Red Mandarin Dress Read online

  “Also, an elegant lady wears stockings and high heels to match her dress, though not necessarily so formal at home. But look at the picture—no bra, no panties, no shoes, and the dress is rolled up high above her groin. Whoever did this murdered the dress too.” Shen paused for a moment before going on. “She’s a sex victim, I understand, but this dress is too old and rare to have been acquired by accident. Also, it is a fairly conservative dress—a woman doesn’t have sex in it. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “A lot of things in this case don’t make sense,” Chen said, clearing his throat.

  “I don’t know about the case, Chief Inspector Chen,” Shen said in confusion. “I know only about the dress.”

  “Thank you, Shen. Your expertise has surely thrown light into the investigation.”

  Chen did not say, however, that it also raised more questions than it resolved. The mandarin dress, if as old as Shen thought, was not popular when it was made. Whoever made it, made it against the fashion of the time. That suggested a possible cause embedded deeper in history, which only led to more questions.

  Shen was picking up the last live shrimp with his chopsticks when Chen’s cell phone shrilled. Shen was startled, and the shrimp fell back into the bowl, splashing, jumping high as if having escaped its fate.

  The phone call was from a Wenhui reporter, who wanted to find out Chen’s theory on the red mandarin dress case.

  “Sorry, I can’t give you any theory. I’m on leave, working on my literature paper.”

  The instant he hung up the phone, he regretted having made the statement. It was true, but it could cause speculation.

  “Really?” Shen wanted to know, rising slowly. “‘The most useless is a scholar,’ like me, but there may not be too many capable cops, like you.”

  Chen rose to support him on their way out without making a comment.

  Near the exit, there were a couple of large glass tanks containing live shrimp and fish, all of them enjoying a leisurely swim, unaware that their fate might change with the next customer’s order.

  NINE

  OUTSIDE OF THE RESTAURANT, Shen moved slowly to the curb, then lowered himself into a taxi, his body doubled like a shrimp.

  Waving at the taxi, Chen chided himself for the image. Shen was an original poet and an original scholar. Perhaps his academic success came from his Imagist poetics. He didn’t see a dress merely as a piece of clothing but as an image with meanings and associations.

  An organic image full of life in itself, which may speak more than pages of words.

  Chen recalled one such image of clothing in Random Harvest, the novel he’d read many years ago, in Bund Park. It was an image from the heroine’s first appearance—“a little fur hat, like a fez.” It was symbolic in the text because the protagonist’s niece also wore a fur hat like a fez on another occasion. A subtle suggestion, as Chen interpreted it, about something similar between the two. When he had read it the first time, fez was an English word he didn’t know. So he looked it up in a dictionary, which defined it as a “red felt headdress, shaped like an inverted flowerpot.”

  With his sentimental partiality, it would be hard for a movie to do justice to the original, and he tried not to expect too much from the one Peiqin had sent him. Still, he couldn’t help being disappointed. The film was in black and white and such a headdress didn’t stand out at all.

  But what about the red mandarin dress as an image?

  He stood transfixed by the question, still waving his hand at the street with the taxi long out of sight.

  A good image may have a specific meaning to the author, and to the readers too. In Shen’s poem, passion for his home came out vividly in the “mutilated earthworm.” On the other hand, a bad image may be so specific to the writer that it is incomprehensible to the readers.

  The murderer was no author, who worried about his readers’ comprehension. The more puzzling to others, the more satisfactory to himself, and the more successful his performance.

  Chen suddenly became aware of something vibrating in his pant pocket. The cell phone. This time, the caller’s ID showed Party Secretary Li.

  “I want you to cut short your leave. Don’t worry about your paper, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. The murderer must be found before he strikes again. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

  “I’m paying close attention to the case, Party Secretary Li.”

  That much was true, though Chen didn’t acknowledge his effort on the side. He had a feeling that the murderer was not only highly intelligent but also well-connected. For once, Chen had the advantage of staying behind the scene, and he wanted to keep it.

  “The city government is concerned about the case. A leading comrade has mentioned your name again this morning.”

  “I know. I’ll discuss it with Detective Yu.”

  “So come back to the bureau this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon. . . .” He was not pleased with Li’s ordering him around, nor ready to go back. “You may not know that I’ve been looking into the West-Nine-Block housing development case. Director Zhong of the Shanghai Legal System Reform Committee wants me to—”

  “So your Chinese literature paper is only an excuse,” Li snapped. “You could have told me earlier.”

  Another imprudent slip. Chen had assumed that the excuse would put Li off for the moment, but he forgot that Li’s not knowing about Chen’s involvement was too much a loss of face for the Party boss.

  “No, it’s not an excuse. I mean the paper. I do have to turn in the paper on time. As for the housing development case, you may have heard of its political sensitivity. As yet, I have done nothing about it—there was nothing to report.”

  Indeed, a power struggle was being staged at the very top, Chen had learned, in the Forbidden City. Now that several high-ranking Shanghai cadres were implicated in the scandal, someone in Beijing wanted to exploit it for ulterior motives.

