Death Notice

by Zhou HaoHui

  “Huang has been lying to us,” she said. “Shall we pay him another visit?”

  OCTOBER 24, 2:18 P.M.

  HUANG’S APARTMENT

  It was the hottest hour of the afternoon. Pei and Mu felt the sun pound down as they approached Huang’s raggedy home.

  “It’s unlocked,” Huang said. They walked in and stepped into a stifling, otherworldly gloom.

  The apartment had barely changed since their last visit. Huang was busy sorting through a pile of cans and bottles, presumably for resale. He stomped each empty bottle and can one at a time before tying them into bundles. This was intense work for Huang. The explosion had mangled his hands and feet—in fact, not a single part of his entire body had been left intact.

  Pei observed the scene with pity. Why would a man like this feel the need to lie? What was he hiding?

  Huang stopped what he was doing and greeted his guests. “You two…,” he rasped. “Turn the light on. The switch is right next to your hand.”

  Mu pulled the chain, and a cracked bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered to life. In terms of illumination, it wasn’t much, but the light brought some life into the room.

  “I’m too stingy to use the power for myself. I only turn it on when I have guests over,” Huang explained glumly.

  Mu felt guilty. It almost bordered on cruelty to suspect him of being involved in the crime.

  Pei took a seat on a lopsided stool. “It’s time you told us the truth,” he said.

  “Huh?” Huang was taken aback.

  “Eighteen years ago, you said you saw the girl talking to me over her walkie-talkie. You were even able to describe our conversation. That was a lie! The conversation actually took place several minutes after the explosion. At that time, you should have been barely clinging to the edge of life. How could you know what had happened two minutes after the explosion?” Pei leveled his finger at the man, shaking with barely constrained rage.

  Huang stared blankly. It wasn’t the reaction Pei was expecting.

  “Give me the truth. What really happened that day?” the officer demanded.

  Huang was still gawking at Pei as if in a daze. Mu shot Pei a disapproving glance. What secrets could they expect a pitiful man like this to be hiding? Pei was acting like a bully, and nothing more.

  A moment later, however, a painful sound forced its way out from Huang’s throat.

  “You’re right. I did lie.”

  “What really happened?” Pei asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I was right next to the main door to the warehouse. At first, I couldn’t see anything at all. Then the bomb went off. I…I really have no idea what was going on then.”

  “You’re still lying! If that were true, how would you know what Meng and I talked about in our conversation?”

  “Because you’re the one who told me.”

  Pei looked at the man, dumbfounded. His hand subconsciously went to his sidearm.

  “After I woke up at the hospital, Sergeant Zheng questioned me for days. I didn’t know anything. Then one day, he left a notebook by my bed while he went to the restroom. It hurt like hell just to move my arms, but I managed to flip through the notebook. I was just starting to read someone’s description of a radio conversation they’d had with the girl right before the explosion happened.” Huang chuckled sourly to himself. “During your last visit, I finally learned that this person was you.”

  “You used my statement to lie to the police?” Pei wasn’t prepared to give up so easily. “If you didn’t know what happened, why would you fabricate a story about that night?”

  “Look at me! How am I supposed to live? I was a junk collector without a coin to my name. Why would the doctors at the hospital want to help me? Even an uneducated guy like me knew the real reason. The police thought I was useful. They even set me up in this beautiful place. They were hoping that I could give them leads that could help them solve the case. If I was honest with the police and told them I didn’t know anything, then what value would I have? Why would the doctors keep treating me? And most important, why would the cops pay for my new apartment?” Huang’s voice grew feeble, as if the air was leaking from his lungs.

  Pei sat down, disappointment written across his face. As far as he was concerned, Huang was a dead end. He had simply exploited the system for his own gains. The thought of further questioning Huang filled Pei with shame.

  Noticing Pei’s silence, Huang returned to his own work. After he moved the bundles of bottles and cans over to the other side of the room, he went back to the officer and asked imploringly, “Officer Pei, can you help me?”

