After some time and sweat, a pedicab wheel began to emerge. We all cheered.

  29

  Twenty-some years ago, Jie Liguo and Jie Lijun were closer, but then they both fell in love with the same village girl at the same time.

  Which of the two thirtysomething bachelors should get to marry? Both sons needed a wife, but their parents had enough money for only one wedding, and for her part, the girl didn’t know whether she liked the dark and funny Jie Lijun or the short, sharp Jie Liguo. The parents decided to let the older son marry and make the younger wait. They would look for a wife for him later.

  On the day of his older brother’s wedding to the girl they both loved, Jie Lijun didn’t show up. He was found drunk in a bar, declaring he would never marry.

  Happily, Lijun overcame his jealousy, and the brothers soon patched things up. But then Liguo’s young wife died giving birth to their son, Jie Maomao.

  Jie Lijun was devastated, convinced his brother had saved the child at the expense of the woman. Jie Liguo, grief-stricken, was angry and suspicious about what he saw as his brother’s excessive mourning. It’s my wife who died, he thought, not yours!

  That feeling took deeper root in Jie Liguo’s heart when Jie Maomao grew to resemble the tall, burly Jie Lijun more than him. When Jie Maomao was in middle school, Jie Liguo got drunk and told him he was really his uncle’s son. Jie Maomao was confused at first, but soon he too began to believe his uncle was his biological father. It became something everyone believed, but no one wanted to talk about.

  On July 16, Liu Cuihua argued with her father-in-law, and she was feeling sad as she delivered food to Jie Lijun.

  “Uncle, from now on I’ll call you Dad, okay?”

  “Don’t be silly; you’re my niece.”

  “But Maomao’s cheerful and broad-minded and so obviously resembles you. He’s not at all like the man he calls Dad—mean-spirited, narrow-minded, holding grudges forever.”

  “Don’t talk that way about your father-in-law; he’s not a bad person.”

  “Anyway, we’re going to take care of you, not him, in your old age. Maomao says so too. He says you two have the same blood in your veins, binding you more closely than just an uncle to his nephew.”

  “No, child, that’s not right. I have my own daughter. She can help me when I’m old.”

  “She’s an adopted daughter, not blood like us. And she’s married and far away. We want to take care of you till the end of your days; you’re so good to us.”

  “Ha, you’re very kind, but please.”

  Unfortunately, Jie Liguo was listening to all this from the car.

  Anger burned inside him. The affair between his younger brother and late wife had been confirmed. His disrespectful son was definitely a bastard. And the awful affair was his younger brother’s fault.

  In the dark calm of midnight, Jie Liguo was sleepless. He walked to Jie Lijun’s house, burst inside, and smothered the sleeping Jie Lijun before he could react.

  The traitor dead, Jie Liguo calmed down. He quietly went home, grabbed a plastic bag and some rope, and drove the pedicab back to Jie Lijun’s. Ready to tie the bag of stones to the body, he noticed Jie Lijun’s eyes staring at him in the moonlight. Frightened, he kicked Jie Lijun to make sure he was really dead. His hand shook as he wrapped the shirt around his brother’s head, tied the stones on, and dragged the body to the pedicab.

  On that clear summer night, Jie Liguo threw his brother’s body into the well and covered it with straw.

  When the police began their investigation, Jie Liguo carefully checked over his pedicab and was surprised to find a large bloodstain. The victim had been scratched and bled as the pedicab bumped along the road. Since he couldn’t get the stain out, he decided to take the vehicle apart and bury it.

  The blood from that stain was a match, and in the face of such strong evidence, Jie Liguo broke down weeping with remorse for the loss of his brother—and loss of his son.

  “Who’s to blame here?” Qin said.

  “Jie Liguo’s meanness,” Lin Tao said. “But it must be unbearable to find out the kid you worked so hard to raise might not be yours.”

  “Yeah! What do you say we do a DNA test? I want to know who Jie Maomao’s father really is,” Big Bao said.

  Lin Tao patted him on the chest. “Don’t be so nosy, okay?”

