Skinner's Box (Fang Mu (Eastern Crimes)) (43 page)

"The whole damned place is all burned to hell! You think anything's left in there?" Bian Ping roared at Fang Mu. "Don't be stupid!"

Whether as a result of Bian Ping's words or from feeling suddenly drained of strength, Fang Mu sat back on his haunches as if paralyzed. After gasping hoarsely for a long minute, he finally said, "Let's call the fire department."

Behind him the fire continued to rage, as if determined to consume everything in sight.

CHAPTER
34
Dead End

T
he boy devoured the cold steamed bun with relish, swaying backward and forward with his other hand gripping the bars of the fence. Liao Yafan stood on the other side, occasionally reaching through the bars to wipe crumbs from the boy's mouth.

"Where did you get so many aluminum cans?" She kicked at the bulging bag on the ground. "There's no way you drank all those."

The boy just smiled shyly, but there was also a look of pride in his eyes.

"Well, thank you." She lifted up one corner of her mouth at him, winked, and tousled his hair with her hand.

This seemed to encourage the boy. He stopped swaying and said in a loud voice, "Anything you need, I can help you get it! Anything at all!"

She gave a wry laugh. "You can't help me."

Frowning, the boy nodded urgently. "Yeah, I can. Yeah, I can. Just tell me. What do you need help with?"

Liao Yafan gently cupped his cheek in her palm. In the soft moonlight, his skin appeared as pale as polished ivory. She stared into the boy's confident eyes for a moment, then turned and looked over her shoulder at the two-story building of Angel Hall.

"I want to leave this place."

The police swarmed the building as soon as the fire had been extinguished. Everything inside had been burnt to a crisp, but somehow the stairs had not collapsed. After clearing away some of the debris, they went upstairs, where they found a single charred corpse, but nothing else of value.

The body was burnt beyond recognition, but after putting in a sample for an emergency DNA test, the lab confirmed that the body was indeed that of Luo Jiahai. The medical examiner's preliminary autopsy report showed that there were no burns caused by inhalation in the deceased's respiratory tract, nor were there signs of smoke or ash in the lungs, indicating that he had probably died before his body was burned. Results from toxicology tests revealed that the victim had probably died from ingesting cyanide.

The cause of the fire was soon identified. The ignition source was determined to have been gasoline. Taking into consideration the phone call the victim made to Fang Mu before being killed, it was assumed that someone had lit the fire in order to silence Luo Jiahai and burn any evidence at the fire scene.

Because the deceased was laying face-down, part of the front of his clothing had been preserved. In his inside pocket, forensic investigators found a debit card that had not been completely melted. After contacting the issuing bank, their computer system confirmed that the person the card had been issued to had used a fake identity. There was only about 10 yuan in the account.

Because Luo Jiahai had told him that the diner was the primary crime scene where the series of homicides had been committed, Fang Mu had gone out on a limb and requested a thorough investigation of the premises by the Bureau's Special Forensic Inspection Division in the hopes that they might turn up some material evidence such as blood or hair. But because the place had been burned so badly, the special investigators found nothing else of value. Of course the paper Luo Jiahai had mentioned on the phone, the one he had taken from Mr. Z, was not found either.

The fire had burned everything clean.

"What?" Teacher Zhou got to his feet, dismayed. He quieted his tone in the orphanage's small room. "Someone wants me dead?"

"Yes!" Fang Mu said, his jaw set. "Where did you go that evening?"

"I went to a bathhouse... After that I went back to Angel Hall."

"Is your..." Fang Mu searched for words. "Um, are you capable of...uh...having sex?"

"No," Teacher Zhou admitted quite straightforwardly. "You remember I told you I was once shot in the thigh? Well, my genitals were completely devastated."

He understood now. In the bathhouse, Luo Jiahai must have gotten close enough to Teacher Zhou to see that he could not have been the man who raped Shen Xiang, and so had become suspicious of Mr. Z.

"Who wants to kill me?"

"It was Luo Jiahai." Fang Mu hesitated. "Someone told him that you were the one who raped Shen Xiang, when she was in high school."

"What...? Why would someone say such a thing?"

"Luo Jiahai joined an organization of people who helped each other to commit murder. Its members are comprised of former test subjects from an indoctrination experiment performed years ago; their leader is a certain Mr. Z. He was the one who told Luo Jiahai that you raped Shen Xiang."

"What about Luo Jiahai? Have you caught him yet?"

"Luo Jiahai is dead." Fang Mu’s nostrils flared. "We believe Mr. Z killed him to shut him up, and then destroyed all the evidence."

Teacher Zhou stared at Fang Mu with eyes that appeared merely two dark orbs in a deathly pale face. At length he sat down heavily on his chair, put his head in his hands, and started tearing at his hair. "How could this have happened…? How could it…?" Abruptly he raised his head. "Who is this Mr. Z? Have you discovered his identity?"

Fang Mu just glowered at him. "Your former assistant was Yang Jincheng, am I right?"

Teacher Zhou's eyes widened as he understood the implication of Fang Mu
'
s question. He shook his head violently. "No, that's impossible. It couldn't be him. I was his professor; how could he have…? Besides, he was with me that night the whole time."

"Who else knows about your visit to the bathhouse with him?"

