When a killer left behind nothing but something specific, it was meant for us to find. The officer told us that Captain Lee had searched the two victims’ rental thoroughly and found nothing but the semen on their beds.
If we ignored the actual substance, and just focused on the bright spots, they formed a kind of irregular pattern. I had a feeling their placement was on purpose. In my mind, an image appeared in my mind. When we combined the two beds we had seen together, a picture would appear. Similar to the layout, the two ladies had the same model of beds.
I yanked off the bedsheet and raced upstairs. When I did that, everyone shot me confused looks. Even though the semen couldn’t be seen with naked eye, everyone knew they were stuck to the bedsheet. The officers naturally stayed away from me, as if afraid of touching the sheet.
Guan Zhenglin and Gu Chen said nothing, but followed after me.
“Help me smooth out the corners.” I spread the bedsheet on the bed and then told Gu Chen and Guan Zhenglin, “Make sure the corners all meet.”
After the bed was made, I opened the UV light. The semen on the 2 bedsheets overlapped, but the patterns still didn't make much sense. After we adjusted the bedsheets, it finally surfaced. The bright spots on the two bedsheets formed several rows of English letters!
My English was good enough to recognize it was English but that was all. Gu Chen was about the same level as I was so we turned towards Guan Zhenglin. The girl’s face was serious as she stared at the English sentences. I coughed lightly to get Guan Zhenglin’s attention.
“You should understand these simple vocabularies.” Guan Zhenglin took out her phone to take pictures.
I nodded. “I do but not when they are placed together like this.”
“This is why you need to study.” Guan Zhenglin translated as she snapped pictures. “The sins descending on the world, ugliness called men, the prologue of the story, with the pouring blood of two girls, ultimately will begin, main text.”
“I get every word that you say but not when they’re together.” Gu Chen scratched his head. “What does it mean? Are you sure your translation is correct?”
Guan Zhenglin placed the phone before her chest. “Do not underestimate a coroner’s English level, I’ve encountered many English professional terms that you might not understand in your life… The translation is correct but then what does it mean, that is another story.”
The sentence seemed to make no sense and it was written in such a unique way, the killer wouldn’t have left this behind out of boredom. Perhaps it meant that the statement was not meant for the police but for the killer himself. I was leaning towards the latter.
“But why would the killer leave the message in English?” Gu Chen asked.
I thought about it and said, “Chinese characters have more strokes and lines compared to English letters. Plus English characters are harder to make out when they’re split apart on two bedsheets.” I pulled on my hair and said worriedly, “Based on what I know, psychopaths see the world differently than we do. So the things that he might want to express might be different than ordinary too.”
“He wouldn’t be part of some cult, would he?” Gu Chen sucked in a cold breath. “The tone of this message does sound like one.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Let’s go check out the back garden.”
As we were about to walk out, several officers stood at the door as if confused by our actions. One of them said, “That’s impressive. Inspector Liu has led us to look around for a long time and we found nothing. If you ask me, the council shouldn’t have moved you guys out of Dong Xing City, we would be able to learn so much from your team.”
I chuckled, “You were there during the previous case, you knew how it ended.” Then I patted the officer on his back, “Looking down from the window in this room, the footprints at the back garden appear very messy. Even though it hasn’t snowed recently, the weather is warming up, can we still identify the victim’s footprints?”
The officer smiled awkwardly, “It was the landowner who discovered the body. When a person was found lying on the ground, a normal person wouldn’t assume that they were dead, perhaps they had fainted. So the landowner rushed over with the security guards. The footprints were already destroyed then. We only arrived after the ambulance. By then the whole garden was already covered in tracks.”
I scratched my head. “Alright.” We didn’t have firsthand information so we couldn’t draw our own conclusion. We were still inside Room 502, the house of the first victim. I walked to the shoe rack and turned to ask, “Say, when the body was found, she wasn’t wearing any shoes, was she?”
The officer nodded, and gasped in surprise, “Yes, how did you know?”
I shrugged, “From the killer’s own writing. He said he tail Zhao Kaifang by stepping on her footprints and left wearing her shoes. In that case, how could the victim still be wearing shoes on her feet?”
“You’re right.” The officer tapped his head. “How can I forget about that?” I turned to Guan Zhenglin, “By the way, what would an OL be wearing on her feet when she came home from work?”
Guan Zhenglin pouted, “An OL you say, then most likely a pair of high heels!”
“Even in the winter?” I asked.
“There are heels specially designed for winter!” Guan Zhenglin nodded.
I opened the shoe rack. Some said a woman’s closet was always lacking a set of clothes, the same could be said for their shoe storage. When I opened the rack, pairs of shoes looked right at me. I pulled out a random pair of heels. “Come on!” I told the rest.
“Where are we going?” The officer asked.
“We’re going to do something interesting.” I said.
When we reached the ground floor, Xiao Liu just finished talking with Captain Zhao. When Xiao Liu saw up, he came towards us and asked, “Wu Meng, did you guys find anything useful?”
Gu Chen still couldn’t stand Xiao Liu so he grumbled, “What does that have to do with you? You need to understand that this is a competition, in the end, your people will leave or we will. So I’m sorry, I have nothing to say.” Then Gu Chen stormed past him. Gu Chen was not a chatty person but had actively provoked Xiao Liu, this meant that Gu Chen still cared about Xiao Liu. People were often like that, we were always cruelest to the people we cared about. What we said might not really be what we felt. Xiao Liu watched as Gu Chen walked away. Xiao Liu looked despondent.
I patted Xiao Liu on his shoulder and said, “You know the kind of person Gu Chen is. His heart is softer than his mouth. This officer here knows what we have found, just ask him back at the station, we’re going now.”
Xiao Liu sighed and told me, “Thank you.”
We arrived at the back garden. Recently the weather was warming up and the effect of global warming was serious in big cities like Dong Xing City. Most of the snow had melted into slush. There were only minor spots of snow left. I turned to Guan Zhenglin and said, “Xiao Lin, come on.” I waved the heels at her.
Then they finally understood what I was doing
“Oh, a crime scene reconstruction!” The officer said with some excitement.
Guan Zhenglin shrugged as she removed her shoes. Then she hooked her finger at me, signaling me to help her put the high heels on. I didn’t mind the job. The heels fitted her quite well. Zhao Kaifang was 1.7 metres tall, about the same height as Guan Zhenglin.
The killer tailed the victim by stepping on her footprints so his route would be similar to hers, which meant that they both entered the back garden from the neighbourhood alley. Zhao Kaifang wanted to take the shortcut so instead of taking the winding garden path, she cut a straight line through the garden over the snowy field, it was how her footprints got left behind.
“So, who will play the killer?” Guan Zhenglin looked at me and Gu Chen.
No comments:
Post a Comment