Murder in Dragon City Page 3

  The station director shook his head. I didn’t press further. Now that we had our tissue samples safely bagged, Lin Tao and I started a closer search of the home.

  “Look,” Lin Tao said, pointing at the floor. “There are blood traces going from the bathroom to the master bedroom too.”

  We lay on our stomachs, and I turned on my flashlight to see the pale, directional blood spatter. A tetramethylbenzidine test confirmed it was blood.

  “Huh. The killer took the body to the bedroom too,” I said. “But this time, relatively little blood adhered to the floor and walls.”

  “The blood seems to lead here,” called Bao Zhan from inside the room, pointing to a large wardrobe.

  I put my hand on the handle, swallowed hard, and, closing my eyes, opened it.

  Lin Tao and Bao Zhan screamed and stumbled backward.

  4

  The two were no strangers to ruthless murder scenes, so the shock on their faces now made my heart race as I summoned the courage to look.

  Inside the closet hung a row of beautiful clothes, along with the bodies of two people that appeared to have been flattened and draped over hangers. One had long black hair covering the shoulders and chest, while the other just hung limp like a shabby coat.

  “Wha-what is that?” I didn’t dare get closer.

  Bao Zhan gasped. “Skin!”

  Two sheets of human skin.

  Hua Long rushed into the bedroom. “The DNA lab called.”

  I stared at the wardrobe and nodded. “Don’t tell me, Xia Hong is dead too.”

  “Yup. The skeleton wasn’t fitting together right because it was actually two skeletons. The pelvis was a woman’s, but the legs were a man’s.”

  Hua Long observed me staring slack-jawed at the wardrobe, unsurprised by his news. Puzzled, he looked inside and shouted, “Holy shit, they were skinned?”

  We took the two human skins off their hangers and laid them out on the floor. At the bottom of the wardrobe was a messy pile of clothes soaked with blood that had dripped down—probably what the victims had been wearing when they were killed. We found a man’s dress shirt, jacket, underwear, and pants, but for the woman, just a dressing gown.

  The bodies had been sliced open from the neck straight down to the pubic bone. The skin was then peeled off sideways from that incision, and the limbs were peeled starting along the superficial fascia. In some places, muscle tissue was still attached, which meant the tool used had been extremely sharp. Stuck together with masking tape, the stripped skin made a full bodysuit.

  Hua Long lifted up the woman’s skin, saying, “This guy’s knife skills are even better than a forensic scientist’s, huh?”

  “Don’t move!” I shouted, taking out my magnifying glass to get a closer look.

  Both her breasts were still attached to the surrounding skin. I said to Lin Tao, “Look, right there—isn’t that a dermal ridge?”

  Lin Tao’s face filled with surprise. “It is! I bet we can get a print!”

  “Didn’t you say the murderer was wearing gloves for the whole thing?” Hua Long asked.

  “If he wanted to feel the breasts, he very well may have taken off his gloves.”

  Professor Liang addressed the task force. “Right now, the situation is pretty clear. The young couple, Xia Hong and Lian Qianqian, were murdered in their house, then skinned, cut into pieces, and fried. The nature of the crime is heinous. We have to catch whoever did this as soon as possible. Who’s got ideas?”

  “Simple!” Hua Long said. “We just have to figure out who had reason to hate these people enough to do something so horrible.”

  “But according to our preliminary investigation,” Liang replied, “the couple was kind and well-liked. It’s hard to imagine the two of them having enemies like that.”

  The room was silent for a moment.

  I said, “We should use Su Mei’s simulation to organize additional searches in the sewers. There may well be more body parts. Also, let’s not forget that the house doors and windows were intact. The murderer probably didn’t break in—he was invited.”

  “Are you saying the crime was committed by an acquaintance?” Liang asked.

  “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion just yet.”

  “What about surveillance video?” Bao Zhan asked the station director.

