A Devil's Mind

by Gangxueyin

  Since Wang Li, there had not been another victim. Deviant killers usually held unclear motives and might even be called killers without motivation. More often than not, there’s no link between the killer and victim, which meant that the possible range of suspects could be limitless. Even though the criminal profiling reports helped shrink the parameters, the possibilities still far exceeded that of ordinary murder cases. But due to its unique nature, this kind of case had one beneficial aspect for the police—once such a killer commits a crime, it’s very difficult for him to control his urge to do it again. He would be sure to repeat his performance a second, third, or fourth time, giving the police numerous chances to catch him. For the police, the process of trying to find holes in the killer’s game is frustrating and confusing and causes grief at the loss of more innocent life in order to find the smallest seeds of evidence.

  Han Yin knew the killer would strike again. When this would happen depended on the length of the killer’s “cooling-off period.”

  May 1, 2012, at 6:00 a.m.

  The last day of the three-day holiday

  Sirens wailed as police cars converged on New Territory Plaza.

  The total area of the plaza spanned sixty-five thousand square feet. A greenbelt occupied over half the area. The grass, red flowers, towering pines, cypresses, and ginkgo trees decorated the park. High-quality speakers were placed all around the plaza, and songs from around the world were broadcast. There were long wooden benches for residents and tourists to relax on. On bright sunny days, flocks of doves were released. The park’s visitors could feed and enjoy these birds. On ordinary days, it was a nice place to hang out, focus on health, and be free. But on this particular stuffy, damp morning, the air was turbid with the smell of blood.

  White police tape stretched around the entire plaza. Police were standing in front of the tape, on guard and in combat readiness. Within the taped-off area, pathologists and investigators were tensely working.

  Just as Han Yin had expected, the killer was back at it!

  Several elderly women who had come in the morning for a group fitness class had reported the crime. They entered the plaza from the southern entrance and found a big black garbage bag on the ground. It was loosely tied, and inside they saw a human head. The municipal Public Security Bureau snapped into action, and the task force rushed to the crime scene.

  At the center of the plaza, the J City deputy mayor and PSB Chief Wu Chengqiang said something to the deputy bureau chiefs who were with him. From time to time, Chief Wu furiously waved his hands at each of the deputy chiefs, their faces pale. Director of Criminal Investigations Hu Zhiguo hung his head. There was a limit to the patience of the municipal leaders, the PSB leaders, the media, and the general public. With the appearance of yet another victim, Hu Zhiguo was well aware of what he was up against. He looked to the southern end of the plaza with expectation and doubt.

  Ye Xi and Han Yin were standing there, anxiously awaiting the results of Gu Feifei’s preliminary on-site examination.

  The black bag contained only a severed head, female, twenty-five to thirty years old. The head had been neatly cut off at the top of the throat. Its two eyes were downcast, the lips slightly open, makeup dabbed on the face. The head had been set upright in the bag facing Bar Street, just south of the plaza.

  “The eyes are slightly protruding, and their outer surface and conjunctiva show slight bleeding. Other symptoms aren’t obvious. We need to combine the symptoms of the internal organs to determine the cause of death. However, same as the earlier victim: death by suffocation sounds about right.” Gu Feifei, down on both knees, was very nearly lying flat on the ground as she observed the head. She reached out and felt the victim’s jaw. Then she pressed on the face. “Stiffness of the lower mandibular and tautness of the facial muscles. No sign of any relaxation of rigor mortis. Estimated time of death not exceeding twenty-four hours. However”—Gu Feifei stood up and clapped her white-gloved hands together—“the facial temperature is relatively low. Perhaps the corpse had been kept at a low temperature. I need a composite temperature reading of the viscera before I can provide a relatively accurate time of death.”

  Gu Feifei looked off into the distance while her assistants busily measured and recorded the victim’s internal organs and temperature of the body parts.

  “Then get moving on the results!” Ye Xi impatiently bit her lip. Kang Xiaobei arrived, and Ye Xi glared at him. “What took you so long? What were you doing?”