  “You are too big a clay image for our small temple, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “No, you don’t have to say that, Secretary Li. I’m going to discuss the red mandarin dress case with Detective Yu. I give you my word.”

  So instead of going back to the library after finishing his talk with Li, Chen called Yu.

  “Sorry, Chief. I had to run out this morning. I missed Mr. Shen.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We just had lunch together and Shen gave me quite a lecture about the mandarin dress.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Close to the Shanghai Library.”

  “Do you have some time this afternoon? I’d like to talk.”

  “Yes, so would I.”

  “Great. Where shall we meet?”

  “Well—” It was not practical to discuss a murder case in the library. Looking around, Chen saw a pottery bar around the corner with only a young couple sitting inside.

  “What about the pottery bar on the corner of Fengyang Road, opposite the library?”

  “Oh, it’s so fashionable, the pottery bar. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Chen walked into the bar, which had an L-shaped interior. The long side wasn’t that different from a café, and the short side was like a workshop with large desks, piles of clay, and a stove on the end. A customer could try his hand at pottery while enjoying a cup of coffee. Perhaps because of the time of the day, there were only the two young people in the workshop and Chen alone in the café section. The price could have been another reason. A cup of coffee here cost much more than at an ordinary café.

  As he took a sip at the hot coffee, the sight of the young lovers bending over their project brought to mind a scene from a Hollywood movie, and then an image in a classical Chinese ci by a thirteenth-century woman poet, Guan Daoshen.

  You and I are so crazy / about each other, / as if lost in the potter’s fire./ Out of a chunk /of clay, shape a you, / shape a me. Crush us / both into clay again, mix / it with water, reshape / a you, reshape a me. / So, I have you in my body, and you
have me in yours too.

  In the workshop, the girl started smearing the boy’s face with her clay-covered hand, her laughter sounding like silver bells, though Chen failed to make out the endearments whispered between the two. A touching image, just like in the poem. He contented himself with black coffee, attempting to digest the information from Shen.

  He thought about Shen’s Imagist approach to the mandarin dress. It was possible that the dress’s meaning was not exclusive to the “author,” but that meaning was difficult for the cops to figure out because the dress had been made in accordance to a model, or an original image, such a long time ago.

  Peiqin had been searching movies for something like an archetype.

  Perhaps he could do more than she in that aspect. Not because of his abilities but because of his connections.

  He took out his address book, looking for the number of Chairman Wang of the Chinese Writers’ Association, who also served as the First Associate Party Secretary of the Chinese Artists’ Association, whose members including fashion designers, photographers, and directors. Not too long ago, Chen had helped Wang in his way.

  “Have you heard or read about the red mandarin case in Shanghai, Chairman Wang?” Chen said directly as soon as the long-distance call got through.

  “Yes, I read about it here in a Beijing newspaper.”

  “I have a favor to ask of you. Supposing the dress is an image some people may have seen, can you try to gather information about it from your members? Send a fax of the mandarin dress to the branch offices all over the country. Any information will help.”

  “I’ll contact all the people I know, Chief Inspector Chen, but who has not seen a mandarin dress or two, in pictures or in movies or in real life? It’s neither here nor there.”

  “There are three things unusual about the dress. First, as you may have read in the newspaper, the red mandarin dress is of high quality and craftsmanship, but in an old fashion, possibly from the fifties or sixties. Secondly, the woman wearing the mandarin dress was barefoot, and finally, she had a possible connection to a flower bed or a park.”

  “That may narrow down the range,” Wang said. “I’ll have my secretary contact every provincial branch, but I can’t promise you anything.”

  “I really appreciate your help, Chairman Wang. You are going out of your way for me, I know.”

  “You would do the same for me,” Wang said, “like last time.”

  Not like last time, Chen groaned. That was a real headache, even thinking about it.

  Closing the phone, he was about to light a cigarette when he saw Yu enter the bar, walking in big strides.

  “A quiet place, Chief,” Yu said, seeing they were the only ones in the café section.

  “Any new developments?” Chen asked, pushing the menu toward his partner. “Anything from the neighborhood committees?”

  “No, nothing substantial or useful.”

  A waitress came over to their table, eyeing the two curiously. Stiff in his cotton-padded uniform, his hair rumpled and his shoes dust-covered, Yu cut a contrasting figure to Chen, who looked more like a regular customer at such a café, in his black blazer and khaki pants, a leather briefcase beside him. The young lovers in the pottery section were standing up to leave, a decision possibly prompted by the arrival of a cop.

  “Tea,” Yu said to the waitress before turning to Chen. “I still can’t drink coffee, boss.”

  “I am not too surprised about the neighborhood committees,” Chen said after the withdrawal of the waitress. “If the murderer could have succeeded in dumping two bodies at those locations without being seen, it wouldn’t be realistic to expect that his neighbors saw anything either.”

  “Liao thinks that he must have a garage, but Li is against searching each and every garage in the city.”

  “No, I don’t think the murderer has to have a garage.”

  “Oh, the identity of the second victim has been established. Qiao Chunyan. An eating girl. Usually at a restaurant called Ming River.”