  “Hey, guys!” Forensic Scientist Gao said, pulling on my sleeve. “My treat tonight, let’s celebrate.”

  “What, beef with noodles again?” I said with disdain. “Captain Huang coming too?”

  “Huang can’t make it.” Gao laughed. “He’s figuring out how to rebuild Jie Liwen’s well.”

  30

  “Good evening, everyone. Let’s review.

  “Victim one: Meng Xiangping, a thirty-one-year-old urologist at Qingxiang City Hospital, went missing on May fourteenth. His body was discovered on the outskirts of Dragon City on July nineteenth.

  “Victim two: Zuo Fangjiang, the thirty-year-old CEO of the Tongtong Internet company in Nanjiang, went missing June second. His body was found on June sixth in a trash can in downtown Dragon City. According to all three cities’ investigations, everyone with prior relationships to the victims has been cleared of suspicion. The two victims were strangers and have never had any contact with each other. However, we continue to believe these murders are connected, because both men were drugged with tetramine, killed with a cut to the neck, then disemboweled and dismembered.”

  It had already been two whole months since we found the disemboweled body and the Eleventh Finger case began. Given the gruesome nature of the crimes, the second body that had come to light, and the way the killer seemed to be taunting the police, we were hardly going to let it go. Besides, the thing was haunting all of us. Regular meetings were convened in the Dragon City conference room, but no new clues had been uncovered. The team was exhausted and increasingly worried.

  “The video team’s done all it can,” the video unit captain said. “We’ve carefully gone over every second of surveillance video we have, but a lot of businesses’ surveillance cameras are just decoration. We were able to determine that at six p.m. on the night of May fourteenth, Meng Xiangping was alone at the intersection of Yangtze River Avenue and Fanhua Street. And at eight p.m. on June second, Zuo Fangjiang got into a northbound taxi near the entrance to the ICBC Garden Road Branch. Those are the final times and places the victims were seen.”

  “Can I ask if, uh, Zuo Fangjiang ever went back to the hotel?” Big Bao asked.

  “According to his hotel, Zuo Fangjiang checked in at noon on June second and left at five that afternoon. He didn’t show up again after that.”

  “What about the cab?” I asked, rubbing my stubble. “Did we find it?”

  “Well, yes, but it didn’t tell us much,” the video analyst said regretfully. “Because of the poor video quality, it took a lot of work to make out the license plate.”

  The lead detective on Eleventh Finger stepped in. “Yeah, so by the time we contacted the driver, two weeks had passed, and he couldn’t remember where he took that customer to.”

  “They’re so far apart: Yangtze River Avenue up north, ICBC down south,” I said. “What about the tetramine? Any progress there?”

  “We’ve done a lot of work tracking the source of the drug, but no luck.”

  “Could it have been for money?” I asked.

  “We certainly can’t eliminate that possibility,” the detective agreed. “If these were spontaneous murder-robberies, and the killer is a psychopath, he’s really going to be hard to find.”

  “What do you plan to do next?” I asked.

  “Next, we’ll keep looking into the victims’ social relationships while we also continue to track down any new surveillance footage for the video unit to examine. They’ll look for suspicious vehicles entering and leaving the area near the scene, and then my team will investigate them one by one,” the detective said, stifling a yawn.

  I nodded. “Sounds like you are putting in some serious hours on this. I hope we catch the guy soon so you can get some rest.”

  “Not tonight, I’m afraid,” Chief Hu said. “A luxury apartment complex caught fire, and we’ve got a body.”

  “We’ll come have a look,” Big Bao said, gathering up his things.

  “No need,” Hu said. “It’s probably not murder.”

  “That’s okay. Since there’s no Eleventh Finger work for us, maybe we can be helpful.”

  The luxury apartment complex on the east side of Dragon City comprised eleven six-story duplexes.

  The crime scene was on the second floor of one of the buildings. When we got there, firefighters were gathering their hoses outside. One of the windows had been broken by the high-pressure water, but there were no clear burn marks around it.

