towering banyan tree stood in front of a small temple with pink stone steps and walls, the roof topped with yellow glazed tiles. A narrow alley, no more than a meter in width, spoked off from the temple gate; close to a dozen squat houses with green roof tiles, rusty metal windows, and peeling walls lined both sides of the alley. Above each door hung a small blue FOR RENT sign.

  They checked every one of the nineteen rentals; four of the least livable ones had been vacant for over two months, while migrant workers from Hunan, all employed at a nearby construction site, currently occupied thirteen. The last two, stacked with bricks and sand, were obviously being remodeled.

  The local policeman summoned all nineteen landlords, but none of them had seen Zhong Tao or Ding Lan, and could supply no information regarding Hu Guohao. Since any outsider would stand out in a place like this, the search had come up empty. Morale sank among the team, including Xiaochuan and Yao Li. Team Leader Cui was in a foul mood.

  “I was right. We should never have listened to that Western Sun. See where it got us?” Cui appeared to be upset with himself, but that did not make Xiaochuan or Yao Li feel better. They knew to keep quiet.

  — 4 —

  That night, when Nie Feng turned on his computer, a message from Xiaochuan caught his eye.

  Hi, Nie Feng,

  Chief Wu took your advice and sent nearly a hundred policemen to comb the three main sections of Lesser Meisha (the area within a ten-minute walking radius of the barbecue ground). We even searched the streets, the residential district, and other hotels in Lesser Meisha; we pretty much turned the place inside out.

  We were exhausted, and we found nothing that would pinpoint the primary crime scene of Hu’s murder. The result was disappointing, to say the least.

  Yao Li and I did make an unexpected discovery when we went to the Lesser Meisha Hotel: Zhong Tao and Ding Lan had tea in the lobby on the evening of the twenty-fourth. Other than that, we didn’t find anything there either.

  That’s all. More next time.

  Xiaochuan 7/22

  What went wrong?

  Staring at his computer screen, Nie laughed unhappily. The bouncing red logo, Yahoo, in the upper left corner was getting annoying; it seemed to be mocking him.

  Xiao Ju stuck her head in to say, “Brother Nie, a phone call for you.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “Your editor in chief, the old paper fogey.”

  “Watch your manners. How do you get off calling him that?” Nie glared at her as he got up to take the call in the living room; she made a face as he passed by her.

  “Hi, Mr. Wu. What’s up?”

  “How’s your ‘follow-up report’ coming along?”

  “Almost there; they’re on the verge of drawing in the net.”

  “Are you on a fishing expedition? What’s this talk about drawing the net?” Wu joked.

  “Sorry, I got carried away. What I meant to say was, the end is in sight.” Nie laughed.

  “There’s an international scholarly conference in Sichuan’s Guanghan County on the Sanxingdui ruins. We’ve been invited to do a special report, and I want you to go.”

  Now the real reason for the phone call became evident.

  “I’m swamped. I’m in the middle of finishing the report.” Nie was not keen on accepting the new assignment.

  “They asked for you specifically,” the “old paper fogey” said before playing his ace card: “Shall I send a car for you?”

  “Send a car for me?” That was unusual.

  “That settles it.” The editor hung up before Nie could object, though he was already thinking about something else. For at that instant, he recalled what Xiaochuan had once told him: Ding Lan owned a car.

  That clarified things considerably. He ran back to his study, where he unfolded a Shenzhen map and examined it carefully, his gaze stopping at Lesser Meisha Bay, as he tried to recall the scene when he was there on July fourth.

  (Flashback 1) The beach ended at a backwater, where the waves surged, each higher than the one before. He turned back and spotted a botanical garden beyond the embankment. A profusion of flowers in all colors peeked out from under a canopy of subtropical trees. His curiosity piqued, he hoisted himself up onto the embankment and rested his chest against the low wall of what was a seedling garden, like
a different world. The garden abutted the lawn of the Lesser Meisha Hotel.

  A short jump was all one needed to be at the hotel; just beyond the lawn was a parking lot. Ding Lan’s white Citroën could have been parked there, waiting.

  (Flashback 2) The following morning at the Haiyi Teahouse, a tourist mentioned that he and some friends had been there the previous weekend and had heard birdcalls in the direction of Lovers’ Lane in the middle of the night. Nie had walked down Lovers’ Lane toward Chao Kok. On his left was the levee and to his right the hills. Green plastic chairs were placed at irregular intervals for tourists to rest under the shade of trees. A towering old banyan tree not far from the pier created a verdant umbrella with its leafy branches. On the trunk was a plaque carved with the inscription HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD IMMORTAL BANYAN.

  He’d stood under the tree and looked up at the many bird nests. White egrets, dozens of them, were perched on the branches. They must have been startled by something when they raised a fuss that night. A winding stone path behind the tree was littered with fallen leaves. Bent at the waist, he’d parted the low-hanging branches and climbed up the damp stone steps to the top of the slope, the outer edge of the resort. Across the chain-link fence, a small brick house rose out of the underbrush, like an abandoned watchtower.

  From where he stood on Lovers’ Lane he could see the tops of buses passing by the fence, and it dawned on him that the highway connecting Greater and Lesser Meisha was above him.

  If, on the early morning of the twenty-fifth, when all was quiet, a car was parked beside the highway, the murderer could have taken Hu’s body out of the trunk, carried it over his shoulder, crawled under the fence, and reached the pier by walking down the slope. It was the shortest route. The squawking egrets were proof that something had disturbed them.

  Nie called Xiaochuan and asked for Chief Wu’s cell number.

  * * *

  “How are you, Chief Wu? This is Nie Feng.”

  “Oh, Mr. Nie.” Chief Wu was slightly hoarse.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late at night, but I have something important to share with you.”