by Zhou HaoHui
They had less than thirteen hours before Peng’s death notice would be carried out, critical moments for the task force. Han saw to it that Pei had already been removed.
“Enjoying yourself, Captain?”
Mu set her dining tray on the opposite side of the table.
“I should be thanking you,” Pei said in a rather unfriendly tone. “For all this free time.”
Mu smiled. “You wouldn’t happen to be implying that I had anything to do with that? I’m sitting this out too, you know.”
“That’s because you have a more important task.”
Mu stiffened. “I’m not following you,” she said with a touch of frustration.
Pei took a sip of his beer. His expression stayed neutral, but it did not brighten.
“Fine,” Mu said. “I admit that Zeng and I did investigate you earlier, but that was just because we were ordered to. We’re all police officers here. I can tell you with certainty that neither Zeng nor I believe that you’re the killer.”
Pei stabbed a chunk of tofu. “How magnanimous of you.”
“Listen to this,” Mu said. She took out Zeng’s MP3 player and selected the track he had played for her earlier.
Pei froze as soon as the original Eumenides recording began to play. The last time he heard these words, they had been playing over the police academy’s PA system. His eyelids fluttered shut; he was enveloped in the past. Finally, as though waking up from a dream, he removed the headphones.
“It’s me, of course. I was the one behind that incident,” Pei said, his eyes watering.
“As I’m sure you know,” said Mu, “4/18 wasn’t the first time the name Eumenides was used in connection with the academy. Four known academy students were punished by this Eumenides. There was a male student who cheated on an exam and was subsequently expelled, a female student with a tendency toward theft, a male student who liked revealing other people’s personal secrets, and another who was unfaithful in his relationships.
“I know you didn’t kill anyone. I was sure of that from the first moment I met you. The grief and hatred in your eyes were real. Yet somehow, you are tied to these events. What are you hiding?”
“There’s no need to be so polite. You already have enough evidence to have me taken into custody and commence a formal interrogation.”
“Zeng did an independent analysis of the recording before giving it to me. Han doesn’t know anything about this. The two of us believe you. Can’t you believe us? I merely want to hear what you have to say.”
Pei’s defensive shell cracked. He decided to tell her something that he had never revealed to anyone else.
“I’m responsible for the first and third of the four events you just described. Meng did the others.”
Mu gasped. “Both of you! That explains how the person who stole the girl’s clothes wasn’t caught. Why were you teaming up to carry out these schemes?”
“We weren’t teaming up,” the captain corrected her. “It was…a competition.”
“A game?”
Pei winced at the accusatory bite in Mu’s voice. The killer himself had taunted the police with the same word while he tortured Peng Guangfu.
“It might be hard for you to comprehend the kind of relationship Meng and I had. The deeper we fell in love, the stronger our rivalry grew. We both admired and respected one another, but neither of us could tame the other.” He shook his head, as though waking from a reverie. “It’s a strange feeling. You wouldn’t understand it.”
Mu’s smile suggested otherwise. “I do.”
“Really?” Pei raised an eyebrow.
“You’re both Scorpios. When two Scorpios get too close to one another, the encounter always ends in victory for one side. And only for one.”
Pei shot her a look of bewilderment.
“I may be a psychologist,” she snapped. “But I keep an open mind.”
“Maybe you’re right about the two of us,” he said. “We were always trying to control each other. Neither of us was ever quite willing to give way.”
“We don’t need to talk about these things right now,” Mu said, poking at her steamed fish. “It would be better if you told me about what actually happened back at the academy, from beginning to end.”
“The whole thing was my fault.” Pei bowed his head. “A group of classmates had organized a mystery story competition in their spare time. The idea gained steam, and soon enough our entire class was talking about it. Meng had a real creative side to her. One night she told me a story about a woman who punished criminals the law couldn’t touch. She gave her hero a name from Greek mythology: Eumenides.
“Meng asked for my feedback,” Pei went on. “I didn’t agree with her choice to make the protagonist a woman. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I just thought it would be a little more realistic if a male were at the center of that kind of story. Things escalated into a fight. She called me sexist and patriarchal. Eventually, we made a bet. We would test the story in real life and see who would prove more successful, a male or female Eumenides.”
Mu’s face lit up. “The competition.”
“I suppose we’re all a bit ridiculous when we’re young. We decided that we’d take turns playing Eumenides, and the other would assume the role of an investigator. If the latter could figure out how Eumenides had done it, they would win the bet. I was one of the top criminal investigation majors back then, and Meng was a psychology student. I didn’t think it would take much effort to beat her, but after two rounds, we were tied.”
“How did you manage to pull off those two escapades of yours?” Mu asked. “You might not have been able to figure out Meng’s methods, but Zeng and I are just as clueless about yours. How did you do it?”
“That’s between me and Meng.” Pei smiled. “She’s the only one I would tell.”
For the briefest of moments, Mu felt a flash of jealousy.
