Red Mandarin Dress (15 page)

“Did you notice anything suspicious about her in the last few days?”

“She hardly talked to anybody in the neighborhood. If she wasn’t ashamed for herself, we were ashamed for her.”

“Did her neighbors notice anything on Thursday?”

“Well, she left a bit earlier, according to Auntie Xiong, who lives on the same floor. Around three. Normally she did not leave until around dinnertime. That’s her shift. Of course, we didn’t really know about her work schedule.”

“So she stayed at home all day?”

“Not exactly. She could be busy with so many things. But when she left for her shift, she was dressed like a vamp. Always in her pantyhose and high heels. So we knew.”

“Can you write me a report?” Yu said. “Include whatever you and your neighbors know about Tang.”

Yu made some more calls, talking to her neighbors and coworkers. After more than an hour on the phone, he learned practically nothing beyond the initial details he had gotten from Liu.

Shortly afterward, a three-page report came in through the fax machine. It was from Liu and contained everything he had learned from the neighborhood. It was fairly detailed, considering the short notice.

Tang had lost her mother quite young. When her father was laid off, she, still a high school student, became a K girl with a government-issued license. Her father, too ashamed to continue living in the lane, went back to his old home in Subei. So she lived alone and occasionally brought people home. The committee was well aware of it, but unlike in the years of class struggle, the neighborhood cadres couldn’t go barging into her room without something like a warrant. Fortunately, most of her clients preferred to go to a hotel instead of her small room in the squalid lane.

She had no phone at home, nor a cell phone, since both were still too expensive for her. Occasionally she used the public phone service at the lane entrance, but she had a beeper with text messaging, which she used a lot.

Yu checked with the beeper company. The response came back fast. There was no activity on Thursday night.

As Yu finished reading the report, another emergency meeting was called at the bureau.

“Look at the headline. ‘Shanghai in crisis,’ ” Party Secretary Li said, his face livid, his words stumbling out in rage. “Our bureau is a laughingstock.”

Neither Yu nor Liao had an immediate response. The headline might be an exaggeration, but the bureau was in a crisis.

“Third! On the Bund!” Li went on. “Have you found anything?”

Yu and Lao were pulling hard at their cigarettes, shrouding the office in smoke. Hong looked flushed, with a hand pressed against her mouth for fear of coughing out loud.

“The investigation must take a new direction,” Liao said. “Two of the three victims were in the entertainment business—the sex business. Both the second and the third were easy targets at a restaurant or a karaoke bar. Most of those girls wouldn’t tell their families about their activities, so clues about their disappearance would be hard to find. More importantly, such a girl usually believes she is going out with a customer and goes to a secluded area to perform her job. They wouldn’t have resisted until it was too late.”

“What about Jasmine?” Yu said.

“She worked at a hotel,” Liao said, “but he could have easily picked her up. In fact, her boyfriend met her like that. That’s why I’ve been pushing for a different focus.”

“What’s your point?” Li said.

“The motive is evident. Hatred against those girls. He could have paid a terrible price because of someone in the business—a sexually transmitted disease, for instance—and wants revenge. That’s why he stripped those victims without having sex with them.”

“What about the red mandarin dress?” Li asked again.

“He makes a point of dressing his victims like the one who gave him the sexual disease. A sort of symbolism.”

“But there could be different revenge scenarios,” Yu said. “A woman he loved, let’s say, dumped him for another. In his mind, she’s no better than a prostitute.”

“But that explains his choice of locations too. Inspector Liao’s theory, I mean,” Hong cut in. “A protest against the booming sex industry in the city. He must blame not only those girls, but the city government as well, I believe, for allowing it to take place.”

“Leave our government out of it, Hong,” Li said. “Whatever scenarios or theories we come up with, the killing will continue. And what are we going to do to stop the killer?”

A short spell of silence ensued in the office.

With the entertainment industry increasingly prosperous in the city, it wouldn’t be difficult at all for him to find new victims. And it was out of the question, everyone in the room knew, to shut down the business.

