by Gangxueyin
Wang Wei nodded and watched his wife leave.
He provided full accounts of his activities over the holiday as well as any issues in their marriage. His answers were consistent with what Xue Min had said.
The couple’s surprisingly consistent statements sounded rehearsed, and Han Yin suspected that Liu Xiangming had called them ahead of time so they were well prepared.
What were they covering up? Or were they telling the truth? Assuming one of them was the killer, would someone else be coordinating with them to give false testimony? Reason told him that shouldn’t be the case, because although they seemed like they were in love, Xue Min always addressed Wang Wei by name, not with loving terms of endearment. And they clearly didn’t seem all that intimate.
“This couple’s relationship may not be as good as it looks,” said Han Yin as he watched Wang Wei and Xue Min waving good-bye as he and Kang Xiaobei drove away.
“Everyone has secrets, but having secrets doesn’t often lead to murder.” Kang Xiaobei imitated Han Yin’s voice and serious look.
“Well, wise guy, don’t you have a fine memory!” Han Yin laughed. “But seriously, have one of our units follow them for a while.”
“Got it!” Kang Xiaobei clenched his teeth. “It never occurred to me that Feng Wenhao’s a holier-than-thou phony. Should we go back or check around first?”
Han Yin gave this some thought. He decided to revisit the orthopedic hospital and confront Feng Wenhao directly to see his reaction.
They returned to the hospital and met with Feng Wenhao again, only this time Han Yin and Kang Xiaobei looked stern. Feng Wenhao sensed a change and forced a smile, rubbing the button on the cuff of his sleeve. He looked tense.
Kang Xiaobei got to the point. “Why did you hide your relationship with Yu Meifen?”
“Yu Meifen?” A shudder ran through Feng Wenhao, and a look of pain filled his eyes. He said through quivering lips, “Our relationship has nothing to do with the case, so I felt there was no need to mention it.”
“That’s for us to decide. Your job is to truthfully answer our questions.”
Feng Wenhao sighed. “So I didn’t tell you about it. So what? Does that make me the killer?”
“It makes you unreliable. Tell us in detail what you were doing in the early morning hours of January first through fourth.”
Feng Wenhao’s eyes were distant. Clearly, hearing that name had affected him deeply. “I’ve already answered your questions. If you want proof, you can ask my mother. If you feel she isn’t reliable, please show me otherwise.”
“You . . .” Kang Xiaobei turned and looked at Han Yin.
Han Yin, however, didn’t seem bothered and coldly stared at Feng Wenhao. “Wasn’t it painful being caught between your mother and Meifen?”
Feng Wenhao nodded and mumbled, “Yes. Luckily, that’s over now.”
“Really? You don’t hurt here?” Han Yin tapped his own chest several times.
“Painful has nothing to do with you and even less with your case,” Feng Wenhao said.
“Tell me, the moment the crystal of the love you and Meifen had for each other was aborted, did you feel your heart break? Were you in such pain you didn’t want to live? Over every lonely night, when Meifen’s tear-soaked face flashed in your mind and your dreams, did you feel regret? Did you feel shame?”
Tears were spilling from Feng Wenhao’s eyes. Feng Wenhao broke down and wept. But Han Yin wasn’t going to let him go that easily.
“Are you ashamed of being such a coward? Because you lost your beloved and your child? Does your mother’s power make you feel rage? You think everything’s your mother’s fault, don’t you?”
“No! I’ve never hated my mother. I know how hard it was for her to raise me all by herself. She gave up the prime of her life for me. What wouldn’t I give up for her? Also, my relationship with Meifen isn’t what you think. I tried and tried, but she refused!” Feng Wenhao was trembling and angry.
“So you’re saying that later on you and Yu Meifen tried to see each other?” Han Yin asked.
“That’s right! After I returned from overseas, we met once.” Feng Wenhao was sniffling and trying hard to stay calm. “I went through a lot of hardships. It took me a long time to reach that small, out-of-the-way mountain village to find her. I begged her to forgive me and my mother and hoped we could reconcile. But she was cold to me. She looked so calm, it was frightening. I didn’t see hate or love. She told me that the moment she lost the child, she cut off all ties with me. I tried to persuade her to return to J City and promised I’d help her start a career. Even as friends, I wouldn’t want her to give herself up to that poor mountain village. But she refused. She said she already had a career, being the only teacher there. She loved the children, and they loved her back.”
