Don't Cry Tai Lake

by Qiu Xiaolong

  There was a glitch with that scenario, however. Mrs. Liu had an alibi. Then again, the people who supported her alibi were close friends, and unlike witnesses in those mystery novels Chen translated, some Chinese didn’t worry too much about perjury. For one thing, there was no Bible for them to swear upon. For her friends, doing Mrs. Liu a favor might have outweighed other considerations. Besides, even if she were in Shanghai that night, she could have dispatched someone in Wuxi to achieve her ends.

  “Time for the next item on our agenda, Huang,” Chen said, breaking out of his reverie. “Let’s go to the company office.”

  “Fine,” Huang said, closing his notebook.

  Huang had been there several times, so he suggested they walk from the apartment complex to the back door of the chemical company plant. “It’s only about five minutes away. We can leave the car here.”

  Huang didn’t want to leave his name at the front gate of the chemical company while he was in the company of Chief Inspector Chen. His colleagues would be upset if they learned about this excursion, but he didn’t have to explain that to Chen.

  “As when we spoke to Mrs. Liu, you’re the one in charge of the investigation,” Chen said as they made their way to the company’s back door.

  At the door of the chemical company they saw an elderly security guard, who nodded at Huang’s badge and let them in without further ado.

  “The back door is locked after eight P.M.,” Huang explained to Chen, “but people can still open it from the inside. On one occasion, when Liu had to come back to the company for some important documents, he had to call the guard at the front gate to come around and open the back door for him.”

  “I see,” Chen said. “So it’s really a shortcut.”

  The general manager’s office was in a two-story building in the middle of the chemical company complex. They had arranged to meet Mi in the outer office, and she was already there waiting for them.

  “What can we do for you today, Officer Huang? Oh, this is—” she said, rising from her desk.

  A tall, willowy girl in her early twenties, Mi had almond-shaped eyes, a sensual mouth, and a fashionably thin body like a runway model. She was wearing a short, white, neckless halter top, which revealed her belly button; jeans; and high-heeled sandals, which showed her toes painted bright red.

  There wasn’t much about her, however, that really appealed to Huang.

  “You know why I’m here, Mi. This is my colleague Chen. We want to talk to you about Liu’s murder.”

  She pressed a key on a brand-new computer, which Huang didn’t remember seeing last time. She motioned them to sit down in two black chairs opposite.

  “We’ve already talked about it, Officer Huang,” she said.

  “I’m new to the team,” Chen cut in, “so anything you say will be of great help to me.”

  “Anything specific,” Huang echoed. He noticed another difference about her desk. A silver-framed photo of Liu speaking at a national conference had disappeared, and a golden plaque stating Office Manager was in its place.

  “Let’s start with what you can tell us about Liu,” Chen said.

  “He was an extraordinary boss. When he first took over, the company was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. In a large state-run enterprise like ours, with more than three thousand employees, his was not an easy job. But he managed to turn it around.”

  “We learned about his work from all the media coverage. But what do you think of him as a man?”

  “He was a good man—generous, intelligent, and always ready to help.”

  “Now, let me ask you a different question. As someone who worked closely with him, what do you know about his family life?”

  “He didn’t talk much about his family life.”

  “Do you think he had a satisfactory one?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, then added, “But a busy man like him should have had better care taken of him.”

  “We talked to his wife,” Chen said, looking her in the eye. “She told us something.”

  He paused deliberately, letting a silence eat away at her reserve like a crumbling wall in the room. Huang thought he knew what Chen was up to.

  “Whatever she may have told you,” she said, without meeting his eyes, “I don’t think she was a good wife to him. Everybody here could see he wasn’t happy at home.”

  “Can you give us any detailed examples?”

  “It’s just something I heard. They were schoolmates in Shanghai—she from a good family in Shanghai, and he from a poor village in Jiangxi. In spite of her family’s opposition, she married down and followed him to Wuxi. She got it into her head that she should be compensated for her sacrifice, so to speak, by him waiting on her hand and foot, and obeying her in everything, big or small. She was a typical Shanghai woman.”

  “But then in Wuxi he became successful.”

  “Exactly. For a busy, overworked man like him—a virtuous wife would have taken good care of him at home, especially after she quit her job and became a housewife, leaving the family dependent on Liu’s income alone. But no. She frequently went back to Shanghai during the week and over the weekends too. He was often left all alone in the house. ”

  “She has family in Shanghai. It’s natural that she would go back from time to time.”

  “Who could tell what she was really up to in Shanghai? She used to be a high school flower, I heard, with a number of secret admirers hanging around.”

  “Really!”

  “And I can tell you why he sometimes stayed overnight at his home office. With all the responsibilities on his hands, he frequently worked late. But more often than not, he simply didn’t want to go back home. The home office was the only place he could really relax. But she wouldn’t leave him alone even there. One time when he was away on a business trip, she came over and turned the whole apartment upside down.”

  Huang listened without interrupting. It was intriguing that Chen kept his focus on Mrs. Liu, even when interviewing Mi. It was possible that Mrs. Liu had killed him, as Huang had suggested at the crime scene, but after his initial excitement with it, it more and more seemed to him to be a theory that wasn’t supported by any evidence.

