AN HOUR LATER, Fei Du brought a few cups of freshly brewed coffee back to the station.
All of the victims’ families were gone except for Qu Tong’s parents and Guo Heng, who sat across from each other. One side was still in disbelief, still hoping against hope; the other waited for the truth to be presented to him more than two decades late. Guo Heng chatted with Qu Tong’s father, their conversation occasionally interrupted by sudden fits of tears from both members of the young couple. When that happened, they paused to calm down, then tried to comfort each other.
When Fei Du arrived at the office of the criminal investigation team, he saw a burly, middle-aged man with a scarred brow leading a group swiftly past. “…still at home,” the man was saying. “Only the required personnel from each team should stay here on duty. Everyone else needs to go give Xiao-Tao a hand; he’s low on manpower. I’ll apply to make this a joint operation supported by the local stations—”
Catching sight of Fei Du, he cut himself off.
Fei Du deduced that this was one of the higher-ups at the bureau. Not knowing what Luo Wenzhou had said to his bosses, he decided to go introduce himself. At that point, however, the man simply gestured to the officers to hurry and do as he’d said. Then he walked up to Fei Du and extended a hand. “You must be Fei-zong. I’m Lu Youliang, the municipal bureau’s acting director general. I signed off on your banner.”
Fei Du put his coffee aside and gripped the man’s large hand in a formal handshake. “Pleased to meet you, Deputy Lu.”
They exchanged a few more niceties, and then Lu Youliang said, “Tao Ran and his team located the spot where the suspects were dumping the bodies. We’re putting as many people on it as we can, so the dig shouldn’t take long. We’ll be able to give the public answers soon.”
When they were in the memorial hall, Luo Wenzhou had mentioned that Su Hui’s hometown was in Pinghai County, under Yancheng’s jurisdiction. That was one of Yancheng’s water sources so it wouldn’t be surprising if the bodies had been dumped there. “Is it in Pinghai?” Fei Du asked. “I’m investing in a project in that area. They’re in the middle of construction, so there are a number of workers on-site. If necessary, I could call and ask them to go help out.”
“Huh?” Lu Youliang paused, then seemed to assume that Fei Du had misheard the news. “The guys must’ve mispronounced it—it’s in Binhai, not Pinghai. It’s a three- or four-hour drive away. That’s our closest source of seawater, but it doesn’t even fall within our provincial government’s territory. Coordinating all this is really a mess…”
Despite the dim light of the corridor, Fei Du’s pupils shrank rapidly. After a moment, he found his voice again. “They sank the bodies in the sea? But isn’t it typhoon season? Wouldn’t it have been hard to dump them there?”
“Yeah, so they buried the ones they couldn’t sink. Those are the ones we’re looking for now, particularly Qu Tong. She’s crucial to the case.”
Qu Tong’s parents and Guo Heng approached them then; the presence of Deputy Lu and his team had caught their attention, and they wanted to ask for updates. A few of the officers on duty rushed forward to stop them from entering the office, but Deputy Lu quickly dismissed his subordinates. “Hey, no—it’s fine. Let them come sit. I understand how they must be feeling. I’ll talk to them.”
Fei Du cleared his slightly hoarse throat. “Please go ahead. Don’t let me get in the way.”
Lu Youliang nodded at him. “The suspects in this case are really…” He trailed off and heaved a heavy sigh. “Even catching them might not yield a satisfactory ending. I’m worried that we’ll see a repeat of what happened twenty years ago.” He nodded to Fei Du again, then marched quickly past him.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE BINHAI AREA WAS MEANT to be under development, but—possibly due to the increased focus on ecological conservation in recent years—incomplete conservation procedures and paperwork meant that the process had been delayed to this day. The only real development in the area was the palliative-care facilities operating on a handful of islands off the coast.
Certain schools had annual arrangements to bring their students on painting and sketching trips to the picturesque village nearby; that gave the seaside “resort town” and its rural little farm stays a bit of business at fixed times of the year. For the rest of the year, though, it was basically deserted.
Farther from the coastline, it was hilly. The peaks and valleys stretched into the distance, containing few signs of human life save for the old, weathered roads that passed through them. The shrubs and the thick, undisturbed forest were lush and green, flourishing in the salty sea breeze.
All the roads had been closed off. The lovely scenery that had been captured in the nature photographs adorning the apartment’s wall had all been found and marked. Those marked locations spanned more than six miles along the same little road with indistinct edges. Officers from Yancheng worked with Binhai’s local police to block the spots off with copious amounts of yellow tape.
“Deputy Sergeant Tao, we found one… Hey, wait! This body’s fresh!”
Qu Tong’s little body had been chopped into seven or eight pieces that were buried separately. By dawn, they’d finally found all those pieces. The wounds on her body matched cutting tools recovered from the Xiangyang apartment, and forensics managed to extract bodily fluids from her remains.
This razor-thin silver lining made the middle-aged man that Lang Qiao had arrested fall to pieces immediately and tell them everything he knew.
“I was actually following a different little girl then. I knew her parents were busy and that she normally went home by herself. Who knew I’d run into a bizarre hostage situation? I was going to call the police, but that girl—that Su Luozhan—swayed me. She said that she liked this one—kept insisting that I take her instead. And I was familiar with the Xiling area, so without thinking, I… But I didn’t kill her! I didn’t kill anyone! Once it was over, I left! Honest! That guy—the cleaner—he barged in looking furious and grabbed Su Luozhan. It didn’t look right to me, so I got the hell out of there. I didn’t know they’d do something so sick. I really didn’t! I loved those girls so much. How could I bear to hurt them?”