Skinner's Box (Fang Mu (Eastern Crimes)) (31 page)

"Yes, he is," Fang Mu murmured, in part to distract himself from the shock he was feeling.

"I am very content now." Sister Zhao wiped her eyes and flashed a brave smile. "I want to take good care of the children here. If I am generous and good, God will send my boy back to me. Even if it's just his ghost, that's fine with me. When he finally shows up, I will say to him..."

She turned to look at the boy's photograph, tears still running down her cheeks. "…I'll tell him, 'Mommy was wrong. Mommy believes you'…"

It was 9:30 at night when Fang Mu finally left Sister Zhao's room. He had no idea where Liao Yafan had gone, nor did he know whether she had returned or not. He sat outside in the courtyard smoking a cigarette.
Angel Hall,
he thought.
Such a beautiful name.
But every one of its angels had a heartbreaking story behind it.

When he had finished his cigarette, he left the courtyard and got into his jeep. He started the engine and had just turned on the lights when he saw Liao Yafan's figure standing not five meters in front of the vehicle.

As he watched her squint in his direction, it became apparent that she could not see him in the driver's seat through the dazzling glare from the headlights. But she just stood there, showing no sign of intending to move. Fang Mu turned off the headlights and got out of the vehicle.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked. "Have you had anything to eat?"

Liao Yafan's eyes shone eerily in the dark, reflecting yellow from the streetlight far behind Fang Mu. He heard a crisp grinding sound, like ice cubes grating against each other and realized it was coming from her teeth. Without warning, Liao Yafan rushed forward and locked a hand onto his arm. He could feel that she was shivering.

"Our home, Angel Hall..."Her voice was trembling as much as her body. "...They're going to tear it down, aren't they?"

"Who told you that?"

"Aren't they?" she repeated, this time in a louder voice. She was squeezing his arm. "
Tell
me. You wouldn't lie to me..."

Something caught Fang Mu's eye. He glanced up and saw a red circle painted on the street where she had been standing. Inside the circle were the words, "Designated for Demolition."

"It's okay. We'll find a way," he said. He could think of nothing else to say that would not sound hollow. But his words seemed to have confirmed her suspicions, for she suddenly let go of his arm and went limp.

"You should go on back inside," he said as he held her upright. "Sister Zhao's worried sick about you."

Liao Yafan swayed, but made no move to leave. Fang Mu sighed, took her by the arm, and led her gently back into the compound. The girl seemed to glide along after him on light feet, as if her body had somehow lost all of its mass. Too exhausted to protest, she let Fang Mu take her inside and deliver her into Sister Zhao's arms.

As he drove off, Fang Mu surveyed the low apartment buildings that shared the same block as Angel Hall. The ghastly red circles were everywhere he looked.

Designated for Demolition.

He suddenly felt as though he were speeding along a road of destruction. These people were tearing down other people's homes in the name of the city. They might be giving them financial compensation and building them new housing elsewhere, but who would want to be forced out of a place they had called home for many years?

And how many angels would be willing to leave the warmth of their haven?

CHAPTER
26
Chase

T
he chance encounter at the hospital had convinced Fang Mu that there was a connection of some kind between Jiang Dexian and Tan Ji, and this added weight to his overall theory that the labyrinth homicide, the Fushima Mall homicide, and the Changhong City No. 11 High School homicide were all closely related. Although their link with the second murder was not clear, there was no doubt now that the suspects of the first and third murders knew each other. If they could be called suspects, that is.

Tan Ji had a rock-solid alibi proving that he had not been anywhere near the labyrinth. The evidence against Jiang Dexian was not very substantial, either; if they had had enough to bring the lawyer in, they would have acted without delay. But in Fang Mu's mind, these two men stuck out above all other possible suspects. He had never doubted his instinct when it came to solving crimes, but the error of judgment he had made in the Luo Jiahai case had dealt a serious blow to his self-confidence. Also, with nothing more than circumstantial evidence it would be difficult to establish these two men as prime suspects, let alone merge their cases into one investigation.

Based on the most recent information, Bian Ping's theory regarding atonement was looking even less likely to hold water. For a variety of reasons, police interviews with Xia Lili's relatives and acquaintances were progressing at a snail's pace, and those that had been completed were yielding no information of any real value. On the positive side, this allowed Fang Mu some extra time, so he took advantage of it by looking more closely at the movements of Tan Ji and Jiang Dexian.

To this end, and based on Fang Mu's suggestion, Zheng Lin put in a request with the surveillance department to monitor calls to and from the two suspects' cell phones. However, of the people Jiang Dexian contacted or who contacted him, none seemed suspicious; most of them were either family members or had something to do with his legal practice. The same was true of Tan Ji's contacts, and none of them was a mutual acquaintance of both he and Jiang Dexian. A certain number had turned up in Tan Ji's phone records quite frequently over the past month or so, however; there had been calls to and from the number anywhere from four or five to 10 or 12 times each day. Records indicated there had also been numerous text messages sent back and forth between the two numbers.

