Wu Cuilan’s death mirrored Ye Min’s death nine years earlier. After nine years the killer had struck again. Xu Jiu trembled as she looked at Wu Cuilan’s lifeless body then up at Jiang Yanzhi whose jaw was set tight. He pulled her close his face dark. “Do not be afraid I am here.”
The nurse straightened shakily her face deathly pale. Outside doors opened and footsteps drew near. Someone had seen the scene and ran screaming. Jiang Yanzhi gave orders and Qin Shuo closed the door. “Rest easy.” Jiang Yanzhi stroked Xu Jiu’s back knowing she might react as she had before his gaze hard and alert.
The killer might still be nearby. He left Qin Shuo to guard the scene and her. “Wait for me.” Xu Jiu stood dazed. She had known something would happen but never that Wu Cuilan would be the victim. In her past life Jiang Yanzhi had faced the killer this early. She snapped around he was gone. Today was the fourth the day he would be injured and hospitalized. Dizzy and unsteady she ran down the stairs ignoring Qin Shuo calling after her.
Jiang Yanzhi retraced his way down recalling every person he had passed. A voice rose from the ground floor. “How careless leaving things where people can fall!” A nurse apologized repeatedly. The voice continued. “Irresponsible!” It was the man with the sheets.
Jiang Yanzhi could not picture his face the man had hidden it all along. He had deliberately delayed them given Wu Cuilan time to slip away then killed her on the fourth floor while they were rushing up. Minutes had passed. He might still be inside. Jiang Yanzhi reached the lobby people moved in every direction faces blurred by haste and emotion. He ran outside scanning the street and chased down two blocks without sighting anyone. Then an old battered van pulled from a side street its windshield dark. It accelerated straight toward him. Jiang Yanzhi dodged the charge.
The vehicle braked spun and came back. It was no accident. He reached for his gun then held back not wanting to fire in the crowded street. It charged again. A car is no match for flesh and bone. Crash! Glass shattered showering the pavement. Onlookers froze then saw a girl standing steady after hurling a brick rush to the man. Xu Jiu gripped his arm eyes red with worry. “Are you hurt?”
“I am fine and you?” He saw the marks on her hand from the brick drew his gun and aimed at the driver. “Step out.” The van reversed then sped away. Jiang Yanzhi lowered his weapon and signaled for pursuit noting the dent on the right side. He turned to her. “Why did you follow?”
“I could not let you face it alone.” She checked him over. “You went out by yourself what if something had happened?”
“I did not expect an attack in broad daylight.”
“That is what a killer does.”
Something twisted in his chest. As children other boys had taunted him. He had endured it but she had not chasing them off with a slingshot until no one dared speak ill of him. Lately she had been distant since leaving for middle school. Now her concern was clear. “Do not cry I am all right.” She wiped tears away. Today had happened as foretold. What of the months ahead? She squeezed his hand. “Promise me never to go alone.”
“I promise.”
On the way back she looked up at the cameras. “Will they have caught anything?”
“He was heavily covered.”
“Anything is better than nothing.” She wondered why the killer had struck so openly. Was it really only to silence a witness? They knew nothing of his face. “Was it him who killed Wu Cuilan?”
“Very likely.” Which meant he was also the one who killed her mother. Nine years earlier three women had been killed Ye Min the second. No pattern linked the victims. The investigation had stalled. Now Wu Cuilan made the fourth.
Police cordoned off the changing room. Li Mingyuan and Zhang Haiyang examined the body. Cause and time of death were obvious. Zhang Haiyang turned pale and fled. Li Mingyuan sighed. “Such a waste of talent.” Xu Jiu stepped forward. “Was anything taken?”
“How did you guess?”
“The incision.”
“Her right kidney is gone.” Li Mingyuan replaced the organs. “Clean cut but messy afterward.”
Xu Jiu remembered the pattern. First victim left kidney second her mother heart third liver Wu Cuilan right kidney. In her future autopsy liver. She looked at the stocking used to strangle Wu Cuilan. It was soft and yielding meant suffering prolonged not a quick kill. The killer savored it. He had been rushed this time strangulation incomplete and resorted to cutting her open. “Minutes only.” Li Mingyuan said. “Remarkable speed.”
“Practice.” She declined to elaborate.
Witnesses had seen nothing. The killer was careful and elusive. Back at the station Li Mingyuan presented her with an official appointment as special advisor. “I cannot make you an intern without medical qualifications but this is the best I can do.”
“Thank you Master.”
“Work hard get into university join me.”
She sought Wang Jianjun. He looked broken. “I have told you everything.”
“Wu Cuilan is dead.”
“What?” He slumped. “All of it lies.”
Xu Jiu pressed on. “She knew about Chen Qingqing since summer. Did she act differently?”
“She was strange at times bought knives sharpened them at night went out claiming to play cards.” He looked ill. “She spoke of having a sister once.”
Xu Jiu signaled to leave. “She had someone seeing her.”
They mobilized heading to Jianshe Estate. “I followed her there for a week never saw who.”
Plainclothes officers surrounded the complex. Xu Jiu tried to join. “Stay.” Jiang Yanzhi told her. “I will be careful.”
Qin Shuo nodded. “I will not leave his side.”
Jiang Yanzhi closed the door. Xu Jiu watched them enter. Residents chatted in the pavilion. She approached. “My sister in law visits someone here.”
“Ah the man in 202.” An elder said. “Keeps to himself curtains drawn always covered up.”
Xu Jiu looked up. Curtains were drawn. Inside Jiang Yanzhi heard movement bare feet on wood. “Police open up.” Sounds of scrambling windows being raised. They forced the door. A man was perched on the window sill heavy bag on his back lost his footing and hung from the latch four stories up. “Help I am falling!”
Qin Shuo and Jiang Yanzhi pulled him back inside. “Did you put Wu Cuilan up to this?”
“What murder? I sell discs that is all.” The bag burst spilling explicit discs everywhere.
Jiang Yanzhi picked one up. “Where were you on the fourth?”
“I do not know any Wu Cuilan.”
He was disheveled living in filth no mastermind. Xu Jiu arrived with a woman behind her. She looked the spitting image of Wu Cuilan. “I saw her trying to leave.”
“This is Zhao Xiaofang Wu Cuilan’s sister.”
Zhao Xiaofang wept. “Who killed her? A man advised her said he would help get revenge.”
“Contact?”
“Phone every three days.”
“September second you took her shift?”
“Yes he said no one would suspect.”
As she wept Xu Jiu froze. The words Wu Cuilan had whispered before dying came back clear at last. Defective…