Han Yin and Kang Xiaobei were quiet for a long time on the ride back. Only when they drove up to the door of the guesthouse did Kang Xiaobei break the silence. “I think Feng Wenhao was being sincere. I don’t think that was an act.”
Han Yin nodded, then shook his head. “I believe he’s sincere about how he feels toward his mother and Yu Meifen, but I always get the feeling he’s covering something up.”
“Wonder what it could be,” said Kang Xiaobei.
“I don’t know, but he’s a key target of investigation. And what a tiring day. We haven’t had a proper meal. Let’s have a good one this evening. What would you like? My treat.”
“Nah. You go on ahead. I . . . I’ve still got things to do.” Kang Xiaobei stared at the ceiling-to-floor mirror. His mind was clearly elsewhere.
“You don’t seem yourself,” said Han Yin with a smile.
Kang Xiaobei was now distracted by the two receptionists.
“Not as interested in good food as you are in pretty girls.”
Kang Xiaobei bashfully shifted his gaze. “When Xia Jingjing gets off work, we’re going to head out and take in the sights.”
“Well, that’s good. You two hit it off quickly, huh?” Han Yin said as he scoped out the reception desk. “Which one is Xia Jingjing?”
Kang Xiaobei pointed to the one on the left, a small, cute girl. “That one,” he said.
“Not bad. Quite a lovely girl. You’ve got a good eye.” Han Yin took a long look and joked, “Since you value chicks over your pal, I’ll just go have something to eat by myself.”
“What do you mean? I’m giving you a chance to ask Chief Ye out for dinner. Maybe you two can have a nice little night together!” Kang Xiaobei said.
Han Yin had walked away, pretending to have heard nothing.
But Han Yin had heard Kang Xiaobei very clearly and had even given it some thought. In truth, he had wanted to discuss the case with Ye Xi, and wouldn’t discussing it over dinner be better?
He picked up his phone and hesitated as he stared at her number. Then, as if hearts truly did beat in time, his phone rang. He was surprised to see it was Ye Xi.
“Hey, have you eaten yet?” She sounded exhausted.
“Just walked into the guesthouse. What about you? We could—”
“I’m in the lobby. I just picked up some food.”
“Hold on a second. I’ll be right there.” Han Yin hung up and rushed to the elevator.
Once in the lobby, he could see Ye Xi outside by the door, smiling at him. He waved at her.
When Han Yin drew near, Ye Xi laughed and said, “We’ve had meetings all day. I haven’t got a thing in me. I thought you might not have eaten either, so I bought a few local specialties for you to try.”
“Great! I’m starving.”
Han Yin unlocked his room with his card key and invited Ye Xi in. They both washed their hands, and Ye Xi spread the food out on the little tea tables—saltwater duck, duck blood strips, “lion’s head” meatballs, beef pot stickers, and “little dragon” dumplings.
They didn’t say much while they ate, but the mood was nice and light. Occasionally they would exchange smiles and help each other with the food, li
ke a pair of lovestruck sweethearts, communicating perfectly in silence.
After dinner, Han Yin did all he could to keep the light atmosphere, making jokes and suggesting an evening stroll. But Ye Xi had come to discuss the case. So at her insistence, he gave a detailed account of the day’s investigations and emphasized keeping Feng Wenhao under special watch.
“Feng Wenhao’s experiences and background fall within the scope of the profiling report. His profession is also consistent with the characteristics of corpse dismemberment. He’s experienced emotional frustrations, and all his life he’s been under the thumb of a domineering mother. It’s very oppressive for him. Although he presents himself as understanding his emotions and being tolerant of his mother, that doesn’t mean he’s not a deviant killer.” Han Yin paused, and his expression was grave. “The next person I want to talk about is extremely important to the Yin Aijun case and may also be implicated in the Wang Li case. She’s Yin Aijun’s former dorm roommate and Feng Wenhao’s former girlfriend, Yu Meifen.”
