Red Mandarin Dress (16 page)

“That leads to another contradiction relevant to Liao’s theory,” Chen said. “The dress is too conservative for a three-accompanying girl. Too old-fashioned. According to Mr. Shen, it was probably made more than ten years ago, and made in a style that dates back even further. There was no entertaining business at that time, nor three-accompanying girls.”

“No, I don’t think there was.”

“Then there is all the attention to the details of the dress. It’s not a dress likely to be affordable for a three-accompanying girl. The dress is exquisite, made with high-quality craftsmanship.”

“Yes, Mr. Shen has mentioned that.”

“And then the torn slits on the dress. White Cloud did an experiment for me.”

“So you have her working as your assistant,” Yu said, remembering what Peiqin said about the possible relationship of the two. “What experiment?”

“Well, she knows much more about the dress than I do. She demonstrated that there’s no way that the slits could be torn accidentally, no matter how roughly the dress is put on. In other words, the criminal must have deliberately torn them. With no sexual assault, no penetration or ejaculation, why would he insist on such an appearance? There must be a reason for it.”

“You mean it’s not for the sake of misleading us, but a reason understandable only to himself?”

“Possibly not even understandable to himself. More like a ritual. Only with the victim in the mandarin dress, with all the details observed, like torn slits, bare feet, loose bosom buttons, and the obscene pose, of course, does the ritual become complete. For him, only part of the kick is physiological. The other part may come from the ritualistic behavior that accompanies acts of sexual perversion. Again, not unlike those romantic stories, the contradictions may hardly be comprehensible to the author. So why?”

“Why?” Yu echoed, noticing another group of people swarming around the shrub grove. There was also a TV station car pulling up nearby, causing a temporary traffic jam. “I haven’t studied psychology, but I know a patient has to sit and talk in front of a doctor. In our case, with no clues as to the identity of the criminal, how and what can we analyze?”

It was an issue Yu had raised last time, and Chen hadn’t been able to give him a real answer.

“Well, by analyzing those contradictions, we may still come to know something.”

“Really, Chief!”

“To begin with, the style and material for the dress probably came from the sixties. Possibly the early sixties, but not after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Based on Mr. Shen’s opinion, we may assume it’s a conservative style for a married woman in her thirties. If this original mandarin dress wearer were alive today, she would be in her mid-sixties or seventies.”

“So you are now talking about the original mandarin dress wearer thirty years ago?” Yu asked.

“Doesn’t Liao also believe that the case is related to the original mandarin dress wearer? For me, it’s just another wearer, of different social status and age than Liao assumed. And following that, it leads to the man connected to her. Let’s assume for the moment that he was the same age. If so, now he would be in his sixties or possibly seventies.”

“Yes?” Yu said in exasperated confusion. “How does all that come into your picture?”

“Now for our serial murderer. Three victims in three weeks, the bodies dumped at three public locations. Do you think an old man could have been up to the task? Just now I stood by the shrub grove for several minutes. Not once could a car have slowed down or pulled up there without other cars behind it honking like mad. So if he pushed the body out while driving, most likely he would have been seen by the cars behind him, even at night. He must have driven around several times, I believe, before he would have been able to pull it off.”

“That’s true. To dispose of the bodies like that, one would have to be really quick and agile.”

“So the murderer has to be no older than a middle-aged man. But if so, the one connected to the original mandarin dress wearer was, at the time, only a boy.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s another contradiction, to be sure, but again in these psychological studies, there’s something called Oedipus complex.”

“Oedipus complex?” Yu repeated.

“A son’s subconscious sexual desire for his mother.”

“What? That’s supposed to help us find a boy who grew into a middle-aged man who is capable of committing three murder cases in three weeks?” Yu said without trying to conceal the satire in his tone. “That’s totally beyond me.”

Yu had never heard of the so-called Oedipus complex. Absurd as it might sound, however, it was not unlike the chief inspector, who was known for his unorthodox ways.

“No, I don’t think it’s too likely, either,” Chen said in an unperturbed way, “but according to the theory, he’s probably a middle-aged man with a traumatic experience in his childhood, possibly during the Cultural Revolution. And he must have had conflicting feelings toward the woman who wore the original mandarin dress.”

