The short hundred tres was like a marathon for Chief Zhou. When we returned ho, Chief Zhou leaned against the bed and the frozen tears lted off. I knew it was impolite to ask Chief Zhou about Luo Sui at a ti like this but ti didn't allow for pleasantries anymore. The killer was getting more out of control, if we didn't stop them soon, more tragedies would happen.
I summoned my courage to ask, "Chief Zhou, when did you last hear from Luo Sui?"
Chief Zhou turned to and said between sobs, "It was one week, or to be more precise, 9 days ago. We just had a fight and she blocked from reaching her. I'm quite dense when it cos to relationships." Chief Zhou wiped away his tears. "Since she didn't want to reach her, I decided to give her so ti to calm down. But I never expected this to happen"
I nodded and asked, "Does Luo Sui have the habit of wearing nail polish?" Chief Zhou looked at while Guan Zhenglin and Gu Chen also glanced at inquisitively. From their looks, I knew what they were trying to tell . My question sounded quite interrogative. Guan Zhenglin glared at , as if berating my lack of empathy but I couldn't eliminate anyone without proper investigation especially at a ti like this. I had to figure out the possible suspects.
Chief Zhou naturally caught onto my intention too. He answered, "No, Xiao i was 30 this year, she never used those things when she was with . So it never clicked in my head that those body parts could be hers"
Guan Zhenglin shook her head, "Even though I don't use much make-up, it's hard to escape the inundation of costic comrcials. When I was in school, my best friend used to bring to do pedicures with her. From the nail polish I saw, the handiwork was quite professional. I believe Xiao i had been to a pedicurist to have them done."
Hearing that, I added, "Chief Zhou, when she left after the argunt 9 days ago, was Xiao i wearing any nail polish?"
Chief Zhou answered firmly, "No, that I can be sure of. I would have noticed." In other words, Luo Sui disappeared after she had a pedicure. If we could find out where she did her pedicure, we could narrow down further her ti of disappearance. From there, we might also find witnesses who had seen her.
Then there was another question, why did Luo Sui end up at First Drain Village? What was her connection to this village, if any?
I said, "Don't worry, Chief Zhou, we will find Xiao i's killer." At that mont, my phone rang. It was a ssage from Mary. "I've found the newspaper article for you. I'm still working on Luo Sui."
The ssage was appended with a newspaper article, it was published many years ago. I finally had the chance to read the full extent of the article and got myself familiarized with the latter 12 killers reported. As I read through the article, my brows furrowed.
The thods of dismbernt used on Luo Sui were featured in the article. Cutting off a victim's leg using a blunt blade, that was the mo of a butcher from US, the psychopath was dead; Training a dog to bite off the victim's arm, that happened in Russia, the killer was a hunter and was still on the run; the at dumpling case happened in China, the killer was a restaurant worker, he had died in prison.
No wonder I would have co up with the criminal profile of a butcher. The killer modeled his thod after another killer when they dismbered the body. But why would the killer employ so many different killing thods on the sa body?
Currently I had 3 hypotheses.
One, the killer hated Luo Sui a lot. The killer dismbered Luo Sui when she was still alive. Only the craziest psychopath would enjoy such inhumane tornt. If that was the case, the motive of the killer was pride. They wanted to use the police to announce to the world that they exist. It was like how you would gloat about scoring good marks in class. People had to know about their handiwork because they were proud of it. That would explain why the killer had ssaged us about Luo Sui.
Two, the killer hated Chief Zhou a lot. Oftentis, the greatest pain we could deliver on soone was not to kill them, because death was a release. You wouldn't feel anything after you were dead. Only by being alive could you continue to be tortured. But only Chief Zhou would know if he had done anything to deserve a fate like this, if soone hated him so much that they would go to such lengths to harm him.
Three, the killer hated the police. They didn't have any history with Chief Zhou or Luo Sui, she was targeted simply because she was the girlfriend of a cop. This kind of sociopathy appeared when one believed one was treated unfairly by the law enforcent. If that was the case, we should check the criminal background of all the villagers at First Drain Village. With that in mind, I sent a ssage to Mary to help to do exactly that.
So far, these were the 3 most possible motives I could co up with. Regardless, the killer was already breaking at the seams.
If you were a killer, and you wanted us to know the identity of the victim, what would be the best choice? The answer was to show us the head of the victim. However, the killer did not do that but instead sent us a ssage through Luo Sui's phone. There was nothing much we could do with this information. Mary could only triangulate the signal to a general location and we already knew the killer was from First Drain Village. So why did the killer choose this thod instead of just showing us the head?
I shook my head and abandoned this thought for the mont. Now I needed to work on my second hypothesis, whether Chief Zhou had soone whom he had a huge beef with. When I shared my thoughts with him, Chief Zhou was silent for a long ti. Then he said in a hoarse voice, "No, I don't think I have any enemies. You've been working with , you know the kind of person I am. I normally don't get into argunts and conflicts, so I don't think I have any enemy that hates that much."
Gu Chen chipped in, "How about the criminals you've arrested?"
Chief Zhou frowned and then said, "No, that's impossible too. Elm Town doesn't have any big cases, you know that. Most of the people I arrested are for street fighting and mugging, the worst is rape. I couldn't see anyone going this far just to take revenge for these petty cris.
"After all, if they are caught, they will be given the death sentence." Chief Zhou sighed, "Would soone really risk their lives to take revenge for these past small offenses? This is too risky, I doubt anyone I've arrested would do sothing like this."
Then this hypothesis could be vetoed. The first and third hypotheses were harder to verify, I had to wait for Mary to co up with more information. And as fate would have it, Mary returned with news then and told about Luo Sui's movent before she disappeared.
Luo Sui didn't disappear 9 days ago, the last witness who saw her was in the morning from 3 days ago, the day Luo Sui was killed. The witness was a male pedicurist called Tony. Since it was just 3 days ago, when Mary called to enquire, Tony still had an impression of Luo Sui. When Luo Sui patronized them, it was snowing heavily and she was his only client. At the ti, Tony even asked Luo Sui why she had co for a pedicure in such weather.
Luo Sui answered that it was because she was going to et soone at noon. Seeing how giddy Luo Sui was, Tony asked whether she had a date with her husband, and were they celebrating their anniversary.
Luo Sui told Tony that she wasn't married yet, she was going to et a dummy at noon. The dummy would give her 500000 RMB, so she planned to buy a house at Elm Town with that money. That was her lifelong dream. Tony was a good salesman so he pushed her to go for the full pedicure service. Luo Sui accepted happily.
Mary sent Tony the picture of Luo Sui's fingers and Tony confird that it was the nails he did for Luo Sui that day. When Luo Sui left his shop, it was about 11 am. And Luo Sui died between 1 pm to around 3 pm.
Who did she et? Why would that person give her 500000 RMB? Could that person be the killer? And what happened in that few short hours?
Reviews
All reviews (0)