The Untouched Crime

by Zijin Chen

  Yan Liang? Again?

  Luo frowned slightly, took a breath, and opened the door.

  His dog backed away, barking at the visitor. Luo scolded the dog and shooed him away.

  Yan grinned. “He didn’t bark this much last time I came. It looks like he already knows who the master of the house is.”

  “He would be a pretty ungrateful dog if he didn’t recognize his owner by now,” Luo said, smiling back. “He’s been here for a long time. He’s almost finished with the bag of treats you gave him.”

  Yan picked up a rawhide bone and threw it to the dog, who picked it up in his mouth and went to chew it in the corner. “You really like this dog, don’t you?” Yan asked.

  Luo nodded.

  “Is it because the dog looks like the one your daughter used to play with?”

  Luo nodded.

  “It was worth it for Huiru to give you this dog, then,” Yan said, sighing.

  “Pardon me?” Luo said, giving him a sidelong glance.

  “Zhu Huiru picked up this dog off the street, but she had to give it away. Perhaps if she had given him to someone else, they wouldn’t have taken such a liking to him.”

  “Hmm, I guess so,” Luo said in a flat tone.

  “You watch TV?” Yan said, commenting on one of the few things Luo had in his living room.

  Luo pretended to be confused. “Is it strange that I watch television?”

  “You never used to have so much free time,” Yan answered.

  “I usually spend my evenings watching television now and I like it.”

  “Oh, really,” Yan said, still smiling.

  “Would you like something to drink? I only have tea,” Luo said as he got a mug.

  “Water is fine,” Yan said.

  “OK,” Luo said, handing him a mug of water.

  “Thank you,” Yan said, and sat down on the sofa. “I came looking for you today because I wanted to ask you about something important.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” Luo said, sitting on the other side of the sofa.

  “In your professional opinion, is there such a thing as a perfect crime?” Yan asked. He looked at Luo as he spoke.

  “What do you mean? A criminal who is never caught?” Luo asked.

  “No, plenty of criminals are never caught. In a perfect crime, the criminal is capable of tampering or removing all the evidence in the crime scene.”

  “Theoretically it’s possible.” Luo’s expression did not change in the slightest. “The police have lots of technology at their disposal, but there is still a finite list of tools to catch a criminal: fingerprints, footprints, DNA, fiber analysis, and a few other kinds of evidence analysis. If the criminal can eliminate any evidence associated with those tools, he or she would never be caught.”

  “So let’s say we have this kind of case, and all the clues that the police could possibly find have been eliminated. Can the case be solved?”

  “In other words, the forensic scientist didn’t manage to get any information, so the only possible option is your logical deduction?” Luo laughed.

  “But logical deduction is based on the investigative work carried out by forensic scientists!” Yan protested.

  “It’s a paradox,” Luo said. “If there isn’t any physical evidence, the case would depend on logical deduction, but logical deduction depends on physical evidence. The case couldn’t be solved.”

  “I think you’re right. Hey, I left the house in a hurry. Do you think I could use your bathroom?”

  “Of course,” Luo answered.

  Yan picked up his bag and the envelope concealed underneath it. He went to the bathroom. One minute later he shouted in pain. Luo rushed over. “Is everything OK in there?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I almost slipped,” Yan said and flushed the toilet. He then walked out with his bag and closed the bathroom door. “I need to take care of a few things. Let’s catch up again soon.”

  Luo said good-bye to Yan and closed the door. Then he went back to the sofa to lie down.

  Yan seemed to be convinced that the case couldn’t be solved. He must be giving up by now.

  One hour later, Luo’s phone rang. It was Yan.

  “Luo, can you check if I left an envelope in your house?” Yan said.

  Luo looked around the sofa. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “What about in the bathroom? I almost slipped, so it might have slid on the floor.”

  Sure enough, when Luo looked in the bathroom he found an envelope under the sink. “Yeah. Are you going to come by and pick it up?”

  “No, it’s late. I’ll come by tomorrow,” Yan said, and hung up.

  Luo eyed the envelope warily, not wanting to touch it. His eyebrows knitted as he thought.

  The front was printed with the words “Zhejiang Public Security Bureau.” It wasn’t sealed.

  Luo turned and went to get his toolbox in the study. He turned off the lights in the bathroom and turned on an ultraviolet flashlight. He didn’t see anything strange around the letter. He put on gloves and opened the envelope with a pair of tweezers. He stared inside the envelope for a long time, trying to figure out if Yan left it there to trick him. Once he was absolutely sure that there wasn’t some way that Yan would know if Luo read the contents of the letter, he carefully took out the contents and examined them. Then he finally unfolded the papers inside.

  They seemed to be official documents.

  As he read the contents, Luo’s hands clenched into fists. He was shaking.

  He was absolutely sure that Yan left it on purpose.

  Yan had managed to find his weakness.

  It was clearly a trap! But could he resist it?