“That’s a novel theory indeed,” Yu exclaimed. “So after waiting twenty years, his passion for his mother suddenly drove him into a frenzied killing streak.”

“It’s not my theory, Yu,” Chen said. “Still, it explains some of the contradictions.”

Yu regretted his satirical comment to his boss. After all, Chen had been thinking hard about the case, checking through his books. Still, his approach appeared to be too psychological, too academic.

“Oh, some people are talking about your vacation during the investigation,” Yu said, changing the subject.

“Let them complain. Just tell them I’m too busy with my paper.”

“But even Old Hunter says that you could put your paper aside for a short while.”

“That’s exactly what I am going to do, but we don’t have to tell the others.”

A young couple came over. After looking around for several minutes, they chose to sit on the bench, beside the two cops. This wasn’t unusual on the Bund. While there were more and more places for young people in the city, the Bund was still the number-one spot. There were all the colorful vessels sailing in the background and the romantic memories of the city still vibrant in the impressive neocolonial buildings. Besides, it was free. So lovers would take any available seat on the Bund. That made it impossible, however, for Chen and Yu to continue their discussion of the murders.

“So are you going to push ahead with your theory?” Yu said, rising.

“It’s just a theory in books,” Chen said. “In fact, your focus on the possible triggering factor in Jasmine’s murder may be the right direction. But we may have to move back further in history.”

Yu didn’t know how much further they could move back. Still, there was no telling what surprises his boss would come up with.

FIFTEEN

ON TUESDAY MORNING
,
CHEN
woke up still exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept at all. There was also the suggestion of a nagging headache. He started rubbing his temples.

He had spent the weekend working on the red mandarin dress case, pushing along several fronts.

He’d phoned a friend in the United States, asking for her help with a background checkup of Weng. With her connections, she soon obtained the required information. What Weng had told Yu was basically true. He had been a special buyer for an American company. The divorce proceedings with his wife had hit no snag and should be finalized in a month or two. In fact, his wife was looking forward to it, as she had a new boyfriend.

He’d contacted Xiong, the city government cadre who had spoken to Tian’s factory about his actions during the Cultural Revolution. Xiong said that he’d done so because of an anonymous letter he’d received about Tian’s atrocities. According to Xiong, he didn’t try to put any pressure on the factory. Once somebody in Xiong’s position had spoken, however, it was a matter of course that other people would do everything possible to comply. That spelled the doom for Tian. An anonymous letter was smart, though not necessarily suspicious, as it allowed the author to “kill with somebody else’s knife.” Xiong had no idea at all who had written the letter.

Chen also researched the mandarin-dress-related mass-criticism during the early part of the Cultural Revolution. Like Peiqin, he recalled the image of Wang Guangmei being mass-criticized and humiliated in a mandarin dress. Thinking that others could have suffered like that as well, he had a computer search done by White Cloud and then, also with the help of White Cloud, he got in touch with Yang, a movie star who had been mass-criticized in a mandarin dress. There were some minor differences in details, though. As far as Yang remembered, it was a white dress, and she wasn’t barefoot. Instead, she had on worn-out shoes, which symbolized a bourgeois promiscuous lifestyle. Yang offered one more detail that differed. Her dress slits had been cut up to the waist, revealing her panties, and it had been done by the Red Guards with a pair of scissors. The murder victims’ slits, in contrast, seemed to have been torn, as in a struggle. He immediately checked with Yu, who confirmed his impression. With the first victim, the dress could have been torn in rage by the perpetrator, and for the second and third, possibly in an effort to produce similarity among the victims. Whatever the interpretation, the suggestion of sexual violence was unmistakable.

On Monday, he talked to Ding Jiashan, the attorney who represented the diners in the food poisoning case against Tian. According to Ding, there was something suspicious about the whole thing. It was a case few attorneys would be interested in. The attorney’s fees would almost certainly be higher than what the clients would recover from such a small restaurant, but the diners seemed to be so determined that they were willing to pay his fee up front. And they were prepared too. They had the receipt from the restaurant, they had the record from the hospital, and their stories supported one another. So, on their behalf, the attorney complained to the business bureau first, which fined Tian heavily and closed the restaurant for violations. The diners seemed to be happy with the initial result but, a few days later, when he tried to contact them about the next step, they had canceled their phones. The attorney wasn’t even sure that they had given him their real names.