  “I . . . uh . . . was keeping an eye on Feng Wenhao,” he mumbled.

  “Where was he last night?” Ye Xi asked.

  Kang Xiaobei’s speech failed him for a moment. Then he said, “He . . . he . . . was at home . . . and didn’t go anywhere.”

  Displeased, Ye Xi glared at Kang Xiaobei, then walked toward the east side of the plaza.

  Ye Xi reprimanding Kang Xiaobei was new for Han Yin, and Kang Xiaobei’s stuttering and stumbling over his words was unusual. Maybe it had to with the stress she was under because of the new victim. But why was Kang Xiaobei lying? Han Yin frowned and looked into his eyes. Kang Xiaobei tried to avoid eye contact.

  The New Territory Plaza was intersected by eight streets—four trunk roads in the north, south, east, and west, each with their own entry and exit points. The killer would have dumped the bag after midnight or toward early morning. Furthermore, the May 1 holiday was not yet over, so there would not have been many pedestrians out at this time, and the site was virtually untouched. The killer put down the black bag containing the head at the south entry-exit point. The bag with the body parts was dumped at the west entry-exit point. The bag with the bone fragments was left at the north point, and the victim’s clothing and internal organs at the east point. The internal organs were carefully arranged in a small black garbage bag inside the big bag. The clothing had been neatly placed on the organs.

  Han Yin and Ye Xi watched an investigator put an item of clothing into an evidence bag.

  At the very top was a gauzy, somewhat transparent red skirt; then a bra, panties, and a pair of black silk stockings; and, finally, a pair of pink ultra-high-heeled shoes.

  “You only wear a sexy outfit like that to a nightclub,” said Han Yin.

  Ye Xi nodded. “You’re right.” She crouched down and took a long look at the clothes and shoes in the evidence bag. “The workmanship of the shirt is so-so. The high heels are cheap. I’d say she’s a club girl or an unregistered prostitute trawling the bars for customers.”

  “Do you think he faced the head toward Bar Street to let us know he abducted her from there?” Kang Xiaobei frowned. “What was he trying to convey? Is he just toying with us?”

  Han Yin focused on the street south of the plaza and nodded. “It’s a possibility.”

  “Her bag. Where’s her bag?” said Ye Xi, as it had clearly just occurred to her. “She was wearing so little and would have had a bag with her cell phone, makeup, things like that. Did the killer make off with it? This would be pretty different from the way he acted in the previous crime.”

  “Maybe.” Han Yin pursed his lips, then said, “Maybe this time he wants to make it a little tougher for us to identify the victim.” Then, he opened his mouth as if he had more to say, but didn’t say anything.

  Ye Xi wanted to get moving on identifying the deceased and establish when she’d gone missing.

  Since Feng Wenhao hadn’t been behaving unusually as of late, surveillance of him was temporarily lifted. Ye Xi ordered Kang Xiaobei to photograph the head and take the picture around to every bar on Bar Street in case someone might recognize her. She then told Yao Gang to collect security footage from Bar Street and the plaza and bring it to the division, with the relevant window of time being a week. She assigned another officer to hurry to the traffic police command center and ask for the traffic footage near the plaza over the past few days and look for images of the victim or anything that might seem suspicious. Ye Xi told another officer to contact each precinct and go ov
er the records of all disappearance cases, looking for resemblances of gender, age, appearance, etc.

  Afterward, Han Yin asked to assist Kang Xiaobei. Ye Xi gave him a blank stare, unsure why he’d want to do that. Then she waved Han Yin away, indicating he should do whatever he thought was best.

  This wasn’t the best time to visit Bar Street, where establishments—bars, karaoke lounges, nightclubs, dance halls—were, for the most part, closed. They were only open in the evenings, and it wasn’t even 7:00 a.m. So all they could do was knock on doors and make every effort to find someone who could identify the girl.

