Skinner's Box (Fang Mu (Eastern Crimes))

by Lei Mi

  Luo Jiahai shook his head and gave a scornful laugh. "I've studied a bit of law. What's your name?"

  Fang Mu was again caught off-guard. "What?"

  "You're probably the last person I'll talk to, so I might as well know how I should address you."

  "Oh. My name is Fang." He remained outwardly composed, but his palms were beginning to sweat a little. Luo Jiahai's words had revealed even more of just how determined he was to die. He had to think of a way to get him to calm down and feel that there was still room for maneuvering.

  "Officer Fang, you might be unarmed, but I know that there's sure to be a sniper somewhere nearby with a bead on my skull," Luo Jiahai said. "My brains could spill out at any moment. But I want you to know, I am not a bad person. It's true; I killed that woman. Because she had to die. But I haven't harmed this girl; she wouldn't have that sort of smell. I hope this proves that I am not a bad person."

  Smell. It was the second time he had mentioned smell.

  He looked Luo Jiahai in the eyes. "What smell? What do you mean?"

  Luo Jiahai shook his head. "Forget it. You don't need to know, and I don't have time to tell stories. I've killed someone and I don't plan on leaving this place alive. Aw, don't get all nervous," he said with a chuckle, seeing Fang Mu's cheeks blanch. "I won't hurt this girl. But with her in my hands, you people won't open fire just yet; am I right?"

  Before Fan Mu could answer, Luo Jiahai continued.

  He frowned and his tone became serious. "Please, let me have a last moment to be with my thoughts; I have a right to that before I'm killed."

  With this, his attention drifted from Fang Mu to a vague point in front of him, and again the corners of his eyes went lax as his gaze lost its focus.

  Fang Mu’s eyes narrowed as he suddenly asked, "What does a girl wearing red smell like?"

  Luo Jiahai lifted his head abruptly. The expression on his face was one of panic and horror.

  Fang Mu knew he had guessed correctly. He raised his voice. "Who was she?"

  Luo Jiahai's knife was suddenly pointing at Fang Mu again. "You know me? Who are you?"

  Fang Mu was about to answer when he was cut off by Constable Duan's voice whispering in his ear. "Okay, buddy, get him to take about two steps forward."

  Fang Mu felt cold inside. He knew there was a type-85 Dragunov sniper rifle aiming straight into the room from the building across the street. He subtly lifted his right hand, its palm facing the window, giving the discreet tactical sign language for the sniper to hold off.

  Constable Duan's voice was quite stern. "No! The hostage looks in bad shape. We can't wait any longer. We have our orders to take the perp out immediately!"

  Luo Jiahai was completely oblivious to Fang Mu's hand signal. He stared expressionless into Fang Mu's eyes. "How did you know?"

  Fang Mu raised a hand and gestured for him to calm down. "Now's not the time to discuss that. All you need to know is this: I believe you when you say you are not a bad person. Everything you have done is pardonable. If you're willing, I'd be very interested to know the sequence of events that led to this."

  Luo Jiahai's eyes filled with tears and the knife in his hand began to tremble. "They destroyed her life; she was only twenty-two years old…"

  "Fang Mu! You've been given an order!" Bian Ping's voice screeched into his ear.

  Fang Mu was flustered. If they killed Luo Jiahai now, then the secret having to do with the girl and the smell he'd mentioned would be locked away forever, and it could involve someone else – perhaps even that girl's safety.

  Tears were running down Luo Jiahai's face. This bloodstained murderer was now crying like a child who had been wronged. "Why destroy us… We didn't want too much… All we wanted was to enjoy a quiet life…"

  He was now weeping so hard that his entire body seemed to have gone limp. Fang Mu was aware of the briefest of movements in his peripheral vision as the sniper outside in the next building bided his time. Fang Mu knew the marksman could see the veins in Luo Jiahai's neck through his sights; for a split-second he wondered if a shot would be attempted, but then the sniper disappeared again back behind the wall.

  "Just get him to take one more step forward." Constable Duan's words were measured, and Fang Mu realized suddenly that the constable was one of the ones aiming through a sniper scope.