“I never had the chance to tell her…,” Pei said. “But I needed to beat her. I was actually planning a fifth round—one that would catch her by surprise. It was supposed to take place on the same day she went to the warehouse in search of Yuan.”
An idea came to Mu. There was another interpretation of what happened at the warehouse—a possibility no one had raised. Certainly not Pei.
“When you saw the death notice for Yuan, you thought it was Meng’s handiwork.”
Pei winced as if he had been slapped. “That’s right. Meng had already punished a womanizer. And on several occasions she had told me point-blank that she detested the way Yuan treated women. My first thought was that Meng had done something to him to get back at me for staying friends with Yuan.”
“That’s why you didn’t notify the police.” Mu nodded. “You did everything you could to get in touch with Meng yourself.”
“Meng hated Yuan’s behavior, but I’ve never believed for a second that she carried out the death notice on Yuan. At most, I thought she might have tied him up to humiliate him—that she was just going to teach him a lesson and force me to admit defeat in our competition.”
“When Mu saw that death notice, she could have thought the same thing. That you wanted to make a move against Yuan!”
“That’s what I assumed later on. It explains why she didn’t call the police either, and why she set out alone to search for Yuan.” Pei let out a bitter laugh. His eyes were tinged red. “A few days ago you asked why Meng put so much faith in me when she was dismantling the bomb. My greatest fear is that she believed me because she thought I’d made the bomb!”
Mu nodded grimly to herself. Finally, she offered a conclusion of her own.
“What you’re telling me is that the real killer copied the idea for this Eumenides character in order to carry out his crime?”
“He must have,” Pei said. “He wanted to make a statement. He was the true
Eumenides, not us.”
“But why wait eighteen years to make his next move?”
“He must have his reasons, but I’m not sure what they are.” Pei took a swig of beer and squinted at Mu. “You know, there’s another thing that’s been bothering me. Maybe you can help.”
“What is it?”
“Meng and I always posted our notices after we had already finished punishing our targets. If we served as his inspiration, then why did he deliver his death notices before committing the murders? And why is he doing the same thing now? And why does he kill?”
“The killer’s intentions are not yours. He adopted your and Meng’s model, then constructed a game that would give him the thrill he seeks. Perhaps your way wasn’t exciting enough for him. Now his game is evolving. In addition to Zheng and Ye, he’s already brutally executed twelve suspects involved in twelve unsolved cases, and without giving us any warning. He attached those death notices to the macabre trophies in the suitcase only after it was too late to stop him. While this may seem to violate his original MO, it seems that doing so was merely a setup to announce his primary victim in the next round. Peng Guangfu.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple. I’ve read about cases in other countries where serial killers played games with the police, but they never revealed their victim’s identities before committing the murder. If it’s the thrill he’s seeking, then that would be the process he’d carry out. To alert the police before committing a murder? That’s a steep learning curve. Plus, consider those videos he showed us. Not only was he able to track down suspects that had evaded the Chengdu police—he was able to murder them in complete secrecy. Mu, we’re dealing with someone immensely skilled.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“I need you to get me access to all the relevant files for the 4/18 case. Including anything that you or Zeng might have been keeping for yourselves.”
“Absolutely,” Mu answered without hesitation. “Let’s go back to my room.”
* * *
Pei was struck by the sparse tidiness of Mu’s room. A book titled Beyond Freedom and Dignity lay on the side of her reading desk, next to a neat stack of folders.
After removing her shoes, Mu sat down cross-legged on her bed. “Bring that chair over,” she said, motioning toward the chair at the desk. “And those files.”
Pei did just that, and Mu spread the contents of the folders across the bed. The documents were filled with information Pei had never seen before, including written records and analyses concerning his involvement in the case.
The more he read, the lower his mood sank. Once he felt he had already hit an emotional bottom, he shut his eyes and began rubbing his cheeks, gradually working his way to the back of his head. To Mu, it looked as if he were trying to squeeze something out from inside his brain. Or perhaps trying to keep something in.
He turned back to the files, slowly flipping through them. When he reached a certain page, he stopped. A look of astonishment spread across his face.
“What is it?” Mu asked, the hair on the back of her neck prickling.
“Unbelievable. It’s unbelievable!” His eyes were gaping wide. “How could they ignore such an important discrepancy?”
“What discrepancy?”
“The time! The time is wrong!” Pei pointed to the time stamp on one page. “Look right here. The file records the time of the warehouse explosion as 4:13 in the afternoon. No. I clearly remember telling the police that the explosion happened at 4:15! It even says so here in my statement!”
“It’s only two minutes. But still…”
Mu cut herself off with a gentle shake of her head. She, too, had noted the differing times, but it had not seemed important enough to consider as a significant clue. The police recorded the explosion at 4:13 p.m., based on data recorded by the city’s environmental department. The accuracy of this information was beyond question. Pei’s testimony was off by two minutes; what was so strange about that?
