by Gangxueyin
“That was . . . um . . . um . . .” Sun Jian hung his head, unsure of how to handle this. He looked up and saw Han Yin’s eyes boring into him. He looked away and hesitated. Totally deflated, he said, “All right. I truly don’t mean to disparage his book. I didn’t get the manuscript back to him before he committed suicide. So the manuscript just stayed here with me. Xu Sanpi had nothing going for him and came here for a chat and saw the manuscript. He glanced through a few pages and said the writing was good. I told him about Wentao. He said he’d like to take the book home and read it. After a long time, he returned with an electronic version. Said he’d rewritten it. Then he asked if I could publish it. It was mutually profitable, so I couldn’t refuse.”
Sun Jian paused. “Actually, he and I were using each other, and that’s all it was. When he was abroad those years, he never did any writing. And when he came back, his writing was crap. Every once in a while you’d run across a newspaper with some tiny article he’d written. He couldn’t manage longer narratives. But he was desperate to be hailed as a great writer, so he went to his uncle to win him over in his scheme to run the business after his uncle retired. I, for my part, needed a lot of funds to support my company’s expansion. I knew his uncle had a venture capital outfit under him, and I asked for an introduction. Later, the company saw my plan and agreed to invest. Xu Sanpi, through his rewrite of Ma Wentao’s book, slowly got the hang of writing and has written a few of his own novels.”
“Do you know much about Xu Sanpi’s relationship with the Old Capital University victim?”
“Nothing much. Our relationship was nothing special, but his relationship with Wentao was pretty solid.”
“So, what about Ma Wentao’s relationship with her?”
“I can’t tell you anything about that either. I never heard him mention it.” He hesitated, then tentatively said, “I’m ashamed of having done this to Wentao, but I really had no choice. If I hadn’t been at the end of my rope, I never would have done that deal with Xu Sanpi. So I hope you can keep this matter secret. If it gets out, Sanpi’s reputation would be ruined and probably my company, too.”
“I think you need to have this talk with Ma Wentao’s mother,” said Han Yin. Then he got up and started to leave.
Sun Jian sprang up from his chair, came around the desk, and, heading him off, said in a low and urgent voice, “His mother . . . I’ve already compensated her. One year, I used the excuse of burning incense at Wentao’s grave to give her twenty thousand yuan. It was enough to compensate for the royalties from Wentao’s book.”
For a book that wasn’t a bestseller, twenty thousand in royalties was a lot. One could say Sun Jian was being generous. Han Yin had never intended to stir up such waves. He just felt this had been unfair to Ma Wentao and his readers. Since the outcome hadn’t been all bad, there was no need to wrangle this issue any further, so he just nodded.
Although Sun Jian had hesitated a number of times, Han Yin felt he was being relatively candid and that his credibility shouldn’t be doubted. And it showed once again that only after he knew about Ma Wentao’s death did Xu Sanpi toss out this lead to the police, because the deceased couldn’t speak for themselves. It seemed he wanted to divert their attention and hoped the police would turn their investigation on Ma Wentao. Maybe Xu Sanpi was more shrewd and subtle than it seemed.
Han Yin called Ye Xi, told her everything, and proposed confronting Xu Sanpi. Ye Xi suggested cuffing him and bringing him to the Public Security Bureau to put a little pressure on him.
Gulou Precinct interrogation room
Xu Sanpi raised his cuffed hands and shook them at Ye Xi, who was sitting across from him. “Excuse me, beautiful lady! What’s this all about? If you don’t want me hitting on you, fine. But to go to all this trouble? It breaks my heart.”
Ye Xi grinned and scoffed. “Let’s have a little chat.”
“About?”
“About you, the super famous writer and amazing lover!” Ye Xi teased him and laughed. “You want to know my impression of you? I don’t even mind that you’re a little scruffy-looking. But you’re too good at telling stories, and that makes me uneasy.”
“Telling stories? Listen, gorgeous, you have it all wrong.” Xu Sanpi was the picture of innocence, and his words dripped with that glib, smarmy tone. “Everything I tell you is true and from the heart!”