Ye Xi tensed and frowned. She held her breath.
“It was Yu Meifen’s fault that Yin Aijun stalked off the night of her disappearance, and, not long after that, she also left the dormitory to go for a walk. And Yu Meifen suggested the body was Yin Aijun’s. She had bought a local newspaper that day, something very out of character for her. Later, she went to the school administrators and proposed they go to the Public Security Bureau and identify the body. Another thing: when Xue Min mentioned Yu Meifen, I felt something very familiar about this name, as if I had seen it somewhere. I remembered it from the case file. Yu Meifen was the student who claimed she saw Yin Aijun on Jade Bird Road. According to Xue Min, after what happened to Yin Aijun, Yu Meifen acted very strange, and there was a big change in her temperament. Yu Meifen should be elevated to a key suspect in the Yin Aijun case.”
“You mean she might have seen the last person who was with Yin Aijun?”
“Possibly,” Han Yin said and nodded.
“Then why didn’t she tell the police back then?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps she knew the killer and was afraid of getting him in trouble. Maybe she had feelings for the killer. But she was also cowardly, so maybe she didn’t want to make trouble for herself.”
“Then could she have also been involved in the Wang Li case?”
“You once asked me if the killer in the Wang Li case might be a woman, and I said if that was the case, she may suffer from some kind of psychiatric disorder. All along, Yu Meifen has felt overwhelmed with guilt about Yin Aijun. Perhaps she repressed these feelings of guilt deep inside, where they’ve caused her great mental anguish. And in her association with Feng Wenhao, she suffered the oppression of his mother, causing them to break up and her to abort a child she’d been carrying for months. Losing her lover and her child were two enormous shocks for her. Of the suspects we’ve been in contact with, Yu Meifen is the female who most likely suffered from a nervous breakdown. Of course, this is just my guess.”
Ye Xi took a moment to think. “It looks like we’ll have to find this person. But where is she now? It’s been years since she and Feng Wenhao last met. How will we ever find her?”
Han Yin took a photograph out of his backpack and handed it to Ye Xi. “It’s a snapshot of Yu Meifen that I borrowed from Feng Wenhao. I also asked for the location of her home village. Let’s divide this up. I’ll go there and find out about her. You photocopy this, distribute it to all the stations, and get their help. If she really is mixed up in the Wang Li crime, then she’s probably showed up in the city.”
Ye Xi nodded. “I’ll give this to Fu Changlin and go with you to Yu Meifen’s village. I wouldn’t feel right if you went alone. If anything went wrong, how would I explain it to your school and your family?”
These words warmed Han Yin’s heart, but expressing his feelings was beyond him, a skill he’d never learned. “If Yu Meifen truly suffers from psychological disorders, then maybe that pair of eyes haunting me belongs to her, and maybe she made the disturbing phone call to me the other night.”
“Possibly. The techs checked that out. Looks like the call came from a burner phone that was used once to call you last night. The nearest transmission tower for the call is on North China Road, near where the first corpse parts had been dumped.”
Han Yin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked out the window into the darkness. “Maybe that’s where she called from.”
Ye Xi turned to look out the window. “Let’s not worry about whether the call came from Yu Meifen. Assuming the caller was the Wang Li killer, why would she bother you? And why was she calling for help? Was it just an act to confuse us? These days, you can buy voice changers anywhere, and though it sounded like a woman, the caller could have been a man.”
Han Yin nodded. “That’s possible. But from past cases of crimes of perversion, I know there are two other possibilities. One is that the killer really does want help. He’s sick of murdering people and harbors profound feelings of guilt, but he can’t control himself and doesn’t have the courage to give himself up. Take the serial killer, Huang Yong. He released his last victim, not out of any pity for the person’s life but because he was sick of the slaughter. He hoped someone would notify the police and stop him. Another possibility is that it was just a pretext. It was a criminal pervert searching for a rational explanation for his own continuous killings or the murderous actions he was about to take. It was like him saying, ‘Okay, I’ve tried my best, but I just can’t control myself, so I kill people. Not my fault.’”
