Red Mandarin Dress

believe the murders are a call for attention to the atrocities in the Cultural Revolution, particularly against a woman in a red mandarin dress. Is your interest in the ad part of your investigation?”
    “Come on. There were a large number of Red Guard organizations with names like that. I really have to warn you, Duan. You have to take responsibility for such wild stories.”
    “That’s nonsense, Comrade Detective Yu. If the case isn’t solved, more and more stories will come out. Several colleagues of mine are coming now, I think,” Duan said, pointing to a minivan that was pulling up to the cemetery entrance. “By the way, how is it that Chief Inspector Chen is not here with you today? Please say hi to him from me.”
    With more reporters swarming over, Yu knew he had to leave. Hurrying toward the cemetery exit, he called Chen’s mother.
    “It’s so nice of you to call, Detective Yu, but I’m fine. You don’t have to worry,” she said, as if she had been expecting his call.
    “I’ve been looking for Chen, Auntie. Do you know where he is?”
    “You don’t know where he is? Oh, I am so surprised. Two or three days ago he called me, saying that he was going away for something important. Out of Shanghai, I believe. I thought he must have told you about it. What has happened?”
    “No, nothing. He must have left in a hurry. Don’t worry, Auntie. He’ll contact me.”
    “Call me when you hear from him,” she said, obviously concerned. She, too, apparently felt that, unless something unusual had happened, her son wouldn’t have kept Yu out of it.
    “I will,” Yu said. He recalled Chen’s having seemed different of late. Too much stress, as Peiqin saw it, but Yu didn’t really think so. Who wasn’t under stress?
    “Oh, White Cloud called me yesterday,” she said, murmuring as if to herself. “She said everything is fine with him.”
    “Yes, he must have phoned her,” Yu said. “I’ll call you later.”
    But Yu had more immediate things to worry about. Party Secretary Li called him, demanding, “You are going to take care of the press conference today.”
    “I have never done it before, Party Secretary Li.”
    “Come on, Chief Inspector Chen has done it many times. You’ve surely learned the necessary tactics from him.” Li added, “By the way, where on the earth has he been?”
    “I’ve just left a message for him,” Yu said evasively. “He’ll call back soon.”
    On the way back to the bureau, he got White Cloud’s phone number from Peiqin.
    It was not so enviable to be Chen’s partner, Yu thought.

TWENTY-ONE
    IN A TAXI THAT was literally crawling through the traffic of Shanghai, Chen sat devastated by the news of Hong’s death.
    Wednesday morning. A week earlier, he had been sitting in a car bound for the vacation village, worrying about his nervous breakdown; now he was heading back, sweating over the latest development in the serial murder case. So many things had happened in Shanghai, while all the time—or most of the time—he had slept on like an idiot and mused about love stories from thousands of years ago.
    He shivered at the thought of the afterworld money he had bought at the local market Friday morning. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but he was unnerved at the coincidence.
    It wasn’t until Yu succeeded in contacting White Cloud that she became aware of the desperateness of the situation. Still, she had been too concerned about Chen’s health to deliver the message to him instantly. She wasn’t a cop, and she was not to blame for it. After learning of his recovery at the vacation village that morning, she told him the news about the Joy Gate. He at once cut short his vacation and boarded the first long-distance bus to Shanghai, without even saying good-bye to his host.
    Sitting in the car, his thoughts revolved around Hong. He hadn’t known much about her until their contact on the red mandarin dress case.
    Hong was said to have a surgeon boyfriend at a Japan-China Friendship Hospital who had urged her to quit. He insisted that her income wasn’t worth all his worrying about her. But she happened to believe in her job. At a Chinese New Year Party in the bureau, she read a poem about being a “people’s cop.” Not much of a poem, but it was passionate about a young officer patrolling the city. One of its refrains read, Chen remembered, The sun is new every day .
    Not for her, not today.
    He would never regain his peace of mind, he knew, looking out