  They went to about a dozen places. None were open. Some had a few employees or the boss hanging around, but they didn’t recognize the deceased. Kang Xiaobei didn’t feel discouraged. They just continued knocking and asking, one place and then the next.

  Han Yin had been following the whole time and never said a word. Once in a while, Kang Xiaobei would crack a joke or two, trying to liven the atmosphere. But Han Yin’s face stayed expressionless. Kang Xiaobei was well aware of Han Yin’s cold attitude toward him, and he could guess why.

  After biting his tongue for a while, Kang Xiaobei couldn’t hold back any longer. He took advantage of the pause after he knocked on yet another door and said, “What’s up, Professor Han? Why are you so quiet?”

  Han Yin said, “I was waiting for you to say something.”

  Kang Xiaobei smiled. “Haven’t I been talking all along?”

  Han Yin looked into Kang Xiaobei’s eyes and sighed heavily. Then he said, “I didn’t bring it up in front of Chief Ye, because I was giving you the chance to explain yourself. I know you’re a good policeman, but it’s inevitable for mistakes to occur. I hope you wouldn’t lie to cover up anything you’ve done wrong, particularly when it comes to this case.”

  Han Yin took a hard look into Kang Xiaobei’s eyes. Kang Xiaobei hung his head, unable to bring himself to return the gaze. His face bore a peculiar expression and went pale. Finally, he coughed a few times and said, “Look, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have left the stakeout. I . . .” He gained a little courage and looked up. He looked totally ashamed and said, “Last night, Jingjing had been on duty for ten hours. I was considering meeting her when she got off and taking her home and then going back to watch Feng Wenhao. But when we got to her place, she said her parents were away, and asked me to come in and sit down for a bit. And then I . . .”

  “You were there until morning?”

  “Uh” was all Kang Xiaobei could say; then he hung his head again.

  “So this means you’re not sure about Feng Wenhao’s activities last night?” Han Yin said, raising his voice.

  Kang Xiaobei nodded.

  “Has this happened before?”

  “Off and on a few times. More often lately.”

  “You . . . you moron! This is such an important case, how could you go sneaking off like that? You . . .” Han Yin jabbed his finger at Kang Xiaobei with a look of utter disdain. He really wanted to rake him over the coals, but he held back. After all, Kang Xiaobei was still quite young and was in love. He had been on surveillance detail for over a month, and with his target barely active, his motives were somewhat understandable.

  Han Yin tried hard to consider Kang Xiaobei’s point of view. He restrained himself, and his voice softened. “All right, then. It’s over now, so no need to beat yourself up about it. Let’s knock on some more doors, and then later on we can think about how to remedy what happened. Did you have someone go to the rental property behind the bar to dig up info on Feng Wenhao?”

  “I did, but no one saw him coming or going from there.”

  “Strange!” Han Yin pondered. “That night, he clearly knew we were tailing him, but he still went into the bar, went out the back door, and disappeared. What the hell was he trying to do? Just mind games?”

  “Maybe that was his purpose,” said Kang Xiaobei.

  “The first night of surveillance, you spooked the target, so you felt it was pointless to take any further action?”

  “Afterward, I was very careful. I often switched cars. He wouldn’t have known that we were watching him. Look, could you please not tell Chief Ye about this? I’m afraid if she finds out, she’ll take me off the case.”

  Han Yin looked at him with disgust. “You’d better beg all the gods in the world to keep Feng Wenhao from having anything to do with this case; otherwise nobody will be able to protect you!”

  Han Yin didn’t want Kang Xiaobei to get off too easily and wanted to keep him hanging. Han Yin also wanted to ensure that he’d never forget this lesson.

  In the afternoon, they finally found a clue.

  The deceased was a nightclub hostess. One of her “sisters,” who was especially close with her, said that on April 28, just after eleven o’clock, a longtime customer “bought her out,” and they left the club. A little later, she called and said the customer had something come up and had dropped her at the curb. She said she was going to take a cab home and get some rest. That was the last anyone heard from her.

