125 Another Dump

 

Lee Danan shouted loudly at the door. Hearing the urgency in his tone, he seemed to have run into big trouble. Granny Wang continued to smile because she couldn’t hear the voice outside. The rest of us hurriedly stood up and rushed out. The village head gestured as best as he could at Granny Wang. We walked out from Granny Wang’s home and opened the gate to see Lee Danan’s nervous face. I was just about to speak when Lee Danan cut in, “Officer, you have to come see this, it’s horrible.”

I nodded and said in a calm tone, “Okay, but I need you to tell me first what exactly is happening.”

Lee Danan took a deep breath and explained, “I was waiting at the community centre for you all to return but before you did, a villager came to say he had seen something unbelievable. I naturally asked him what happened. He said he saw an arm growing out from the snow! There’s snow and then an arm!” Lee Danan’s eyes filled with fear.

“An arm growing out from snow?” Lee Danan was tripping over his words so I didn’t quite really get him. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Lee Danan decided that seeing was believing so he pulled on my arm and said, “Just come with me and you’ll understand.” We all nodded and followed Lee Danan to the western side of the village. After 10 minutes, we encountered a crowd. They had their heads lowered, looking at something in the middle. There were so many people that I couldn’t see what had grabbed their attention. The closer we got to the crowd, the clearer their conversations were.

“This is so strange!” Someone commented, “How could there be an arm growing out from snow?” Another person countered, “This has to be fake, it can’t be real, right?”

Gu Chen arrived pushing the village head’s wheelchair. The old man bellowed, “What is going on? Why are you people gathered here? Move, move please!” The villagers consciously parted when they heard the village head. Squeezing through the path, I finally saw what the villagers were surrounding. It was indeed an arm clawing out from the snow, I noticed it was a right arm.

“Move, move out of the way.” The village head ordered, “Let the police handle this.” I examined the arm closely. The fingernails were painted too, it seemed to be of the same hue and model as the one on the foot. The exposed part consisted of the hand and the lower arm. The hand was fixed in a clawing state but there was nothing it was holding, except air. The arm’s skin was fair. Combined that with the leg, the chance of our victim being a female had drastically increased.

The snow here was about 30 cm deep. It was not thick enough to bury a person. In other words, like the leg, this was a dismembered body part. From the thickness of the snow and the angle of the arm, the arm was possibly shoved perpendicularly into the snow.

Guan Zhenglin squatted down to join me. After giving it some observations, Guan Zhenglin put on her gloves. She held the arm with her right hand and pulled, yanking the whole broken arm out from the snow. The surrounding people yelped and gasped as they involuntarily retreated. As Guan Zhenglin yanked out the arm, we saw clearly the broken stump of the arm. The wound suggested that the instrument used to dismember the arm wasn’t a blade, because we could see that near the wound were clear animal bite marks. On the cross section of the bone, there was even clear indentation of teeth. The toothmark was pointed and close together. They perforated through the bones. It was not a human bite mark. In this kind of village, my guess was a dog. But from the moment we entered this village, I had not heard a single dog bark.

Did this village have no dogs? Or their dogs were mute as well?

Guan Zhenglin frowned and turned to tell us, “Look at this, the hamstring inside the arm is still pulled taut, it is why the fingers are in a claw shape. Medically speaking, this is called cadaveric spasms. This happens due to muscular constriction during the time of death. The chemical changes within the body cause the limbs and muscles to stiffen. This can last for up to four days.” Guan Zhenglin thought about it and appended, “It’s the same situation with the leg. The foot was arched upwards, also caused by muscular constriction. In other words, when this arm was bitten off, the person was still alive. There’s a high chance that the leg and this arm belong to the same person.”

I nodded. “Look at the fingernail polish, they are almost the same as the one found on the leg. The color is of a darker hue and the limbs are abandoned in the same way. Can we confirm that they come from the same person?”

Guan Zhenglin nodded. “Without DNA comparison, there is no guarantee but I would say there's a 90 percent chance they do belong to the same person.”

A scary image appeared in my mind. When this victim was still alive, they were detained and apprehended by the killer. As the killer sawed through their leg, a dog was also released to chomp on the victim’s arm. Just how heartless a person must be to come up with something like this? To dismember a person when they were still alive. The killer was unfazed no matter how hard the victim cried and pleaded. Instantly, the image of a butcher walking around with a hunting dog appeared in my mind. I pitied the prey that they came across.

I looked at the people around us. They stared at Guan Zhenglin and the arm she was holding. Some of them looked serious, others fearful. There were all ranges of emotions. The snow was covered in footprints so that was no help. In fact, the murderer might even be standing in the crowd. North and south sides of First Drain Village were farming fields and beyond them was the mountain range, but in this season, no one would be living in the mountains. The east side of the village was connected to the highway and it had only a single convenience store and nothing else. There was no residence there. The west side of the village was connected to Elm Town, although it would take 2 hours of driving to move between these two destinations.

Traffic was slow at this village during the normal season, much less when it was during deep winter. If an outsider wanted to get here, they would need at least 3 hours. I lifted my head and saw heavy clouds. This meant that somewhere down the line, we would be facing heavy snow again.

The fact that the murderer was able to stick an arm here without anyone noticing meant that they had to know First Drain Village well. That heightened the suspicion that the killer was currently around us, the group of handicapped individuals who looked so harmless. There were around 20 people around us. There were some who were visibly handicapped, others looked perfectly normal but like Granny Wang, they could be mute or deaf. Did that suggest that the killer was also a handicapped individual? Was the victim one?

Guan Zhenglin sighed, “The condition here is too barren. I can collect DNA but I can’t analyse or compare them. If I find anything more on the arm, we’ll have to send them to the city lab for analysis.”

Gu Chen nodded and then shook his head. “If we return to Elm Town now, it’ll take at least another 3 hours. That is so inconvenient, plus we haven’t really found any useful clues at the village yet.”

Chief Zhou clapped Gu Chen’s shoulder. “How about this, I’ll arrange a special unit just to help with the evidence transportation.” Then Chief Zhou turned to the village head. “Master Wei, look at the sky, it might start to snow soon. If we return now, we might get stuck on the road. Furthermore, we have a murderous killer on the loose, someone who is brazen enough to dump human body parts in broad daylight. I feel like it’s safer for everyone if we stay here.” Chief Zhou asked, “Is there a place for us to lodge temporarily?”

The village head nodded, “This village doesn’t have much but we do have plenty of empty houses. I’ll find a few houses in the village for you, but the condition here won’t be better than the city. There is no heater, we rely on a charcoal stove for heating, I worry that you might not know how to use one.” Looks like Chief Zhou cared a lot about this case.

I interrupted them. “Now is not the time to discuss these, we’ll talk about the living arrangements later.” I shouted at the crowd. “Who is the first to discover the arm?”

The crowd mumbled among themselves and ignored me completely. Seeing this, the village head shouted, “Quiet down! Can’t you see that a person is dead? Pipe down! The police have just asked you people a question. Which one of you was the first to find this arm? If it’s you, then step out; if not, then shut up and keep quiet.” Looks like at First Drain Village, the village head’s words carried more weight than mine, because soon the crowd silenced.

Then a child about 8 walked out from the crowd. I noticed the child also only had one arm.

“Grandpa Wei.” The child looked at the village head and began fearfully, “I, I was the one who saw the arm first. I even went to touch it but my dad quickly pulled me back.”