Skinner's Box (Fang Mu (Eastern Crimes)) (19 page)

The investigators stood and filed out of the room. As Fang Mu and Bian Ping lined up behind them, Zheng Lin called out for them to wait.

"Old Bian," Zheng Lin said as he tossed the captain a cigarette. "I need your help with something."

Bian Ping and Fang Mu exchanged a look as they sat back down.

"What a goddamned mess! We still haven't got any leads in the labyrinth case, and now this happens!" Zheng Lin rubbed at his temples, his eyes shut tight. "Why are there so many psychopaths around these days?!"

Bian Ping broke out laughing, but Fang Mu was taken aback. Zheng Lin's little tirade had reminded him of that strange feeling that had come over him while he was in the shopping center. As he had strode past the display racks on his way to the crime scene, he had definitely felt a sense of déjà vu; it had felt as if then and there something familiar had flitted past his brain, just out of reach of his consciousness. The feeling had only lasted an instant, but in a similar environment or atmosphere it would again present itself, as clear and obvious as an inscription on a steel plaque.

And then he had it. It was the labyrinth murder case.

Both victims had been bound and held against their will while they were still alive. Both bodies had been dumped under needlessly complex circumstances and at great risk to the perpetrator or perpetrators. And in both cases, the motive was still unclear….

"Officer Fang, what do you think?" Zheng Lin asked, breaking Fang Mu from his reverie.

"Huh?" It took Fang Mu a moment to collect his wits. "What?" 

Zheng Lin appeared somewhat disappointed with Fang Mu's distracted state. He turned to Bian Ping and repeated the question. "What do you think, Captain? What could stuffing the vic's body into a giant teddy bear signify?"

"We still don't know," Bian Ping said, shaking his head solemnly. "But one thing is for certain; the perps must have felt that this was something they had to do. Otherwise why go to so much trouble? The problem is..."

"What?" Zheng Lin and Fang Mu both asked at the same time.

"I could understand if a single murderer felt a need to perform a strange and unique act like that; such are the inner workings of a twisted mind. But an entire group of people feeling the same way? It just doesn't make sense."

It was true. There might indeed be some common traits that were recognizable across abnormal psychology, but it tended to manifest much more often in the form of individual characteristics. Everyone's situation was different; naturally, everyone had his or her own special psychological needs. It seemed too much of a coincidence for multiple individuals to all have the same desire—to stuff a corpse inside a giant teddy bear and hang it on the wall for the world to see.

"What were you thinking about just now?" Bian Ping asked in the car as they drove back to the precinct. "Think you're onto something?"

Fang Mu hesitated a moment and then shook his head.

He had learned his lesson from the Luo Jiahai case; this time he would keep his mouth shut until he was absolutely sure.

A few days later, reports began to trickle in from those who had been dispatched around the city to look into various aspects of the investigation. The results were disheartening: no one had uncovered any clues of any value whatsoever. The biggest impediment to their efforts was that without a way to determine the murderers' motive, it was hard to know where they should be looking. And so they had to figure out a way.

That task, too, was assigned to the PSB's Criminal Psychology Research Institute.

Fang Mu sat on a stool in one of the Material Evidence Division's labs. On a table in front of him was the bloodstained teddy bear. The thing lay there limp and headless like a discarded toy that had just been stripped of all its fur.

Doctor Cai, head of the Material Evidence Division, explained that the plush exterior fur of the bear had been made of an imported material. The doll had been hollowed out, but judging by the few scraps that remained stuck on the inside, it had been stuffed with ordinary PP cotton. The examiners had also found some human hair and a few skull fragments and bits of skin and were currently running tests on them.

"There's one thing I don't understand." Doctor Cai poked at the teddy bear with his finger. "If they really needed to dress him up like a bear, then why not just go and buy an actual bear suit, like an advertisement mascot might wear? Why go to all this trouble to hollow out a giant stuffed animal?"

Fang Mu had done some internet research and confirmed that the teddy bear used was presently the most common type of super-sized teddy bear on the market, and that it could be bought in just about any large- or medium-sized shopping mall or small-commodities wholesale market. Animal suits worn for advertising, however, had to be custom ordered from a specialized manufacturer. It was no wonder that the perpetrators had not wanted to get such a bear suit; the paper trail from such a purchase would be almost impossible to hide.

