Chapter 5
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Luo Wenzhou returned to the city bureau and spoke with Director Gen Zhang for a while, then rushed to the Huashi District Bureau with Tao Ran. Lang Qiao beat them there, and just after they parked, she came up to meet them. She handed them each a cup of coffee.
“What took you so long?” she asked them in a small voice. “The district bureau has Ma Xiaowei in custody—they’re convinced that he’s a primary suspect. They stuffed him in a police car and brought him in this morning. Reporters for online media chased them the whole way—we only just got rid of them.”
“What?” Tao Ran asked, immediately alarmed.
Luo Wenzhou put a hand on his shoulder. “Did they go through the right process?”
Lang Qiao sighed. “That old Wang Hongliang’s a sly one, Boss. He’d never make any obvious slipups in front of you.”
“Well, what’s the evidence?” Luo Wenzhou asked, his voice deepening.
“He Zhongyi’s cell phone.” Lang Qiao spoke quickly. “It’s rather strange. His phone was found in Ma Xiaowei’s possession. The official story is that, last night, one of the district bureau officers on the case received a report that Ma Xiaowei had been seen holding a new phone that looked like the one He Zhongyi lost. The district bureau immediately set out to bring Ma Xiaowei in for questioning, and they did find the phone in his room. There were fingerprints on it belonging to both Ma Xiaowei and the deceased.”
Luo Wenzhou frowned. Tao Ran asked further questions. “Who reported the phone? How did they know it was He Zhongyi’s?”
“Apparently, it’s a new model. It isn’t cheap, so very few people around here have one. He Zhongyi got it as a gift from a relative, it seems. When he first received it, everyone saw it, so they all remembered it.”
“It doesn’t matter who reported it or why. Even if Wang Hongliang’s team found it by breaking in, they could always just invent an informant after the fact.” Luo Wenzhou waved a hand. “What matters is the phone. Just having the phone doesn’t make Ma Xiaowei the killer. There isn’t enough evidence to arrest him for that. Did he say something he shouldn’t have? Did someone force something out of him?”
“Bullseye.” Lang Qiao looked around cautiously to make sure nobody else was there, then continued, “They probably didn’t even have to force a confession. Ma Xiaowei lied about his age so he could start working younger. I got someone to check last night, and his ID is fake. He’s not even sixteen. I’m betting they scared him enough that he spilled everything. When they asked how he got the phone, he dithered for a while, then said he picked it up.”
“At the crime scene?” Lang Qiao nodded helplessly, and Luo Wenzhou sighed. “And then they asked him what time? Did he say around nine fifteen, when he went down to check on the argument he heard?”
Lang Qiao spread her hands. With other witnesses having already attested to the time and place of the incident, Ma Xiaowei said that he’d been there and “picked up” a phone. As for the murderer? Nope, the kid hadn’t seen him.
Saying that had been as good as a confession.
Luo Wenzhou was speechless for a while. Eventually, he rubbed his chin. “Well, I haven’t come across such an honest ‘killer’ in years.”
Wang Hongliang chose that moment to walk over to them, evidently in high spirits. “I was gone just a short while yesterday for that jurisdictional security meeting, and as soon as I come back, I hear that we’ve caught the suspect already. Wow—the city bureau’s young supervisors are real professionals. Talk about efficiency!”
Luo Wenzhou was forced to thaw out his dark, icy expression to give Wang Hongliang a flawless smile. “Wang-dage, you can drop the false modesty. I bet you’re annoyed that we’ve come to take credit for your work.”
Wang Hongliang smiled, so wide and toothily that his eyes disappeared and his two front teeth seemed to protrude from his lips. “What’s all this about credit?” he asked, his voice oily. “We’re all just serving the people!”
He’d barely finished speaking before Lang Qiao butted in to ruin the mood. “But, Director Wang, the chain of evidence isn’t complete yet, is it? We haven’t found the murder weapon, and Ma Xiaowei hasn’t confessed. There are so many points of suspicion left. Could you let us know what you’ll need our help with after this?”
Lang Qiao’s gaze was a true lighthouse beacon. The city bureau’s forensic specialist Zeng Guangling had personally verified that her eyes took up more real estate on her face than on 99 percent of comparable East Asian faces. Since people with bigger eyes tended to get crow’s feet, Lang Qiao rarely smiled. Under special circumstances that forced her to do so, she usually just lifted the corners of her lips, keeping her eye muscles stiff. Over time, she became adept at smiles that didn’t reach her eyes, and though she was actually an idiot, this habit gave her the air of a cool, aloof beauty. She could easily carry off interrogations or play bad cop—do anything that required significant intimidation, really.
She’d seemingly offered “help,” but her tone seemed to spew venom at her audience, and the icy glare of her terrifyingly enormous eyes seemed to quickly scare Wang Hongliang’s front teeth away from “serving the people” and back into the safety of his mouth. Wang Hongliang’s expression changed. “What are you trying to say, Xiao-Lang?”
“Hey, Xiao-Qiao-er, watch your tone,” Luo Wenzhou loudly admonished, reaching out and tugging Lang Qiao back behind him. He looked down at Wang Hongliang from his towering height and gave him a fake little smile. “Don’t mind her. When young people first start work, they don’t know how to speak. Xiao-Qiao-er means that we haven’t managed to help much before now, so if you need us for anything else at this point, just say the word.”
Wang Hongliang was too wary of Luo Wenzhou to open hostilities, so he simply pretended not to know the difference between friendly and unfriendly words, forcing a smile and turning away.