  “One of the three-accompanying girls?”

  “Yes, that’s how she lived, and how she died too.”

  Yu did not have to elaborate. The three-accompanying girls—the girl who accompanied customers in eating, in singing, and in dancing—was a new profession and a new term in the Chinese language. Sex business was still officially banned, but people managed to carry on under all kinds of guises. So the “three-accompanying” business flourished. There was no law against girls eating, singing, and dancing with customers. As for the possible service afterward, the city authorities acquiesced, with one eye open and one eye closed. The girls had to face occupational hazards, of course, including a sex killer.

  “So they both worked at low-end jobs,” Chen said.

  “That suggests a new direction for Liao. He thinks the killer might have a grudge against those girls. That’s how he started the serial killing,” Yu said. “But I don’t see a real connection between the two. For the second, there was a possibility of her falling into the killer’s hands because of her job. For the first victim, however, it’s a different story.”

  “Yes, you’ve done a thorough job on her.”

  “A hotel attendant is not a three-accompanying girl. From what I’ve gathered, she was a decent, hard-working girl. She helped at her hotel canteen too, but it’s too small for Big Bucks or eating girls. If she were an unscrupulous gold digger, she wouldn’t have chosen to work at a small hotel.”

  “I think you’re right,” Chen said. “So what do you think is the connection between the two?”

  “Here is a list of what the two have in common,” Yu said, producing a page torn from a pad. “Liao has checked most of the points.”

  “Let’s go through the list,” Chen said, taking the page.

  1. Young, pretty girls in their early twenties, unmarried, not highly educated, of poor family background, working at low-end jobs, possibly engaged in some indecent business.

  2. Each in a red mandarin dress. Torn in the side slits, several bosom buttons unbuttoned, thigh-and-breast-revealing, erotic or obscene in the effect, though the dress appeared exquisite and conservative in style. No underwear or bra, either, in contradiction to the common mandarin dress code.

  3. Bare feet, Qiao with red-painted toenails, Jasmine’s unpainted.

  4. Neither of them was sexually assaulted. While the first body showed bruises possibly from resistance, no trace of penetration or ejaculation was found. As for the second, no bruises suggesting sexual violence. The first body was washed, but not the second body.

  5. Public locations. Highly difficult and dangerous to dump the bodies unseen.

  “Have you got any new pictures that tell us more about who they were and how they lived?”

  “Yes, mostly Qiao’s pictures. She had a passion for them.”

  “Let’s take a look at them.”

  Yu arranged the photographs in a line on the table.

  Chen studied them, like a man examining possible dates suggested by a matchmaker. It might be sheer coincidence, he noted, that each of the girls had a picture taken at the People’s Square, in the summer. Jasmine wore a white cotton summer dress, and Qiao had on a yellow tank top and jeans. Chen put the two pictures side by side. Jasmine appeared to be the slimmer of the two, and possibly taller as well.

  “Do you notice the difference in their build, Yu?” he said, gazing at the pictures.

  Yu nodded without speaking.

  Chen placed two pictures taken at the crime scenes underneath the two taken at the People’s Square.

  “According to Shen, a good mandarin dress has to be customer-tailored, tight-fitting, so it brings out all the curves. Look at the two-crime-scene pictures. In both, the dress really clings to the body. We should check the dress sizes. See if the two are slightly different.”

  “I’ll check.” Yu added, “But if it is so—”

  “It means that he has a supply of expensive, vintage mandarin dresses—identical
in color, material, and design, but in different sizes for him to choose from.”

  “He could have made them for someone he loved or hated,” Yu said, “but why in different sizes?”

  “That puzzles me,” Chen said. It was yet another contradiction, like in those love stories he had been analyzing.

  “What else has Shen told you?”

  Chen recounted his discussion with the elderly scholar.

  “In the light of Shen’s analysis,” Chen said, “the murderer could have had these made in the eighties, after a particular fashion from even earlier, and kept them in a closet all these years until the first strike two weeks ago.”

  “Why the long wait?”

  “I don’t know, but that may explain your failure to find any clues about the mandarin dress. It’s such a long time ago. In the early eighties, the mandarin dress was not yet back in fashion, so no mass production. They were possibly made by an individual tailor, who could have since passed away, retired, or moved back to the countryside.”

  “Yes, that’s what Peiqin thinks,” Yu said. “But if they are from the sixties or seventies—during the Cultural Revolution—I doubt anyone would have chosen to wear them in those years. Peiqin recalls only one example from then—the photograph of Wang Guangmei being mass-criticized in a torn mandarin dress.”

  “It was like the scarlet letter. Peiqin is right,” Chen said. “Are there any new theories in the bureau?”

  “Liao still holds on to his material profile. And I’ve told you about Little Zhou’s, haven’t I? The elaborate theory about an anti-Manchurian message. He is still hawking it around.”

  “That theory isn’t credible. Still, it pushes for an organic interpretation of the contradictions. In the city of Shanghai, for one thing, it is out of the question for a woman in an elegant mandarin dress to walk around barefoot. Such a contradiction can be part of the ritual meaningful to the sex criminal.”