  Mi’s accusations against Mrs. Liu were understandable, even though she had denied any knowledge of Liu’s family life. She knew that the cops had heard stories about her, so she was trying to downplay the relationship between her and Liu. Presenting Mrs. Liu as an irresponsible wife was designed to justify her own role in Liu’s life—if not morally, at least psychologically. But that self-justification was irrelevant to the murder investigation, with the exception that it presented a totally different version from that of Mrs. Liu.

  Still, they learned some new things from the interview: for one, the frequency of Mrs. Liu’s trips to Shanghai. It wasn’t a long-distance trip, but it was nonetheless odd to so often leave her husband all alone at home.

  And that led to the revelation about her having been a high school flower with many secret admirers. What could that possibly mean? If she had another man in Shanghai—which wasn’t unimaginable for a couple like the Lius, whose marriage was already on the rocks—it introduced a motive that had been so far overlooked. Mrs. Liu’s lover, whoever it might be, could have murdered for love or for money.

  “Do you think Liu was planning to do something about his family problems?” Chen went on.

  “What you mean?”

  “Did he plan to divorce his wife?”

  “No, not that I was aware of. As I’ve said, he didn’t discuss his family problems with us other than complaining a little, now and then, when he couldn’t help himself.”

  Chen took out a cigarette, tapped it on the pack, and looked at Mi before asking, “Do you mind?”

  “No. Go ahead. Liu smoked too.”

  Chen changed the subject abruptly. “As you may have heard, Jiang is a possible suspect. Tell us what you know about him.”

  “Oh, Jiang,” she said. “He called our
office quite a few times. He was calling to speak with Liu, of course. What they talked about, though, I’ve no idea. I told Internal Security about all that.”

  “Can you give us any more details?” Huang cut in. “Particularly, anything in connection with the night Liu was murdered.”

  “Jiang called two or three days before the night Liu died, I think, but other than insisting on speaking to Liu, he didn’t say anything to me. That’s about all I know. And—” She cleared her voice before going on. “And as I told the police, Liu mentioned that morning he was going to see someone on some unpleasant business.”

  “Did he say when or where?”

  “No, not that I remember.”

  “And who?”

  “No, no names were mentioned either.” She added, “Oh, but two or three months ago, I saw Jiang arguing with Liu in his office.”

  “His office here at the plant?”

  “Yes, the inside office.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  “They stopped talking the moment I stepped in, but I caught a word or two. It was, I think, about pollution.”

  “Do you remember the date?”

  “It was March, early March,” she said. “It was the day before the Women’s Day. Yes, now I recall…”

  At that moment, a tall man burst into the outer office, greeting Huang in a loud voice.

  “Hello, Comrade Officer Huang. What wind brings you over here again today?”

  “Hello, General Manager Fu.”

  “It’s only Acting General Manager for the moment. Please just call me Fu. And this is…”

  “Chen, my colleague,” Huang said.

  “Welcome. Come into my office.”

  “Thank you, General Manager Fu,” Chen said. He then turned back to Mi. “We might come back to you if we have more questions. If you think of anything, please call us—or rather, call Sergeant Huang.”

  Huang and Chen then turned and followed Fu into the inner office. Fu motioned for them to sit on two leather chairs opposite his oak desk. The wall behind the desk exhibited a striking array of framed awards, with Liu’s name on most of them, but under the glass on the desk, Huang saw several pictures of Fu.

  “Is that Bund Park?” Chen asked unexpectedly, indicating a picture of Fu standing in front of the park, his hand pointing proudly to the river.

  “Yes, I came from Shanghai.”

  “So, do you go back there frequently?”

  “I went back last Saturday, and I’m going there again this weekend. Nowadays, it’s so convenient to go back and visit. It’s only one hour by the new high-speed train. That is a picture I took two weeks ago.”

  “You know what we’re here for, General Manager Fu,” Chen said, moving on to the heart of the matter.

  “Yes. We need to get justice for Liu. He worked really hard and did a great job turning around the company. We owe our success to him, and we will never change the course that Liu charted out for us. We will, of course, cooperate with your investigation in every way possible.”

  Fu spoke about Liu in a respectful and quite grateful way, as a young successor should, though his words were fulsome and couched in official language.

  “We were just talking to Mi about Jiang,” Chen said, coming straight to the point. “Can you tell us something about him?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. Jiang talked to Liu, not to me.”

  “So you knew about his contacts with Liu.”

  “Well, I saw him talking with Liu in the office one day, but as a matter of fact, I didn’t even know at the time that his name was Jiang. Mi filled me in afterward.”

  “Did Liu tell you anything about Jiang’s threat to expose the company’s industrial pollution problem?”

  “Now, let me first say something about this so-called pollution, Officer Chen. There is a city environmental protection office in Wuxi. They have checked and double-checked our production procedure. Our samples have always proven to be up to the state standard,” Fu said with a serious look on his face. “Liu’s job was an extremely difficult one. In today’s market, it’s not easy for a state-run factory to survive, let alone to succeed. But Liu was successful, and it was no real surprise that he became a target for cold-blooded criminals like Jiang and other irresponsible critics who know nothing about our industry.”

