Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

work here.”
    “That’s so thoughtful of you. She’s originally from Shanghai. I wonder whether she might prefer to move back there.”
    “That I don’t know,” Fu said, suddenly shifting the topic as he looked at his watch. “Have you had lunch, Officers? I worked late last night, and then skipped breakfast this morning.”
    It was an obvious attempt to end the interview.
    “We had a late breakfast,” Chen said, also glancing at his watch. It was near one thirty. “Yes, I think it’s time for us to leave.”
    As they left the office, Chen didn’t speak. Both he and Huang were lost in thought as they moved to the front gate.
    “I’m sorry,” Huang said. “I forgot that the car is parked near the apartment complex. Let’s go back.”
    Chen came to an abrupt stop and then looked up. There were several visitors signing a register book at the front entrance. Instead of turning and heading to the back door, Chen walked over to the security guard standing there.
    “So, is it required that people sign in and out here?” Chen asked the security guard, pointing at the register book.
    “We’re from the Wuxi Police Bureau,” Huang said, producing his badge in a hurry.
    “Anything you want to know, sir,” the security guard said, “and yes, that’s the rule. All visitors have to sign in.”
    “Oh, and there’s a video camera here too,” Chen said, pointing at it.
    “Yes, our late boss ordered a lot of equipment, including the video cameras. They’re state of the art, appropriate for a large state-run enterprise, but we still stand here on guard twenty-four hours a day.”
    “I see. That’s good. I’d like a copy of the visitor registration book for the last seven days, along with the tapes from the camera.”
    “That can be easily done, sir,” the security guard said, nodding his head like a rattle drum.
    But it took more than a few minutes to duplicate the tape and the pages. Huang was watching, bewildered, when his cell phone rang. He looked at the number, excused himself, and walked over to a shaded corner, out of their hearing.
    It proved once again to last longer than he had expected.
    When he returned to the front entrance, Chen was already holding a large envelope in his hand.
    “Let’s have a bite at the canteen here,” Huang said. “I still have the company canteen coupons Fu gave us the first time we were here. So I can afford to be your host today.”
    “That’s a good idea,” Chen said.
    They made their way to the canteen. It was past the lunch hour, but there were still a handful of employees eating and talking. They chose a table toward the side, close to the window, where there were no people around.
    “What do you think?” Huang said over a steaming-hot bowl of beef noodles strewn with chopped green onion.
    “To begin with, Mi may be an unreliable narrator.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s a term I picked up in my literature studies in college, which means a narrator who doesn’t provide a reliable account from an unbiased perspective,” Chen said, adding a lot of black pepper to his noodles. “Mi put on a passionate defense of Liu, but it was more a defense of her own actions, at least subconsciously, on the grounds that a happy, contented husband wouldn’t have an extramarital affair. Like an echo of the old saying, ‘If the fence is tight, no dog will stray in.’ But it’s undeniable that Liu hadn’t been a good husband, and that he kept the home office for his rendezvous with Mi. In her attempts to defend her position as a little secretary, Mi may not be able to give us truthful statements.”
    “I see your point, Chief. There are some inconsistencies in the statements regarding Liu. I put them together on a piece of paper while she was talking, in an effort to connect them, but some of them simply couldn’t be connected.” Huang then said, “I still like the theory that Mrs. Liu was responsible.”
    “That’s just one of the possible theories,” Chen said, seeming to back away from his earlier assertiveness. “It’s unsupported so far.”
    “True. By the way, the phone call I took earlier was about a new development. Well, not exactly new, since it’s based on an old scenario being pushed by Internal Security. As of now, they have reached their conclusion, obtained approval from above, and officially taken Jiang into custody.”
    “Have there been any new evidence or breakthroughs?” Chen asked, apparently surprised at how quickly