  “There’s surveillance only at the entrance. And right now we have no idea when the murders took place, so reviewing several weeks of the tape isn’t viable.”

  “Bao Zhan, you lead a team back to the sewers,” Liang ordered. “Qin Ming, Lin Tao, and Su Mei, I want you to go back to the site and see if you can turn up any more clues.”

  I dragged myself from the meeting, worn down by several consecutive days of physical and mental overexertion. Lin Tao, on the other hand, was thrilled at the opportunity to spend some time with Su Mei.

  Back at the house, apart from the drops of blood on the floors and the streaks in the bathtub, we didn’t find anything unusual. We confirmed that the killer could not have come in through the windows because they all had security bars.

  “Maybe it really was an acquaintance,” Lin Tao said.

  I shook my head. “When acquaintances commit crimes, the conflicts are almost always well established. If there had been anything, the local cops would have found out about it already.”

  “Do you guys notice anything strange about these drops of blood?” Su Mei asked.

  “Nah,” Lin Tao said, smiling at her.

  “You see, these multidrip stains,” I explained, “mean the killer carried body parts from the bathroom to the kitchen many times.”

  “But some of the stains are a different color.”

  Lin Tao and I didn’t speak, just stared at the bloodstains. It seemed Su Mei was right.

  “You’re so good,” Lin Tao said, trying to ingratiate himself. “I guess it’s true that women are more sensitive to colors! Amazing how none of us saw it.”

  Su Mei gave him a tight smile, then took out her computer and a light, and got down to work. “A comparison under the same light source shows there is indeed a difference in the color.”

  I squatted on the ground and thought for a moment, then said, “The color reflects how long the blood has been exposed to air. The longer the exposure, the darker the color. At some crime scenes, during the first survey, the blood is red. Then two weeks later, during the resurvey, it’s black. If these stains are so different, can we speculate that the killer returned to the scene of the crime multiple times over many days?”

  “Right, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Su Mei said.

  Lin Tao got up, made a phone call, and then came to report back. “Okay, I confirmed that the house key was still in the deceased man’s pocket.”

  “Then the killer had his own copy,” I said.

  “Who would have a key?” Lin Tao said. “Do you think one of them was having an affair?”

  “No way to know yet. Let’s see if we can find any documents. Sometimes the victims leave behind information that can tell us who the murderer is.”

  The couple hadn’t been married long, so they hadn’t accumulated too much, but we did turn up some diaries the man had kept and what appeared to be two ledger books.

  Returning to the task force, we found Bao Zhan’s team had also made another find: the rest of the victims’ bones. The soft tissue on the bones was nearly all gone; so badly decayed, it couldn’t be distinguished from the mud.

  “The way the sewers work in this neighborhood, they couldn’t have carried the body parts far from where they were discarded. And since we found bones near a number of different openings, the killer must have moved all around the area to dispose of the evidence.”

  “What I take from that,” Professor Liang said, “is that our killer can’t be far.”

  “We did manage to get a fingerprint,” Lin Tao said, “but this neighborhood has more than twenty large apartment buildings, each with dozens and dozens of households, and each household has two to five people in it. Getting prints from them all is not feasible.”

  “Plus, the area has a lot of rentals, a large transient population, so pinning anyone down would be hard,” I said.

  “We do have another lead,” said Wang, the city bureau medical examiner. “The skulls of both deceased individuals were found. The flesh had been stripped, but judging from the bone damage, they died of severe brain injuries.”

  “Their heads got bashed in, you mean?” Hua Long said. “With what?”

  “The instrument has relatively unique characteristics.” Wang started a slide show.

  The victims’ heads had been stripped of all their skin and scalps. The facial muscles had decayed to the color of soy sauce. Around the eyes, the muscle texture was still clearly visible. The slide of the two heads on the dissection table was an eerie sight.

  The female victim’s skull had a huge cavity, which meant she suffered a blunt blow that caused a perforating fracture. The male victim had a round, depressed fracture. The two were killed by the same instrument, but the male’s skull was thicker, so the damage was less severe.