"Let's see, at the time..." Teacher Zhou's brow wrinkled in thought. "There were others around us, at the Institute..." He pounded his palm against his forehead. "Lots of people saw me when I went there looking for him, but I'm certain no one else knew about our going to the bathhouse."

Fang Mu fell to smoking his cigarette in silence. When he was finished, he put it out and stood up. "Come; let's go have a chat with Yang Jincheng."

Yang Jincheng seemed to be expecting them. Not only did he not give them the typical cordial greeting or the usual pleasantries when they entered his office, he did not even stand to show them to a seat. He just sat in his leather chair behind his desk, glancing casually from Fang Mu to Teacher Zhou, waiting patiently for them to say what they had come to say.

Fang Mu got straight to the point. "Dr. Yang, I need you to give me all of the data and notes from the Indoctrination Field experiment."

Yang Jincheng's eyes swept across Teacher Zhou's face as he took off his glasses and began wiping them slowly and methodically. Only after he put them back on did he answer in a soft voice. "That is impossible."

Teacher Zhou slapped his hand hard on the surface of the desk before him and blood rushed into his face. "Jincheng, this thing is not just about mere scientific ethics and procedure anymore! It's more complicated than that. Someone has learned all about the Indoctrination Field Scheme, and is apparently going around killing everyone who knew anything about it! Whoever it is has already tried to send someone to kill
me.
If you don't hand over all the data to Officer Fang here and let the police do their jobs, you could be in danger, too!"

As Yang Jincheng watched Teacher Zhou fume, something akin to amusement rippled at the corners of his mouth, as if he thought the old man comical but not enough so to warrant a laugh. "At the risk of sounding redundant, no—you ask the impossible."

Spitting with rage, Teacher Zhou was about to deliver a barrage of insults when Fang Mu raised a hand to cut him off.

"Dr. Yang, some of the data and notes in your Skinner's Box experiment are directly related to a series of homicide cases. I might as well tell you that the mastermind behind them seems to be a man who calls himself Mr. Z. He has already destroyed evidence, so any data you might still possess in your files could represent our only hope in learning his identity. Also," Fang Mu said, raising his voice, "it is very likely that this person is someone working right under your nose. I am hoping that your data might give us some clues, so that we can apprehend him as soon as possible."

"I truly am sorry." Yang Jincheng shook his head. "But I cannot help you."

Fang Mu fixed his eyes on Yang Jincheng for several seconds. "Dr. Yang, as an officer of the law I have the authority to officially request your cooperation—"

"But I am not obligated to
provide
you with said cooperation!" Yang Jincheng barked. "If you want to play hardball, then believe you me, I have a thousand ways to make sure you both leave this place empty-handed!"

Fang Mu braced both hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forward to tower over Yang Jincheng. The psychologist returned his gaze, not budging an inch. Fang Mu spoke slowly, in a deliberate tone. "Dr. Yang, I do hope you will reconsider."

At that he turned, grabbed Teacher Zhou by the sleeve, and led him toward the door. On their way out they heard Yang Jincheng shout at their backs.

"Professor Zhou!"

Teacher Zhou turned, a hopeful light in his eyes. But what he saw in his former assistant behind the desk was a face devoid of all emotion.

"Professor Zhou—this could be the last time we ever see each other. Please, believe me," Yang Jincheng said, his words measured. "
I will bring greatness to psychology.
"

Teacher Zhou snorted bitterly, turned, and walked out of the office.

As Fang Mu moved to follow him, he paused and turned to address Yang Jincheng. "You don't want greatness for psychology; you just want greatness for yourself."

There was no doubt as to psychology's greatness as a discipline and a science. But in the hands of someone with evil intentions, even the greatest and noblest of sciences was nothing more that an instrument of cruelty. On his way back to the precinct, Fang Mu suddenly thought of Sun Pu.

Sun Pu had burned Professor Qiao alive in that basement. The truth was, that had been a sort of psychodrama, too—directed at Fang Mu, with the intention of recreating a traumatic scenario. It was just that the vast majority of therapists used psychodramas to heal, but Sun Pu had used his to hurt.

How similar Sun Pu had been to this Mr. Z!

Mr. Z was obviously a man with a good deal of familiarity with such therapeutic methods; he knew, for example, that all the principal techniques of a psychodrama must correspond to the special needs of the trauma patient. But he had corrupted the therapeutic ritual, the final stage of a psychodrama, by changing it into group murder whose primary purpose was to silence someone. M. Z ought to know very well that this not only would not help Jiang Dexian and the others to free themselves from their mental disorders; on the contrary, it would likely cause them further psychological trauma.

Fang Mu's fingers curled tightly around the jeep’s steering wheel. Every second counted now; he had to find this Mr. Z as soon as possible.

Fang Mu and the rest of the task force were not the only ones with that idea in mind.

As soon as his aggressive visitors had left through the door of his office, Yang Jincheng wilted into his chair, suddenly as limp as a deflated rubber ball. On his face, the calm and collected expression from earlier had been replaced by a look of desperate fear.

It seemed Teacher Zhou had not simply been trying to scare him after all; someone had indeed gotten his hands on the Indoctrination Field secrets. And as Fang Mu had pointed out, this person must be someone working right under his nose.

Yang Jincheng sat in a daze for a while, and then suddenly jumped to his feet. He picked up the priceless teacup from his desk with both hands, downed the last gulp of long-cold liquid, and pressed the button to open the door to his secret chamber.