"It can only mean one thing," Fang Mu mumbled. "This teddy bear was very important to them."

Fang Mu’s mind ran along other theories of twisted minds. So engrossed he was in his thoughts that he barely noticed Doctor Cai stepping out of the room.

Fang Mu stared at the teddy bear. If the perpetrators' having hung the corpse in plain view in a shopping mall could be interpreted as a desire to put it on display, then why had they first stuffed it inside a teddy bear? They had obviously not been trying to conceal the body, so the act must have been performed out of a psychological need of some kind. And this need must have been strong enough for the murderers to have been willing to take such a big risk.

So, just what sort of need had it been?

Fang Mu remembered Meng Fanzhe. In order to overcome his fear of mice, he had decided to raise a cat. In the end, however, Meng Fanzhe's anxiety had built and magnified until it finally came to a head; he had taken the poor animal to the bathroom and, while it was still alive, torn it to pieces and swallowed them one by one. But the killers in the case at hand had apparently acted in a much more calm and calculated manner; the strange scene they had created seemed more like the final act of a ceremony or ritual than anything else. Fang Mu honestly did not know whether he hoped they would try to kill again or not; if this had been part of a serial killing, he would be able to connect the dots and draw conclusions about the murderers' temperaments, family backgrounds, social relationships, and perhaps even their physical traits. But with an isolated case, it was very difficult to form any worthwhile theories.

What if…this had
not
been an isolated incident?

The labyrinth murder.

The strange feeling of déjà vu resurfaced. In many ways, the victims in the two cases were not at all alike: their physical characteristics and social circumstances, where their bodies had been left, how they had been killed, and so on. However, both crime scenes had the same ritualistic feel to them. Was this all in his head? Or was there indeed a connection?

Fang Mu glanced once more at the teddy bear on the table and decided to take another look through the evidence in the labyrinth murder file. As he was turning to leave the laboratory, the door opened and Doctor Cai walked back in.

"Oh, going somewhere, were you?" Doctor Cai held up a piece of paper in his hand. "Well, you'd better hold your horses, because we've found something!"

CHAPTER
17
Crash Reenactment

"W
anna come in and play?" Liao Yafan tilted her head and winked conspiratorially at the boy.

The boy on the other side of the fence shook his head violently. Liao Yafan smiled and reached out to tousle his hair. At her touch he straightened and pushed his head upward against her hand, seeming to enjoy the sensation against his scalp.

"Are you hungry?"

The boy did not answer; he just smiled shyly and scratched at one of the fence's iron bars with a dirty fingernail.

"Wait here." Liao Yafan got up and darted across the garden and into the two-story building of Angel Hall. In the kitchen there were still some steamed vegetable-stuffed buns leftover from lunch, so she grabbed a few from the steamer. They were still warm. She was just turning to go when Sister Zhao walked in.

"What are you up to?" the middle-aged woman asked as she absently rolled up her sleeves.

"Nothing." Hands behind her back, Liao Yafan darted out the door.

At the end of the hallway, she saw Teacher Zhou leaning against the window, staring out at the courtyard with a lit cigarette in his hand. The smoke looked bluish in the slanting sunlight, blurring the outlines of his figure like a pastel sketch. Liao Yafan stood still and watched him for a while, feeling suddenly depressed for some reason.

If this really were a drawing, she thought, she would call it "Sadness."

She headed on outside.

The boy was no longer alone at the side of the fence. He was staring with interest through the bars at a little boy who was sitting there shouting numbers and waving his fingers at him.

"Go on, Erbao." Liao Yafan gave the little boy a gentle shove from behind. "Go play over there."

Erbao turned in a circle in place but did not leave. He continued waving his fingers at the boy on the other side of the fence and shouting out loud.

As Liao Yafan handed the steamed buns through the bars to the boy, he asked, "What's he doing?"

She allowed a small laugh. “He wants to play a finger-guessing game with you." She tried again to shove Erbao to the side. "Just ignore him. Go ahead; eat them before they get cold."

