Killer Nights

Human beings have a tendency to consider things high above to be holy and sanctified, which is why we wors.h.i.+p people and things that are so high above us as to be out of reach.  This is also why people like to use the word “high” to positively describe an individual’s characteristics, hence terms like high born, high cla.s.s, and high fas.h.i.+on.  According to that logic, the holiest place in the world should be Mt. Everest, even though the air is thin and the temperature quite cold.

The Tas.h.i.+ Lhunpo Monastery, located at the foot of the Drolmari Mountain in s.h.i.+gatse, Tibet, hosted the annual Buddha Festival.  Millions of Buddhist pilgrims congregated here with their holy hada cloths in hand.  They came here on this holy day to offer to their holy Buddha their holy hada cloths.  They then prayed for protection from evil and peace for all mankind.

“Zema, kherang ga rey choe doe duk?” warmly greeted a middle-aged Tibetan lady.  (Translation: “Girl, what would you like to eat?”)

“Umm… thenthuk!  Ani ma… I mean, ma’am,” A-Jiao awkwardly replied in broken Tibetan.

“Hehe, you’re a Han girl, aren’t you?” laughed the lady after hearing A-Jiao’s attempt at speaking Tibetan.  Dressed in traditional Tibetan garb, A-Jiao certainly could pa.s.s for a real Tibetan girl.  (Translator’s note: the Han are the dominant ethnicity in China and are usually what foreigners think of when they describe someone as “Chinese,” although strictly speaking, such usage is incorrect as the term “Chinese” does not denote an ethnicity, but rather a nationality that is composed of 56 distinct ethnicities including the Han.)

“Yes, ma’am, I’m Han.  Could you bring me a bowl of thenthuk, a plate of mixed cow tongue, and a cup of milk tea?” A-Jiao happily placed her order with a smile on her face.

“Wait a moment.  I’ll bring out your order shortly.”  The Tibetan lady yelled something incomprehensible to the kitchen and then proceeded to serve other customers.  s.h.i.+gatse was always busiest during the Buddha Festival.  The streets are filled with an unending stream of people.  If you didn’t take time to notice the unique Tibetan architecture, you could easily mistake this place for one of China’s many megacities.

Shortly thereafter, a waiter brought out A-Jiao’s food.  She looked at the chili powder on the table and immediately felt it beckoning to her taste buds.  However, when her hand grabbed a hold of the chili powder shaker, she could hear Dr. w.a.n.g whispering in her ears, “A-Jiao, make sure to get plenty of rest after you’ve been discharged.  And don’t eat any spicy food.”  She vigorously shook her head, as if she to shake Dr. w.a.n.g’s voice out of her head, but just as soon as Dr. w.a.n.g left, another face appeared, “No way!  You body can’t handle spicy food right now!”

“d.a.m.n cop!” A-Jiao cursed with pouted lips, but she did pull her hand away from the shaker.  Ai, I wonder what that Uncle Policeman is up to these days…

Today was Wei Xin’s turn to stand night watch in the alley again.  She came by Jiang Zhengkai’s office to see if he had any specific instructions for the evening and then departed for the alley.  Through the efforts of the police and the fact that no new murders have occurred recently, this secluded little alley showed signs of a gradual recovery.

The alley pimp A-Shun was fully cooperating with the police, so he knew which of the girls worked for him and which ones were undercover police officers.  He was given free reign by the police to handle his business in the alley, which meant that if one of his girls came across a particularly troublesome john, he would have to step in and set him straight.  This wasn’t especially difficult for A-Shun.  After all, his purpose in this alley was to provide security.  He liked to think of himself as a kind of “law enforcement officer” in his own way.

Those doc.u.ments Jiang Zhengkai requested on A-Jiao had all come back.  The post office was able to verify that the recipient of A-Jiao’s wire transfer was indeed Lu Xiaomei’s family in Sichuan.  The only difference was that Xiaomei normally wired 2,000 yuan to her family, while A-Jiao wired them 3,000 yuan.  After several twists and turns, the Housing Bureau was able to track down the owners.h.i.+p history of A-Jiao’s condo.  The owner of the condo is a woman by the name of Lin Fangyun, but she committed suicide two years ago.  Before that, the condo belong to a man named Ren Pengfei.  According to sources that knew him, he appeared to have emigrated abroad.  Sometimes, the truth is only a small step away, yet taking that step may require all the effort you could muster.

