Red Mandarin Dress Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the park.” She added, “Oh, Detective Yu has joined the special investigation too.”
    “A serial murder!” Chen recalled having seen a crowd there earlier, though he hadn’t paid any particular attention. It wasn’t an unusual scene for the Newspaper Windows.
    “That’s what I’m calling about. They wanted me to be the one to contact you because they said that Chief Inspector Chen would not say no to a young girl.”
    The request could not have come at a worse time—for his paper. Still, he had to do something. It was the first serial murder case for the city, for the bureau. At the very least, he had to make a gesture of concern.
    “Bring me the information you’ve gathered, Hong. I’ll take a look in the evening.”
    “I’m on my way.”
    The lunch box remained untouched, now totally cold. He threw it into the trash can. He rose and moved toward the gate in question, trying to imagine the scene earlier.
    The Newspaper Windows were located at the intersection of Nanjing and Xizhuang Roads, an area that permitted no parking along the curb. Any car parked there would get immediate attention, and the police patrol went on all night.
    The murderer must have planned it carefully, Chen reflected.
    There was a large crowd of people there, but the area around the Newspaper Windows was not taped off. He didn’t see any cops moving around, either.
    He caught the sight of a young girl walking over in a white overcoat, like a pear blossom in the morning light. A far-fetched metaphor, for it was still early winter. She was not Hong.
    Several old people stood in front of the Newspaper Windows, reading, talking, as usual. To his surprise, the newspaper section that drew the most readers was that of the stock market. “The Bull Is Crazy,” the headline read in bold.

FOUR
    DETECTIVE YU CAME HOME later than usual.
    Peiqin was washing her hair in a plastic basin on a folding table near the common sink, in the common kitchen area shared by the five families on the first floor. He slowed to a stop by her side. Looking up with her hair covered in soap bubbles, she motioned to him to move into their room.
    In the room, the table held a platter of rice cakes fried with shredded pork and pickled cabbage. He’d had a couple of steamed buns earlier, so he thought he might have a cake later as a nighttime snack. Their son Qinqin was studying late at school, as usual, preparing for the college entrance examination.
    Yu felt exhausted at the sight of their bed, with the dragon-and-phoenix-embroidered cotton padded quilt already spread out, the soft white pillow set against the headboard. Without taking off his shoes, he dumped himself across the quilt. After two or three minutes he sat up again, and leaning against the hard headboard, produced a cigarette. Peiqin would not come in for a while, he guessed, and he needed to think.
    Smoking, he found his thoughts still stuck, as though in a pail of frozen glue. So he tried to review the work already done on the mandarin dress murders.
    The whole bureau had been bubbling like a pot of boiling water. Theories were advanced. Cases were quoted. Arguments were pushed. Everybody appeared well-informed on the case.
    Party Secretary Li’s insistence on the “reliance-on-people approach” hadn’t worked. The neighborhood committees accosted a large number of people seen in the vicinity and asked them to provide alibis, but that hadn’t led to anything. That was no surprise.
    In the sixties and seventies, the committees had been an effective government watchdog because of the housing conditions and the ration-coupon system. When a dozen families lived together in a shikumen house, sharing one kitchen and yard, neighbors watched one another, and because the food and grocery ration coupons were distributed by the neighborhood committees, the committees’ power over residents was enormous. But with the improvement in housing conditions and abolishment of the ration coupons, committees no