The boy took a tentative bite. Moments later he was devouring the buns one after another, barely even taking the time to chew.

"Taste good?"

"Uh-huh," he mumbled around a mouthful of bread and vegetables.

"They’re nothing special,” she said with a giggle. “Just some leftover steamed buns, that's all." She laughed more, watching him. "Slow down; don't make yourself choke."

As soon as Erbao noticed the food, he reached his hand out and stuck his bottom lip out. At first the boy on the other side of the fence just stared at him, apparently unsure of what Erbao wanted. Then, realizing the little boy was asking for some of his food, he handed one of the buns to him. Erbao tried to take it, but his two-fingered hand fumbled and the steamed bun fell to the ground. Suddenly upset, he yelled in frustration and bent to pick up the bun with both hands, whereupon he brought it up to his mouth to take a bite, dirt and all. Liao Yafan moved quickly to grab it from him and nearly got her hand bitten.

The boy on the other side of the fence chuckled. "Hey, relax. I'll give you another one."

The two boys ate their buns together and giggled at each other through the fence. When they were done, they both sat there licking their fingers like a pair of friendly little animals. Liao Yafan stood between them, suddenly feeling very tall.

By the time he was finished Erbao had completely forgotten about wanting to play the finger-guessing game, so he wobbled happily off to play in the courtyard. The other boy wiped his hands on his shirt and began to rummage through his dirty backpack. As he did so, something fell from his pocket onto the ground next to his feet.

Liao Yafan bent subconsciously to pick it up, but when she saw what it was, she froze. It was a stack of 100-yuan notes; she guessed there must be a couple of thousand yuan in it at least.

"Where did you get all this money?" She scowled. "Did you steal it from your mom and dad?"

The kid pulled a can of cola from his bag, popped it open, and began guzzling it down in a long string of quick gulps that culminated in a loud burp. "No, my dad gave it to me. It's my lunch money for the week."

Liao Yafan fell silent. She turned the money over in her hands a while before carefully returning it to his pocket. "Careful not to lose it." Feeling uneasy, she pressed her hand against the pocket to check that it was secure. "That's a lot of money."

"Not really," the boy said as he thrust the can of cola toward her face. "Have a sip."

"No thank you, I'm not thirsty," she said with a laugh. "Just give me the can when you're finished."

"What do you want it for?" the boy asked, eyebrows rising.

"You can get money for it." Liao Yafan patted him on the head. "You didn't know that, did you?"

He mulled this over. "Are you broke?"

Liao Yafan stood. "No, not broke."

When the boy saw the gloomy expression that abruptly spread across her features, he put his can of cola down, pulled the stack of notes from his pocket, and slapped it into her hands. "Here."

"What are you doing?" She shrieked and shoved the money back toward him as if he had just given her a handful of hot coals. "Here, take it back. Take it! Hurry!"

"It's for you," the boy insisted, pressing the money into Liao Yafan's hands with all his might. The two of them wrestled it back and forth for a while until Liao Yafan clenched her jaw and growled, "If you don't quit it, I'm gonna get angry!"

At this the boy gave up and crammed the cash haphazardly into his pocket, after which he returned to drinking his cola in silence.

Liao Yafan exhaled in relief and bent to pick up the pull-tab he had discarded from the cola can. She put it around her finger and began to fiddle with it.

"Look, it's like a ring. Pretty, isn't it?" When she held her finger out and squinted; the golden sunlight made it look like a dazzling golden ring.

"It's not a ring."

"I said it's
like
a ring; I didn't say it
was
a ring," she barked. "Of
course
I know it's not a real ring, dummy."

The boy looked nervous. Hastily he said, "But it doesn't look like one."

Liao Yafan felt a mixture of anger and amusement. She reached out and pinched his nose. "You have no idea how to make a girl happy, do you?"

Just then Sister Zhao's voice rang out from across the courtyard. "Yafan…! Yafan…!"

"Coming!" Liao Yafan shouted over her shoulder, and then turned back to the boy. "I have to go do work. You should head on home."

The boy chugged down the last of the cola and shoved the can through the fence at Liao Yafan.