After further investigation, they discovered the number belonged to a certain Qu Rui. She was female, 25 years of age, of Han ethnicity, and had a job as an assistant manager in the marketing department of a foreign-owned enterprise. In other words, a white-collar worker. The contents of the SMS messages between her phone and that of Tan Ji made it clear that the two were in a relationship together.

Because of Jiang Dexian's behavior at the hospital, it was possible that he was already aware that he was being monitored by the police. If so, this could prove quite a headache, for he was an experienced attorney with plenty of resources at his command, and not just financial. He likely knew all the ins and outs of how the police operated; if he knew he was being watched, it would be very hard to successfully investigate him. And if there was indeed a connection between him and Tan Ji, then it went to reason that Tan Ji, too, would attempt to evade detection and that, of course, would hinder the investigation even more. This was all the reason the police had needed to decide to change strategies and focus almost exclusively on clandestine tactics such as monitoring the two men's cell phones.

The decision had been made grudgingly, however, because with it came a greater risk that any offline movements of the two suspects could slip completely under the radar. It was also possible, of course, that both of them could be using other phones to contact each other, but without any evidence of that to go on, all the police could do was sit tight and see what happened.

The new strategy did not prove entirely fruitless, though. After monitoring both men's phones for a few days, detectives discovered a sudden stop in calls and text messages between Tan Ji and Qu Rui. Communication between the two seemed to have ceased the day after Tian Ji and Jiang Dexian had been seen together in the Provincial Hospital. This fact set off an alarm in Fang Mu's head; if Qu Rui were nothing more than Tan Ji's girlfriend and had nothing to do with the case, then why would Tan Ji need to break off contact with her that day? Why that day in particular? And so logic dictated that Qu Rui might also be a suspect.

Bian Ping reminded Fang Mu that all of this could be mere coincidence; perhaps the two lovers had just happened to break it off the day after Tan Ji and Jiang Dexian had been seen in the hospital. These days relationships between young people tended to be short-lived, after all. Nonetheless, Fang Mu decided to have Qu Rui followed and put a dedicated pair of officers on her tail. For the first few days, she did nothing out of the ordinary. On the fifth day, a Saturday, Qu Rui got off work and took a taxi to a large shopping center. While she was in the ladies' underwear department browsing the bra selection, the male detectives, afraid they would stick out like sore thumbs there, had to back off. They immediately called in a request for a female plainclothes officer to take over. While they were waiting for her to arrive, however, Qu Rui disappeared—and her cell phone had either been turned off or had lost its charge, so they had no way of finding her again. Fang Mu would not give up easily, however, so he quickly sent another plainclothes over to stake out Qu Rui's apartment building disguised as a cleaning lady.

Three days later she found a torn-up credit card receipt from a restaurant in Qu Rui's garbage; from the amount of food that had been ordered, it was clear that Qu Rui had not been eating alone. Fang Mu took a photograph of Tan Ji over to the restaurant that had issued the receipt, and lucked out. A waitress there confirmed that Tan Ji and Qu Rui had eaten there that very same day.

This meant Tan Ji and Qu Rui were maintaining contact, and based on their apparently secretive rendezvous, were very probably aware that the police had been monitoring them. It seemed that Qu Rui could be involved in something illegal after all.

The case was getting more and more interesting.

Snow was falling. It was the first of winter in the northern city; a light snow, just enough to coat the streets with a thin dusting. Every time a car passed, swaths of the pure white were obliterated completely as its tires picked up the snowflakes, ground them in with the wet dust of the asphalt, and left trails of dark melting slush behind it.

Luo Jiahai stared out the window quietly, his eyes listless.

Shen Xiang once told him that it had been snowing on the day she was born, which was why she had loved the color white all her life. Officer Fang was correct; people who like white often yearn for purity. Shen Xiang had been such a person. And indeed, it seemed to Luo Jiahai that the slightest contact with even a tiny particle of filth would cause those elegant snowflakes, beautiful and delicate as they drifted outside the window, to perish.

Why did some people have the heart to run over that spotlessly white snow?

Why did some people have the heart to harm such a cute, innocent girl?

Luo Jiahai's hands clenched slowly, drawing tighter and tighter until they were fists. Every time he thought of such things he felt an aching sorrow accompanied by a virulent hatred. It was all that man's fault! That man was the one who had destroyed his Shen Xiang!