  Chapter 61

  Yang entered the room that had been temporarily designated as headquarters for all major cases. “We reviewed the surveillance cameras in Luo’s apartment building and made a spreadsheet of the times when he typically arrives home,” Yang said, reporting to Zhao and Yan. “Sometimes he is home as early as 6:00 p.m. and other times it’s after 9:00 p.m. Occasionally he doesn’t get home until the middle of the night. On the night that Sun Hongyun was killed, he arrived in the early hours of the morning. On the night that Xu Tianding was killed, he got home at midnight. In other words, he wasn’t home at the time of either of the two latest murders. But he has such an irregular schedule that I don’t think we can threaten him with that information,” Yang said.

  “He is so meticulous,” Yan said to Zhao. “He deliberately goes home late every once in a while so that these nights don’t stand out.”

  “We also checked the surveillance of the parking lot elevator on the night of Xu’s murder. Luo was alone. We did not see any sign of Zhu Huiru or Guo Yu,” Yang added.

  “He thought of everything!” Yan said angrily. “I bet he made those kids take the stairs.”

  “Is there anything else we can do?” Zhao asked, frowning.

  “No. All we can do is wait,” Yan replied.

  “Are you sure he’ll fall for this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But what if he didn’t see the document? Yesterday when you got the envelope back, the fingerprint detectors only found the prints of other cops,” Zhao said.

  “If he had wanted to read the contents of that envelope, he wouldn’t have touched it with his bare hands,” Yan said impatiently.

  “Yesterday we had men watching him all day long and nothing happened. He just stayed at home!” Zhao said, feeling frustrated.

  “I think he’s waiting until we are off guard before taking any action,” Yan said. “We don’t need someone watching Luo’s house all day; as long as we catch him, in the end it will be fine.”

  “No way. What if something goes wrong? I can’t afford to have another death on my hands. We have already invested so much time and energy in these murders,” Zhao said firmly.

  “Fine. Then we wait.”

  “And you’re sure that he will fall for this?” Zhao said doubtfully.

  “He ha
s to!” Yan cried. Everything was riding on his plan.

  The major-cases hotline rang. It was one of the officers assigned to follow Luo.

  From his computer display, Zhao saw that the caller was standing on a corner close to the noodle restaurant.

  “The target crossed the street and turned north. He’s taking something out of his bag. It’s wrapped in a black plastic bag,” the investigator reported. “He’s checking his surroundings . . . OK, he just threw it away in a trash can.”

  “Get someone to pick it up, now!” Zhao ordered. Then, quietly to Yan, he said, “Maybe it’s a weapon.”

  “I don’t think so,” Yan said, shaking his head. “There are a lot of ways to dispose of a murder weapon. I think Luo would be the type to burn it.”

  “We got the bag. What the—?” the voice on the other end said.

  “What’s in the bag?” Zhao asked immediately.

  “It’s a piece of meat.”

  Another investigator at the scene spoke. “Yeah, it’s meat alright,” he agreed.

  “Meat? Is it . . . human flesh?” Zhao asked, his face draining of color.

  “No,” the investigator responded. “It looks like a chicken breast.”

  “It’s definitely a chicken breast. It feels like it was just taken out of the freezer,” the other investigator said.

  Zhao and Yan exchanged confused looks.

  Zhao and the two investigators got another call from an investigator watching from a different vantage point. “The target is walking back to the trash can! I repeat! The target is walking back to the trash can!”

  Yan leaned forward and said, “Hurry! Put the plastic bag back in the trash can! Try to make it look like you didn’t move it!”

  Zhao realized what was going on. “Do it!” he ordered.

  “Copy that! It is in the trash can,” the investigators said. They went back to their stations.

  Two minutes later, Zhao heard another report. “The target is walking to the trash can. He took the plastic bag . . . He’s walking back in the direction of his apartment!”

  “Looks like he’s doing some countersurveillance,” Zhao said, exhaling loudly. “Good thing we put it back in time, otherwise we might have been found out.”

  Yan didn’t respond, his eyebrows knitted in concentration. “Was there anything special about that chicken breast, in your opinion?” he asked them.

  “Only that it was frozen.”

  “Did either of you touch the meat itself?”

  “No, just the bag.”

  “Can you and the other officer return to the lab? Don’t wash your hands or touch anything. I want the lab technicians to find out if there was anything special on that bag.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” Zhao asked.

  “Luo returned to check up on the bag. That should have been the end of it. Why did he take the bag out of the trash can and bring it home?”

  “You’re right; that seems a little unnecessary. He should have been happy to see that the bag was exactly where he left it.”

  “He knows police tactics. He’ll be expecting our tricks, every last one of them,” Yan said.

  Chapter 62

  As soon as Luo returned to his apartment, he went straight to the bathroom. He left the light off and closed the door, shining his ultraviolet flashlight on the bag and the chicken breast. Then he turned off the flashlight and sat in the dark, without making a sound.

  Before he left the apartment, he had put a fine fluorescent powder on both. The chicken breast had not been touched, but the black plastic bag had someone else’s prints. He was being followed.

  It was definitely a trap. Yan left that document so that Luo would read it and be taken in.

  He had acted casual when he left the apartment, still paying close attention to his surroundings. He didn’t see anyone suspicious at all. So the police were using experienced staff members.

  Yan was no longer in the police force; he didn’t have the authority to order so many investigators to follow him. Zhao Tiemin must suspect him.

