Profiler

CHAPTER 12

Catching a cold during the hottest days of summer is notoriously unpleasant.

So early one morning, Tang Yu’e walked into the JiangbinCityUniversityHospital, wiping her nose every few steps. She felt good enough about the place; it was near her home, well-maintained, and, most importantly, cheap.

The problem was that the doctors' attitudes were not quite as caring as the plaque on the wall of the outpatient services entry hall promised. After speaking with a Dr. Cao, who asked her a few hurried questions and then wrote out several prescriptions, Tang Yu’e was sent to the nurses' station and told to ask for an IV.

The young nurse who intubated her was brusquely mechanical in her methods. It hurt a lot. Minutes later, Tang Yu’e was holding up her own IV bag and wandering the halls with a look of irritation, searching for the observation room. She hadn't gone ten steps before her arm was sore. Just as she was struggling to continue, a white-coated male doctor wearing a surgical mask appeared. With one hand he retrieved the IV bag from her outstretched arm, while with the other he helped her along, saying, "This way, ma'am." His voice was warm and friendly and lovely to hear.

The doctor led Tang Yu’e to Observation Room 2. No one else was inside. After helping hang her IV bag on the hook beside the chair, he placed a soft cushion beneath her.

"Thank you, young man," she said.

The doctor waved his hand to say she needn't be so polite. His eyes twinkled behind his glasses-he was obviously smiling. After helping Tang Yu’e get comfortable, he opened the door and left.

When the doctor returned he was carrying a cup of water. He placed it in Tang Yu’e's hand. It was ice-cold.

"You should drink this water, ma'am. It's so hot out today and there's no air conditioning in here. This will help you cool off."

"Thank you so much, young man. What's your name? I'd like to tell the hospital director how good you've been to me." Having never received this kind of treatment there before, Tang Yu’e felt a little overwhelmed.

But the doctor just waved his hand again, his eyes as lively as before, and then he turned and left.

Tang Yu’e was already planning on telling her husband how nice this man had been when she got home. She sipped the water. Ah, she could feel its chill run all the way down to her stomach. Truly pleasant-though it did have a faintly medicinal taste. But perhaps all hospital water tasted like that. Regardless, she didn't think about the matter any further. To be well over 40 and have a young man treat her like that-how delightful.

Fifteen minutes later, when the doctor quietly pushed open the observation room door, Tang Yu’e was already leaning back in the chair, fast asleep. The doctor took the empty paper cup from her hand and placed it in the pocket of his white coat. Then, from another pocket, he produced a syringe and injected its contents into the IV tube. Finally, he placed a thin book in Tang Yu’e's bag, and then departed just as he had come, swiftly and soundlessly.

After nine, the number of sick people coming to the JiangbinCityUniversityHospital gradually increased. One after another, various IV bag-toting patients sat in Observation Room 2, but no one took any notice of the middle-aged woman napping in the chair. At last, a young woman who was there accompanying her boyfriend while he got an IV pointed at Tang Yu’e.

"Hey, look at that woman over there. She hasn't moved an inch this whole time."

"She's probably just sleeping," her boyfriend said, holding his stomach.

Pushing the glasses up off the bridge of her nose, the girl stared at the motionless woman.

"No way…" she said, her face growing pale. "I don't think she's even breathing!"

Plucking up her courage, the girl took a few steps forward, cautiously leaned into the woman's ear and shouted, "Miss!"

No response.

After hesitating for a moment, the girl reached out and pushed her.

It was like pushing a block of wood.

Before the girl could react, Tang Yu’e fell rigidly off the side of the chair and onto the floor.

When Tai Wei walked out of Observation Room 2, a frown on his face, the director of the outpatient clinic was screaming his head off at the nurse who had given Tang Yu’e the IV.

The young nurse was backed against a table, sobbing and sniffling and saying that 30 minutes after she'd injected the IV, she'd gone to Observation Room 1 to check on Tang Yu’e. When she didn't see her, she assumed that once the IV was empty, the lady had removed it herself and left. After that, she hadn't thought about the matter again.

Seeing Tai Wei appear, the director quickly motioned for the nurse to shut her mouth. Then, before Tai Wei could speak, he abruptly stated their position: "We don't know a thing, so all this will have to wait until the higher-ups tell us what to do."