  Since the customer was well-known at the nightclub, it was easy for Kang Xiaobei and Han Yin to find him. He was a sales manager and admitted to taking the victim out of the club, but he received an unexpected call from a client who had important business to discuss, so he let her out near the traffic circle at New Territory Plaza.

  All this could be verified. The victim disappeared around eleven o’clock on April 28. The place of disappearance was similar to Wang Li’s, near the traffic circle of New Territory Plaza.

  Han Yin’s earlier analysis was also proven correct. The killer’s second criminal act followed his methods in the first: using the plaza video camera’s blind spot, pretending to be a taxi, and convincing the victim to get into the car of her own volition. Such a pattern is called criminal modus operandi or MO. They could now consider these linked crimes.

  Han Yin and Kang Xiaobei went to the victim’s apartment, and the landlord helped them enter it. Their search turned up nothing of value, only her ID card. Her name was Tian Mei, and she was twenty-nine years old and from another province. They checked her cell phone records. The last call she’d made was to her “sister” at the nightclub. The phone itself had been turned off.

  Next, the traffic footage. The surveillance videos at the traffic police command post had not uncovered a suspicious vehicle or the killer. The material from private and commercial surveillance video cameras around the plaza and the southern streets was being carefully checked. Still, nothing suspicious had been found. With these videos, they were able to determine when body parts were dumped. The plaza has two surveillance locations, and at 3:05 a.m. and 3:07 a.m., respectively, the cameras were shot with black spray paint. Obviously, the killer did this, showing that he’d dumped the body parts around this time.

  In the evening, Gu Feifei sent a text message that the autopsy results were in. Han Yin rushed to the Public Security Bureau’s forensic medicine office and went into the autopsy room. Gu Feifei and her assistants were busily working around the dissection table. A human figure pieced together by an assortment of bones and flesh had begun to take shape.

  Gu Feifei saw Han Yin and, telling her assistants to carry on, took off her latex gloves, waved, and signaled him to come into her office.

  “I know you’re anxious about some key results of the examination.” She picked up a report and handed it to Han Yin.

  Han Yin took a quick look through it, and Gu Feifei said, “The deceased’s facial skin and the conjunctiva of the eyes show spots of blood. The viscera valves indicate thrombosis. External bleeding is dark red, without early signs of coagulation. Nasal mucus and sputum was removed from the garbage bag containing the head. It can be confirmed that the deceased and the victim of the previous case, Wang Li, were both suffocated to death using a black garbage bag.”

  “As to the time of death, many indices were damaged by the dismemberment of the corpse, so this is quite difficult to determine. Looking at the
degree of stiffness of the mandibular and facial muscles, which should be at the peak value of rigor mortis, it can be determined that the deceased’s death was within the past twenty-four hours. But the temperature of the corpse itself, including the viscera and flesh fragments on the plaza, was only approximately 54 degrees Fahrenheit, and so there is a conflict here. A living organism, controlled by the thermoregulatory center, keeps heat generation and dispersion in balance. The organism’s body temperature can be kept constant at around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. After someone dies, the metabolism stops and no longer generates heat so the dispersion of heat continues and the body temperature steadily decreases. I checked the outside temperature yesterday. A high of 82 degrees and a low of 63 degrees. Room temperature’s between 59 degrees and 68 degrees. Ordinarily, in such an ambient temperature, within the first ten hours after death, the body temperature drops 52 degrees, and after ten hours, it drops an average of four- to five-tenths of a degree per hour. If the killer dismembered the body indoors, calculating from the temperature, the victim had already been dead for more than forty hours. What we can infer from this is that the corpse’s rigor mortis was easing relatively slowly while the algor mortis was falling too fast. The only explanation is that the corpse had been kept at a low temperature. However, signs of freezing have not been found on the remains, so a freezer can be eliminated. I believe that the killer has a cellar where he hides his victims.