Death Notice

by Zhou HaoHui

  Zeng handed Han a slip of paper. Han ignored the stream of numbers that made up the IP address, instead fixing his eyes on the physical address printed below: Haizheng Building, Yingbin Street, Office 901.

  As Han read the address, Zeng noticed a framed photograph on the captain’s desk. Its faded colors showed two young officers standing next to each other with nearly identical grins. He recognized one of them—it was a more youthful-looking Han.

  The captain cleared his throat, and Zeng jerked his head up. There was a stern gleam in Han’s eyes.

  “Go find Yin. We’re heading out now,” the captain said.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER

  HAIZHENG BUILDING

  Office 901 was home to a small company called White Lodge Media. There were no more than a dozen staff members, making the space feel cavernous. The receptionist directed Han, Zeng, and Yin into a meeting room, and soon the company’s head manager, a sweaty middle-aged man surnamed Li, stood before them, followed by the company’s network administrator.

  The officers’ initial round of questioning verified that no one except the company’s own employees had entered the office since two o’clock that afternoon, and that no employees had left during that time. Han ordered Yin to keep watch over the entrance. They were currently on the building’s ninth floor. As long as they kept anyone from entering or exiting the office, it would be impossible for anyone to leave the scene.

  Zeng showed the note to the network administrator. “We need to know which computer this IP address corresponds to,” he said.

  “I…um…I’ll have to go check.”

  The administrator was a young man with slicked hair, and he was also a nervous wreck. It must be his first encounter with the police, Zeng thought.

  The manager turned to the stuttering young man. “You don’t know this already? What the hell do I pay you for?”

  The young employee’s face was beet-red as he earnestly tried to explain himself. His stuttering was even more severe now. “We use dynamic IP addressing here, Mr. Li. This IP address is definitely somewhere inside the office. As for which computer, though, I’ll have to…I’ll have to verify.”

  “I’ve said it time and time again,” the manager snarled. “Young people have no idea what it means to take pride in their work! When I was—”

  “It’s fine. This isn’t his fault,” Zeng interrupted. Brushing the man’s hand away, he comforted the younger employee. “Go ahead and check.”

  The administrator took the note with him.

  “So what exactly is the problem here, officers?” Li asked. “Was someone watching porn? Don’t bother looking any further. It’s that sleazeball Kang, no question about it. He’ll be off the payroll by tomorrow!”

  Han was already eager to end this conversation. “How many people work at this company?”

  “Twelve, including me. This is a small business. We specialize in analyzing new media trends, and we’re just getting off the ground.” He plucked a business card holder from his pocket and held it out. “Here’s my card.”

  Zeng took a card and twirled it between his fingers with faint interest. Han simply continued his questioning.

  “Are all your employees present today?”

  “Yes, yes, they are,” the manager answered. “Every single employee is working in that room right now.”

  Han patted Zeng’s shoulder. “Let’s have a look around.”

  Stuffing the card in his pocket, Zeng followed Han into the large office. The floor space was divided among ten cubicles. Inquisitive faces poked out from each one to examine the unexpected guests.

  Han examined the room. Eight of the ten employees were female. Besides the network administrator they had just met, the only other male was a short young man built like an eggplant. There wasn’t much here to connect any of them to a brutal, lethal criminal.

  Zeng slammed his hand against his forehead. He shook his head, wincing. “Your internet is wireless, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. We were the first wireless clients in the entire city when we started out a few years ago,” Li told Zeng excitedly. “This might look like a small company to you, but our office setup is first-rate.”

  Zeng raised his eyebrows. Wireless internet was becoming more common in Chengdu now, and it was certainly more widespread in more developed cities like Beijing and Shanghai, but this fact had caught his attention. Meanwhile, Li turned again to the network administrator.

  “What’s going on? Have you finished checking yet?”

  The nervous employee crept out from his cubicle. “It’s, um, a little strange. I’ve checked all the computers here in the office. None of them have been assigned that particular IP address.”

  “What does he mean? Is there some mistake here?” Han whispered to Zeng.

  “The office network definitely assigned this address to a user, and, um, a computer definitely logged in with it sometime around three this afternoon,” the administrator stuttered. “But the strange thing is that it wasn’t one of ours.” He glanced anxiously at his boss.

  Li’s eyes widened. “Not one of our computers? If it isn’t one of ours, then how could it have accessed our network?”

  Sweat began to pour down the administrator’s forehead. “I…I was planning to set up a password by the end of the week…”

  “Well, there goes our lead,” Zeng told Han glumly. “Anyone with a laptop could have logged in to their system. They didn’t even need to be inside this office!”

  Han’s face fell. Their lead had crumbled to dust.

  “You didn’t set up a password?” Li shouted. “Why don’t you just post our door key-code out front while you’re at it?”

  The administrator hung his head, silently enduring his boss’s rage.

  Zeng patted Li’s shoulder. “There’s no point yelling at him.”

  “Why not?” A vein bulged from the manager’s forehead.

  “Even if he’d set up triple-layer security on your network, the man we’re looking for would have cracked it in a matter of minutes.”