Taking it, she waved it in the air between them and flashed a grin full of white teeth. "Thank you!"

The boy's face flushed. "Welcome," he muttered.

Teacher Zhou was nowhere to be seen during dinner. Without his typically jolly presence, the atmosphere in the dining hall was almost melancholy. The children all ate in silence, and as they finished they crept off one by one. Sister Zhao and Liao Yafan were the last ones to leave. After clearing the table, they each grabbed a basin full of laundry, walked out to the corner of the courtyard where the drain was, and began to scrub the laundry hard.

To anyone that knew Angel Hall as Liao Yafan did, it seemed that everyone was acting weird lately. Sister Zhao seemed to be spending more and more time alone in her room where, nine times out of ten, she just sat or kneeled, talking to herself there. Sometimes Liao Yafan went entire days without catching a glimpse of Teacher Zhou. On the odd occasion when she did see him, he was either outside smoking in a solitary gloom or in Sister Zhao's room, staring at that boy’s portrait in a daze. The depressed state of the two adults had the children cowed; the younger children were quick to tears, the older ones bickered more than usual, and everyone was walking around on eggshells. In Angel Hall, laughter had become a rare thing indeed.

By the time the clothing was all washed, Sister Zhao could barely stand up straight; she had been hard at work all day, bent at the waist. Liao Yafan volunteered to hang the laundry on the line herself.

It was already dark outside, but a fingernail moon spilled its magic across the courtyard and etched its stones with silver. As the cold late autumn air moved through the damp clothes, they billowed gently and sent a pleasant detergent smell wafting out across the courtyard. Liao Yafan did her best to separate them as she pegged them to the line with fingers numb from the cold, soapy water.

"Psst!"

An indistinct sound caught Liao Yafan's attention, causing her to pause in the middle of hanging a bed sheet. She cocked her head and glanced toward the building. Seeing nothing, she shrugged and went back to smoothing out the creases in the bed sheet.

"Psst!"

This time Liao Yafan was sure she had heard something. She ducked her head under the sheet and looked in the direction of the fence. A tiny figure was there, crouched in the shadows on the other side, waving at her.

Liao Yafan jogged over and squatted down next to the fence.

"Why are you still out? It's late," she said. Despite the shadows that shrouded his face, she could tell it was the boy and he was excited. The feeling was somehow contagious, and before she knew it she, too, was smiling. "You should be at home getting ready for bed, little man."

Not saying a word, the boy plunged his hand into his pants pocket. A moment later the hand came out with an object that he quickly shoved through the bars and stuffed into Liao Yafan's hands. Before she had a chance to ask what it was, he had jumped to his feet and disappeared down the shadowy footpath.

Puzzled, Liao Yafan looked back down at the object in her hands. It was a tiny heart-shaped box covered in embroidered satin. Her heart fluttered as she opened its delicate lid. Fingers trembling a little, she reached in and withdrew a ring. Its soft platinum band and the single diamond set in the middle glittered elusively in the moonlight.

The hairs discovered in the teddy bear by the examiners' meticulous efforts were telling. When they were run against the victim's DNA, the lab workers were surprised to find that they belonged to a different person.

"What does it mean?" Bian Ping frowned as he slapped the DNA report onto the table.

"It means someone else wore that bear before the vic's body was stuffed into it," Fang Mu said.

"Couldn't they belong to somebody who works in the factory where the thing was made?"

"Probably not." Fang Mu thought for a moment. "If the hairs had come from a factory employee, they would most likely have been mixed in with the stuffing material. The killers removed it all when they hollowed out the doll."

Bian Ping did not seem overly excited by this. "Well, in any case, it's another thing we can look into.”

Fang Mu understood Bian Ping's conservative attitude very well. That the giant teddy bear had been worn by a person other than the victim was only a possibility, after all, and not a certainty. He wanted to believe that someone else had worn it because that would fit with his hypothesis that the crime had been ritualistic in nature. The teddy bear was obviously something the group of murderers cared very much about; if the killing had indeed been the culmination of a ceremony of some sort, then this important tool of theirs would quite possible have been used by at least one other person some time during the course of the ritual.