Jiang Zhengkai looked at the two doc.u.ments in his hands.  He shook his head in frustration.  There was still no way to confirm A-Jiao’s ident.i.ty, although he could confirm from these doc.u.ments that A-Jiao was not the same person as Xiaomei.  He was able to pull up Xiaomei’s personal records from her hometown, and after A-Shun and others identified Xiaomei from a copy of her photo ID, they concluded that it was indeed Xiaomei who had died in the first murder.

However, these two doc.u.ments made Jiang Zhengkai feel somewhat gratified and excited.  First of all, they showed that even though A-Jiao worked in an unseemly profession, she was not a bad woman at heart.  She wired money to Xiaomei’s family, that much was already certain.  And she also technically did not lie when she said that the condo’s former owner had moved abroad.  Nevertheless, that does beg the question of why she hid the truth of the current owner’s suicide.  What was her relations.h.i.+p with Lin Fangyun?  Was she Lin Fangyun’s live-in maid?  No, that’s not it, since she’s most likely a native.  Then was she Lin Fangyun’s relative or even her daughter?  But Lin Fangyun’s personal records showed that she was unmarried.  Furthermore, her personal records showed that her parents died during the Cultural Revolution, which meant she had no surviving next of kin.

Thus, A-Jiao’s true ident.i.ty was still a mystery.

In the middle of the night, Wei Xin and a few of her female colleagues stood on the street corner.  A few steps away were a group of real prost.i.tutes.  Tonight was an especially cold night, so her colleagues were soon whisked away by their husbands, leaving Wei Xin all by herself in this alley.

Wei Xin let out a yawn.  She imagined Jiang Zhengkai coming by this alley this very instant, walking up to her, and softly saying, “Come on, let’s go inside.”  She imagined she would definitely nod in delight, and then the two of them would walk inside one of the buildings.  At the thought of this imagined scenario, her face turned bright red.

Still, this really was a very cold night.  Wei Xin stood there for a while longer but soon felt the need to use the bathroom.  Using the bathroom in one of the apartment units rented by the sub-bureau might be a bit awkward since those married dual-police couples were probably all getting busy right now.  She couldn’t really blame them as they were in fact engaged in the official performance of their duties, since the one thing they knew about the killer was that this person only attacked couples engaged in s.e.xual intercourse.  Being in the same apartment with people having s.e.x was surely going to make her feel embarra.s.sed, so she eventually decided to use the public restroom located in one of the apartment buildings’ courtyards.  Before she left, she found the nearest surveillance camera and traced out the letters “WC” with her finger.  On the other side of the surveillance camera were several pairs of eyes nervously watching her every movement.  Those eyes, of course, belonged to Zhang Nan’s police surveillance team.

Wei Xin’s high heel shoes made a tap, tap noise as she walked across the pavement towards the public restroom.  Just as she was about to enter, a woman’s scream pierced the evening sky…

“We’ve got another homicide!”  The officers in the surveillance room, the undercover officers in the alley, and the officers who had been getting busy in bed just a second ago all reacted to this latest incident.  They all rushed to the balcony, to the alley, and to grab their pants.  “Quick!  It came from the 6th floor of building 7!” someone yelled into the night.  The police then all immediately rushed towards building 7.

The numerous prost.i.tutes and johns in the alley all froze as they watched in amazement the scene unfolding before them.  So this quiet little alley wasn’t so quiet after all.  At that moment, a person hid in the shadows and quietly observed everything from afar.  He was located right across from the street corner where Wei Xin had been standing.

Wei Xin was probably the last police officer to react to this latest emergency.  Perhaps standing too long in the cold weather had given her an upset stomach.  By the time she ran out of the courtyard in her high heels, all of her colleagues had rushed into the building where the scream had come from.  She looked at the boisterous scene on the other side of the alley before stepping foot into the alley herself, but by the time she entered the alley, a shadow was already waiting for her there.

Bang!  A heavy object struck Wei Xin’s head while a large hand simultaneously covered her mouth.  Wei Xin’s body went limp, and she immediately lost consciousness.  But unlike that time with A-Jiao, this shadow a.s.sailant didn’t plan on finis.h.i.+ng off Wei Xin right here right now.  Instead, he stuffed a gag into her mouth and tied her hands with rope.  He then placed a large burlap sack over her head and pulled it down so it covered her entire body.

The shadow a.s.sailant vigilantly looked in all directions, and when he was certain that n.o.body had seen him, he picked up burlap sack with Wei Xin inside and carried it on his shoulder.  He then walked towards a cycle rickshaw parked at the entrance of the alley.