Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

didn’t exactly face the bureau but did command a good view of it. It was one of the new fashionable Hong Kong–style establishments, serving tea, as well as other drinks and snacks, with several plastic tables outside and a large pink umbrella sporting a Budweiser logo. It almost looked like an open café. He chose a table behind a willow tree.
    Thinking that the local cops might frequent the place, Chen put on a pair of sunglasses. Hopefully no one would recognize him except perhaps Huang.
    For a change, he had black tea, with a wedge of lemon placed on the edge of the cup. Sipping at the tea, he noticed a grocery store not far from the bureau. It was a mid-sized store that supposedly stayed open for twenty hours, where customers were constantly moving in and out, around a flowering pear tree standing near the entrance. Chen leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs.
    He had made the decision to come here on the spur of the moment. With Comrade Secretary Zhao pushing for Chen’s report and Shanshan refusing to accept his calls, this would probably be the only opportunity for him to see her before he left for Shanghai that afternoon.
    She wanted to say good-bye to Jiang, a natural gesture to someone in trouble given her generous personality. Chen thought he understood, and if anything, it made him think even more highly of her.
    Looking around, he prayed that he could get hold of her before she met with Jiang. Chief Inspector Chen wasn’t going to do anything to prevent the meeting. He simply wanted to tell her that he had to leave, and that he would come back.
    His cell phone vibrated. He snatched it out and answered it. It was from Sergeant Huang.
    “I’ve called you a couple of times, Chief, but you were always on your phone.”
    “Sorry, I had a call from Beijing,” he said, realizing that he must have been too engrossed in his talk with Zhang to notice the incoming call.
    “We had a real breakthrough after I spoke with you, Chief, and it’s all due to our conversation. The moment I put down the phone, I started searching Fu’s place all over again. You know what? The missing statuette was there, sitting on the top shelf in the midst of some other awards and statuettes, staring me right in the eyes.”
    “Exactly, like in ‘The Purloined Letter.’ It speaks of a devilish mind.”
    “What?”
    “That’s the title of a short story by Poe.”
    “Then I have to read it, Chief. Still, working a case under you, I could learn far more than from ten years of reading Conan Doyle or Poe,” Huang said, paraphrasing an old proverb. “Anyway, after I bagged the statuette, which was covered with his fingerprints, as well as some tiny black stains—which are Liu’s blood, I bet—I went to join my team at the chemical company. They were still working on Fu, who denied everything except for his clandestine affair with Mi, saying that he had just broken it off with her, so she must be out of her mind and reacting to that. With Mi still hysterical and Fu continuing to deny everything, Internal Security actually tried to call into question the investigation’s shift from Jiang. Fu might still have had a chance to get away with it, but the sight of the statuette finished him. He collapsed right then and there, and confessed everything.”
    “What did he say about that night?”
    “He said it wasn’t premeditated. Shortly after Mi went back to the company, he sneaked into Liu’s apartment. Sure enough, he saw the draft of the restructuring plan on the desk, and began to copy it with a scanning pen. According to him, he wanted to get the details of the plan, so he could file a report accusing Liu of plotting to turn a state-run enterprise into a private one run by his family. But Liu unexpectedly stirred, his arm stretching out—”
    “Mi might have fed him a handful of pills,” Chen cut in, “but not enough to knock him totally out.”
    “Panic-stricken, Fu snatched a statuette up from the desk and cracked Liu’s head with the heavy marble base—”
    “Hold on, Huang. The statuette was on the desk, not on the shelf?”
    “That’s what Fu said.”
    “It’s possible, I suppose. Liu could have had it to the desk for some reason, but it’s also possible that Fu said that to make his actions seem less premeditated.”
    “Afterward, Fu wiped away his fingerprints from the apartment and brought the statuette back home, along with the copy of the restructuring plan and the cup with the sleeping