Red Mandarin Dress Read online

  A young woman walked light-footed into the living room. She looked to be in her early thirties, dressed in a black mandarin dress and high-heeled sandals. She relieved Chen of the ham and put it on the coffee table.

  “Fengfeng, my most capable daughter,” Bian said. “A CEO of an American-Chinese joint venture.”

  “A most unfilial daughter,” she said. “I studied business administration instead of Chinese literature. Thank you for choosing him, Chief Inspector Chen. It’s a boost to his ego to have a celebrity student.”

  “No, it’s an honor for me.”

  “You’re doing great on the police force, Chief Inspector Chen. Why do you want to study in the program?” she wanted to know.

  “Literature makes nothing happen,” the old man joined in with a self-depreciating smile. “She, in contrast, bought the apartment, which was way beyond my means. So we live here—one country with two systems.”

  One country with two systems—a political catch phrase invented by Comrade Deng Xiaoping to describe socialist mainland China’s coexistence with the capitalist Hong Kong after 1997. Here, it described a family whose members earned money from two different systems. Chen understood that people questioned his decision, but he tried not to care too much.

  “It’s like a road not taken, always so tempting to think about on a snowy night,” he said, “and also a boost to one’s ego to imagine an alternative career.”

  “I have to ask a favor of you,” she said. “Father has diabetes and high blood pressure. He does not go to school every day. Can you come here to study instead?”

  “Sure, if it’s convenient for him.”

  “Don’t you remember the line by Gao Shi?” Bian said. “‘Alas, the most useless is a scholar.’ Here I am, an old man capable of only ‘carving insects’ at home.”

  “Literature is of significance for a thousand autumns,” Chen said, quoting a line in response.

  “Well, your passion for literature is something. As in a Chinese saying, people with the same sickness pity one another. Of course, you may have to worry about your own kind of ‘thirsty illness.’ You are a romantic poet, I’ve heard.”

  Xiaoke zhi ji—thirsty illness. Chen had heard the term before, in reference to diabetes, which made one thirsty and tired. Bian had a way of talking, making a subtle reference both to his diabetes and to his thirst for literature, but what did that have to do with Chen’s being a romantic poet?

  When Chen got back into the car waiting for him outside, he caught Little Zhou examining a naked model in a copy of Playboy from Hong Kong. The term “thirsty illness” in ancient China, Chen suddenly recalled, might have been a metaphor for a young man’s helpless romantic passion.

  Then he was not so sure. He could have read the term somewhere but mixed it up with irrelevant associations. Sitting in the car, he found himself thinking like a cop again, searching for an explanation for Professor Bian’s usage. He shook his head at his confused reflection in the rearview mirror.

  Still, he felt good. The prospect of starting the literature program made the difference.

  TWO

  DETECTIVE YU GUANGMING, OF the Shanghai Police Bureau, sat brooding in the office—not exactly his, not yet. As the acting head of the special case squad, Yu had the office during Chen’s leave.

  Few seemed to take Yu seriously, though he had been in effective charge of the squad for longer periods before: weeks when Chen had been too busy, what with his political meetings and his well-paid translations. Still, Yu was seen as stepping in the shadow of Chen.

  What troubled Yu was Chen’s inexplicable determination to undertake the literature program. It was a decision that had given rise to numerous interpretations at the bureau. According to Liao Guochang, head of the homicide squad, Chen was trying to stay low after having ruffled high feathers, and so was adopting a bookish pose to keep himself out of the limelight for a while. It seemed to Little Zhou that Chen had his eye on a MA or a PhD—something crucial to his future career, for an advanced degree made a huge difference in the new policy of the Party cadre promotion. Commissar Zhang, a semiretired cadre of the older generation, saw Chen’s studies in a different light, claiming that Chen planned to study abroad with a hongyan zhiji—an appreciating and understanding beauty—who was a US marshal. Like most of the rumors about Chen, no one could prove or disprove it.

  Yu was not so sure about any of those views. And there was another possibility he could not rule out: something else might be going on. Chen had asked him about a housing development case without offering any explanation, which was unusual between the chief inspector and Yu.

  Yu did not have much time to worry that morning. Party Secretary Li had summoned him to Inspector Liao’s office.

  Liao was a solidly built man in his early forties, owlish-looking with an aquiline nose and round eyes. He frowned at Yu’s entrance.

  At the bureau, only a case of extraordinary political significance would go to the special case squad under Chen and Yu. Liao’s sour expression implied that another case proved to be too much for Homicide.

  “Comrade Detective Yu, you have heard about the red mandarin dress case,” Li said, more a statement than a question.

  “Yes,” Yu responded. “A sensational case.”

  A week earlier, a girl’s body in a red mandarin dress had been found in a flower bed on West Huaihai Road. Because of its proximity to a number of high-end stores, the case had been much reported and was now conveniently nicknamed the red mandarin dress case. The news about it had caused a terrible traffic jam in the area—people hurried over, window-shopping and gossip-shopping, in addition to all the photographers and journalists milling around, information-shopping.

