Xiaotao stared at Zou Wei with stern eyes, and he suddenly laughed out loud.
“You have a rich imagination, Officer!” he jeered. “It sounds just like a movie plot!”
“I’m taking you to the police station, Zou Wei!”
Zou Wei didn’t budge. “I’m sorry, but I’d like to see your warrant, please! To be honest, I’m not even sure if both of you really are police officers! I’ll give Officer Zhang a call and ask him.”
Xiaotao and I were shocked. We didn’t expect him to have the balls to contact the officer who led a team that investigated him a year ago! I knew instantly that things would go bad for us.
Zou Wei made a call, and when he hung up after a short conversation, he sneered at us and said, “So you’re acting independently and one of you isn’t even a police officer! You almost tricked me!”
“You mean, you almost admitted to the crime?” I asked.
“Nonsense!” yelled Zou Wei as he glared at me. “I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Mr. Zou, do you often get a dry and sore throat, blisters, cold sweat, and bloody urine?” I asked.
“How did you know?” he responded with astonishment.
“That’s what happens when you have sexual intercourse with a corpse. They’re the symptoms of corpse poisoning!”
Zou Wei slammed the table and yelled, “That’s nonsense! It was a whole year ago…”
He stopped suddenly, realizing that he had just admitted his guilt. Xiaotao immediately asked, “What happened a year ago?”
“No, that was a trick! It doesn’t count as a confession! I’m asking the security guards to escort you out now!”
At that moment, Xiaotao’s phone rang. It was Captain Lin. She was ordered to return to the police station immediately. Xiaotao gave me a look and sighed.
“Mr. Zou, we’ll meet again,” she said.
After leaving the company, Xiaotao asked me if what I said about corpse poisoning was true. I told her that it was all a lie. I did it to see his reaction. They were just symptoms of liver disease, which I noticed that he was suffering from by the pallor of his face.
I recorded the conversation we had with him earlier, but it would have no legal power in incriminating him. The confession we got wouldn’t be enough to be used as evidence in court.
Nevertheless, both Xiaotao and I learned one thing from the meeting—Zou Wei definitely murdered his wife. Now, the problem was how to use the evidence to prove his guilt.
Once we returned to the police station, Captain Lin called Xiaotao to his office, and I went in with her. Another dark-skinned middle-aged officer was there too. It was Officer Zhang. Captain Lin yelled at Xiaotao for quite some time, telling her that she could be fired if she acted without permission again.
“I understand your intentions, Xiaotao,” said Officer Zhang, “but I’ve investigated the case thoroughly and there wasn’t any doubt about Zou Wei’s innocence. I’ve been investigating crimes for more than thirty years. Don’t you think that I’d find out if there had been any anomalies in the case? Your investigation of my old case is an affront to my dignity as a seasoned police officer!”
“But there really are some suspicious points about this case!” replied Xiaotao. “At the time—”
“Stop!” Captain Lin interrupted. “Get out and reflect upon your misconduct. This place is not your home! You can’t just do whatever you want here!”
We got out. Xiaotao heaved a long sigh. Captain Lin definitely wouldn’t allow her to investigate the case now. Not only that, but she realized that if it was confirmed that Zou Wei murdered his wife, Officer Zhang would be seen to have made an egregious mistake and might be punished for it.
The most troublesome thing right now was that Zou Wei already knew that I was not a police officer. That meant that I couldn’t investigate the case alone. I asked Xiaotao what should we do next.
“We’ll carry on,” she answered. “At most, I’ll be demoted to a low-rank officer like Wang Yuanchao. What’s the big deal? I didn’t become a police officer to get rich or climb to the highest ranks anyway!”
“You’re a hero!” I praised her.
I then suggested that we no longer contact Zou Wei for the moment. If he found out, he could get Xiaotao suspended from her job with just a phone call. We would have to find a way to gather evidence without his knowledge. Once the evidence was strong enough, we’d confront him with it and see how he’d argue.
On the next day, Xiaotao emailed me some information that Wang Yuanchao had found. Zou Wei used to work at an insurance company that was known for being especially treacherous and cunning. They had been reported to refuse to pay out even when it was proven that no foul play was involved. However, since Zou Wei was an insider, he knew how to manipulate the evidence to make it seem that he was definitely innocent and force the insurance company to pay him out.
