Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder

by Xiaolong Qiu

  ‘That’s weird,’ Chen said, tapping first one finger, then two, on the table. ‘What else have you learned about the case, in addition to the information from your client?’

  ‘With Min locked up in an unknown location, there’s no way for us to contact her. I’ve talked to Yu, but he has hardly heard anything about it in the bureau. The case did not come under the special case squad, but under Detective Xiong of the homicide squad. And then Internal Security took over.’

  ‘Internal Security took over a murder investigation!’

  ‘Astonishing, isn’t it? I don’t know any details yet. There’s one possibility Sima discussed with us. Her trouble may come – partially at least – from her nickname of Republican Lady. Her popularity on social media spooked some orthodox Party officials, who saw it as an endorsement of the Republican era values at the expense of the value system today.’

  ‘Hold on, Old Hunter. How old is she?’

  ‘In her early thirties. But she grew up listening to those family stories of hers, about dinners and parties and cultivations and decorum in the Republican period.’

  ‘In that very shikumen house?’

  ‘Her family was driven out of it during the Cultural Revolution, but several years ago, she managed to get the house back. And she made herself known with the online posts and blogs and pictures about the gracefulness of the Republican era. In short, her punishment could be seen as a public denouncement of the Republican myth. Politically—’

  ‘I see, but even so, shuanggui—’ Chen cut himself short again.

  Several elderly people were walking over, dragging their feet toward the tea pavilion, carrying folded umbrellas in their hands, and worn-out smiles on their faces. Having done their daily work at the matching corner, they were casting curious glances in the direction of the two men.

  Chen and Old Hunter kept on drinking their tea, cracking the sunflower seeds, which broke the silence.

  ‘Now go on with the murder case itself,’ Chen said, after the elderly people moved out of sight.

  ‘We’re getting there, Chief. Her dinner parties, originally a means to entertain her guests, then became something like an end in themselves. A profitable business, it brought her extra income and extra connections, too. No way could she have afforded not to continue, but she found it hard to manage all the preparation and cooking by herself.

  ‘For a dinner in the shikumen house, with no less than twelve courses, most of which had to be served fresh and hot, the chef-hostess really had a hectic time, stir-frying the first special in the kitchen, rushing out to serve it at the table, saying a few polite words to the guests, explaining the beauty of the delicacy, before hurrying back into the kitchen for the next course. For an ordinary family dinner, that would probably be no big deal. A self-centered husband might go so far as to take pride in his wife’s toiling and moiling around like that. But not so with Min. She’s the one and only hostess – and the chef, too.

  ‘Besides, some of the guests at her table came not just for the culinary delights. An online article about her dinner was titled “She Is So Delicious, She Could Be Devoured”. It’s a paraphrased quote from Confucius. And it’s understandable that the men were not too pleased with her being constantly away from the table.

  ‘So she hired people for help. One of them was named Qing, a clever, fast-learning apprentice, who was soon able to cook in a fashion like her. It gave Min a much-needed break. She did not have to run to the kitchen and back so many times during a meal. Unexpectedly, trouble came.’

  ‘That sounds like an exciting Suzhou opera, Old Hunter. So it’s finally coming to a climax?’

  ‘Yes, after such a dinner party about a week ago, the Friday of the week before last, having had a cup too much, Min retreated to her bedroom earlier than usual, so the guests had to leave. Qing stayed on to take care of things in the kitchen. The next morning, Qing was found killed in the kitchen, the back of her head fractured with a heavy object. Min claimed that she had slept like a log throughout the night. As the one and only possible suspect – with no sign of forced entry to the shikumen house, and with a plausible motive as Min was said to be very upset with Qing for quitting for another job – she was put into custody.’

  ‘Just because of a maid quitting?’

  ‘It’s unbelievable, and that’s why Sima wants us to check into it. He does not believe she would have committed the crime because of it.’

  ‘So your rich and romantic client offered you almost half a million yuan for the job.’

  ‘The autopsy has excluded the possibility of Qing having stumbled and hit her head on something. It could not have been an accident.’

  ‘Has Sima offered you any different scenario about the case? Something he happened to have known.’

  ‘No. He has not. In fact, I don’t think Sima is his real name either. But we have promised to keep his background info confidential – except that he is one with connections high up. As for her background info, I’ve gathered something for you in a folder.’

  ‘What would happen to her,’ Chen said, without taking the folder, ‘without your looking into the case?’

  ‘When she’s out of shuanggui, there’ll be an open trial with a judge – Judge Liu Xiaohua – already assigned to the case. Most likely with a foregone verdict. “You just need to think about her celebrity status as a Republican Lady in today’s politics” – that’s one thing Sima said to us. And there are wild stories and speculations about the case on the Internet. Some are describing the murder case as a setup. Some are digging into her relations with the wealthy and powerful. Some are even pointing their fingers at the assignment of the judge, who is said to have been on the waiting list of her dinner parties for a long time, yet without success, and who would consequently revenge himself—’

  ‘Did your client give any specific instructions for the job?’ Chen had to cut the Suzhou opera singer short again. Some details he could check online himself.