Luo Jiahai regretted at having agreed with Mr. Z to postpone his affair. He spent a large part of every day pacing back and forth in the tiny room, the hatred in him swelling like a balloon, pressing at his chest cavity harder and harder until he could not breath. Every time he left the place to go to the little roadside diner, the pressure eased a little. But after seeing how relieved and satisfied Miss Q and Mr. J had been after their turns, he felt he could not wait any longer. Avenging Shen Xiang was the only reason he was still in this place—and on this earth, for that matter. But when would that day come?

Abruptly, a set of knuckles rapped against the door. Luo Jiahai listened, heart pounding, not relaxing until he had heard the entirety of the secret knock sequence. It was probably Mr. T bringing something to eat, he thought.

But when he opened the door, he found Mr. Z standing there instead. Mr. Z squinted at him, a vague smile twisting one corner of his mouth. Then he stepped into the room and motioned for Luo Jiahai to close the door quickly.

"Where's Mr. T?" Luo Jiahai asked uneasily as he watched Mr. Z place two large bags full of something on the table.

"He won't be able to come again for the time being." Mr. Z tossed a cigarette at Luo Jiahai and raised his eyebrows. "Mr. T told me you started smoking."

Luo Jiahai's eyes never left Mr. Z's face as he deftly caught the cigarette with one hand. "What's happened?"

"The cops might have him in their sights." A shadow darkened his features. "He and Q, the idiots, have been seeing each other. Who knows; she might be compromised, too."

"What about Mr. J?"

"Him, too." Mr. Z's brow clenched into a knot of skin. "We didn't think our last operation through as much as we should have."

"So what do we do now?"

"It'll be fine. The cops have no evidence, so they can't do anything. It just means we'll have to be more careful from now on."

Luo Jiahai pondered this for a moment. "Did you all…help Mr. T as well?"

"Yes." Mr. Z narrowed his eyes. "You know, all of us, including you, are victims of Skinner's Box."

"So…what was his thing all about?"

"I knew you would ask that, eventually." Mr. Z laughed, and lit another cigarette. "Fifteen or so years ago, Mr. T was still just a naïve little boy, not much different from any other kid. One day on his way home from school he encountered a man who called T by name and said he was a coworker of T's father. He asked T if he wanted to go see a kungfu movie with him, and T quite happily said yes. After that the man took T to the movies and even bought him a bottle of soda. But after T drank it, he fell asleep. When he woke up he found he had been stuffed under his seat. After a struggle he was finally able to climb out, and when he looked around he saw the entire movie theater was completely empty. Just imagine how frightened a little boy would feel, having been left all alone in the dark in an empty movie theater. He yelled and yelled but no one answered. He was crying as he felt his way around in the pitch black, but he just kept bumping into the cold, hard seats. He must have passed out from fright then, because the next day some people found him asleep on the floor when they went in to see a matinee."

"Then what?"

"T's parents reported it to the police that evening, but none of T's father's coworkers turned out to be the culprit. T stayed home resting for a couple of weeks. After that he was fine, physically, but there was one thing he never recovered—his sense of direction."

"Sense of direction?"

"That's right." Mr. Z's expression grew somber. "Ever since, T has had trouble distinguishing left from right, north from south, east from west. His parents had to walk him to and from school to keep him from getting lost on the way. While he was at university he had to drop out of reserve training, because every time he tried to participate in a formation exercise he would end up turning around in circles and getting yelled at by the drill sergeant. Some of his classmates thought he was sabotaging their team on purpose. By the time senior year rolled around, he had not gotten any better; he still had to follow someone wherever he went – to his classes, to the dining hall, back to the dormitory, even to the bathroom – otherwise he would get lost. After he graduated, he was forced to choose a career that did not require a sense of direction, and so he got a job as an editor. And he had to take a taxi to and from work. On the rare occasion that the cab driver didn't know how to get there, he just had to suck it up and pay the extra cab fare while he was driven around and around in circles."

"Wow. I don't see how you could live like that." Luo Jiahai was shaking his head, eyes wide. "So what happened? Did you guys find that person who did that to him?"

"We did."

"And then...did you kill him, too?"

"Of course," Mr. Z said casually, a pleased look on his face. "We formed the perfect plan. We blindfolded him and took him to the diner, where we trussed him up in a chair with metal wires wound tightly around his body. Then we set up the meeting room so that no light could get in through the windows; when we were done, it was completely pitch dark up there. Then we aimed an infrared video camera at him and hooked it up to the computer. We even built a remote triggering device and had T take it to an internet café on the other side of the city. From there he was able connect online and view everything happening in the dark room, and he could even talk to the prisoner over voice chat. And, of course, he could also use his remote triggering device to give him a taste of electric shock treatment," he finished with a satisfied chuckle.