  He could understand how Luo Jiahai's current state might make the people on the roof of the other building think he had lost complete control over his emotions, but he was still unwilling to arouse Luo Jiahai's suspicions. Fang Mu craned his neck around and waved his hand frantically at the window.

  Luo Jiahai had come to a decision. "Officer Fang, I surrender. All I ask is for you to give me a chance to tell the truth about what happened. Shen Xiang and I didn't want to leave this world with the weight of such a crime on our backs..." He'd finally stopped sobbing. He put down the knife. "Here, the kid is yours. I'll go with you."

  He placed one hand at the small of the girl's back and helped her walk over to Fang Mu.

  Fang Mu instinctively reached a hand out to her when the thought flashed through his brain like a lightning bolt.

  Luo Jiahai had entered the sniper's line of sight!

  No! There was no time for Fang Mu to make any more hand signals at the sniper. Bracing himself, he took a sudden lunge forward and placed himself right in front of the window.

  "Damn!" The voice in his ear was furious.

  Fang Mu closed his eyes. For a split second, he thought he heard a 7.62 caliber bullet whistle through the air, crack the glass, and pierce his flesh with a thud. He could even feel his body burning with the heat of the bullet as it penetrated....

  Five seconds went by, and nothing happened. Fang Mu opened his eyes. His forehead was covered in cold sweat.

  He forced a smile at Luo Jiahai. "Come on; let's get out of here."

  No sooner had they walked out the door than the hidden SWAT agents rushed over to receive Luo Jiahai. He was trundled swiftly down the stairs and shoved into a police car. Fang Mu only had time to get the words, "Don't hit him" out of his mouth. The little girl was hurried over to the local hospital, and immediately afterward a sea of investigators flooded the scene of the crime to conduct their business.

  Fang Mu's body felt sore and flaccid. He had to lean on the handrail in the stairwell to make his way slowly downward. Frenzied policemen jumbled past him, and now and then one of them would clap him on the back and say, "Good job!"

  The sudden release of tension left Fang Mu exhausted. He shuffled through the front door of the building one slow step at a time. Outside, a somber Bian Ping and Constable Duan were waiting for him.

  Bian Ping neither praised him nor criticized him. He just said flatly, "A hard job done. Why don't you go sit in the car and rest a while?"

  Fang Mu didn't dare say anything more. He leaned over to remove his gun and holster and handed them to Constable Duan.

  As Duan received them, he fixed his eyes on Fang Mu for a few seconds, and then he held his thumb and forefinger up and closed them together until the gap between them was only about a quarter-inch wide.

  "Zero-point-two seconds." He paused. "Zero-point-two seconds. If I had reacted just zero-point-two seconds too slow, I would have shot you dead."

  Fang Mu smiled weakly and murmured, "Thank you."

  CHAPTER

  2

  Reunion

  Very early next morning, after a good night's sleep, Fang Mu went to the Public Security Bureau. But he was not the first to arrive; as soon as he went in, he was informed that Captain Bian Ping was waiting for him in his office.

  Bian Ping looked beat; his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been up all night. Fang Mu glanced at the ash tray that was overflowing with cigarette butts, and was just trying to guess which case had the knowledgeable Bian Ping scratching his head when, inadvertently, he caught a glimpse of some photos on the desk. One of them was of the woman's body that had been lying in that living room the previous afternoon,
and he realized it was the Luo Jiahai case.

  Bian Ping noticed him gazing at the photos, so he got straight to the point. "This kid's quite interesting."

  Fang Mu handed him a cigarette and lit it for him, then lit himself one. "Are the case files at the precinct?"

  "Yes."

  "Did Luo Jiahai confess?"

  "Nope." Bian Ping rubbed his neck. "The precinct spent all night questioning him, but all the bastard would admit to was killing the old woman; as for his motive, he said nothing. But they got a pretty good idea of where he's coming from. You might not believe this, but he might have committed another murder."

  "What?" Fang Mu was stunned. "It was that girl who wore red, right?"

  Bian Ping stopped and raised his head to look pointedly at him. "That brings me to the question I wanted to ask you. How did you know about a girl who wore red?"

  "I guessed." Fang Mu paused. "From how Luo Jiahai's eyes moved."

  "Okay, I'm listening."