Tai Wei laughed, and then told one of his fellow officers to go to the hospital pharmacy and get the medicine Tang Yu’e had been prescribed so they could take it back to the lab for testing. Then he told the director to summon Dr. Cao, who had been in charge of the woman's case.

Minutes later, as Dr. Cao was rushing over, he was stopped on the way by members of the dead woman's family. One of them, a man in his early 40s, asked the doctor if he was Dr. Cao. When he said yes, the man slugged him in the face without another word. If the police hadn't heard all the commotion and hurried to see what was going on, Dr. Cao may well have joined his patient in the afterlife.

Sighing, Tai Wei looked at Dr. Cao's battered face, at the sobbing young nurse, and at the dead woman's family who were still trying to break free of the policemen so they could rush at the doctor.

"All right," he said, waving his hand, "we'd better just take them back to the station and figure things out there."

Dr. Cao and the young nurse both shot looks at the outpatient director, but he had intentionally turned away.

The young nurse gave the outpatient director a hostile look. It certainly wasn’t the way he’d acted two days ago when he was grabbing her butt.

While trying to get the witnesses into the cop cars, the police ran into some more trouble. The middle-aged, self-proclaimed husband of the deceased simply refused to let them leave with Dr. Cao, saying that he needed to kill him to avenge his wife's death. For a while Tai Wei just held him back, but eventually he got fed up and let him go.

"Well, go on then," Tai Wei relented. "Kill him! This will be the easiest murder case we ever solve!"

Hearing this, the man stopped in his tracks and just stared at Dr. Cao, panting heavily.

As Tai Wei was about to get into the car, the man again stopped him and asked, "This has to be a case of medical negligence, right?"

"Who knows!" yelled Tai Wei, slamming the door in his face. "We haven't even started our investigation."

Then as he started the car, Tai Wei clearly heard the man ask the person standing next to him: "So how much does the hospital have to pay if someone dies?"

Man, what a world, thought Tai Wei. Smiling grimly, he shook his head and drove off.

Any hope the husband had of compensation was eliminated by the test results. There was no problem in the least with Dr. Cao's prescription, the medication dispensed by the pharmacy, or the compound concocted by the young nurse and then fed into the IV. Although traces of sedative were found in the victim's blood, the actual cause of death was brain swelling and respiratory exhaustion resulting from heroin poisoning. This finding shocked the police, who then closely reexamined the evidence taken from the scene. At last they discovered a tiny, needle-sized hole in the IV tube, leading them to suspect that someone had injected liquid heroin into the victim's IV, poisoning her to death.

But that wasn't even the strangest part, for while going through the victim's bag, police discovered a pornographic Japanese manga, which contained shockingly graphic drawings of gay sex and BDSM. Taking for granted that a middle-aged married woman like the deceased really did have a special fondness for such stuff, it was clearly best enjoyed secretly, in the privacy of her own home; so what was she doing bringing it to the hospital? And if it wasn't hers, then whose was it?

After interviewing members of the victim's family and other related parties, the police learned the following information: The victim was a 43-year-old woman named Tang Yu’e who had been unemployed since 1999 after being laid-off at a state-owned company located in JiangbinCity. Her husband, Pang Guangcai, was an electrician who worked for the maintenance department at JiangbinCityUniversity. Together they had one daughter, then in high school.

Tang Yu’e had been an honest and hardworking woman never known to have bad blood with anyone. She also lived a highly moral life, and was so strict with her daughter that if there was so much as a kiss on TV, she would immediately change the channel. At one point, the police wondered whether the manga might have belonged to the husband Pang Guangcai, but not only did he flatly deny this charge, he also had only a sixth-grade education, so the difficulty of reading a Japanese comic would have been quite high. Aside from that, every big street in the city was full of shops selling pornography. If he had wanted to read something like this in Chinese it would have been easy; no reason to spend all that effort deciphering a foreign language.