  “Hey, man, looks like the fire wasn’t too big, huh?” I asked.

  The firefighter shook his head. “Nah, didn’t even see flames. We had it out in two seconds.”

  “Did you enter the apartment?”

  He shook his head again. “No, that door is strong. The fire was out before we could break it down.”

  I walked through the building door, noting the security system there, and checked out the entrance of apartment 101. The steel door frame looked a little warped. I headed back out to the firefighter. “How do you know there’s a body inside?”

  The firefighter stopped gathering up his hose and looked up at me. “Oh, I get it, you’re a forensic scientist, right? I read a novel about you called The Corpse Whisperer! I really admire what you guys do.”

  I blushed, too embarrassed to tell him I was the author. “Thanks. How do you know there’s a body in there?”

  “Oh.” The firefighter scratched his head. “A cop climbed across from the opposite balcony and looked in through the sliding glass doors.”

  Just then, a Dragon City police officer arrived. He lifted his flashlight and said, “Hello, Examiner Qin. Good thing you’re here. I’m pretty sure there’s a body in there.”

  I nodded, put on my gloves, and looked at the front door. “First time I’ve seen a lock like this. And the door is made out of a really strong material, top-notch. No wonder you couldn’t open it.”

  “And there’s a glove mark on the handle,” Lin Tao said, walking up with a small box. “No one besides forensic scientists, nurses, and sanitation workers should be wearing gloves.”

  “I swear I didn’t touch this lock,” I said, raising my hands.

  “No.” Lin Tao laughed. “I found it while you were chatting with the firefighter. Looks like it was made recently by someone leaving the apartment.”

  “Are you saying this is a murder?” I rolled my eyes.

  Lin Tao lifted up the box. “Let’s get this lock open and find out. How else are we gonna get in? The windows have security bars, and given the shape you’re in, I doubt you could squeeze through.”

  “Shut it,” I said. “You can pick this lock?”

  “Got to.” Lin Tao switched on his headlamp and went to work.

  I stood behind Lin Tao with my hands pressed together in interest. “If you can open this thing, you’re the man.”

  “I don’t think it looks like a murder,” Chief Hu said as he and Forensic Scientist Wang walked over. “We just talked to the security guards.”

  “Oh?” I turned and, seeing curiosity in the eyes of some nearby firefighters, pulled Hu off to the side.

  Whether it’s a murder case or not, we still have to keep investigations strictly secret—even from the fire department. Lots of people think the police withhold information for the sake of pretense. But actually, once information gets out, it makes solving a case much harder. For example, if someone wanted to take the fall for the real criminal, they could use key facts about the case to try and fool investigators.

  “It’s like this,” Hu said. “The guards say the whole complex lost power just after ten p.m.”

  I looked at my watch: 12:35. “How long till the fire was discovered?”

  “When the security office lost power, the guards went out to see what was going on and realized all eleven buildings were dark. There are six households in each building, so a total of sixty-six households. Only about forty-four are actually living here, and they all have a good bit of money. So at that time, it would’ve normally been all lit up.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “With heat like this, there’s no way these rich people wouldn’t be running their air-conditioning.”

  “The security guards contacted property management. And property management contacted the electric company,” Hu continued. “The electric company arrived at the complex at ten thirty and looked at the breaker, found a trip, reset it, and the electricity came back on.”

  “Circuit breaker?” Big Bao said. “Didn’t they check which building short-circuited?”

  “If there was a short circuit, resetting it wouldn’t prevent another trip,” Hu said. “They probably figured it was a random short circuit, so they reset the breaker, saw all the lights come back on, and left.”

  “So where’s the circuit breaker?” I asked.

  “It’s on the corner of the back of the security building. There’s an iron box there, and the circuit breaker’s inside,” Hu said.

  I nodded. “So, if there was a problem with a circuit at the scene and they reset it, it still could have sparked, and if there was combustible material nearby, well . . . If the person in the apartment with the short was fast asleep or drunk, the fire could have gotten to him before he could do anything about it.”

