53 An Easy and Quick Way to Die

 

The body was moved back to the morgue and Guan Zhenglin followed it. Gu Chen and I stayed to examine the small room. Even though the suicide method was different from Gai Rui, the overall stylistic was similar. The body was preserved and clean, the scene graceful and presentable. This would be the kind of death favored by cleaning companies because there was practically nothing to clean. However, China for now didn’t have such companies yet, most of the crime scenes were cleaned by the victim’s families or the fire department.

The analysts were still looking around for clues but I believed they wouldn’t find anything useful. If the two suicide cases were related, then that extra person would have wiped every trace of their existence clean. But timeline wise, it did mean that Wang Yiman died earlier than Gao Rui.

I opened the fridge and an emptiness stared back at me. The rubbish can was empty as well, there was no way of telling Wang Yiman’s living or eating habits. Even the toilet was spotless, the place felt like it had been professionally cleaned. Finally I entered Wang Yiman’s bedroom. There was a bed, a closet and a vanity table. The bed was a normal bed, the closet had normal clothes, there was nothing special about them. There was a picture frame on the vanity table. It featured a family of 3. It should be Wang Yiman’s husband and daughter. Her husband wasn’t exactly handsome but he looked spirited. Her daughter was smiling widely at the camera. Wang Yiman stood to the side and smiled with bliss. This was such a picture-perfect family…

“What did Wang Yiman do for a living? Is there anything we can find about the car accident that claimed her family’s lives?” I asked the officer who walked in. He answered, “Based on our files, Wang Yiman was just a normal housewife. She took some odd jobs after graduation from high school but she became a fulltime housewife after she married her husband. Her husband was an electrician, quite a rich one at that. 5 years ago, her husband drove the whole family to go on a family trip and got into an accident.”

“Was it really an accident?” I pressed. The officer nodded. “I just looked up the file. Her husband was driving even though he was overworked. He crashed into the guard rails and no other road users were involved.”

I nodded and was silent. That basically eliminated the possibility of anyone seeking revenge due to the accident. After the accident, Wang Yiman practically made herself a hermit so she wouldn’t have any enemies. From the looks of it, this did feel like a suicide. But it was way too similar to Gao Rui’s case. Did that mean someone had been in Wang Yiman’s home as well before her death?

I opened the vanity table’s drawer and found a glass bottle. The bottle was filled with pieces of small jigsaw puzzles. There were hundreds of them in this bottle. I had no idea what they were for and what they were doing inside the drawer. I twisted the lid lightly and it loosened easily. Studying the pattern on the inside of the lid, I noticed they had been grounded smooth. Looks like this bottle was opened and closed fairly often. Shaking my head, I told Gu Chen, “Let’s go back. Looks like this is the only useful thing here. We’ll see what kind of picture it makes. The rest can stay to examine, perhaps something else might pop up.”

When we returned to the station with the bottle of puzzle, it was already dark and Xiao Liu was back from the school. “So did you find anything?” I asked him. Xiao Liu nodded. “I did find something. Through elimination and interviews, we’ve confirmed the suspects who might have accessed the lab to steal the cyanide but so far there is no connection between any of them and Gao Rui.”

“Good job, you deserve a good rest after the hard work.” I patted Xiao Liu on his shoulder. Xiao Liu sprung up from the couch and declared officiously with flame in his eyes. “Brother Wu Meng, that is not right. How can we rest when the case is still not solved? We are the servants of the public, how can we ever complain of tiredness and hard work? Even though the workload today is heavy, I’m still not satisfied with my contribution!”

“You wish to contribute some more?” I scratched my head.

Xiao Liu pumped his fists. “Yes, I wish to take a more active part in the investigation.”

“Perfect, I’ve been waiting for someone to volunteer. See that bottle of jigsaw puzzle on the table?” I pointed at the glass bottle. “I believe it is a great clue, I plan to work on it myself but since you’ve volunteered, then I shall hand the job over to you. The public thanks you for your service!”

“Erm, that is not what I…” Xiao Liu said with difficulty. I placed my arm around Xiao Liu’s shoulders, “Hmm? What do you mean? If this is not enough work, I can find…”

“Of course, it’s more than enough!” Hearing that, Xiao Liu quickly cut me off. “I am glad to help with this crucial part of the investigation.”

“Okay! I shall go and rest then!” I walked away with a smile. “Have fun with the puzzle.”

After I took a few steps out from the office, I heard Xiao Liu plead. “Gu Chen, Brother Gu Chen, please stay and help me. This puzzle is so complicated, it’ll take me until morning for me to finish it.”