  Han waved his hand. “We’re finished here,” he said, a tone of disgust in his voice.

  * * *

  As he drove the police cruiser back to headquarters, Yin couldn’t help but speak his mind.

  “I knew that today would be a waste of time. The killer’s too smart to leave a trail online. Why else would he have the guts to challenge us with these death notices?”

  Han coldly stared at his assistant. “Our opponent is already prepared for tomorrow. Are you?”

  “That…That’s not what I meant, Captain,” Yin said sheepishly.

  “Just pipe down, will you two?” Zeng grumbled. “Both hands on the wheel, Yin. I want to catch up on my beauty sleep.”

  Yin stayed quiet for the rest of the ride back.

  They reached headquarters approximately ten minutes later. Zeng got out and walked alone. In spite of his exhaustion, he went to Mu’s room instead of returning to his own quarters for sleep. He entered without knocking. Mu, busy preparing food, had left her door open.

  Zeng walked right in, only to be greeted by a scowling Mu. They were both civilian officers, but due to her status as a lecturer at the provincial academy, Mu viewed herself as slightly above Zeng. She was not at all happy at his attempts to ingratiate himself as a peer.

  “Why are you here?”

  “To discuss the case with my esteemed colleague, of course. Why else did you think I’d come here?” Grinning, Zeng seated himself on the sofa. He inhaled through his nostrils, milking the moment. “Ah, even your room smells wonderful. Beauty is as beauty does.”

  “If you wanted to talk about the case, then why did you shut the door behind you?”

  “Don’t you usually close the door when you’re meeting with the captain?” Zeng asked with a mischievo
us grin.

  As shameless as Zeng’s words may have sounded, Mu didn’t view him as anything but harmless. Besides, his attitude was contagious. “Tell me what you really want to talk about,” she asked. “After all, you’ve come all the way here. Why waste time beating around the bush?”

  “Han assigned you a special task,” he said in a low voice. Mu was surprised at how quickly his jocular tone had evaporated. “You’re investigating Pei.”

  Mu tilted her head slightly to the right. “That’s an interesting theory, Zeng.”

  The man smirked with apparent satisfaction. “As far as the case is concerned, Captain Pei Tao is as suspicious as they come. He was very close to both victims at the warehouse fire eighteen years ago—in love with one and best friends with the other. He was also the first one to call it in to the police. His behavior before the explosion was erratic, to say the least. Fast-forward to three days ago, and again he was first on the scene at Sergeant Zheng’s murder. Quite a series of coincidences. All things considered, Han would be crazy not to have Pei under surveillance.”

  “Your logic is surprisingly sound,” Mu said, taking a seat across from Zeng. “Is this where I’m supposed to wonder whether I’ve underestimated you?”

  Zeng waggled his eyebrows. In his mind, it might have been a flirtatious gesture; in reality, it only made him look even goofier.

  “And you assumed I was just another by-the-book macho cop! I have more information on the 4/18 case than any of you do. Han wanted me to run computer analyses on the bulk of the data.”

  “Oh?” Mu raised her eyebrows. “Any discoveries so far?”

  “There were several internal disciplinary investigations at the academy before the 4/18 case occurred. They were all linked, too.”

  Mu shook her head. “The case file didn’t mention any of this.”

  “Better put on a helmet,” Zeng said smugly, “because I’m about to blow your mind. Over the course of six months before the 4/18 murders, so-called ‘discipline notices’ were found at the police academy.”

  “A ‘discipline notice’?” Suddenly Mu sucked in her breath. “Are you telling me—”

  “I’m getting to that,” Zeng interrupted. “There were four of these notices, and each one was secretly given to a different student at the academy who had committed some kind of minor infraction. Each student was disciplined—ostensibly by the mysterious individual who had written the notes—according to the gravity of his or her respective violation. The punishments were…embarrassing, but none of them were felonies, naturally, and were handled by the provincial academy.”

  Mu sensed that Zeng was holding back intentionally. This time she refused to bite.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you the best part. Each notice was signed…” He paused deliberately.

  Mu rolled her eyes. “Come on, Zeng.”

  “ ‘Eumenides’!” the young officer said with relish. “And it gets better. The style of handwriting was very similar to that of the later death notices.”

  “My god,” Mu replied. She was stunned.

  “There’s something else I should mention,” Zeng added, nonchalantly. “Each of the four discipline notices was found after the punishment had taken place.”

  “They had no warning?” Mu asked with excitement. “Tell me the details.”

  “My files list a total of four cases involving discipline notices. The first notice appeared in late 1983. It accused the target of cheating on an exam, and it was delivered on the day the academy announced the students’ exam scores. This particular pupil wound up with a big, fat goose egg.

  “The subsequent academy investigation revealed that all the answers this student claimed to have written in his test papers had mysteriously disappeared. He demanded an explanation from the course instructor, but the name and exam number written on his test papers were his handwriting beyond any doubt. The student was expelled without any further argument.