A significant discovery was soon made while interviewing the staff at the JiangbinCityUniversityHospital. According to one of the nurses, she had been leaving work the morning of the murder when she saw Tang Yu’e being led by a roughly 5'9", white-coated doctor into Observation Room 2. Unfortunately, she had only glanced at him from behind, and for no more than a moment. Feeling almost certain that this man was the killer, police ordered all the doctors from the hospital to wear white coats and line up facing away from the nurse, so that she could identify whom she had seen. Although she indicated several of them as potential suspects, each man was soon cleared of suspicion. Thus it could be more or less concluded that the killer was someone from outside the hospital.

This meant that he had most likely disguised himself as a doctor, brought Tang Yu’e to Observation Room 2, found some opportunity to give her a sedative, and then injected enough heroin into the IV to kill her.

Still, two questions remained. First, why use something as expensive as heroin to kill her? Far cheaper poisons were easily available and just as deadly.

Second, where had that pornographic manga come from? And what did it mean?

Tai Wei had the nagging feeling that the manga was not only the most curious part of the case-it was also a way to split it wide open. After considering the matter over and over, he jumped in his car and drove to JiangbinCityUniversity.

Again he found him on the basketball courts, but instead of shooting alone, Fang Mu was now playing in a fiercely competitive game of three-on-three. Tai Wei had to basically pull him aside to get him to talk. He could tell Fang Mu was a little reluctant.

Tai Wei hadn't brought the case files, so he just told Fang Mu a summarized version of what happened. Fang Mu kept his head down the whole time and wiped the sweat from his face. But even though he didn’t look too pleased, it was clear that he was playing very close attention.

When he was finished speaking, Tai Wei turned to Fang Mu and asked him frankly: "What do you think of all this?"

Fang Mu didn't immediately answer, just frowned and stared off into the distance. After a long time, and with a seemingly great amount of determination, he finally said: "What does this have to do with me?"

"Huh?" For a moment Tai Wei was stunned, and he didn't know what to say.

"Officer Tai, I'm not a cop, I'm just an ordinary person. This stuff has already caused me a great deal of trouble. I don't think I can help you." Fang Mu's eyes were on the ground as he spoke, his voice almost a whisper.

Tai Wei stared at him for a long time before saying: "You're not still mad at me because of that other thing, are you?"

"No," said Fang Mu, looking up. "I just feel exhausted, and want to be a normal student like everyone else."

Tai Wei opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. The two of them sat there in awkward silence for a moment. At last, forcing a smile, Tai Wei patted Fang Mu on the shoulder. "I can understand," he said. "After all, you're still too young to be spending all your time dealing with this kind of stuff." He sighed, and then shrugged his shoulders. "It's funny, this whole time I never thought of you as a student, but as a fellow officer." He smiled and patted Fang Mu's shoulder again. "Take good care of yourself." Then he stood up and got ready to leave.

"You know…" said Fang Mu, suddenly opening his mouth.

"What?" Tai Wei immediately sat back down and focused all his attention on him.

"It's probable that the pornographic comic was put there to dishonor the victim," said Fang Mu, his head down, seemingly speaking to himself. "Especially given that she was this nice, upstanding woman. Yeah, leaving something that obscene beside the body, I'd say he wanted to humiliate her."

"So what was the motive? Why would he want to do that to her?"

"I'm not sure. But I'd say it has something to do with sex."

"Are you saying…this was a crime of passion?"

"I'm merely saying it's a possibility. As for the heroin, I have no idea why he used that to kill her. Using a murder weapon like that takes preparation, therefore I believe it has something to do with whatever special need the killer is trying to fulfill. But as for the need itself, I also have no idea."

Seemingly deep in thought, Tai Wei nodded and said, "That's it?"

"That's it," said Fang Mu, before quickly adding, "but this is just my personal opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. Also," and now his face fell, "don't go looking into my past, and don't try convincing me to become a cop. I won't do it."

Then before Tai Wei could respond, Fang Mu stood up and walked away. He didn't look back once.

The police once more investigated the victim and her husband, this time focusing on their relationships with people of the opposite sex. As for the victim, they found that she had almost no male friends whatsoever, and according to her relatives and former coworkers, she had strongly disdained any sort of immoral male-female relations. But while investigating the husband, police made a significant discovery: a number of people they interviewed said that Pang Guangcai had been involved with a 30-something cleaning lady from the JiangbinCityUniversity maintenance department. Police then focused all their energy on this lead, but found themselves greatly disappointed. As it turned out, Pang Guangcai and the cleaning lady did indeed have illicit relations: she had only just gotten divorced at the time, and in her loneliness had seduced him. But three months prior to the murder, she had gotten remarried to the boss of a snack food wholesaler, and her home life could be considered happy once more. She had absolutely no reason to want to kill Tang Yu’e and take her place.

