86 Parking Lot

 

To single out an online transaction among billions that went on every day was not something which could be done quickly. Using Dong Xing City as the focus, Mary started to look for people who would work with beef tapeworms online. By then the day was getting late. After a whole day of work, it was time to rest.

However, lying in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Other than worry for Liu Fei’er, I worried about myself and my ability to continue the investigation. Paranoia was itself a disease hard to cure and it could only be suppressed with meds most of the time. In my case, my prison master father had brought me to various big hospitals and there was no cure, only meds to control it. However, after spending a year in the asylum, my condition stabilized enough that I didn’t have to take the meds anymore but it looked like it was time to pick up the medicine bottle again. My night was spent in such anxiety.

…

The sun rose. When I came to the office, I was told that Liu Yinyan had called the city more than 10 times yesterday night, they were all to demand for updates. Not 24 hours had passed since his daughter’s disappearance but Liu Yinyan was already such a mess. It was hard to imagine he was a ruthless business mogul. “By the way, is there any news from Jessie?” I asked Xiao Liu who looked like he hadn’t slept yesterday night too. Turns out he just returned from Liu Yinyan’s bungalow.

Xiao Liu shook his head. “Yesterday, after you guys returned to the station, Gu Chen and I stayed at Liu Yinyan’s home. But he was so worried about his daughter that he kept waking us up to call the city for updates. We barely got the chance to sleep.” With a yawn, he continued, “But the private investigators didn’t fare much better than we do. I did try to probe them for information. As expected, Vivian only gave me a cold stare but Jessie did reveal to me a clue.”

“What clue?”

Xiao Liu scratched, “He said, if someone needed to take someone away without being discovered, transportation was a necessity. With the amount of traffic cam at Dong Xing City, if we could identify the getaway car, we would get more clues.”

I shrugged. Looks like instead of focusing on the lipsticks, Jessie’s team went down a different path. In any case, we were working for the same goal. Our opening was the beef tapeworm and their opening was a car. It would depend on who was faster to achieve the breakthrough. However, investigation was not a race. We sat there and waited for things to happen. I played games on my phone, Guan Zhenglin sat on the couch and spaced out while Xiao Liu bustled about, busy with god knows what.

Throughout the day, Mary was busy looking into the business of beef tapeworms. She had found quite a few sellers on the black market but she needed more time to pinpoint the exact one which Chen Lin had frequented. Gu Chen stayed alone at Liu Yinyan’s bungalow to work as liaison. The number of clues the kidnappers left behind was so minimal that there was not much we could work with. We were working against a very professional team because they still hadn’t called after a day. The longer they took to make the ransom call, the more passive we’d be. This team was different from normal criminals, they were too calm and collected. Just as I thought nothing was going to progress that day, Mary suddenly exclaimed. “Found it!”

That sent a surge through our spirit. We rushed to Mary’s side and she said. “Using some special skill, I found the sellers of beef tapeworms at Dong Xing City. These sellers sold tapeworms or ascarids to those who wanted to lose weight the extreme way. However, these organisms couldn’t be mailed. Therefore…” Mary clicked on a picture on her computer, “The transactions have to be done in person. And the seller that Chen Lin chose was unique in the sense that the seller promised that as long as the transaction was done in Dong Xing City, the buyer could pick the transaction location. I believed that would be alluring to a fugitive so I hacked into this seller’s system and managed to find the transaction records between Chen Lin and the seller!” Then Mary enlarged the picture.

These were messages between Chen Lin and the seller. In the beginning, it was Chen Lin enquiring about the danger and effectiveness of this method. The seller naturally fed him with the sales pitch but that was not the main point, the main point was the following exchange:

Chen Lin, “Okay, but we have to meet up in person? You can’t mail it?”

Boss, “No, the system will identify it, the law forbids us from mailing living organisms. Dear, why don’t you pick a spot and we’ll deliver the thing there.”

One minute later.

Chen Lin, “Then can you come to Eastern Street No. 74 Underground Parking Lot? I’ll wait for you there.”

Boss, “Okay, our delivery boy will be there in about an hour. He’ll be riding an e-bike and wearing red.”

Chen Lin, “Noted.”

This was a recorded message between Chen Lin and the boss about the drop off point. From the conversation, we could analyse many things.

Mary played a video which featured a parking lot. Mary pointed at the time stamp and said, “So I picked up the surveillance video from the address where Chen Lin was supposed to meet with the seller. Thankfully, the surveillance at that place was wiped every 2 months and that was how I got my hands on this video.” We focused on the video. 1 minute later, 2 people appeared at the underground parking lot’s entrance. One of them stood at the entrance but didn’t enter. In the video, only his body was shown, not his face.