  ‘With no alibi for her, and with her locked up in an unknown location, there’s little we could possibly do for her.’ Old Hunter paused again, draining the tea. ‘It was then that Sima mentioned you as the trump card.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Sima said that you could help. Apparently, he has done his homework about you, saying that with Detective Yu as your longtime partner, it makes sense for you to talk over a cup of tea with me.’

  That was shrewd of Sima. With Chen on leave, it might not be a good idea to drag the ex-inspector into the investigation in the open, but it was a different story for him to have a cup of tea with Old Hunter.

  ‘But what the convalescent leave means, you know only too well, Old Hunter. I may be watched. Any misstep on my part could easily get you into trouble too. In your phone call, you talked about the matching corner without saying anything about the case. It’s because you knew my phone could have been tapped, isn’t it?’

  ‘It won’t hurt to be cautious, but you don’t have to do anything in the open, Chief. You can be a special consultant to us without it being known to others. As for Min’s case, it would not raise any alarm for you to have an occasional talk with a chatty retiree like me – at the matching corner in the park, or at a teahouse.’

  ‘You really have everything figured out,’ he said, thinking he owed the old man too much to say a downright no. ‘But let me say this again. Given my own trouble, I’m not supposed to put my finger into any investigation, nor to serve as a consultant to your agency. That should be understandable to your boss Zhangzhang, and to your mysterious client, too.’

  ‘I know, Chief, but it’s so—’

  ‘Having said that, I don’t see any harm for us to occasionally have tea together.’

  ‘Right, we will have our tea, genuine Dragon Well tea. I’ve made a point of going to a small village not far from Hangzhou, where I have a trusted old tea farmer friend. No fake teas.’ Old Hunter then added in a loud voice, breaking into a broad smile as he once again pushed the folder
over to Chen, ‘Take a look into it. All the possibilities for you in the matching corner.’

  ‘Not for your daughter, but for me, you scheming old man,’ Chen also said in a raised voice, at the sight of several more people moving in their direction.

  But it might have been true. As Old Hunter had mentioned a couple of times, it was the order of the day for the ex-inspector to settle down, particularly with his having nothing else better to do for the moment.

  ‘Well, it may be the time for me to settle down. I’ll take a good look at the pictures. Call me if you have anything new, Old Hunter.’

  ‘I will. And we’ll have good tea next time. I’ll contact the tea farmer tonight. I met him thirty years ago—’

  ‘You’ve told me about it,’ Chen said in haste, being too familiar with the other’s digression.

  A lone yellow-feathered bird came flying overhead, flashing its wings through the suddenly glaring light.

  Back in his apartment, the first thing Chen did was to open the folder Old Hunter had handed him in the park.

  As suspected, it had nothing to do with the possibilities at the matching corner, but with the Min case discussed at the tea pavilion. The ex-inspector did not think he had explicitly promised to help, but it would not hurt for him to take a look – with a cup of tea afterward, or not.

  A bright color picture fell out of the folder. A young woman of striking beauty in a custom-tailored white damask mandarin dress was looking up at him, smiling, reclining against the mahogany headboard in a shikumen house, with her bare legs and feet reaching out of the dress. He leaned over to pick it up when a vague image – a different woman in a red mandarin dress lying on a thin layer of dust that covered the floor of another shikumen house – flashed through his memory.

  The folder contained several other pictures of Min, and he was particularly impressed with one of her in a sleeveless red phoenix-embroidered mandarin dress, serving a willow-patterned platter to her guests at a red-painted round table. The picture was used in an online article, with a line underneath: ‘Nothing is harder than to pay back the favor from a beauty.’ The line, possibly from a half-forgotten Chinese poem, made a clever quote in the context.

  Then he moved on to a description of the crime scene, which was penned by Old Hunter and read more like a detailed case report. He got a lot of kicks out of beginning a tale from the very beginning, like an impossible Suzhou opera addict.

  ‘The murder happened Friday night the week before last. But to have a full picture of the case, we have to tell it from the beginning …’

  Chen made a cup of strong black coffee without any sugar. He added a small spoonful of non-dairy cream lest it would upset his stomach, before he resumed reading in earnest.

  Min came from one of the most prominent families in the late Qing dynasty, and quite prominent during the Republican era too until 1949. The tide of luck then turned in China. During the Cultural Revolution, her family was driven out of their shikumen house in the former French concession. Seven or eight years ago, however, Min managed to get the house back in accordance with the new government policy, but the feat was commonly attributed to her ‘personal connections’. After having purchased apartments elsewhere for her parents, she lived by herself in the shikumen house, sporting an extravagant lifestyle characteristic of the Republican era. With her celebrated beauty and established status, she attracted the rich and powerful like moths to a flame.

  Whatever the interpretations about her success, she became an Internet icon. An embodiment of the values of the Republican era, she was versed in the zither, go chess, calligraphy and painting, in addition to her legendary culinary talents. What with pictures and stories about her continuously popping up online, and with her own posts about those so-called private recipes, the specials on her dining table held the whole city spell-bound.