Once more the investigation ground to a halt.

For the first time ever, it seemed to Fang Mu, Du Yu was not eating lunch with his arm draped over Zhang Yao. Instead, he had dragged Fang Mu to the dining hall by himself and had seated them in a very conspicuous spot.

"What's going on?" asked Fang Mu, obviously surprised as he ladled winter melon sparerib soup into his bowl. "Are you and Zhang Yao fighting?"

"No, no, no." Du Yu was clearly not in any hurry to chat. Spooning food into his mouth, he craned his neck and looked all around. After a moment, he spotted Zhang Yao amid the crowd of people lined up to get their food. He waved at her. Beaming, she waved back.

Third wheel again. Irritated, Fang Mu grabbed his tray and stood up. "You guys eat together; I'll go sit over there."

"Hey, don't leave," said Du Yu, waving him back to the table. "She's not going to sit here. It'll just be you and me."

Carrying their trays, Zhang Yao and another girl walked over to a nearby table and sat down. She winked at Du Yu, and then began eating.

"The hell's going on?" muttered Fang Mu, as he hunched over the table and continued to eat.

Du Yu barely paid attention to his food. He and Zhang Yao kept looking over at one other and gesturing back and forth. After a little while, he grinned at Fang Mu and said, "Well, what do you think?"

"What do I think about what?" asked Fang Mu, confused.

"That girl, the one sitting with Zhang Yao." He nodded in her direction.

Fang Mu glanced over. "She's all right."

At that very moment the girl happened to be looking in his direction, but as soon as their eyes met she looked away.

"Look at that dirty smile on your face," said Fang Mu, shaking his head at Du Yu. "You're crazy trying to check out some girl with Zhang Yao sitting right there. Don't come crying to me after she catches you."

"Man, what are you talking about? I was asking what you thought of her."

"Me?" Suddenly Fang Mu understood. When Zhang Yao said she was going to find Fang Mu a girlfriend, she had apparently been very serious.

Zhang Yao motioned for them to come over and join them. Clearly able to take a hint, Du Yu stood up at once. "Come on," he said, "let's all eat together."

"Stop making trouble," said Fang Mu, his face red.

The girl in question, however, looked totally at ease. She moved her tray out of the way so Du Yu and Fang Mu would have room to eat with them.

Seeing that Fang Mu still hadn't moved, Du Yu tried to provoke him, whispering, "Come on, man, you don't even have the nerve to do this?"

After hesitating for a moment, Fang Mu steeled himself, and then walked over with Du Yu and sat down.

"Fang Mu," said Du Yu, motioning at the girl, "this is Deng Linyue, Zhang Yao's classmate. Deng Linyue, this is my roommate, Fang Mu."

"Hello, master sleuth," said Deng Linyue, smiling at Fang Mu. Her voice was a little husky, sensuous.

Hearing the words "master sleuth", Fang Mu felt even more at a loss. Without looking up from his meal, he mumbled a brief "Hi" and then nearly buried his face in his food and continued to eat.

The table immediately fell silent. After a few seconds, Fang Mu felt Du Yu step roughly on his foot beneath the table.

"What are you doing?" said Fang Mu sharply, but when he looked up he saw Deng Linyue's outstretched hand hanging in the air over the table. The look on her face was extremely awkward.

Fang Mu hurriedly reached out and shook her hand, forgetting that he was still holding his spoon. In the process he smeared her whole hand with soup.

"Sorry," he said, obviously flustered. He dug through all his pockets, searching wildly for a pack of tissues, but by the time he finally found some, Deng Linyue had already wiped her hand clean with a pack from her bag.

Now it was Fang Mu's turn to feel awkward. After sitting stiffly for several seconds, he decided that he might as well not say anything else, so he grabbed his tray and began eating as fast as he could.