  “With what?”

  “Bring that hemp bag inside. I may be around your age, but the years haven’t been kind to me. Seems my body gets weaker every day.”

  Pei felt a pang of pity for Huang. The files on the man had revealed him to be in his mid-thirties, but Huang’s appearance suggested that he was at least a decade older. Pei got up and approached the door.

  “There’s a heap of bottles next to the bag. I’d appreciate it if you could bring them in as well,” Huang added in his raspy voice. Pei left the apartment, and when Huang saw that Mu was about to go out and help him, he reached out to stop her. “Ms. Mu, could you hand me that cup of water?”

  Mu obligingly picked up the cup from the side table and handed it to Huang.

  “Thanks.”

  As Huang took the cup from her, he gripped her wrist tightly. Mu’s eyes widened in shock.

  “I know more,” Huang said quietly, with eyes on the doorway. “But I’m afraid. You’re the only person I can tell—in private.”

  Mu’s heart was pounding. Huang wanted to keep something from Pei.

  The man leaned forward until his ragged features were almost pressed against Mu’s face. “Come back tonight. Whatever you do, don’t let him find out.”

  Footsteps sounded at the door, and Pei walked back inside the apartment dragging a large bag. Huang let go of Mu’s hand. She took several steps back, making as strong an effort as possible to mask her astonishment. Pei was calm. He didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

  The two officers remained silent after leaving Huang’s home. Pei assumed that the visit had been a failure for both of them, particularly for Mu in trying to use Huang’s testimony to refute the captain’s “missing time” hypothesis.

  After walking side by side for some time, Mu spoke up. “So what do we do now?”

  “There’s definitely something strange about the time of the explosion,” Pei answered. “And there might still be a way to prove it.”

  “How?”

  “We go straight to the evidence. If my earlier guess is correct, Meng didn’t die in the explosion. The female body they found at the scene wasn’t her.”

  “How can we know?” Mu shrugged. “It’s been eighteen years. They cremated the bodies long ago, and we didn’t have the technology to identify DNA back then. There can’t be anything of value left behind.”

  “We’ll go to the archives in the forensic center,” he explained. “In a situation like the warehouse explosion, there’s no way the investigators would have been able to declare the victims’ identities with one-hundred-percent certainty. It would have been standard practice for them to have saved dental casts for Yuan and Meng before cremating the remains.”

  “As far as I know, Meng and Yuan didn’t leave behind any dental records before they perished. Even if we’re able to get our hands on some dental casts, how will you know whether or not they came from their teeth?”

  Pei paused. “I’ll think of something,” he said softly.

  * * *

  They arrived at the archive room of the forensic center an hour later. After the two team members filled out the paperwork and received permission, whi
ch was no easy feat, the attendant presented the forensic evidence from the 1984 warehouse explosion. Pei soon spotted the dental casts taken from Meng and Yuan.

  After briefly comparing both casts, he set down the larger of the two and examined the delicate one in his hand. Then he did something that made Mu’s jaw drop. He raised the plaster up to his mouth and pressed his lips against it. Extending his tongue, he gently rubbed it against the two rows of plaster teeth.

  As Pei kissed the mold, eyes shut, decades-old emotions came rushing back. He remembered every sunset and every embrace he had ever shared with Meng. The sensation of her lips against his was one that time could never erase.

  Mu resisted the urge to turn away. She watched Pei pause; his fingers trembled as he held the mold against his lips. He placed the mold back onto the tray with a clacking sound and opened his eyes. Tears as thick as raindrops covered his cheeks.

  “It’s her,” Pei said, unsuccessfully holding back a whimper. “She had a chip on the edge of one of her front teeth. I kept telling her to get it repaired, but she was adamant about keeping it. She said she wouldn’t feel like herself without that chipped tooth.”