  “After the 4/18 murders, though, the task force tracked this student down. He was working as a waiter in a hot-pot restaurant owned by his father. After the team members convinced him that they weren’t trying to drum up charges for a lawsuit, the kid admitted that he actually did cheat on that test. However, he insisted that he had absolutely no idea as to how his test papers had become blank.”

  “What about the other cases?”

  “The second discipline notice targeted a female student for stealing cash and personal belongings from several young women in her dorm. One day, the girl emerged from the showers to discover the clothes inside her locker had vanished into thin air. The locker was still locked tight. Only one key could have opened the lock, and it had been dangling from her wrist the entire time she was showering. It was beyond anyone how this ‘Eumenides’ could have snatched the clothes from her locker.”

  Mu stayed quiet as she tried to unravel the puzzle of Eumenides’s methods.

  “The third mark was a male student with a bad reputation for spying on others and then making their secrets public. One day at midnight, the campus-wide PA system crackled to life blaring out extremely private entries from his journal. Later they discovered that someone had broken into the broadcasting room and played a prerecorded message from a cassette tape.” Zeng grinned before finishing the story. “Now here’s the kicker—the student’s journal was on his person at all times. No one was able to come up with any explanation as to how this Eumenides character was aware of the journal’s contents.”

  He laced his fingers behind his head. Mu could tell that he was enjoying this, but she was enthralled all the same.

  “The final target was another male student. His crime was…I guess you could say he loved too much. One girl too many, to be specific. The student went to a dance in the campus ballroom. Both of the girls he was dating were waiting for him, thus exposing his two-timing tendencies. Later, both girls claimed to have received handwritten notes from the student inviting them to the dance. Now, this kid might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he clearly wouldn’t have done something that stupid. This was Eumenides’s work, without a doubt.”

  Mu’s mind was racing. “What about the cassette?” she asked. “The one that was broadcast over the campus PA during the third case? Eumenides’s voice was recorded on it. It’s not too difficult to mimic someone else’s handwriting, but transforming your own voice is a whole other matter altogether.”

  “You cut right to the center, like a hot knife through butter. A woman after my own heart!” Beaming, Zeng took out an MP3 player from his pocket. “I’ve got the recording from the cassette right here. Would you like to listen?”

  Mu grabbed the headphones, and she heard a low and muffled male voice speaking into her ears. “What’s wrong with his voice?” she asked.

  “That’s an easy one. He was holding his nose,” Zeng said, pinching his own nose as he spoke. The odd timbre sounded similar to the one in the recording.

  “Can we manipulate it?”

  “Eighteen years ago, the answer would probably be no. Things are different now,” Zeng snickered. “Today’s software can do things you couldn’t even imagine. We can modify the audio to simulate what this person might sound like when speaking in a normal tone of voice.”

  Zeng tapped a button on the MP3 player. Now the recorded voice sounded far more normal. It also sounded oddly familiar, although Mu couldn’t quite place the source.

  “He sounds young now, doesn’t he? That tells us that he was probably in his late teens or early twenties eighteen years ago. Now, if we make a few more tweaks with our software, we can simulate what he would sound like eighteen years later.”

  An eerie smile crept over Zeng’s lips as he skipped to the next track on the MP3 player. The voice in the headphones was deeper now. Mu’s eyes widened.

  “Captain Pei!”

  Zeng felt a swell of pride. He
rocked his head from side to side in a playful manner. “I’m guessing you realize how important your assignment is.”

  Mu removed the headphones. “Does Han know about this?”

  “Nope,” Zeng said, shaking his head nonchalantly.

  Mu stared at the young man for a long moment. “Then why are you telling me?” she asked coldly. “This is the kind of thing you should be reporting to the captain.”

  Zeng grinned again. “Can you blame a guy for finding an excuse to talk to a beautiful woman?”

  His eyes darted slyly around the room. He didn’t see any photographs or keepsakes that would suggest a boyfriend, or any family at all, for that matter. The room’s only distinguishing characteristic was a small stack of books by Nietzsche, B. F. Skinner, and Cai Yuanpei—all names he barely recognized. Mu didn’t appear to be the social sort, to say the least.

  “Are you finished?” Mu gave a disdainful snort. “I’m calling Han and telling him to come over right now.”

  Seeing that Mu was about to grab the room’s telephone, Zeng quickly reached for her hand. “Hey, just a minute, now. Are you trying to sell me out?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on, right now.”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll tell you the truth. I haven’t spent too much time around Pei Tao, but I’m positive that he isn’t a murderer.”

  “We have his voice as evidence for these disciplinary notices,” Mu said. “Even if we don’t have solid proof that he’s behind the death notices that followed, we have enough evidence to suspect him. He got a student kicked out of the academy, remember?”

  “But those were pranks, and that student admitted that he was cheating. Look, at the very least, do you honestly think Pei was faking his reaction when Han told us about the explosion?”

  Mu frowned at him.

  “Besides, I’ve got a gut feeling about him,” Zeng added. “A lot better than my feeling about Han. That’s why I want to get to the bottom of this with an expert psychologist like yourself.”