  The popularity of her private kitchen dinners necessitated her hiring Qing, a maid or ‘kitchen assistant’ from Sichuan Province. In addition to the shikumen house, Min still had the tingzhijian room in another old house in the lane. Apparently, it was a practical arrangement for Qing to work for Min in the shikumen house during the day, and go back to the tingzhijian room for the night.

  On a day with a dinner scheduled, Min would send Qing to the food market early in the morning with a shopping list, and then Min herself would prepare the food without sharing any details of her recipes. In the not-too-large kitchen, Qing turned out to be a quick learner, glancing over Min’s shoulder to the sizzling wok, and learning a trick or two with or without Min’s knowledge.

  So it did not take long for Qing to assume a more pronounced role in the kitchen, with Min only needing to visit it a couple of times during a dinner, adding the secret ingredients at the crucial moments. Her guests were naturally pleased with the change as they got to see more of Min. That Friday night, Qing helped not only in the kitchen, but also saw the guests off later with Min already gone to bed feeling unwell. Qing was supposed to be the last one to leave the shikumen house.

  In addition to Qing, Min employed another part-time helper named Feng for the household chores. With her own family in Yangpu District, Feng came over just two or three times a week. As a rule, for those days after late dinner parties, she was the one preparing breakfast for Min in the morning.

  On that Saturday morning, Feng arrived shortly after nine. She knew that the party the previous day could have lasted late into the night, so she let herself in quietly with the key to the front door, moved light-footedly across the courtyard, then upstairs to Min’s bedroom. From the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, she thought she heard Min snoring lightly in bed.

  Feng made her way down to the kitchen, where she was surprised to see a chair knocked over in the corner. It was unusual, but perhaps not too unusual after a wild party. Stepping over, she was startled at the sight of a body – that of Qing lying on the kitchen floor, close to the marble counter. She leaned down to touch Qing’s hand, which felt cold, stiff – no pulse. A tiny streak of blood had already dried at the corner of Qing’s mouth.

  She turned, stumbled, and shot upstairs, screaming for help all the way up. Through the opening of the bedroom door, she caught a glimpse of Min scrambling up, naked, and pulling on a white silk robe in a hurry.

  The two of them ran down to the kitchen. According to Feng, Min looked absolutely horrified, with a dazed look in her eyes. Pulling herself together with a visible effort, Min lost no time calling for the police, and she also instructed that nothing at the scene should be touched before their arrival.

  The police team led by Detective Xiong arrived. They examined the scene, took pictures, and got the testimonies from the two women. After the body was sent to the mortuary in another car, they left about two hours later.

  In the crime scene report submitted by Detective Xiong – which Old Hunter had acquired through the help of Detective Yu – it stated that there was no sign of forced entry through the front or back doors of the shikumen house. No sign of breaking in through any of the windows, either. As a traditional shikumen house, an advanced double spring lock had been installed on the door above the original wooden latch still kept there for the sake of decoration, and that morning, Feng turned the door key twice before she got in, so she was positive about it being properly locked up.

  Apart from the upturned chair in the kitchen, nothing Detective Xiong could find at the scene seemed to suggest any violent struggle there. No apparent bruises were visible on Qing’s body, either.

  The cause of death was later concluded as a brain hemorrhage, with the skull fractured by a heavy object. The time of death was estimated to be shortly after twelve.

  Min’s testimony was longer, but with no relevant details. She had drunk too much the night before, she claimed, so she was helped into the bedroom. There she sank into stoned sleep. She had no idea how and when the guests left. Unaware of any disturbance during the night, she slept on until Feng came screaming up from downstairs.

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sp; ‘That’s about all for the moment.’ Old Hunter had added a line in red pencil. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  Putting down the report, Chen stood up to pace about for several minutes before he turned to make a phone call to Lu, an old friend of his once nicknamed Overseas Chinese Lu, who was now a Big Buck in the city of Shanghai with more than a dozen restaurants under his name. In spite of his success in business, Lu remained a friend of Chen’s, like in their middle school days.

  ‘Now I’m not that busy, Lu, I may have more time to come and enjoy the wonderful borscht in your Moscow Suburb.’

  ‘So you are finally thinking of me, my old partner. That’s really the spirit. For all the restaurants under my name, you have half of the shares, you know that. So come any time.’ Lu insisted on calling Chen his partner because of a loan from Chen at the beginning of his restaurant business. ‘Time really flies. Those days, your generous help came like a cart of charcoal in the snow.’

  ‘Come on. I happened to have just received the advance for the translation of a crime novel. Don’t bring that up again.’

  ‘But you’re no longer a cop, and on convalescent leave too, it’s time for you to join me. Whichever restaurant you choose to run, you’ll do a great job, what with your extraordinary gastronomic taste, your fame, your business acumen, and your connections.’

  ‘Here you go again, Lu. I’m no partner of yours. I know nothing about the restaurant business. Besides, I’m too old-fashioned. Nowadays fashionable people are talking about private kitchen dinners.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve just read several blog posts about a private kitchen run by a lady named Min, nicknamed Republican Lady, in a shikumen house.’