  As the picture was enlarged, the pattern on the edge of the victim’s skull fracture grew gradually clearer. “Large round hammer,” I concluded.

  “Over four inches in diameter,” Wang said.

  “A big hammer like that, most people wouldn’t have at home,” Professor Liang said. “More often, they’re for knocking down walls.”

  “Construction workers!” Lin Tao said. “That would explain why the killer had the victims’ house key. And gloves!”

  Su Mei, who’d had her head down, lifted it now and said, “But after their home was renovated, the victims changed the locks.”

  Su Mei had been busy looking throug
h the documents we’d found. There was a diary that turned out to be a poetry collection in which he expressed his love for Lian Qianqian. It gave Su Mei goose bumps, and she quickly moved on to one of the ledger books. It detailed all the costs of their home-renovation project from six months earlier.

  Professor Liang took the book and put on his reading glasses.

  “There was doubtless another home renovation under way in the neighborhood two weeks ago, was there not?” Professor Liang said as he turned the pages.

  “Sure, all the time,” the station director replied.

  “Would it be hard to track down workers from two weeks ago who could knock down walls and dredge sewers?” Professor Liang asked.

  “Easy to find one that knocks down walls, but whether they know sewers too is hard to check,” the detective said.

  “Found one already!” Lin Tao said. “This is a photo I took when testing the camera in the elevator before we headed out to survey the crime scene.”

  The photo showed an elevator car with a corkboard covered in small ads. One of them said, “For wall demolition, spackling, drill work, and sewer cleaning, call: 139XXXXXXXX.”

  “But if the victims changed their locks, then why worry about construction workers?” Hua Long asked, confused.

  Liang smiled and said, “Because Su Mei flagged something else in the records. About a month after they changed their locks, there’s an entry for sewer cleaning.”

  “So? Just because someone was cleaning the sewer, why does that mean they did it?”

  “Because the other recorded expenses are ordinary, but this one requires a stranger to come into the house,” Liang said. “And Lin Tao’s discovery is invaluable, because sewer cleaning is the type of service you only find advertised on random walls.”

  Su Mei smiled and looked at Lin Tao, who blushed.

  “Okay, fine, they brought in a sewer guy, but why look for someone who was demolishing walls two weeks ago?” Hua Long asked.

  “Because, according to Qin Ming’s findings, the killer went back to the house multiple times. He must live in the neighborhood, or that would attract attention. And doing demolition work nearby would be a perfect cover for carrying the murder weapon.”

  Everyone was nodding.

  “Now we just have to make an arrest,” Liang said.

  Hua Long sprang to his feet. “My favorite words!”

  5

  The phone number on the ad was registered to a man named Big Dog Li, and he’d been working in the neighborhood exactly two weeks prior. His home was immediately put under surveillance.

  A few of us sat in a car across the street, quietly awaiting Hua Long’s orders. Suddenly, Big Dog Li appeared at the front door.

  “Where’s this joker going in the middle of the night?” Big Bao said.

  I shushed him.

  “Okay, forensics,” said Hua Long, his voice booming through my earpiece. “Once he’s out of sight, use your tools to unlock the door. As soon as your team turns up any evidence, we’ll move in and make the arrest.”

  A few minutes later, Lin Tao, Bao Zhan, and I were inside.

  “Oh man,” Lin Tao said. “This guy’s got to be the killer.” He gestured toward the bedroom wall.

  The wall was full of contorted, ugly pencil drawings. Their primary subject was male and female genitals.

  “Yeah, these do seem like the work of a psychopath,” I said.

  “Look at all this!” Hua Long picked up a snakeskin bag from the corner of the bed and poured out dozens of pairs of women’s underwear.

  I picked up a pillow—under it was lingerie. Most of it was red, but with darker red splotches. “Blood. Could very well be Lian Qianqian’s.”