  One thing was certain: they didn’t have any evidence. Otherwise they would simply arrest him.

  He was at a crossroads. He could continue to pretend he was not involved and stick to his normal routines, living as he had for the past three years. What did he care if the cops followed him around for a few weeks or even months? When they saw that his daily routine was not in the least bit suspicious, they would be forced to give up the investigation. As for Zhu Huiru and Guo Yu, they could keep living their lives too. The three of them would be safe for a very long time.

  The other option was simply to step into Yan’s trap. He couldn’t predict what would happen, but wasn’t this exactly what he had been waiting for all these years?

  He knew he was facing a major dilemma.

  Luo thought about it all afternoon. Finally, at dusk, he put some things in his bag and poured several days’ worth of food into the dog’s bowl before walking out the door.

  He knew from the moment he stepped into the elevator, several pairs of eyes would be on him. There was no way to avoid it. He walked confidently to the entrance of Chongqing Noodles and went inside.

  He stared at the menu.

  Huiru hurried over to Luo. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “Yes . . . What should I get?” He made a show of scratching his head and spoke quickly. “I just wanted to tell you that if the police tell you I’ve been caught, or if they seem to know about many details of the case, don’t believe them. They’re just trying to trick you. Be strong! As long as you don’t confess, they can’t arrest you. They don’t have any evidence.”

  “Oh, uh . . . but why are you . . . ?” Huiru didn’t know what to do. She had never seen Luo so intense.

  “Try to act natural, Huiru; you have to remember what I taught you. As long as we don’t confess, we’ll all be safe. If one person confesses, then all three of us are in trouble. I’ll have noodles with beef, please. Oh, and a cucumber salad. That’s it.”

  “OK, have a seat.” Huiru turned and went into the kitchen.

  After he finished his meal, Luo paid and left. Then he entered another small restaurant close by.

  Chapter 63

  Zhao and Yan were in Dr. Chen’s lab, examining a microscope slide. “We found some particulate matter on Zhou’s hand. It’s a fluorescent powder.”

  “Fluorescent powder?” Zhao and Yan asked.

  “And not just any fluorescent powder. This powder is exclusively used by forensic scientists to examine evidence. Each individual particle is so small that it cannot be seen by the naked eye. Look at this slide. It looks perfectly transparent, doesn’t it? Zhou told me he only touched the outside of the bag, which means it was more or less covered in this powder. I assume Luo took the bag home and saw the investigators’ fingerprints when he shone an ultraviolet light on it.”

  “So that means Luo knows that we’re following him?” Yan asked.

  “Most likely,” Chen said, nodding.

  Zhao let out a frustrated sigh.

  “If he figures it out, he figures it out; it doesn’t change much. I would be surprised if Luo didn’t notice us. It might even be a good thing.” Yan shrugged.

  “A good thing?” Zhao said incredulously. “Do you think he would knowingly step into the trap?”

  “Yes. Think about it: if Luo doesn’t commit another crime, can we catch him with the evidence we have now?”

  Zhao grunted. Of course not.

  “Not only are we powerless against Luo, we can’t get Zhu Huiru or Guo Yu either. Their statements are flawless. We can’t touch them without any evidence.”

  Zhao clenched his teeth and remained silent.

  “Clearly Luo knows that I’m testing him. If he wanted to continue his normal life, he would not take any action. But right now he’s on the offensive, testing our surveillance,” Yan continued.

  “That’s true,” Zhao said with a nod.

  “And doesn’t t
hat give the police more reason to believe that he did the crime? The police will latch on to him and refuse to let go, like a terrier,” Yan said.

  “Ahem,” Zhao said. “Be careful what words you use to describe the police.”

  Yan smiled apologetically. “I mean that the police would follow him even more closely and not give up. But more to the point, why would he go on the offensive now? Why would he take on that risk? I think it’s because he wants to step into the trap.”

  “But now that he has confirmed that the police are following him, will he?”

  “Yes,” Yan said confidently. “He’s been waiting many years. He knows the risks. I’m just worried that he might wait until the police have let down their guard before he does anything drastic.”

  “We can’t let anything like that happen,” Zhao said sternly.

  “He’s extremely patient.”

  “So are we,” Zhao said.

  “You’re determined. That’s good.”

  With that, Zhao and Yan went out for a quick dinner before returning to the police station.

  “Any news?” Zhao asked the investigator who had just returned to headquarters.

  “The target went to a noodle restaurant and ordered. When he finished his meal, he went into another restaurant just down the street.”

  “Was it Chongqing Noodles?” Yan asked, frowning.

  “Yes. He sat alone without speaking to anyone.”

  “And then he went to a different restaurant?” Yan asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the investigator answered.

  “How long has he been there?”

  “About twenty minutes, sir.”

  “Is he eating?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s strange.”

  Zhao looked dissatisfied.

  “Get a plainclothes officer to go in and check on him,” Yan suggested.

  Minutes later the officer reported back. “The target left the restaurant! I spoke to the owner, who said he claimed to have forgotten his phone and borrowed the restaurant’s to call a taxi. He left from a side door!”