“No, you can’t doubt me here!” Pei said vehemently, as if anticipating what Mu was already thinking. “I was watching the clock on my wall the whole time I was talking to Meng. When the explosion cut the signal, the time was 4:15. I can tell you everything about that moment—the two birds chirping outside my window, the empty Coke bottle on my desk, the crackle from my radio. And the clock said 4:15. That was the time, right down to the second!”
“So your clock was fast.”
“I used to wind that clock every single night. I’d double-check it against the time announced on the radio. It was a habit of mine; as long as I was staying in my dorm, I never broke it. That clock was extremely precise. It would keep perfect time for up to two weeks at a time.”
“For argument’s sake, let’s say you are right about the time.” Mu decided to try and accept Pei’s explanation, if only temporarily. But she was still skeptical. “Then how could this have happened? Maybe…there were two explosions?”
Pei shook his head slowly. “That’s impossible. I was talking to Meng on the walkie-talkie until 4:15. How could the police have recorded the explosion as already happening at 4:13? Unless…”
“Unless that conversation was staged,” Mu said, continuing Pei’s train of thought. “And if that were true, what would it mean?”
“Yes, what would it mean?” Pei murmured. An unbelievable hypothesis had already begun forming in his mind, one that he hoped against all hope wasn’t true. He told himself to stay calm, but blood was already surging to his head.
In a calm tone, Mu answered Pei’s question. “It means that Meng was still alive after the explosion.”
Shock seized Pei’s nerves. With a shudder, he stared dumbfounded at Mu. Finally, he spoke.
“Is that possible?”
“If this time discrepancy you’re talking about really happened, then we have no choice but to consider that option.”
“So you’re saying that my conversation with Meng took place after the explosion?”
“That’s right. And if we continue with this line of thought, we’ll inevitably end up with two conclusions.
“The first is that your conversation with Meng over the walkie-talkie was merely a diversion she had prepared in order to make you believe that she’d perished in the explosion. The second explains why you were unable to reach her before she contacted you from the warehouse.”
Pei blinked at Mu in disbelief.
“Meng simply switched off her walkie-talkie at 4:13, at the actual time of the explosion. Then she turned it on again afterward. At 4:15 she turned it off again to make you think that the explosion had actually occurred then.”
Pei drew in a quick breath. “You’re saying that Meng…that she’s Eumenides? But our suspect is male!”
“Perhaps she found an accomplice.” A new idea came to Mu. She rifled through the documents containing the written records. “You were able to hear Yuan’s voice through your walkie-talkie, right? That gives us two possibilities. Either Yuan’s voice was prerecorded—or he didn’t die either.”
Pei understood where Mu was going with this. Could Meng and Yuan have been conspiring together? While it would have posed little difficulty for two ace academy students to find corpses they could use to stage the aftermath of an explosion, it did bring up some serious questions. Why would Yuan and Meng do this to him? One had been his closest friend, and the other had been even closer. It was impossible for Pei to accept.
“Hold on.” Mu was still examining the records. “There is no evidence for Yuan’s survival. In your account, you told us that you never interacted with him during your conversation on the walkie-talkie. That means that Yuan’s voice might have been prerecorded.”
“So in other words, Meng had already used the bomb to kill Yuan, and she’d invented an elaborate cover-up to go along with it.”
But why would she do
that? Just because of a grudge? Or had she truly been unable to tolerate Yuan’s treatment of his previous girlfriend—and burned his body to a crisp? If she was still alive, then where had she been for the past eighteen years? Why hadn’t she tried to contact him? Question after question assaulted his mind.
“Pei, I need you to do your best to remember something. You were closer to him than anyone else. Is it at all possible that Yuan was Ye Shaohong’s murderer?”
“I’ve watched the footage from Citizen Square a hundred times. Nothing about the man who killed her reminds me of Yuan. Or of Meng, for that matter. The killer didn’t look or act like Yuan. The voice on the videos wasn’t him either,” Pei said, shaking his head.
“Who can he be? If Meng really was Eumenides and originally staged the explosion, then where did this new killer come from?”
Suddenly, Mu burst into a bitter laugh. Oddly enough, her expression was one of relief.
“What is it?” Pei asked delicately.
“Everything that we’ve just discussed is all based on one presumption that’s impossible to prove—that there’s an error in the time of the explosion listed in the records. Now we’ve even gone so far as to suspect Meng! Tell me, Pei—did Meng seem like the type of person who’d go off and commit a series of murders?”
Pei immediately shook his head.
“That’s why I feel the most likely answer is that you simply reported the wrong time,” Mu said bluntly. “This cannot be nearly as complicated as we’re making it out to be. We are hunting a cold-blooded killer. Is a discrepancy of two minutes really worth our attention? Besides, the original investigation team was full of experienced members of the police force, and none of them fussed over this particular detail.”
“No.” Pei’s tone remained firm. “There’s something wrong here! Precision is essential to my life. I wouldn’t have been wrong about the time.”
Mu smiled. “Actually, I’ve just thought of the person we need to see.”
Pei realized whom she meant. He rose from his seat.