Another file she sent was a report from the auto repair shop. The brake cable of that car was indeed broken, not deliberately cut. I made a conjecture that Zou Wei changed an old brake cable in advance, but it was only a conjecture after all, and the car had already been discarded.
There was no progress in the next few days. This was a simple case, and yet there was no breakthrough at all, which made it that much more frustrating and stressful!
About a week later, Wang Yuanchao made an amazing discovery. The body of the deceased Ma Xiaoli was not cremated. She agreed to donate her body to a medical school before her death, so that was where it was kept right now.
I was excited after hearing the news and decided to meet with Xiaotao and Wang Yuanchao that very night. In order to stay covert, we met near an isolated garbage dump to avoid being seen. Wang Yuanchao opened the trunk of his car, and when we peered inside, we were shocked to find that there was a skeleton inside!
“What—How did you get that?!” asked Xiaotao, covering her mouth with her hand in disbelief.
Wang Yuanchao calmly lit up a cigarette and replied, “The victim’s body was damaged beyond recognition, and her organs were no longer usable. So, the medical school turned her body into a skeleton.”
Some bones had been fractured, but it was obvious that the damage was done by the car crash, not the murder itself. There were even signs of the bones being glued together to turn it into a complete human skeleton. It was also covered with a layer of antiseptic liquid, and the periosteum, a layer of connective tissue that covered the bones, was completely peeled off.
“Can you glean anything useful from it at all, Song Yang?” asked Xiaotao.
Even the most seasoned coroner would’ve shaken his head. I stared long and hard at the skeleton without saying a word. Xiaotao had to call my name a few times before she could get my attention.
“Song Yang! Is there anything that you can do at all?”
“If the murderer killed the victim by slicing her throat with a sharp fragment of glass, why didn’t she resist?”
“Perhaps she was bound?” Xiaotao suggested.
“No,” I said. “That would leave signs on her body. Zou Wei was smart enough not to risk that. She must’ve inhaled some kind of anesthetic substance that is difficult to detect.”
“If that’s true, wouldn’t it be even more difficult now, since the organs are all gone?” lamented Xiaotao.
“Traces of the drug must still be in the bone marrow,” I replied. “I have a way to detect it, but I would need some things.”
“That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear!” exclaimed Xiaotao. “Tell me what you need. I’ll go buy them right away.”
“White vinegar, wormwood, alcohol, shovel, and a straw mat!" I quickly listed.
In no time at all, Xiaotao managed to bring back all these items. I told her we couldn’t examine the skeleton here. We needed to find an open empty place away from people’s eyes. So, we ended up at a wasteland on the outskirts of the city. I asked Wang Yuanchao to dig a hole that was two meters long and one meter wide.
Wang Yuanchao dug out the pit. I was surprised at how quickly he managed to do it.
“I dug dozens of meters of trenches by the mountains alone when I was fighting at the border,” he said. “The soil here is as soft as tofu compared to that.”
Xiaotao clapped her hands excitedly and remarked, “We might be only a few people here, but we’ve got some extraordinary talents!”
I poured the alcohol at the bottom of the pit and set it on fire. As the raging flames burned, it looked very imposing in contrast to the boundless wilderness.
“If I saw this flame from afar,” commented Xiaotao, “I would’ve thought that someone was burning a corpse!”
I laughed. “That’s just like you, always thinking like a police officer.”
Once the fire had gone out, the entire pit glowed red. I asked Wang Yuanchao to help me spread the bones at the bottom of the pit and I sprinkled a layer of white vinegar over it. Once the white vinegar hit the hot soil, it immediately evaporated, filling the air with an acerbic smell. Before all the vinegar steam evaporated, I quickly covered the pit with a straw mat and pressed it down with bricks and stones.
After a while, I uncovered the straw mat. There were no changes in the bones at all.
“It’s useless, Song Yang!” Xiaotao sighed hopelessly.
“No, be patient,” I replied with confidence. “This is the Thrice Steaming Bone Test. Let’s continue!”