ONE
The phone rings just before midnight. Lu Fei, deputy chief of the Raven Valley Township Public Security Bureau, groans. At this hour, a phone call can only mean one thing.
Trouble.
Lu Fei doesn’t want any trouble. What he wants is for the phone to stop ringing and to remain right where he is—in a warm bed, pressed up beside a warm body.
Especially because the bed and body belong to Luo Yanyan. His girlfriend.
Lu smiles to himself in the dark. Girlfriend. He likes the sound of that.
When contemplating his relationship with Yanyan, he pictures a wisteria plant: a slow-growing creeper, requiring a great deal of patience; only recently showing signs of blooming after years of diligent cultivation.
While they have not articulated the parameters of their relationship in so many words, they are, more or less, a couple. Lu sleeps over at Yanyan’s house a few nights a week. If he stops by the Red Lotus after work, she is less reticent to openly display her affections for him—gently resting a hand on his arm when she serves him a drink, bringing him a cup of tea at the end of the evening when she’s decided he’s had enough, that sort of thing.
And when alone, they simply cannot keep their hands, lips, and other body parts off one another. It’s as if they are two randy teenagers who’ve been given the keys to the Pent-up Lust Suite at a tawdry love hotel and told to indulge in their wildest fantasies.
Even at this hour, despite the incessant ringing of the phone, Lu’s proximity to Yanyan leads to feelings of arousal. He snuggles up behind her and reaches around to cup one of her breasts. “Marry me,” he says. He makes this request at least once a day.
“Are you planning on letting that ring all night?” Yanyan growls.
“Ta ma de!” It’s times like these Lu regrets he was reinstated as deputy chief after his recent suspension. He rolls over and fumbles for his cell phone. “What?”
It’s Constable Sun, whom Lu has come to regard as one of the most reliable and competent members of his team. “Sorry to bother you at this hour, Deputy Chief. But we have a body. A homicide.”
“Where?”
“Off the expressway. Near the bridge where it crosses the river on the west side of town.”
“How do you know it’s a homicide?”
“The body was set on fire,” Sun says. “And it has no fingers. Or teeth.”
“I’m on the way.”
* * *
Lu dresses with the lights off and kisses Yanyan goodbye. She waves him off grumpily. He goes downstairs and walks a block or so to where he’s parked a patrol car. He feels justified in retaining the vehicle for his personal use because Chief Liang, Lu’s boss, is usually steeped in whiskey and beer at some local karaoke joint by 9:00 P.M. Consequently, whenever something happens after hours, it is Lu who gets the call.
Lu yawns as he cruises through a dark and somnolent Raven Valley. He sees only a handful of cars on the road. Folks in these parts are early to rise and early to bed. Especially now that autumn has arrived and temperatures are already dipping below freezing at night.
He drives to the outskirts of town, passing a few lonely and isolated farmhouses before reaching the bridge. The paichusuo’s other patrol vehicle is parked there, red and blue lights flashing. Lu pulls over, takes a flashlight from the console, and climbs out. His breath steams in the night air as he fetches a pair of paper booties and latex gloves from the trunk. He switches on the flashlight and picks his way down the steep grade to the riverside, where Constables Sun, Li the Mute, and Fatty Wang are huddled beside a dark splotch lying in the weeds.
As Lu draws near, he catches a whiff of charred meat. A sulfurous stench of burnt hair. A taste of copper on his tongue.
Constable Sun briefs him: “A car passing by on the expressway saw flames and called it in. Fire and Rescue got here first. The body was smoldering, so they sprayed it down and tossed a fire blanket over it.”
“I hope they didn’t wash away all our evidence. What time was the call?”
“Log says eleven twenty-two P.M.”
“What time did you get here?”
“Just after Fire and Rescue.”
“Let’s have a look.” Lu dons the paper booties and gloves. Fatty Wang and Li the Mute remove the silver blanket covering the corpse, then step away. Lu shines his light on it, head to toe, then back again.
He sees a body, male, nude, skin blackened, arms and legs warped and twisted. He leans closer. The mouth is a gaping silent scream. As Sun said, no teeth. The victim’s hands are curled into unnaturally truncated fists. No fingers, either.
“The murderer doesn’t want us to ID the body,” Fatty Wang offers.
“Looks like,” Lu says.
“No speed cameras along this stretch of the expressway,” Li the Mute offers. “No video of the body being dumped.”
Copyright © 2023 by Brian Klingborg