Red Mandarin Dress

didn’t get his opportunity until you got into trouble. She loved you more than anything else in the world. More than herself. Even under the circumstances, it was to Fan, not to Tian, that she first turned to for help.
    “Now, it was only a couple of days later that you were unexpectedly released. If there was anything going on between them, it must have happened during that short period—for your sake. How desperate and painful it must have been for her to give herself to Tian, you can imagine.”
    “But she didn’t have to. Nothing would have happened to—” Jia was unable to finish the sentence.
    “Nothing would have happened to you? I doubt it. In those years, you could have been sentenced to death for such a ‘political crime.’ An old man was executed in the People’s Square, I remember, for the crime of carrying a Mao statue on his back by wrapping a rope around its neck. It’s symbolic of hanging Chairman Mao , the revolutionary people ruled. She knew better. She understood that Tian was capable of anything.
    “But you kept imagining it from your perspective alone, never hers. The scene of her writhing and wallowing under another man crushed you. You were incapable of thinking rationally. That’s how you finally stumbled on an outlet in the serial killings, an outlet for both love and hate—”
    Again he was interrupted by the shrill ringing of the cell phone. This time, it was Detective Yu.
    “Sorry, I have to take another phone call,” Chen said, rising to move to the window. The garden outside was entirely submerged in darkness.
    “Nothing in the car, Chief,” Yu said. “I studied the parking spot. It’s true that he could move from there and in through the side door without being seen by others. The front is hidden from view by a grove of bamboo. So I got in with the key.”
    “Anything in his office?”
    “It’s a large suite. In addition to the office, a reception room, and a study, there is also a small bedroom with a bathroom.”
    “That’s not surprising. According to Xia, he often stays overnight there.”
    “But that made it possible for him to wash Jasmine’s body.”
    “That’s true.”
    “I haven’t seen any bloodstains or anything like that there. The carpet must have been cleaned of late. It still has a detergent smell, and I saw a steam vacuum cleaner. But that’s something. In those high-end offices, cleaning is usually taken care of by professional people. Why would an attorney have done the cleaning himself?”
    “That’s a good question.”
    “Then I noticed something else, Chief. The color of the carpet. It matched that of the fiber stuck on the foot of the third victim.”
    “Yes, he brought her in without being seen, but he failed to notice a fiber stuck between her toes.”
    “But any result from the fiber test won’t be available until tomorrow morning. Besides, fiber evidence may not be conclusive for a homicide case.”
    “It will be enough to hold him for a couple of days, and to justify a full search.” Chen added, “At least he can’t do anything during that period.”
    “Should we start tonight?”
    “Don’t rush. Wait for my call.”
    When Chen moved back to the table, the turtle was turned over with its belly upward, a ghastly white belly, motionless in the pot.
    “As a cop,” Jia said, “you have written a compassionate story.”
    Chen wondered whether it was a sarcastic comment or if it indicated a subtle change on the part of Jia.
    “Compassionate characterization is essential for any story,” Chen said, facing Jia. “You may think no one understands you, informed by all the absurdities and atrocities you suffered during the Cultural Revolution. You are like software written by all these events, and as a result, you can operate only one way; it’s beyond your own comprehension. But let me say that I tried to understand. Learning about all of your experiences, I kept saying to myself: but for luck, what happened to Jia could have happened to me.
    “I couldn’t help identifying with the boy in the picture. How happy, holding her hand like the world, how unprepared for the disaster already drawing close to the horizon. I tried to think from your perspective. I felt like I was going mad.
    “In the days after her death, whenever your neighbors looked at you, you thought they were seeing her running out after you in her nakedness. It was like a demon eating you up. So you moved out, tried to leave everything behind you.