  “We understand all this, Comrade Acting General Manager Fu,” Chen said. “And we’ve spoken to Mrs. Liu too.”

  “Really! That’s good. Considering Liu’s contribution to the company, we’re going to offer his family an adequate sum. In addition, there will be a position for Mrs. Liu—that is, if she wants to work here.”

  “That’s so thoughtful of you. She’s originally from Shanghai. I wonder whether she might prefer to move back there.”

  “That I don’t know,” Fu said, suddenly shifting the topic as he looked at his watch. “Have you had lunch, Officers? I worked late last night, and then skipped breakfast this morning.”

  It was an obvious attempt to end the interview.

  “We had a late breakfast,” Chen said, also glancing at his watch. It was near one thirty. “Yes, I think it’s time for us to leave.”

  As they left the office, Chen didn’t speak. Both he and Huang were lost in thought as they moved to the front gate.

  “I’m sorry,” Huang said. “I forgot that the car is parked near the apartment complex. Let’s go back.”

  Chen came to an abrupt stop and then looked up. There were several visitors signing a register book at the front entrance. Instead of turning and heading to the back door, Chen walked over to the security guard standing there.

  “So, is it required that people sign in and out here?” Chen asked the security guard, pointing at the register book.

  “We’re from the Wuxi Police Bureau,” Huang said, producing his badge in a hurry.

  “Anything you want to know, sir,” the security guard said, “and yes, that’s the rule. All visitors have to sign in.”

  “Oh, and there’s a video camera here too,” Chen said, pointing at it.

  “Yes, our late boss ordered a lot of equipment, including the video cameras. They’re state of the art, appropriate for a large state-run enterprise, but we still stand here on guard twenty-four hours a day.”

  “I see. That’s good. I’d like a copy of the visitor registration book for the last seven days, along with the tapes from the camera.”

  “That can be easily done, sir,” the security guard said, nodding his head like a rattle drum.

  But it took more than a few minutes to duplicate the tape and the pages. Huang was watching, bewildered, when his cell phone rang. He looked at the number, excused himself, and walked over to a shaded corner, out of their hearing.

  It proved once again to last longer than he had expected.

  When he returned to the front entrance, Chen was already holding a large envelope in his hand.

  “Let’s have a bite at the canteen here,” Huang said. “I still have the company canteen coupons Fu gave us the first time we were here. So I can afford to be your host today.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Chen said.

  They made their way to the canteen. It was past the lunch hour, but there were still a handful of employees eating and talking. They chose a table toward the side, close to the window, where there were no people around.

  “What do you think?” Huang said over a steaming-hot bowl of beef noodles strewn with chopped green onion.

  “To begin with, Mi may be an unreliable narrator.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a term I picked up in my literature studies in college, which means a narrator who doesn’t provide a reliable account from an unbiased perspective,” Chen said, adding a lot of black pepper to his noodles. “Mi put on a passionate defense of Liu, but it was more a defense of her own actions, at least subconsciously, on the grounds that a happy, contented husband wouldn’t have an extramarital affair. Like an echo of the old saying, ‘I
f the fence is tight, no dog will stray in.’ But it’s undeniable that Liu hadn’t been a good husband, and that he kept the home office for his rendezvous with Mi. In her attempts to defend her position as a little secretary, Mi may not be able to give us truthful statements.”

  “I see your point, Chief. There are some inconsistencies in the statements regarding Liu. I put them together on a piece of paper while she was talking, in an effort to connect them, but some of them simply couldn’t be connected.” Huang then said, “I still like the theory that Mrs. Liu was responsible.”

  “That’s just one of the possible theories,” Chen said, seeming to back away from his earlier assertiveness. “It’s unsupported so far.”

  “True. By the way, the phone call I took earlier was about a new development. Well, not exactly new, since it’s based on an old scenario being pushed by Internal Security. As of now, they have reached their conclusion, obtained approval from above, and officially taken Jiang into custody.”

  “Have there been any new evidence or breakthroughs?” Chen asked, apparently surprised at how quickly Internal Security was moving the case along.

  “No, not any I’m aware of. From what I just learned from the head of our local team, the case has been attracting a lot of attention internationally; the longer it drags on, the more damage it could do to the government’s image. So people from above gave the green light to Internal Security’s plan. I don’t like it. If this is how it’s going to work, then what the hell are we cops for?”

  “I don’t like it either,” Chen said, putting down the chopsticks even though he hadn’t finished his noodles. “Can you me get a copy of Jiang’s statement regarding his argument with Liu?”

  “Yes. He insisted that he hadn’t talked to or met with Liu for months. I’ll get you a copy.”

  “Also, can you get a copy of the phone records for the company? Particularly the general manager’s office, if that’s available.”

  Huang wasn’t sure he was following Chen’s thinking. He had assumed the scenario in which Mrs. Liu murdered her husband was beneath Chen’s approach, his examination of the crime scene, and the questions he asked at the company.