“I suggest we check the hospitals,” Liao said. “They keep all records of all sexually transmitted disease.”

“It’s too much of a long shot,” Li said. “Before you could go through all the records, he’ll strike again. We only have one week’s time, Inspector Liao. Besides, even in your scenario, he could have sought medical help secretly.”

“Most sex murderers are sexually impotent,” Yu said. “According to Chen, the murder is a sort of mental orgasm. So the theory of sexually transmitted disease may not hold.”

“Liao has a point,” Hong said more resolutely. “Out of the three victims, two were engaged in some sort of sex services. That at least suggests a pattern. Often, the victims fit a certain stereotype, which plays an important role in the killer’s sexual fantasies. He may or may not have been hurt by one of these three-accompanying girls, but it is evident that he has a grudge against them.”

“So what’s your proposal?” Li demanded.

“I would like to make a suggestion based on Liao’s analysis. If he is going to strike again, it’s probably among those girls. Let’s set up a decoy for him.”

“There are so many karaoke clubs, nightclubs, and restaurants in the city,” Yu said. “How could you tell from which one he’ll pick his next victim?”

“I don’t think he would repeat himself.”

“Please explain.” Li appeared to be interested.

“After Jasmine, one was an eating girl, one was a singing girl—out of the three-accompanying girls. The next one, logically, would have to be a dancing girl. People are all creatures of habit,” Hong said. “So he locates his victims by frequenting those entertainment spots of the city. They are easy targets, as you just said. But more importantly, he is a man given to symbolism. The red mandarin dress may be just part of it. So he will most likely choose a dancing girl as the next victim in his elaborate scheme.”

“But to set up a decoy for him may just be like waiting for a rabbit to knock itself out on an old tree, as the proverb goes,” Yu said. “And he is far more dangerous than a rabbit. I talked to Chen; he believes such a psychopath is capable of anything.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Li turned to Yu, almost fiercely. “Or does your Chief Inspector Chen?”

“Perhaps the bureau is too small of a temple for someone like Chen,” Liao joined in.

Yu, surprised by the animosity demonstrated by both Li and Liao, made no response.

No one made any further objection to Hong’s proposal. No one had a better idea, as Li had put it. So Hong was going to a dance club that afternoon.

Afterward, Yu considered it necessary to contact Chen. After the headline “Shanghai in Crisis,” he didn’t think that Chen would keep burying his head among books.

As he picked up the phone, he thought he knew how to guarantee Chen’s full attention.

“I have to talk to you now, Chief. Let’s meet in front of Bund Park.”

“Why Bund Park?”

“The third red mandarin dress victim was found there this morning, close to the Tai Chi Corner on the Bund, just a stone’s throw from the park.”

“What—the third one was found on the Bund?”

“You’ll read about it in the newspapers—perhaps along with a reader’s letter, asking, ‘What is our Chief Inspector Chen doing?’ ”

“I’m on my way, Yu.”

FOURTEEN

TWENTY MINUTES LATER
,
YU
arrived at the Bund again.

Checking around, he chose a green bench that faced the park. Sitting there, he could see down into the shrub grove where he had examined the body earlier. A crowd was still lingering there. The shrub grove looked somewhat like the flower bed where the first victim was found, but that might just be a coincidence. He didn’t believe the murderer could have chosen the places to dump the bodies for that reason.

With the heavy traffic along Zhong Road, it wasn’t practical to cordon off the area. There wasn’t any yellow crime scene tape there, which would have attracted even more people. Nor was it necessary. Any evidence at the scene was long gone.

It wasn’t long before he saw Chen emerging out of the throng, climbing up the flight of steps. A man taller than most of the people around him, Chen wore a trench coat and was carrying a briefcase. He had a pair of tortoise-rimmed, amber-lensed glasses that accentuated his broad forehead. Perhaps Chen didn’t want people to recognize him, what with reporters still at the scene, looking around for familiar faces. Chen came to a halt as he reached the top step and took off his glasses. Then he spotted Yu and came over.