  Mu could sense the depth of the pain in Pei’s words. “Good,” she said gently. “So now we can be sure that Meng wasn’t the killer. We can keep our investigation on the right path.”

  Pei wiped away his tears. He scowled. “ ‘On the right path’? You still don’t believe me about the time discrepancy?”

  “The facts are right in front of us!” Mu shouted in reaction to Pei’s stubbornness. She pointed to the mold that he had just set down. “Meng is dead. She perished in the explosion eighteen years ago! I realize you don’t want to accept it, but these are the facts. I know you understand this. What are you fighting for, anyway?”

  Lowering his head, Pei walked out into the hall. He said nothing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DEATH MINE

  OCTOBER 24, 8:11 P.M.

  Mu remained in a corner of the cafeteria, alone with her thoughts and an emptied bowl of spicy dandan noodles. Less than four hours remained until Eumenides’s deadline. The rest of the team buzzed like a hive of anxious bees, but she and Pei were left hanging. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling.

  “Eating alone? Let me keep you company.”

  Zeng put down his tray and sat across from her. Mu didn’t mind; she had gotten used to his cocky—and utterly tactless—advances. In their own way, these attempts were almost charming.

  “Late dinner, Officer Zeng?”

  “Ah, work. On the positive side, my firsthand knowledge of migraines has doubled over the past few days.” Zeng tilted his head, and mixed his food with chopsticks. “We’ve made zero progress.”

  As a civilian officer, Zeng had also been excluded from the four-person squad currently preparing for their mission to rescue Peng Guangfu. Zeng’s task was to scour law enforcement records for any officers who fit their profile of the killer.

  He began his search with great confidence. He instructed his team to pinpoint a male suspect whose military or police training included instruction in explosives, criminal investigation techniques, combat, and computers. In order to narrow the search, he also cross-referenced each name with a list of students enrolled at the provincial academy in 1984, when Pei and Mu first created Eumenides.

  So far, these results had amounted to essentially nothing.

  An officer with the Sichuan provincial police had even put Zeng in touch with the Special Department of the Ministry of State Security. This time, however, the results were overwhelming. Zeng had spent hours sifting through the files on each match, checking the times they had reported in and out of work against the times that Eumenides had been active. He had found no matches so far.

  The lack of progress gnawed at Zeng, but his disposition kept it from affecting his mood. To the contrary, sitting across from an attractive woman only increased his appetite. Which, considering the heap of noodles piled on his plate, was already considerable.

  “Now, what about that partner of yours?” he teased between mouthfuls. “I hear you and the captain were thick as thieves this afternoon.”

  “We found several leads, but they might not amount to anything.”

  Mu went on to tell him about Pei’s hypothesis regarding the time discrepancy in the files. Considering Zeng’s knack for technical analysis, she hoped that he would be able to shed some new light on this conundrum. His eyes widened as he listened.

  “I have to say that I agree with your opinion. This so-called time discrepancy of Pei’s simply can’t exist.”

  Mu lit up. “Would you be able to confirm that?”

  “The police records leave no room for doubt. There was only one explosion, and it occurred at 4:13 in the afternoon, killing Meng and Yuan. Since both were very dead by 4:15, as Pei confirmed, he must have the time wrong. I’m also assuming he would have recognized an imposter from the dental cast. Therefore, if there really was a time discrepancy, we’d have to face the absurd conclusion that the dead can speak.”

  Theoretical impossibilities like this one are essential to breaking this case, Pei had said. We need to find a rational explanation for this—because as soon as we do, we’ll be close to cracking the entire investigation.

  “This reminds me of something one of my supervisors told me,” Mu said. “ ‘When someone makes a choice that’s impossible for you to understand, you shouldn’t get angry at their stubbornness. Instead, you should consider whether this person is hiding something.’ ”

  “It’s simple logic,” Zeng replied hastily. “I’m willing to bet Pei knows more than we do. If he’s insisting there was a time difference, then you need to ask yourself if he’s hiding something.”

