Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

you know about his family life?”
    “He didn’t talk much about his family life.”
    “Do you think he had a satisfactory one?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, then added, “But a busy man like him should have had better care taken of him.”
    “We talked to his wife,” Chen said, looking her in the eye. “She told us something.”
    He paused deliberately, letting a silence eat away at her reserve like a crumbling wall in the room. Huang thought he knew what Chen was up to.
    “Whatever she may have told you,” she said, without meeting his eyes, “I don’t think she was a good wife to him. Everybody here could see he wasn’t happy at home.”
    “Can you give us any detailed examples?”
    “It’s just something I heard. They were schoolmates in Shanghai—she from a good family in Shanghai, and he from a poor village in Jiangxi. In spite of her family’s opposition, she married down and followed him to Wuxi. She got it into her head that she should be compensated for her sacrifice, so to speak, by him waiting on her hand and foot, and obeying her in everything, big or small. She was a typical Shanghai woman.”
    “But then in Wuxi he became successful.”
    “Exactly. For a busy, overworked man like him—a virtuous wife would have taken good care of him at home, especially after she quit her job and became a housewife, leaving the family dependent on Liu’s income alone. But no. She frequently went back to Shanghai during the week and over the weekends too. He was often left all alone in the house. ”
    “She has family in Shanghai. It’s natural that she would go back from time to time.”
    “Who could tell what she was really up to in Shanghai? She used to be a high school flower, I heard, with a number of secret admirers hanging around.”
    “Really!”
    “And I can tell you why he sometimes stayed overnight at his home office. With all the responsibilities on his hands, he frequently worked late. But more often than not, he simply didn’t want to go back home. The home office was the only place he could really relax. But she wouldn’t leave him alone even there. One time when he was away on a business trip, she came over and turned the whole apartment upside down.”
    Huang listened without interrupting. It was intriguing that Chen kept his focus on Mrs. Liu, even when interviewing Mi. It was possible that Mrs. Liu had killed him, as Huang had suggested at the crime scene, but after his initial excitement with it, it more and more seemed to him to be a theory that wasn’t supported by any evidence.
    Mi’s accusations against Mrs. Liu were understandable, even though she had denied any knowledge of Liu’s family life. She knew that the cops had heard stories about her, so she was trying to downplay the relationship between her and Liu. Presenting Mrs. Liu as an irresponsible wife was designed to justify her own role in Liu’s life—if not morally, at least psychologically. But that self-justification was irrelevant to the murder investigation, with the exception that it presented a totally different version from that of Mrs. Liu.
    Still, they learned some new things from the interview: for one, the frequency of Mrs. Liu’s trips to Shanghai. It wasn’t a long-distance trip, but it was nonetheless odd to so often leave her husband all alone at home.
    And that led to the revelation about her having been a high school flower with many secret admirers. What could that possibly mean? If she had another man in Shanghai—which wasn’t unimaginable for a couple like the Lius, whose marriage was already on the rocks—it introduced a motive that had been so far overlooked. Mrs. Liu’s lover, whoever it might be, could have murdered for love or for money.
    “Do you think Liu was planning to do something about his family problems?” Chen went on.
    “What you mean?”
    “Did he plan to divorce his wife?”
    “No, not that I was aware of. As I’ve said, he didn’t discuss his family problems with us other than complaining a little, now and then, when he couldn’t help himself.”
    Chen took out a cigarette, tapped it on the pack, and looked at Mi before asking, “Do you mind?”
    “No. Go ahead. Liu smoked too.”
    Chen changed the subject abruptly. “As you may have heard, Jiang is a possible suspect. Tell us what you know about him.”
    “Oh, Jiang,” she said. “He called our office quite a few times. He was calling to speak with Liu, of course. What they talked about,