Chen took a seat beside Yu.

“What do you think of the location?” Yu asked.

“An act of deliberate defiance. Any clues?”

“No. Like the previous two victims, there was no evidence at the scene.”

“No sexual assault on the victim?”

“No. None that I could see, but she was also naked under the red mandarin dress.”

“What about her identity?”

“A singing girl. Identifying the victim was quicker this time,” Yu said, thinking it unnecessary to elaborate. “She was a K girl.”

“Another one in the entertainment business.”

“Yes, so Liao really wants to focus on that angle,” Yu said. “He sees a motive as well as a pattern—hatred against girls in the sex business. It fits in with your analysis of the killer as a psychopath, including the red mandarin dress.”

“The red mandarin dress must be significant. No question about that. Victimology analysis, through which you explore a possible relationship between the victim and the murderer, helps too. But the first victim doesn’t fit, does she?”

“I raised the same question.”

“Another thing that’s beyond me,” Chen said, standing up and casting a glance toward the shrub grove. “He took a deliberate risk in dumping the body on the Bund, knowing that traffic and people go by here all night long.”

“It was an act of vanity, I suspect. To show his defiance, and to taunt and torment the police. As you said, a serial killer has his signature—unique ways to commit a crime, like placing the body in a public location. Irrational, but it makes sense to his irrational mind.”

“I’ve got a strange feeling, Yu. Not that he is so cocky, but that he is so desperate—”

“What do you mean, Chief?”

“He is desperately sick. An end to all this may not be unacceptable—a death impulse or whatever,” Chen said, but he declined to explain further. “What are you going to do now?”

“Hong is going to set herself up as a decoy, posing as a dancing girl.”

“A decoy is a good tactic, if you’re certain of the murderer’s pattern. A dancing girl makes sense, but it may not yield results in a week. A lot depends on the circumstances. Besides, it can be dangerous for the decoy.”

“Yes, I’m concerned. She is a young cop.”

“If she insists on doing it, then assign an officer to protect her, to always remain in her company.”

“I’ll talk to Liao about it.”

“Also, try to keep her assignment as a decoy a secret.”

“Within the bureau?”

“Not in your group, naturally, but from everyone else. The criminal may be well connected,” Chen said, frowning. “For instance, consider his choice of the Bund last night. He could have learned about the neighborhood committee patrol. The Bund happens to be one of the few public places—perhaps the only one—that was barely covered by such patrols. It’s all government and business buildings along Zhongshan Road, and there is no residential neighborhood committee nearby. The police patrol alone was not enough to cover the area.”

“It could just be a coincidence.”

“For once, Party Secretary Li may have a point. The murderer’s choice of the Bund makes the message a political one, but I doubt it’s a call for action against three-accompanying girls. Rather, it’s a secret, strange message, full of contradictions. The contradictions may serve, however, as a point of entry for us, just like symptoms for a psychoanalyst.” Chen added, “Incidentally, I’ve adopted a similar approach for my literature paper.”

“Really!” Yu said. “Your paper must be an interesting one, but first tell me about the contradictions in the case.”

“Let me start by telling you about my paper, briefly,” Chen said. “I’ve read a few classical romance stories, and I’ve been confused by their contradicting messages. This reminded me of something in the red mandarin dress.”

“Or vice versa,” Yu said grumpily. That was just like his bookish boss. They had three murder victims, and the chief inspector actually wanted to discuss his literature paper.

“In psychoanalysis, a patient may have problems or contradictions beyond his own comprehension, and an analyst is supposed to find the cause embedded within the subconscious. I tried to focus on the contradictions in this case too, especially with regards to the red mandarin dress. So I have put together a list.”

“Now you have another list.”

Chen ignored him. “To begin with, the contradiction between the graceful dress and the obscene pose.”

“I think we discussed that last time. He could have been hurt by someone wearing such a dress,” Yu said. “And, according to Liao, by a girl in the sex business.”