Han Yin’s laughed. “I think Chief Ye’s evaluation isn’t objective enough. Not only is your storytelling strong, but you’re also a great actor.”
“All right, so no more acting!” Ye Xi’s voice sharpened. “Let’s talk about Ma Wentao.”
“I’ve said everything there is to say about him. I haven’t been in touch with him for years. I don’t even know where he is now.” Xu Sanpi pouted, attempting to show his persecution. “I told you about him to help the investigation. Why is it all my fault now?”
“You really don’t know where he is?” asked Han Yin, fixing his eyes on Xu Sanpi’s shifty face. “You’re not afraid he’ll come back from the grave and settle the score?”
With that, he took Gift out from his bag and dropped it hard on the table.
Xu Sanpi picked it up, slightly trembling, and said, “This is my book. So?”
“But this is not your book! This is Ma Wentao’s book!” pressed Ye Xi.
Unnerved by Ye Xi’s aggressive tactic, Xu Sanpi lost his grip and dropped the book on the floor. He bent down to pick it up, then stopped for a moment before straightening back up. He may have been using the pause to think up a clever counterstrategy. “Slander! This is pure slander! Why am I handcuffed? I’m going to sue you for illegal detention! I demand to see a lawyer!”
Ye Xi slammed her fist on the table and shouted back, “Why? I’ll tell you why! For obstruction of justice by intentionally wasting our time—that’s why!”
“We have conclusive proof that early on you knew about Ma Wentao’s death and that you revised his manuscript and pitched it as your own!”
Xu Sanpi was suddenly speechless. He was dazed for a moment; then he slumped back into his chair. “Sun Jian!” he said. “I’m not finished with you!”
“You ought to be grateful to Sun Jian for helping you accumulate merit. If he hadn’t privately compensated Ma Wentao’s mother and begged me not to let this get out, do you really think we’d even give you the chance to speak?” said Han Yin. “What’s your reasoning? We want to know why you threw out Ma Wentao’s name! You had better come totally clean. If not, I doubt I’ll be able to keep my promise to Sun Jian.”
Ye Xi said, “You’d better give us the truth; otherwise you’re the prime suspect in the murder of Yin Aijun. We’ll be watching you twenty-four hours a day. I doubt your uncle will want a murder suspect as his heir.”
Han Yin and Ye Xi glared at Xu Sanpi, who straightened up and looked around wildly. There must have been a fierce struggle going on in his mind.
“All right! Fine!” Xu Sanpi forced out his next words. “My uncle’s going to retire soon. This time in my life is really crucial, and I don’t want to get tangled up with the police and damage my image. That’s why I threw Ma Wentao to you, to divert your focus. I did everything I could to erase any connection or involvement I had with Ma Wentao, like omitting my time at Old Capital University from my author bio in my publications. You were hounding me, so I threw his name out, but I really did suspect he had something to do with Yin Aijun’s murder.”
Xu Sanpi picked up the book. “I rewrote the book because I was worried there’d be some details in it that would have caused me trouble. The female protagonist in the original was called Yin Ai plus the jun character with the “right ear” radical (郡). It wasn’t just some trick to use a rhyming character. She liked to tell people that her name was the one with the “ear” radical, not just the plain 君.”
“Also, the female protagonist in the original was extremely close in appearance and character to Yin Aijun. And there were lots of psychological descriptions of the male character
coveting the female protagonist’s beauty. This might lead people to think that the author had a potentially twisted obsession with someone, and that’s when I started to suspect Ma Wentao. Then I recalled certain details from that year. I once saw Yin Aijun buy some books from his store. Also, not long after the murder, I asked to use his bicycle because mine was broken, but he said his was broken, too. But I’d just seen him riding it. At the time, I thought he was being petty. Now I realize he could have been using it to discard body parts, and he was afraid if I rode it, I’d notice something fishy.”
Xu Sanpi paused. “I’m telling you the truth here, and I hope you can solve the case with the Ma Wentao lead. Also, I hope you never come back again.”
“And the original manuscript?” asked Han Yin. “According to Sun Jian, you returned an electronic version.”
“I burned the hard copy! Why would I leave evidence of plagiarism lying around?”