This further confirmed the scenario that somebody had been after Tian. But that wasn’t necessarily a lead in the red mandarin dress case.

In the meantime, he read through the material prepared by Yu and Hong. Hong had not called in during the weekend, though. She must have been busy with her decoy assignment.

He also experimented further with focusing on the contradictions in the case, which seemed only to lead to more contradictions.

By Tuesday, however, he had again arrived at the conclusion that he could hardly do any better than his colleagues, in spite of the fact that he had been going all out, concentrating on the serial murder case.

Just as he was about to brew a second pot of coffee in frustration, Professor Bian called and asked about his progress with the paper.

“I’ve been working on it,” Chen said.

“Do you think you can turn it in with others?” Bian asked. “It’s a promising paper.”

“Yes, I’ll turn the paper in on time.”

After he hung up, he became worried. He had a longstanding habit of setting deadlines for himself, as he needed the extra pressure to complete a project, such as a poem or a mystery translation. This time was different. He was already under too much pressure. Since all of his efforts in the investigation seemed to be going nowhere, with not even the suggestion of a possible breakthrough anytime soon, he decided he might as well try to finish his paper first. In the past, he’d found himself coming up with new ideas about a project after temporarily putting it on the shelf. The working of the subconscious, perhaps.

It was no longer possible for him to focus while at home, however. Phone calls kept coming in, and unplugging the phone line didn’t help. Now that there were three victims in the case, his cell phone number had become suddenly known to many, including the media. Even at the library, he was recognized by a couple of people who then peppered him with questions about the murder case. Last night, a
Wenhui
journalist had come knocking at his door, carrying a package of barbecued pork and a bottle of Shaoxin wine, eager to discuss her theories with him over the feast—almost like a passionate female character stepping out of one of those romantic stories.

He decided to go to the Starbucks Café on Sichuan Road.

Starbucks, along with McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, had mushroomed in the city. The café was regarded as a cultivated resort for the elite, and the atmosphere there was supposedly quiet and peaceful. At the café, where he was nobody, he could have an undisturbed morning and concentrate on the paper.

Choosing a corner table, he took out his books. He had gathered five or six stories, but three might be enough for the paper. The third one, “Artisan Cui and His Ghost Wife,” was originally narrated by Song dynasty professional storytellers in marketplaces or tea houses where old people sat talking loudly, cracking watermelon seeds, playing mahjong, and spitting to their hearts’ content.

Sipping at his coffee, he started reading. In the tale, Xiuxiu, a pretty girl in Lin’an, was purchased as an embroidery maid by Prince Xian’an, the military leader of three commanderies. In his household worked a young jade carver named Cui, who gained the prince’s favor for having carved a marvelous jade Avalokitesvara for the emperor. So the prince promised to marry Xiuxiu to Cui in the future. One night, fleeing from a fire at the prince’s mansion, Xiuxiu suggested to Cui that, instead of waiting, they become husband and wife there and then. So that night, the two left for Tanzhou as a couple. After a year, they ran into Guo, a guard for the prince. Guo reported the whereabouts of the fugitives to the prince, who had them brought back. At the local court, Cui was punished and banished to Jiankang. Xiuxiu overtook him on the way there, telling him that after getting her punishment in the back garden, she was set free. As it happened, the imperial jade Avalokitesvara needed repairing, so the Cuis moved back to the capital, where they again ran across Guo. Once more the prince sent for Xiuxiu, but when the sedan chair supposedly carrying her arrived, there was no one inside. Guo then got a severe beating for his false information. Next, Cui, too, was brought to the prince, at which point Cui learned that Xiuxiu had been beaten to death in the back garden. So it was Xiuxiu’s ghost who had been with him all this time. When Cui returned home, he begged her to spare him, but she took away his life so he could keep her company in the next world.