Death of a Red Heroine [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 01] Read Online Free PDF

his report.
     
    OFFICER AT THE SCENE: Detective Yu Guangming
     
    DATE: 5/11/90
     
    1.  The body. A dead woman. Nameless. Naked. Her body found in a black plastic bag in the Baili Canal. Probably in her late twenties or early thirties, she had a healthy build, around 110 pounds in weight, 5’4” in height. It was hard to imagine how she had actually looked when alive. Her face was a bit swollen, but unbruised, unscratched. She had thin, dark eyebrows and a straight nose. Her forehead was broad. She had long, well-shaped legs, small feet with long toes. Her toenails were painted scarlet. Her hands were small, too, no rings on her well-manicured fingers. No blood, dirt, or skin under her nails. Her hips were broad with copious, coal black pubic hair. It’s possible that she had had sexual intercourse before her death. She didn’t look beaten up. There was only a faint line of bruising around her neck, barely discernible, and a light scratch on her collarbone, but other than that, her skin was smooth, with no suggestion of bruises on her body. A general absence of contusions on the legs also showed that she had not struggled much before her death. The small spotty hemorrhages in the linings around her eyes could be presumptive evidence of death by asphyxiation.
     
    2. The scene. Baili Canal, a small canal on the Suzhou River, about ten miles west of the Shanghai Paper Mill. It is, to be more exact, a dead creek overhung with shrubs and tall weeds. Some years ago it was chosen as a chemical plant site, but the state plan was abandoned. On one side is something of a graveyard with tombs scattered around. It’s difficult to reach the canal, whether by water or by land. No bus comes there. According to the local people, few go there to fish.
     
    3.  The witnesses. Gao Ziling, captain of the Vanguard, Shanghai River Security Bureau. Liu Guoliang, Captain Gao’s high-school friend, a senior engineer in the nuclear science field in Qinghai. Both of them are Party members, with no criminal record.
     
    Possible cause of death: Strangulation in combination with sexual assault.
     
    When he finished reading the report, Chief Inspector Chen lit a cigarette and sat quietly for a while. Two possibilities arose with the curling rings of smoke. She had been raped and murdered on a boat, and then dumped into the canal. Or the crime had taken place somewhere else, and her body transported to the canal.
     
    He was not inclined toward the first scenario. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the murderer to commit the crime with other passengers moving around on board. If it had been just the two of them in the boat, what was the point of covering her body up in a plastic bag? The canal was so out of the way, and most probably it had happened in the depth of night— there would have been no need to wrap the body. In the second scenario, the plastic bag might fit, but then the murder might have happened anywhere.
     
    When he looked out into the large office again, Detective Yu was back at his desk, sipping a cup of tea. Mechanically Chen felt for the thermos bottle on the floor. There was still enough water. No need to go to the communal hot water boiler downstairs. He dialed Yu’s extension.
     
    “Detective Yu Guangming reporting.” Yu appeared at the doorway in less than a minute, a tall man in his early forties, of medium build, with a rugged face and deep, penetrating eyes, holding a large manila folder in his hand.
     
    “You must have worked quite late last night.” Chen offered a cup of tea to his assistant. “A well-done job. I’ve just read your report.”
     
    “Thank you.”
     
    “Any new information about the case this morning?”
     
    “No. Everything’s in the report.”
     
    “What about the missing person’s list?”
     
    “No one on the list looks like her,” Yu said, handing over the folder. “Some pictures have just been developed. She could not have been too long in the water.