So it had been burned. Xu Sanpi’s explanation seemed reasonable and helped clarify why he did not mention his time at the university in his bio and why he did not report his suspicions about Ma Wentao to the task force. But those suspicions had been based on a manuscript that he’d burned. Wasn’t this yet another case of silencing a dead man?
Han Yin and Ye Xi glanced at each other. Ye Xi turned and stared at Xu Sanpi. She then waved to a guard to take Xu Sanpi out and release him. She had no other choice. After all, Xu Sanpi had no connection with the Wang Li case, and with the slim evidence in the Yin Aijun case, the most they could do was lock him up for the night.
Han Yin and Ye Xi felt stuck. How much of what Xu Sanpi said was true? If what he said was entirely true, then the case against Ma Wentao would be very strong. If it was mostly false, then Xu Sanpi was the probable killer. Another question had puzzled Han Yin all along. Even if they were sure about who the killer was, how would they find proof after sixteen years? They would need strong evidence or a credible witness. Now it looked like they were going to have to place all their hopes on Yu Meifen.
Ye Xi had already assigned teams to search for traces of Yu Meifen among the guesthouses and hotels. So far, there was no news. Han Yin suggested—in view of Yu Meifen’s meager financial situation—that they focus on the various hostels instead. Ye Xi agreed and gave the order.
26
BEST FRIEND AND SUSPECT
It was midnight, and still Han Yin couldn’t sleep.
He could now confirm Yu Meifen’s role in the Yin Aijun case. She had to have known who had made final contact with Yin Aijun before she disappeared, though Han Yin wasn’t sure whether she was connected with the current case.
And the woman who kept calling and wandered the streets like a ghost, who was she? Why had she walked up and down the corpse-dumping site on North China Road? Why did she frequently show up at Yin Aijun’s dormitory? And why was she calling him in the middle of the night? Was it actually Yu Meifen? Han Yin felt it wasn’t. Forget Yu Meifen. Could there be a third person?
If so, what was the motive? Was it a trick, using paranormal gimmicks to make the police refocus attention on Yin Aijun’s murder? Or maybe she was so profoundly obsessed with Yin Aijun that Yu Meifen had gone crazy. The key issue was whether Yu Meifen knew what really happened and what was going on. The one thing Han Yin was certain of was that Yu Meifen was somehow entwined with the Yin Aijun case.
Early the next morning, Han Yin ordered the task force to find Fu Changlin. No one understood the previous case better than he did, and Han Yin hoped he could provide some forgotten information or details from the past investigation.
Fu Changlin went back and forth between the task force and the cold case group. This clearly took its toll on him, but he still arrived early, as always. He was usually the first to clock in at the task force, but today was an exception. Han Yin had arrived much earlier and had been waiting for him.
“Why so early today? New clues?” Fu Changlin’s instincts were right. He smiled.
“Yes, and there’s something I need to ask you.” Han Yin told him why he’d come and stressed that his late-night ruminating may or may not be helpful in cracking the case.
Fu Changlin fully trusted Han Yin, so he put his bag down and took a seat. He thought hard and said, “So, the woman with the strange behavior. I didn’t actually buy the Xu Sanpi book I gave you. Somebody had express-mailed it to the cold case group. At the time, I felt it was a rather odd thing to do and suspected whoever sent it might have knowledge. The sender’s name and address were bogus. After that, I monitored video from the post office’s main hall and spotted the sender. After a lot of trouble, I found her. Her name’s Su Jin, and she was Yin Aijun’s high school classmate. They had been especially good friends back then. After she graduated, Yin Aijun tested successfully for Old Capital University, while Su Jin entered the teacher’s training college in the city. She said she’d always closely followed Yin Aijun’s case. At some point, she bought Gift and found details in it that alluded to the circumstances of Yin Aijun’s murder, so she mailed a copy to us, hoping it might help. We checked up on her and found nothing suspicious. But that wasn’t the end of it. At the end of 2008, an article appeared on an Internet forum that presented a complete analysis of the Yin Aijun case. Even though it was rough and full of guesswork that was totally unhelpful to the case, it caused quite a stir. We traced the IP address and found that it was posted by Su Jin. When we questioned her about this, she said she hoped to raise public awareness in order to get the case reopened.”