For the rest of lunch, Du Yu and Zhang Yao tried to enliven the atmosphere by keeping up a constant, cheerful chatter, while the two individuals whom the lunch was actually about remained silent, focused on their food.

Fang Mu was first to finish. Although he wanted to get out of there immediately, he now realized this wouldn't be particularly polite, so he took out a cigarette and began to slowly puff away. As soon as the smoke drifted across the table, Deng Linyue, who up until then had been eating and drinking with gentle refinement, frowned slightly and batted it away.

Rather than put out his cigarette, Fang Mu used this opportunity to check her out while she was looking down to avoid the smoke.

She was about 5'5", her long hair tied in a loose bun, and several dyed-blonde strands hung across her oval-shaped face. Her skin was quite fair, her eyebrows painstakingly plucked, and the mascara and lipstick she wore were obviously not cheap. In her ears she wore diamond studs that matched her necklace perfectly, and she had on a light yellow spaghetti-strap top that revealed a swimsuit tan on her shoulders. However, her skin looked soft and smooth, not like that of someone who lived by the ocean; she had probably just vacationed there over summer break. Her legs were long and slender and she was wearing a short, white skirt and colorful sandals. Lavender polish glistened on her toenails.

This petite young woman was clearly quite well-off, and from her bearing it was clear that if her parents weren't high-ranking intellectuals, then they had to be government officials.

Seeming to realize that Fang Mu was observing her, Deng Linyue blushed slightly. When she finished eating, she lightly dabbed the corners of her mouth with a tissue, stood up, and bid a polite goodbye.

"I've got some things to take care of," she said. "See you guys soon." Then she nodded at everyone, picked up her tray, and walked gracefully away.

Once she was gone, Zhang Yao muttered in disappointment, "What the heck were you doing, Fang Mu?"

Cigarette hanging from his mouth, Fang Mu stared at the ceiling and ignored her.

"You colossal fool!" said Du Yu once they were back in the dorm. He was still upset over what had happened at lunch.

"She's beautiful, from a good family, and her dad is the director of the local Bureau of Industry and Commerce. You know how many guys are after her? It took a whole lot of work on Zhang Yao's part before she'd even agree to chat with you."

"Why don't you go for her if you like her so much?" said Fang Mu. He was shirtless and wearing only a pair of shorts, and he climbed into bed and pulled the top sheet over him. "Tell Zhang Yao that while I'm very grateful, she shouldn't waste so much energy on me in the future."

"Jeez, let no good deed go unpunished," said Du Yu, also getting ready for an afternoon nap. After undressing, he stared off into space for a moment. Then he smiled.

"She really does have some long legs, though." He laughed and smacked his lips in delight.

"Manwhore!" yelled Fang Mu, although he couldn't help but smile.

While the sound of Du Yu's snoring soon filled the room, Fang Mu tossed and turned, but couldn't get to sleep.

A girlfriend?Do I really need a girlfriend?

Even though Fang Mu had long remained aloof on campus, rarely socializing with anyone else, he had noticed at various points that a few girls seemed to regard him with interest. But because he was so accustomed to avoiding other people, those girls had gradually shifted their attentions to more open, enthusiastic boys.

Chen Xi.

The name alone caused Fang Mu's spirits to plummet. Rolling over, he buried his face in the cool side of the bed.

Never mind a kiss, never mind the feel of her hand in his, Fang Mu had never even spoken those three simple words to Chen Xi before it was too late. With some things, make one mistake and you can never take it back. With some people, make one and they never come back.

In the movie A Chinese Odyssey II, when a sword was held to Glorious Bao's throat, he spoke a heartfelt lie: "If God were to give me another chance, I would tell her I love her. And if He said that one day our love must end, I would wish for ten thousand years."

If God gave me another chance, I would wish that none of this ever happened, that I had never even met Chen Xi.

Don't think about it anymore, he told himself, blinking his already moist eyes. Since he was choosing to say goodbye to the past, that meant choosing to forget every part of it.

Half asleep, Fang Mu was surprised to find himself thinking about Deng Linyue. Although that afternoon he had scrutinized her from head to toe, he now couldn't remember what she looked like at all.

All he remembered was that she used Soulmate brand tissues, the pack printed with drawings from the Jimmy Liao graphic novel Turn Left, Turn Right.