  "Under normal circumstances, if someone is right-handed, then when he's deep in thought and his gaze strays up and to the left, it means he's thinking about something that happened in the past. If it strays up and to the right, it means he's imagining something he's never seen before. If his eyes drift down and to the left, this means he's thinking of a sound or a voice; if they drift down and to the right, it means he's remembering something he's perceived with his eyes or another sense."

  "And the color red? How'd you guess that?"

  "From Luo Jiahai's facial muscles. Usually, when a person is remembering something red, it will evoke a more nervous state of mind and thus cause his facial muscles to stiffen. And if he's remembering something yellow, not only will his facial muscles stiffen, but an expression of aversion and unease will appear on his face as well." Hurrying on, Fang Mu caught his breath to continue. "Yesterday at one point Luo Jiahai seemed deep in thought. I had previously noticed he was holding the knife in his right hand, so when his gaze drifted first up to the left and then back down to the right, and his face went stiff but retained a calm appearance, I guessed that he was thinking of a female. I then took a risk and inferred that he was thinking of a girl wearing red clothing."

  "Hmm." Bian Ping nodded thoughtfully. "I don't doubt that at the time he was indeed thinking of a girl, but she wasn't wearing red."

  "What do you mean?" Fang Mu's eyes went wide.

  "A week ago, three students from Jiangbin City Technical College went missing. They were none other than Luo Jiahai, plus two female students named Shen Xiang and Sang Nannan." Bian Ping paused a moment. "At the time, Shen Xiang was wearing a white dress and Sang Nannan was wearing a yellow T-shirt and black shorts."

  Fang Mu remembered what Luo Jiahai had said: "...Shen Xiang and I didn't want to leave this world with the weight of such a crime on our backs..."

  When he was deep in thought he must have been thinking about that girl Shen Xiang.

  A white dress… with red…

  He suddenly frowned and lifted his head, faced Bian Ping with a searching look, and slowly said, "A white dress stained red."

  "That's what I thought, too." A solemn look came over Bian Ping's features. "At least one of these two girls might already be dead."

  Fang Mu thought a while and asked, "What can we do?"

  "Relax." Bian Ping turned the LCD monitor on the desk so that Fang Mu could see it. "Have a look at this."

  On it a video was playing and appeared to be part of a television program. Fang Mu recalled having seen a video camera on the floor at the scene of the crime, still recording.

  "Was this recorded by that camera that was at the crime scene?"

  "Yes it was." Bian Ping stretched out comfortably on the office couch. "Go ahead and watch it; I'm gonna to take a nap. Stayed up all night last night."

  Through the first 10 or so minutes of the video, nothing was out of the ordinary; it was the same as any show that might normally be seen on television. Fang Mu did notice, however, that Luo Jiahai's face looked gloomy the whole time, probably because he was feeling apprehensive about what he was about to do. When it got to the part when Luo Jiahai pulled out a knife and lunged toward Teacher Qin, the place exploded into chaos. The video's perspective tilted suddenly to the side, and Teacher Qin's tragic cry could be clearly heard amid frantic screams from the TV crew. As Fang Mu watched attentively, the camera's continuously shaking view made him feel dizzy. The shaking seemed to go on for several more seconds, after which everything on the screen rose abruptly upward, turned upside down, and then stopped moving.

  The cameraman must have dropped the camera on the floor before running away, Fang Mu thought. He had to tilt his head sideways to look at the screen. Thinking of how Bian Ping had been rubbing his neck a few moments ago, he laughed in spite of himself.

  A pair of legs wearing light green shorts came into view. Immediately after, there was a piercing scream, and in the background Fang Mu could barely make out the sound of Luo Jiahai's heavy breathing. The owner of the pair of legs ran through a door across from the camera and banged it shut. The lower half of Luo Jiahai's body came into view. He ran a few steps to the door and kicked it open violently. Facing the door was a bed; on it the girl was holding a few books and she began throwing them at Luo Jiahai while screaming, on the edge of hysteria. Luo Jiahai very easily wrestled the girl down onto the bed, tearing her clothes cruelly.