  “Oh, they totally are,” Bao Zhan said. “There were only nightgowns and dressing gowns in the house, no women’s underwear. We missed that before.”

  I activated my headset and said into the microphone, “Okay, I’m convinced. Your guys can move in now.”

  Hua Long’s voice came right back. “Are ya? Good thing. I’m already standing on this dirtbag’s head.”

  Crime scene evidence has three main roles. The first is to identify suspects. The second is to eliminate suspects. The third is to prove the suspects’ guilt in court.

  The fingerprint we found on the victim’s breast would surely convince any judge.

  Under the weight of hard evidence and Hua Long’s show of force, Big Dog Li confessed to his crimes.

  He’d done the sewer cleaning about a month after the renovations. Probably because of waste from the renovation, the drains got blocked, and the resulting regurgitation of sewage stank to high heaven. Lian Qianqian couldn’t be home all the time to make it easier for the handyman to come and go, so, feeling he was an honest man, she gave him a key.

  Big Dog Li had a keen interest in women’s underwear, especially that of beautiful women. After a long day of work, he’d relax by smelling a few of his favorite pairs. He copied Lian Qianqian’s key so he could steal some of hers.

  Two weeks prior, he’d been at a nearby house tearing down walls and spackling. When his coworkers took their afternoon break, he pretended to be sick and snuck off to Lian Qianqian’s home.

  The house seemed dark and empty, so he figured no one was home.

  But opening the door with his copied key, Big Dog Li ran straight into Lian Qianqian. Wrapped in a dressing gown, she was heating oil to fry dumplings for dinner. Without thinking, he raised his sledgehammer and brought it down on the horrified young woman’s head.

  While trying to decide whether to hide the body or simply flee, Big Dog Li caught a glimpse of white legs under the dressing gown. Hot blood surged into his evil brain, and he carried Lian Qianqian’s lifeless body into the bathroom.

  Just as Big Dog Li was contentedly pulling up his pants, he heard the front door opening. Xia Hong was back from signing his new contract. When the sledgehammer dented his skull, Xia Hong still wore the smile of someone excited to share good news with a loved one.

  Big Dog Li locked the front door and admired the two bodies like works of art. On a whim, he took out his spackling blade, cut off Lian Qianqian’s fingers, and threw them into the pot of bubbling oil. Watching the white fingers bob in the oil and turn crispy and yellow aroused him all over again.

  Curious to see what other fun he could have, Big Dog Li meticulously peeled the skin off both bodies, dismembered them, and masturbated while he threw chunks of their buttocks into the pot. This gave him incredible pleasure.

  Over the following days, every time he got off work, he’d go back to the house and pleasure himself at the sight and smell of frying corpse. Then one night, his job coming to a close, he took the body parts and threw them down various sewer grates. With the bodies gone, there’d be no trace of his crime. Or so he thought.

  “Some new underwear tonight sure would be nice,” Big Dog Li said to Hua Long. “You kicked me so hard, my back hurts!”

  There was no sign of fear or guilt on that strange face, and I knew then that he was not really human. He was a demon.

  “This Lian Qianqian chick was so naïve,” Lin Tao said later. “Can’t believe she gave someone the key to her home so easily.”

  “I guess she thought that since he’d worked on her house before, and since she got the key back, it wasn’t a big risk,” I said.

  Professor Liang sighed. “No matter what, one must stay vigilant.”

  “Professor, after working so hard these past few days, we should all get a drink together. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone out!”

  Liang shook his head. “We’re catching the first flight to Beijing in the morning—heard there’s a new case.”

  Lin Tao looked at Su Mei and opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  “That’s a real shame,” I said. “We’ll have to wait till you come back, then.”

  “Unfortunately,” Liang said with a laugh, “we never come under good circumstances.”

  At the airport the next morning, Thursday, June 6, Lin Tao and I stood outside the security barricade, watching Professor Liang and the other three disappear. Lin Tao’s sense of loss was palpable.