Gu Chen chided. “You asked for this yourself.”

Xiao Liu sighed, “I didn’t expect him to stick me with this, I just wanted to be with you guys out at the scenes more often…”

Of course, I was just joking when I claimed I was going to rest. Instead, I went to the morgue to check up on Guan Zhenglin. The result should be out now but she had not joined us at the office and I knew the reason why. The morgue was situated at the most secluded corner and was quite a distance away from the office. One had to walk through a lightless path to get between these 2 places. Even though it was just a 5 minute walk, it still frightened Guan Zhenglin every time she had to take this path as if a monster might jump out from the dark to get her. Humans were strange creatures, there were buff guys who showed no fear before guns and knives, but they wept like a girl when they saw a cockroach. Others would not even wince from a bone fracture but would cry from taking a needle injection. Similarly, Guan Zhenglin wouldn’t frown before the most atrocious looking dead bodies but she was weirdly afraid of the dark.

She should be done with the autopsy but she wouldn’t dare to walk this path alone without accompaniment. As I expected, I saw her standing at the door of the morgue, holding her phone in her hands.

“Hey!” I shouted, “The path is too scary for you to walk through it alone, isn’t it?”

When Guan Zhenglin saw me, her face brightened before it turned back to the usual condescension. “Who said so? I’m out here just to get some fresh air. I spend my days with dead bodies, why would I be afraid of the dark?!”

I shrugged and said, “In that case, I’ll be leaving then. When you’re done with the autopsy, come to the office, we’ll be waiting for you there.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Guan Zhenglin hurried over. “In fact, I’m already done with the autopsy. I’m afraid that you might get lonely going back alone, and it’s too dangerous for you to venture alone at night so for this time only, I’ll be your company.”

I smiled but didn’t expose her. “By the way, what did you get from the autopsy?”

Guan Zhenglin said in a more serious tone, “The time of death is in the afternoon 2 days ago. The cause of death is lack of oxygen to the brain due to constriction of the artery around the neck. The dying process could last from several minutes to 10 plus minutes. If she was discovered during this process, she could be saved. Poor thing.”

“Was it painful?” I stopped to ask with a frown.

“What?”

I sighed and explained, “I mean was it painful for the victim during this process?”

Guan Zhenglin scratched her chin for quite some time before answering, “Normally, if the noose is tied around the neck, the rope would constrict around one’s throat and that would be a horrible way to die. The person would feel the air slowly being cut from into their body, and their lungs would feel like they are burning. But in Wang Yiman’s case, the noose was adjusted to an angle to avoid such a torment. Of course, there would still be pain but it was much less than otherwise.” Guan Zhenglin added, “But of course, Gao Rui’s method is even more painless. After all there are countries that support euthanasia. One shot of very strong anesthetic followed by another shot of toxin. Death would be painless.”

“We need to give it a try.” With a nod, I slowly said.

“What?” Guan Zhenglin clearly didn’t grasp my meaning.

I explained, “We should try to see if it was painful or not.”

Crime scene simulation was a reconstruction of the scene to see things from the killer’s or the victim’s perspective. It would help greatly to understand the killer’s and victim’s frame of thought. For suicides, when the killer and the victim were the same, things were even less complicated. For the simulation of hanging, we only needed to prepare a rope. I strung the rope across the roofbeam and tied a noose. I found a chair which was about the same height as the one at Wang Yiman’s home and then everything was ready to start this hanging experiment. Of course, I didn’t really plan to die so Xiao Liu and Gu Chen were ready to haul me down.

“Are you sure we should do this?” Guan Zhenglin said worriedly. “Remember, you have to slowly ease the stool away so that your spine won't be injured. Also, be careful of letting the rope press against your nervus vagus, that will cause instantaneous death. Only prayers will save you then.” Guan Zhenglin then sighed. “I don’t think we should do this. Why risk your life for an investigation?”

I gave an okay signal to tell her to not worry. Everyone held their breath as I readied into position. I slowly pushed my head through the noose. I adjusted the angle until it matched Wang Yiman’s. Then I slowly kicked the stool away so that my ‘death’ would be as similar to Wang Yiman’s as possible. With a thud, the stool tipped over.

Blackness descended and then the world spun. In just a few seconds, I could feel energy leaving my limbs. My survival instinct ordered my hands to grab at the noose around my neck but my body couldn’t summon any energy, it was like it was no longer my own. Then, I felt the world turn away from me. I couldn’t hear or see anything anymore. There was only nothingness.

Was it painful? I had no idea.