Red Mandarin Dress

houses on the street were identical discolored concrete two-stories, largely in disrepair, like rows of matchboxes. There was a wooden sign pointing to a farmer’s market around the corner. The committee office was closed. From a cigarette peddler crouching nearby, he learned the name and address of the committee director.
    “Weng Shanghan. See the window on the second floor overlooking the market?” the peddler said, shivering in the winter wind as he took a cigarette from Chen. “That’s her room.”
    Chen walked over and climbed up the stairs to a room on the second floor. Weng, a short, spirited woman in her midforties, peered out the door with a visible frown. She must have taken him as a new neighbor seeking help. She held a hot water bottle in her hand, walking in her wool stockings across the gray concrete floor. It was a single efficiency room, which was not so convenient for hosting unexpected visitors.
    As it turned out, she was busy folding afterworld money at the foot of the bed, her husband helping her smooth the silver paper. A superstitious practice, which didn’t become the head of the neighborhood committee. But it was for Dongzhi night, he realized. He, too, had brought back silver afterworld money, though he burned his for Hong at the temple instead. Perhaps this explained Weng’s reluctance to receive a visitor.
    “Sorry to bother you so late in the evening, Comrade Weng,” Chen apologized, handing over his business card as he explained the purpose of the visit, highlighting his inquiries into the Ming family.
    “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much,” she said. “We moved into the neighborhood about five years ago. The Mings no longer lived here. In recent years, there have been a lot of changes among the residents here, especially along Henshan Road. According to the new policy, the privately owned houses have been returned to the original owners. So some moved back, and a lot moved out.”
    “Why didn’t the Ming family move back?”
    “There was a problem with the new policy. What about those residents currently living there? Sure, some of them had moved in illegally during the Cultural Revolution, but they still needed a place to stay now. So the government tried to buy the buildings from the original owners. The owners could say no, but Ming, the son of the original owner, agreed. He didn’t even come back to take a look. Later the mansion was turned into a restaurant. That’s another story.”
    “Sorry to interrupt you here,” Chen said. “What is Ming’s full name?”
    “Let me check,” she said. She took out an address book and looked through several pages. “Sorry, it’s not here. He is a successful man, as I remember.”
    “Thank you,” he said. “How much did he get from selling the mansion?”
    “All the transactions were arranged by the district authorities. We weren’t involved.”
    “Are there any records about what happened to the Ming family during the Cultural Revolution?”
    “There’re hardly any records left from that time in our office. For the first few years, our committee was practically paralyzed. My predecessor somehow got rid of the one and only ledger book from 1966 to 1970.”
    “You mean the ex-head of the neighborhood committee?”
    “Yes, she passed away five or six years ago.”
    “It’s easy not to remember,” Chen said, “but I need to ask you one question. Ming’s mother, Mei, died during the Cultural Revolution. Possibly in an accident. Have you heard anything about it?”
    “That was so many years ago. Why?”
    “It may be important to a homicide investigation.”
    “Really!”
    “I have heard about Chief Inspector Chen before,” her husband cut in for the first time, speaking to Weng. “He has worked on several important cases.”
    “If we heard anything about his family,” Weng said, “it’s because of a trick played by Pan, the owner of the Old Mansion restaurant.”
    “That’s interesting. Please tell me about it.”
    “As soon as Ming sold the mansion to the government, Pan had his eyes on it. None of the residents wanted to move out. And there also might have been a number of potential buyers. So Pan started rumors about the mansion being haunted and those superstitious stories spread really fast. We had to check into it.”
    “You have a lot of responsibilities, Comrade Weng.”
    “It’s ironic. We found out that those tall stories had been started much earlier, during the Cultural Revolution,