Fu Changlin was a wealth of information. This was exactly the kind of suspect Han Yin was looking for. “Is Su Jin still in J City?”
“She is. After she graduated, she got married. Her husband was a classmate, a local person, and someone with an excellent family background. He helped her open a beauty parlor.” Fu Changlin took out a worn notebook from his bag and leafed through it. Then he showed it to Han Yin and pointed to a page. “There, the address of the beauty parlor and her telephone number.”
Han Yin took down Su Jin’s contact information. Then he waved the paper at Fu Changlin. “Many thanks, Chief Fu. I’ll be meeting with her very soon.”
Su Jin’s Beauty Parlor was located in J City’s busiest area, near one of the city’s main thoroughfares. It was a big business, covering three floors.
Han Yin pushed the big glass door open, and a smiling attendant in a pink uniform came forward to greet him. “Good morning, sir! Are you here for a beauty treatment?”
Han Yin shook his head and laughed. He took his police ID card from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’m working with the Criminal Investigation Division, and I’d like to ask your boss a few questions.”
The attendant took the card with both hands and looked at it carefully, then gave it back to Han Yin. She pointed to a sofa by the glass door and said, “Please have a seat, and I’ll see if she’s in.”
“Thanks. Sorry to trouble you.” Han Yin nodded and smiled. He watched her walk up the white wood spiral staircase.
A few minutes later, he heard the sound of high heels coming down the staircase. He saw the attendant being followed by a woman in a fashionable business suit with a white blouse and gray slacks. She was thin and pretty, but she looked exhausted. The attendant nodded and walked back to the lobby.
“How do you do? I’m Su Jin. How can I help you?” Su Jin put out her hand and smiled.
Han Yin lightly took her hand. It was soft. “I’d like to talk to you about Yin Aijun.”
“Fabulous!” Her expression changed, and she sounded sincere. “Are you reopening the case?” Seeing Han Yin’s noncommittal smile, Su Jin pointed to the staircase. “Let’s go upstairs and talk in my office.” She called to her attendant and asked that two cups of tea be brought up.
Once upstairs, they came to a pure white room with the scent of lavender in the air. They sat down, and the young attendant served the tea. Su Jin warmly suggested that Han Yin have a drink of warm tea before they got down to business.
She was very gracious and hospitable, and Han Yin couldn’t bring up his suspicion of her right away, so he had to use Yin Aijun to pave the way. He raised his cup and took two sips. “You and Yin Aijun were good friends, is that right?”
“Yes. We were extremely close in high school.” Su Jin closed her eyes and played with the cup handle. “After that happened to her, I was in pain for a long time. I just couldn’t believe it. Only a few days earlier, we’d been sleeping in the same bed, and then, just like that, she was gone.”
“Did you see her just before she went missing?”
“Oh yes!” Then, rather sadly, she said, “My birthday’s on January first. It happened to fall on a Sunday. I invited her and a few friends to go out. She spent the night at my place, and we talked all night long. We reminisced a lot about high school.”
“Did you get into things like boyfriends and girlfriends?”
“She said she’d barely been at the U and didn’t have one yet.” Su Jin paused. “But she said she’d gotten to know a writer—some acquaintance, not even a friend, really.”
“When you saw the allusions in Gift to the circumstances of her murder, you mailed it to the police, hoping we’d check up on the author, correct?”
“That’s right. But the police didn’t seem to take any action and instead investigated me.” There was a slight tone of resentment in her words. “So I posted my own analysis of the case online. I know it was rudimentary, but I hoped to get people focused on the crime and get the investigation reopened.”
“You must have misunderstood. We’ve been investigating the author all along. It’s just that we haven’t found any evidence yet.” Han Yin was defending Fu Changlin, almost channeling his responses. “You’re certain the author Yin Aijun mentioned to you was the same one who wrote Gift?”
“No, No!” Su Jin shook her head. “I just happened to buy the book. Yin Aijun never mentioned that she recognized the writer’s name!”