“Since the caller had your phone number, wouldn’t it be one of the people you’ve visited?”
“Not necessarily. She could have found it through other channels. Also, outside Yin Aijun’s dorm, I took out a business card to give to the head of security, and a gust of wind blew it away.”
Ye Xi blinked. “That’s incredibly strange!”
“Yeah. This case is pretty odd.” Han Yin let out a deep breath.
“There’s something stranger still.” Ye Xi’s eyes grew tense and serious. “The comparison results of the Tiger King Mountain tire tracks came in. The car matched a model made by PAG, the Provincial Automobile Group.”
Han Yin knew why Ye Xi had turned so serious. “The same kind of car Young Kang drives?”
Ye Xi nodded. “Though this model is a big seller in the city. Also, the PAG gave the PSB six hundred of them for police use. So it’s possible that before you went to Tiger King Mountain, a police car had been there!”
“What was it doing there in the middle of the night? Could it have been one of the other members from the task force?” asked Han Yin.
“Doubtful. If any of our guys had gone there, he’d have had to report to me. Furthermore, there’s only one other female on the task force, and the footprints on the mountain were both male and female.” Ye Xi seemed confident. Then, after a pause, she put a hand through her hair, looking irritated, and said, “As to whether a police car has any connection with the Wang Li murder, I don’t have a clue.”
“Let’s not get too excited. Maybe it wasn’t a police car.”
Han Yin had only said that out of concern for Ye Xi, because she was upset. How could ordinary people be going to Tiger King Mountain to look at where part of a corpse was dumped? There should only be four kinds of people who could pinpoint this site—the fanatic closely following the Yin Aijun case, her killer, Wang Li’s killer, or the police.
First, eliminate Yin Aijun’s killer because, as Han Yin saw it, a single person committed this crime. Wang Li’s killer was without a doubt the fanatic of the Yin Aijun case. Do not exclude police officers obsessed with that case. The tire marks matched those of a police car, so it was very possible that the police went to Tiger King Mountain. But why? Did they go there out of curiosity or to relive their thrills? Is that the same as saying they committed the Wang Li murder? Of course, in Han Yin’s analysis, the Wang Li case was a standalone case. But wasn’t
there the slightest possibility that Han Yin’s analysis was wrong and several policemen committed the crime? Furthermore, from having gone through the Yin Aijun case, Han Yin felt the police fit within the parameters of suspicion, so the tire tread clues had to be checked. But how? And, particularly, how would they launch an internal investigation involving their own officers?
Because of the need to solve the case, the Public Security Bureau notified its relevant departments. Report of the Wang Li case had not yet reached leading newspapers, but the public rumor mills and the Internet had spread the news, so the city’s leaders and ordinary citizens were fascinated about it. And because the investigation was going nowhere, some within the bureau were critical of Ye Xi and her task force. So the idea of an internal investigation would raise major obstacles, and once word leaked, rumors would abound and doubts and skepticism about the police force would be more than the bureau could stomach. And Ye Xi would be cornered. That’s why a large-scale investigation would be unfeasible—it would, in fact, be impossible.
They faced each other in silence for a moment or two. Han Yin was relentless. “If a police car had left the tracks at Tiger King Mountain, how would you go about investigating?”
Ye Xi shook her head. “No idea.”
Han Yin thought for a moment. “How about this? Our officers would have found out early on that the station was testing the tire marks and know the next step would be comparing actual vehicles. Afraid of being found out, they might have gone to a shop and switched out the old tires for a different model. Thus, all we have to do is assign people to check for this pattern among the different shops. Even though the range of shops is considerable, it’s far smaller than a one-by-one check of all the police cars, and it wouldn’t raise any red flags within the bureau. But go outside the task force and pick people you know you can trust, keeping it as low-key as possible.”
Ye Xi looked up, surprised and excited, knowing Han Yin had formed another excellent plan, only this one was particularly thoughtful as he’d put himself in her position to figure out how to best protect her. Ye Xi gazed at him. There was admiration in her eyes, which were also glowing with affection.