  Chief Hu nodded. “The fire and power outage happening at the same time is too much of a coincidence. It’s summer, so people are using more high-power appliances. We’ve seen a lot of personal injury cases from circuit breakers causing fires.”

  “But,” I said, “when was the fire discovered?”

  “After the electricity came back on, one of the security guards was still nervous because he recently read a news story about people dying in a fire caused by a short circuit, so he got his flashlight and went to look around.”

  “What time was that?” I asked.

  “Eleven thirty,” Chief Hu said. “About an hour after the breaker’d been reset. When the guard got to this building, he noticed the curtains were on fire and saw smoke rushing out of the windows, so he called for help. Ten minutes later, firefighters started putting out the fire, and our officers climbed up to the opposite balcony and saw a body on the bed.”

  “The firefighter I talked to said the fire was really small—they didn’t even see flames,” I pointed out.

  “It wasn’t that big, but there were flames. The curtains were definitely burned,” Hu said.

  “But an hour passed between the time when the circuit was reset and the fire was discovered,” I said. “Don’t you think that seems too slow? A bad fire should burn up everything in the house in a half hour. But only about ten minutes passed between when the security guard spotted the burning curtains and when help arrived. If our guys could see into the room then, the curtains must’ve already been burned up. That doesn’t sound like a slow fire.”

  “I hear you,” Hu said, “but that doesn’t mean the fire didn’t start slow and gain strength by the time it reached the curtains.”

  “This complex has a lot of surveillance cameras,” Big Bao said. “I’ll go have a look, then go over the map. See how much better rich folks’ security is.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, smiling. “It’s going to take Lin Tao a while to pick the lock anyway. And after that, the trace evidence team will need some time to clear a path through the crime scene.”

  “He’s picking the lock?” Big Bao said. “Why not just get an ax?”

  “Are you forgetting what Captain Huang’s doing right now?”

  “Captain Huang?” Chief Hu asked. “From Yuntai?”

  Big Bao started cracking up. “Yeah, he’s working round the clock to fix an angry old guy’s well.”

  “What are you laughing at?” Lin Tao asked as he walked over. “Come on, Qin, buddy. Door’s open!”

  31

  “I hope you keep your job; otherwise we’ll have a very clever thief on our hands,” I said, sticking my head in to have a look. The first floor was neat and clean. If not for the pungent burning smell, you’d never have guessed about the fire.

  Lin Tao and I went outside to the survey van for supplies.

  “We ID’d the victim,” a detective said, taking out his notebook.

  “Yeah? Lin Tao, clear a path for us. I’ll be right in.”

  “The victim is Dong Qifeng, thirty-two years old, one of Dragon City’s youngest construction managers, part of a wealthy bunch.”

  “Oh, what a shame. Bright future,” I said.

  “Yeah, quite a rising star,” the detective said, pulling out a passport photo. “She has a man’s name, but she’s a gorgeous woman.”

  The woman was indeed beautiful, and there was something majestic about her expression.

  “She’d been married only a year. We’re still getting the info on the husband,” the detective said. “Dong bought the house herself, spent about three million. God, can you imagine money like that?”

  “Since we suspect it was a circuit fire, I’m wondering about any renovations.”

  “Good point. The original developer renovated the duplex pretty recently. So if the fire started because of electrical problems, I suppose the developer would be at fault.”

  I nodded and offered the detective a cigarette. “Let’s take a little walk—shouldn’t smoke near the scene.”

  A few minutes and two cigarettes later, Lin Tao ran up, his face drenched in sweat. “All right, the path to the body is clear.”

  “That fast?” It meant the trace team didn’t find any evidence—not good if this was a murder case. But if there was no clear indication that it was a murder, and there weren’t traces to complicate the story, that could be a good thing. Accidents are always easier than murders for families to accept.

  “I don’t feel great about it,” Lin Tao said. “The type of flooring in the apartment doesn’t hold traces well. Unless shoes were dirty, they wouldn’t leave a mark. We found a male shoe print on the first floor, but it has no ID value.”