  Newspapers went wild with theories. No murderer would have dumped a body in such a dress, at such a location, without some reason. One reporter saw it pointing to someone at the Shanghai Music Institute, located across the street opposite the flower bed. One deemed it a political case, a protest against the reversal of values in socialist China, for the mandarin dress, once condemned as a sign of capitalistic decadence, had become popular again. A tabloid magazine went further, speculating that the murder had been orchestrated by a fashion industry tycoon. Ironically, one result of the media coverage was that several stores immediately displayed new lines of mandarin dresses in their windows.

  Yu had noticed the mystifying aspects of the case. According to the initial forensic report, bruises on her arms and legs indicated that the victim could have been sexually assaulted before death of suffocation, but no trace of semen was found on or in the body, and the body had been washed after her death. She had nothing on underneath the dress, which was in contradiction to the common dress code. Then the location itself was so public that few would have chosen to dump a body there.

  In one of the bureau’s initial theories, the murderer, having committed the crime, put clothes on her for the purpose of transporting, but in a hurry, he either forgot to put on her panties and bra, or did not think it necessary. The dress could have been the same one she had worn before the fatal encounter. The location might have no significance: the criminal could have been reckless and simply dumped her body at his first opportunity.

  Yu did not give too much credit to the random-act theory, but it was not a case assigned to his special case squad. He knew better than to cook in other people’s kitchens.

  “So sensational,” Yu repeated, feeling obliged to speak again, since neither Li nor Liao made a response. “The very location of it.”

  Still no response. Li started panting, his eye bags hanging heavier in the ominous silence. A man in his late fifties, Li had extraordinary eye bags and thick gray brows.

  “Any breakthrough?” Yu said, turning to Liao.

  “Breakthrough?” Li growled. “A second body in a red mandarin dress was found this morning.”

  “Another victim! Where?”

  “In front of the Newspaper Windows by the number one gate of the People’s Park—
on Nanjing Road.”

  “That’s outrageous—in the center of the city,” Yu said. The Newspaper Windows were a row of glass-covered newspaper cases along the park wall, and a large number of readers gathered there most of the time. “A deliberate challenge.”

  “We have compared the two victims,” Liao said. “There are a number of similarities. Particularly the mandarin dress. The identical material and style.”

  “Now the newspapers are having a carnival,” Li observed as a stack of the papers was being delivered to the office.

  Yu picked up Liberation Daily, which featured a color picture of a young girl in a red mandarin dress lying under the Newspaper Windows.

  “The first serial sex murder in Shanghai,” Liao said, reading aloud. “‘Red mandarin dress’ has now become a household word. Speculations spread like wildfire. The city shivers in anticipation—”

  “The journalists are crazy,” Li cut him off short. “Precipitating an avalanche of articles and pictures, as if nothing else mattered in our city.”

  Li’s frustration was understandable. Shanghai had been known for its government efficiency and, among other things, its low crime rate. Not that serial murders had never happened in Shanghai before, but because of the effective media control, they had never been reported. Such a case could have implied that the city police were incompetent, an implication that government-funded papers were anxious to avoid. In the mid-nineties, however, newspapers were now responsible for their own bottom lines: the journalists had to grab sensational news, and media control no longer worked out so well.

  “Nowadays, with all the western mysteries in bookstores or on TV—some of them translated by our Chief Inspector Chen,” Liao said, “people start playing Sherlock Holmes in their columns. Look at Wenhui. It’s predicting the date of the next strike. ‘Another body in a red mandarin dress by next Friday.’ ”

  “That’s common knowledge,” Yu said. “A serial killer strikes at regular intervals. If uncaught, he may continue throughout the course of his life. Chen has translated something about a serial killer. I think we should talk to him—”

  “Damn the serial killer!” Li appeared exasperated by the term. “Have you talked to your boss? I bet not. He’s too busy writing his literature paper.”

  The relationship between Chen and Li had not been good, Yu knew, so he refrained from responding.

  “Don’t worry,” Liao commented sarcastically. “Even without Butcher Zhang, people will still have pork on the table.”

  “These murders are a slap in the face to the police bureau. ‘I’ve done it again, cops!’ ” Li went on heatedly. “The class enemy is trying to sabotage the great progress in our reform, damaging the social stability by causing panic among the people. So let us focus on those with deep-rooted hatred for our government.”

  Li’s logic was still echoing that little red book of Chairman Mao, and according to that logic, Yu reflected, anybody could be a so-called class enemy. The Party Secretary was known for formulating political theories about homicide investigations. The number one Party boss sort of fancied himself the number one criminal investigator too.

  “The perpetrator must have a place to commit the crime first—most likely his home,” Liao said. “His neighbors could have noticed something.”

  “Yes, contact all the neighborhood committees, especially those close to the two locations. As Chairman Mao says, we have to rely on the people. Now, in order to solve the case as quickly as possible,” Li concluded with all the official seriousness in his voice, “Inspector Liao and Detective Yu, you are going to head a special team.”

  It was only after the Party Secretary left the office that the two cops were able to discuss the case in earnest.

  “I know so little about the case,” Yu started, “practically nothing about the first victim.”