  The girl was quickly overpowered. Her two weak hands beat like feathers against Luo Jiahai's body. He pulled the girl's T-shirt up over her chest and tore her shorts off, pulling them down to her knees. Then he kneeled halfway down, pressing against the girl's legs, and began to undo his belt. When he nearly had his pants off, his gaze seemed to fall on the girl's undeveloped chest and his movements stopped.

  Luo Jiahai's head was bowed, so his face was blocked from view, but Fang Mu could see that his body was shaking. The girl used her last bit of strength to pull her legs up, and her movement caused Luo Jiahai, seemingly unconscious, to slide against the bed and drop to the floor. With his back against the mattress, he suddenly grabbed his hair in his hands and began to wail loudly.

  Fang Mu squinted at Luo Jiahai's crying, shaking form.

  Suddenly, Luo Jiahai extended a leg and kicked at the door. It shut heavily, and all that remained in the camera's field of view was the dark living room and that tightly shut door.

  Nothing new appeared over the next hour of the recording. All that could be heard were the faint sounds from police sirens and people shouting, right up until Fang Mu saw himself come onto the scene.

  When he was finished watching, Fang Mu leaned backward into the broad chair and lit a cigarette.

  Obviously, Luo Jiahai had wanted to rape that girl, but then he stopped. Judging from his sudden and anguished tears, he seemed to have stopped because of some sort of heartfelt repentance.

  "I haven't touched her... She wouldn't have that sort of smell...”

  From these words, it was obvious that Luo Jiahai's attempted act of rape had vindictive overtones and the smell he mentioned must have something to do with sexual behavior.

  Fang Mu was still mulling it over when the desk phone rang. He hesitated, about to pick it up, but then Bian Ping leaped up and raced over to the desk to answer it.

  "Hello? ... It's me... Uh-huh... Got it."

  Bian Ping hung up the telephone and turned to Fang Mu. "It was the precinct. They want you to head on over; apparently Luo Jiahai named you as the person he wants to see." He paused. "Looks like you might get a chance to see an old friend."

  When he got to the precinct, Fang Mu was led directly to the interview room. A few people were seated facing a large one-way mirror, their attention on whatever was happening in the room in front of them. At the sound of his footsteps, a tall man turned around.

  Fang Mu stopped dead in his tracks, a smile crossing his face.

  It was Tai Wei.

  But Tai Wei's greeting was not so warm; he merely glanced at Fang Mu and
loosened his tightly furrowed brows a bit. "You're here," he said.

  Tai Wei's cold demeanor left Fang Mu at a loss, so he just nodded, pulled up a chair, and took a seat.

  "I'll make a long story short." Tai Wei's tone was all business. "A week ago, three students went missing from Jiangbin City Technical College. They included Luo Jiahai, his girlfriend Shen Xiang, and Sang Nannan, a student two years their junior. Upon further investigation, we learned that an altercation had occurred between Sang Nannan and Shen Xiang, so our initial conclusion is that Luo Jiahai and Shen Xiang kidnapped Sang Nannan. The fact that Luo Jiahai came and committed yesterday's homicide alone confirms for us that Sang Nannan's prior disappearance was a kidnapping of the violent type."

  Fang Mu thought a moment. "What can I do?"

  "Ever since Luo Jiahai's arrest, he's not said a word. This morning we pressured him, and he said he would only talk to you. We want to know where Shen Xiang and Sang Nannan are, whether they're dead or alive. This is the reason we've come here from Jiangbin City." Tai Wei cleared his throat. "I'm in charge of this case."

  Without saying a word, Fang Mu turned his head to look through the one-way mirror on the wall of the interview room. Luo Jiahai's head was hanging down and his hands and feet were cuffed to his chair. His body looked smaller than before.

  Fang Mu stood up. "Take off his handcuffs and ankle cuffs."

  A policeman from the precinct glanced at Tai Wei. Tai Wei waved his hand in a gesture that indicated to comply with Fang Mu’s request.

  The policeman got out the keys. While walking with Fang Mu around to the interview room, he said, "Be careful in there, bud."

  "Don't worry, I'll be fine." When Fang Mu reached the door to the interview room, he suddenly turned around and pointed a finger at Tai Wei. "But this time, don't you go slinking off."

  Everyone stared at Tai Wei in confusion. The corners of Tai Wei's mouth turned the slightest bit upward and his eyes softened.