  Mu raised her eyebrows. “Such as?”

  “Meng. Can you be sure that he was telling the truth about how she died?”

  Mu thought it over, and a chill went through her heart. Was it possible that the events from all those years ago had actually deepened the bonds of affection between them? If Meng had survived, she would be a prime suspect in the subsequent investigation. But would Pei mislead the police—and the task force—to protect the woman he loved?

  Mu shivered with excitement. She thought back to the tears Pei had shed in the evidence room. The psychologist could only guess what emotions he had truly felt.

  Zeng broke her train of thought. “You’d better keep a close eye on Pei. He might even be the key to breaking this case.”

  “That’s right,” Mu said, nodding. “I’m hoping for a big discovery tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes. I have a lead. One connected to Pei.”

  “What lead might that be?” Zeng’s ears pricked.

  Mu stood up. “I need to go.”

  “That’s not fair!” Zeng exclaimed through a mouthful of noodles. “Tell me about this lead of yours before you go!”

  “You worry about your assignment, and I’ll worry about mine,” she said, smirking.

  OCTOBER 24, 9:47 P.M.

  The signal detector that Eumenides had left in the hotel room was the key to finding Peng Guangfu—and hopefully to capturing Eumenides. Zeng and his team had examined the device rigorously, stopping just short of stripping it apart, and they had not found a single tracing device or bug. As far as they could tell, it could receive signals but not send them.

  Han had selected Xiong as his second-in-command for the four-person squad Eumenides had specified that they send. Both men then selected a partner to complete their team. Han chose Yin, his loyal subordinate. Xiong selected his most trusted SPU officer, Liu Song, the one who had picked the lock of Sun Chunfeng’s apartment two mornings earlier. The résumé that Xiong presented to the usually picky Han left him quite pleased:

  Liu Song. 25 years old; 1.75 meters; 70 kg. Proficient in combat, bomb di
sposal, sharpshooting, driving. Unrivaled at lock-picking. Awarded one Second-Class Meritorious Service Medal and two Joint Third-Class Meritorious Service Medals during four years of SPU service.

  The task force had not forgotten the fatal lesson of the previous day’s operation. This time, there would be no opportunity for Eumenides to take advantage of a lack of teamwork. Every member of this four-person squad would be thoroughly acquainted with the others.

  Xiong had suggested that once the device picked up Eumenides’s signal, they would set out as instructed, but have a backup squad follow from a safe distance. If combat broke out, both teams would coordinate their efforts and simultaneously attack from within and without. This, he argued, would greatly increase their chances of success. Han rejected his idea out of hand.

  During the disaster at Citizen Square they had controlled Ms. Ye’s movements, but now they did not even know the location of the man they were supposed to rescue. They were in an unenviably passive position, as they could only face the killer if he deemed it permissible. Therefore, Han said, success would come only if they followed Eumenides’s rules to the very letter, despite any misgivings that they might have about doing so.

  The execution date on Peng’s death notice was no coincidence. October 25 was the tenth anniversary of the police slaying at Mount Twin Deer Park—a day that had turned Captain Han’s life inside out.

  The official report gave the bare bones. At 10:12 p.m. Han and his partner, Zou Xu, had come across a robbery in progress at a convenience store at 652 Qingfeng Road, about a twenty-minute drive from police headquarters. Officers pursued on foot to the nearby Mount Twin Deer Park, where the encounter ended in a shootout. However, the report had omitted some key details:

  On the night of October 25, 1992, Han and Zou Xu had first stumbled out from a restaurant called the Jade Garden, reeking of liquor.

  Although Chengdu’s criminal police department ostensibly maintained a ban on alcohol for officers in uniform, Han and Zou had always celebrated the closing of each case the same way. They would go straight from headquarters to a restaurant owned by Han’s cousin, where they would then treat themselves to a meal of roast fish and mapo tofu, and as many glasses of 120-proof baijiu as they could handle. This night was no different.