  “This is the file about the first one.” Liao produced a bulging folder. “At the moment, we are still gathering the information about the second.”

  Yu picked up an enlarged picture of the first body. The victim’s face partially covered by her black hair, she showed a good figure, her curves accentuated by the tight-fitting dress.

  “Judging from the bruise on her arms and legs,” Liao said, “she could have suffered some sort of sexual assault. But there is no sign of any semen or secretion in her vagina, and the medical people have ruled out condom-use as the reason. There was no condom lubrication found there, either. Whatever he did to her, he afterward put the dress back on her rigid body roughly and in a hurry. Which explains the torn slits and loose buttons.”

  “But we can be pretty sure that the red mandarin dress was not hers,” Yu said, “since the second victim was found in an identical dress.”

  “No, the dress was not hers.”

  Yu examined the torn slits and loose buttons in the picture. If someone had indeed gone to the trouble of arranging for an expensive, fashionable dress beforehand, then why had he dressed the body in such a reckless way—and on both occasions?

  “On the second victim, is the dress also torn in its slits?”

  “I see what you are getting at,” Liao said grumpily, nodding.

  “When did you establish the identity of the first victim?”

  “Not until three or four days after the body was found. Tian Mo, twenty-three. People called her Jasmine. She worked at the Seagull Hotel, which is near the intersection of Guangxi and Jingling Roads. She lived with her paralyzed father. According to her neighbors and colleagues, she was a nice, hard-working girl. She didn’t have a boyfriend, and none of the people who knew her believed that she had had any enemies, either.”

  “It appears that the murderer dumped her body from a car.”

  “That’s too obvious.”

  “What about a taxi driver or a private car owner?”

  “Taxi drivers work in a shift rotation of twelve hours. After the second victim was reported, we immediately checked those working on both of the two nights. Less than twenty fit into the time frames, and every one of them has receipt tabs for at least one of the nights. Now, how would a taxi driver between fares have time to murder her, wash her—probably in a private bathroom—and put her into the mandarin dress?” Liao shook his head before moving on. “The private car is a possibility. The number of them has been increasing dramatically in the last few years, with all the Big Bucks in business and Big Bugs in the Party. But we don’t have the resources to knock on their doors, one after another, throughout the city, even if our Party Secretary turns on the green light.”

  “What do you make of the locations, then?”

  “For the first one,” Liao said, producing a picture with the traffic light visible at the intersection in the background, “the murderer had to step out of the car to place the body. A high risk. In the area, traffic is practically nonstop. The number 26 trolley bus stops running only after two thirty, and then it starts again around four. Besides, there are occasional cars passing by, and late-working students moving in and out of the institute across the street.”

  “Do you think that the place the body was dumped has a specific meaning in connection to the music institute, as those journalists claim?” Yu said.

  “We looked into that. Jasmine never studied at the institute. She was fond of music, like most young girls, humming a song or two occasionally, but nothing more than that. Nor did her family have anything to do with the school. Since the second victim was dumped at a different location, I don’t see any point in taking the newspaper crap about the music institute seriously.”

  “Li may have a point here. The two locations both being very public, the criminal could be bent on making a statement,” Yu said. “You must have already contacted all the nearby neighborhood committees.”

  “You bet, but the queries focused on one type of criminal—sex offenders with previous records. Nothing so far. The second body came up only this morning.”

  “Tell me what you know about the second one.”

  �
�The body was discovered by a Wenhui boy who came to replace the newspapers there. He pulled down the mandarin dress over her bare thighs and covered her face with newspapers, then he called the newspaper office instead of us. When we got to the scene, a large number of people had been gathered around there for quite a while, having possibly turned the body over and over. So any examination of the scene was practically meaningless.”

  “Has the forensic report come out?”

  “No, not yet. Only an initial report done on the scene. Again, death by suffocation. The victim seemed to have suffered no sexual assault, but like the first one, she had nothing whatsoever on underneath the mandarin dress.” Liao produced more pictures on the desk. “No trace of semen, with vaginal, oral, and anal swabs taken. The latent-print people have done their job too, and they did not see even a single stray hair on the body.”

  “Any copycat possibility?”

  “We have examined the two dresses. The same material with an imprinted design on it, and the same style too. No copycat could have known or reproduced all those details.”

  “What else have you done for the second?”

  “A notice with her picture has been sent out. Phone calls have been coming in, offering a number of possible leads. The bureau machine is clunking into high gear.”

  “Whether Li likes the term serial murderer or not,” Yu said, “there’s no ruling out the possibility. In a week, we might find ourselves with a third body in a mandarin dress.”

  “Politically, Shanghai cannot acknowledge a serial killer. That’s why Li brought in your special case squad.”

  “In case it is a serial killer,” Yu said, aware of the long rivalry between the homicide and the special case squads, “we need to establish a profile.”

  “Well, the dresses are very expensive, so he probably is rich. He has a car. He most likely lives by himself: he could not have done all of this without a place of his own—an apartment, or an independent villa. Certainly not in a single room in a shikumen house with twenty other families squeezed together—there is no way to quietly move the bodies in the midst of all those neighbors.”