The other person walked into the parking lot. Even though he wore a mask, from his clothing and figure, we knew this was Chen Lin. Chen Lin didn’t stay long inside the parking lot when a young man came in on an e-bike. He wore a red short-sleeved shirt. Chen Lin waved at him and the young man drove over. He then pulled out an opaque bottle from his basket. The young man handed the bottle to Chen Lin. Chen Lin looked into it and took a subconscious step back as if frightened. With a chuckle, the young man leaned the bottle closer to Chen Lin and then said something. With his gestures, we believed he was explaining to Chen Lin how to ingest the worm. After taking the 400 RMB payment from Chen Lin, the young man rode on his bike and left. Chen Lin hurried out from the parking lot and left with the other person. The video was short but it told us many things.

From the video, Chen Lin and his partner walked to this place. From the time stamp, we knew that it had been less than one hour since Chen Lin made the order. This proved that Chen Lin got here from a place not far away, at least somewhere within 1 hour walking distance from this parking lot. When discussing the dropoff location with the seller, Chen Lin hesitated for a minute. Chen Lin was a fugitive so naturally he wouldn’t give his actual address. But he wouldn’t give a random address either. He only used 1 minute to respond so this address must have meant something to him. If I had to guess, this underground parking lot was one of the bases the team used before they abandoned it and moved to the building site.

In any case, now was not the time for speculation. I summoned, “Come on, let’s go there and take a look ourselves.” It was already 10 pm, the few of us drove to Number 74 Underground Parking Lot. This parking lot was an automated, membership only parking lot. You had to swipe your card on the scanner and then the baton would raise. When you leave, the payment would be charged into the card based on the time you spent in the parking lot. In other words, if you didn’t have the membership card, you couldn’t park here. The place to join the membership was a small room near the parking lot but when we arrived, it was empty. Therefore, we parked by the roadside and walked into the parking lot. The underground parking lot only had 1 level but it was quite huge. It was big enough to fit more than 100 cars. When we arrived, there were different types of vehicles parked there, from the highest price range to the lowest price range.

I stood in the middle of the parking lot and took in the vehicles all around me. The others also stopped to look around, hoping to find some clues.

“What is the parking lot used for?” I suddenly asked. Xiao Liu answered matter-of-factly, “Of course it’s for people to park their cars, what else do you expect? It’s a market during the day?”

“No, I mean what is the purpose of this place specific to Chen Lin?” I pulled on my hair and looked at Xiao Liu, “Psychologically speaking, if a person provided the answer within a short period after the question was asked, the answer must be meaningful to the person somehow. For example, if I am to ask you now which restaurant you will frequent tomorrow for lunch, you will not tell me a restaurant you have not heard of. Similarly, the reason Chen Lin gave this address was because he had been to this place or had heard about it before, I am leaning towards the former.

“I believe the getaway car they used has been here or is still here!” I said firmly, “Perhaps they stole a car from here or planted the car that they needed for the job here beforehand. After they kidnapped Liu Fei’er, they probably changed it for another vehicle though.”

At that moment, I heard a familiar voice say, “Jessie-kun, are you sure the car will be here?” The person who spoke was Mariko. We lifted our head and saw Jessie’s team walk in. We shared a look. This was an unexpected reunion. Jessie was clearly surprised when he saw us. He then started to guffaw. “Well, looks like you’re not a waste of taxpayers’ money after all, this should be fun.”

I shrugged. “We were just lucky.”

Jessie licked his lips and said, “In that case, why not we test that luck further? How about a bet?”

“What bet?” Hearing the derision in his tone, I was fairly annoyed.

“We’ll see who finds Liu Fei’er first.” Jessie suggested, “If we do, then this beautiful lady must go on a dinner with me.” Looks like Jessie had a bit of a crush on Guan Zhenglin. I asked, “What if we win?”

Jessie smiled, “If you win, then you can enjoy a lovely romantic candlelight dinner with 2 of my assistants, so what do you say?”

I shrugged, “Doesn’t matter to me because the bet is between you and Guan Zhenglin. She doesn’t belong to me so who am I to make this decision on her behalf?”

“Oh?” Jessie’s eyes twinkled. “And I thought this lady is your girlfriend. Looks like I was wrong. Well, my princess, would you accept my bet?”

“Of course.” Guan Zhenglin smiled. “If you win, I’ll go to that dinner with you. If you lose, you go back to where you came from. We don’t need an outsider PI.”

Jessie nodded. “You got a deal.”