Chapter 63 (1/2)
Killer Nights
Chapter 63: The Search for the Black Spots
A-Jiao was eating lunch in the preschool cafeteria when she naturally started thinking about her beloved Jiang Zhengkai. What was he doing right now? thought A-Jiao as she pulled out her cell phone. A woman who had fallen head over heels for a man was always like this. She would feel uneasy whenever her man wasn’t right next to her. She wished she could find some rope and tie him to her waistband.
“Honey, what are you doing?” A-Jiao playfully complained into the phone. “You haven’t called me all morning!”
“Hehe, my dear girl, we’ve only been apart for a little while, and you already miss me?” Jiang Zhengkai said. “I’m too busy today, but I’ll remember to call you in the mornings from now on.” His voice fell silent for about a minute before he came back on, but in a lower tone. “There was another murder in the alley last night, just like the ones before. I’m busy working on this case right now. I thought you knew that was the reason why I left in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, alright!” A-Jiao said disappointingly. She knew Jiang Zhengkai had work to do and didn’t have time to talk to her. “Then tonight… tonight…” A-Jiao said without confidence. She wanted to ask if Jiang Zhengkai could take her to work with him, but she thought better than to ask it.
“I’ll come pick you up tonight! You have night cla.s.ses tonight, right?” said Jiang Zhengkai once again. He sounded very sure, without a shadow of a doubt.
“Okay, okay!” A-Jiao replied in a hurry as she nodded. “I want to eat at Uncle Cai’s tonight. If you’ve got time, you can join me there! After I’m done with my cla.s.ses, I’ll wait for you at the preschool. Don’t forget to eat!”
“Alright, got it!” came Jiang Zhengkai’s cheerful voice. Women were always a bit wordy when it came to their significant others. They reserved this extra amount of verbal attention only for those they truly loved.
A-Jiao hung up the phone, disappointed. She then turned around and walked into her art studio. These days, A-Jiao liked to spend her free time painting inside her studio. It wasn’t like she was in need of any money; rather, it was because she didn’t like to go out alone. Now that she no longer had to work in the alley, there was no need to spend money packaging herself. She rather thought of herself like merchandise. The packaging on a piece of merchandise waiting to be sold is very different from the packaging of a piece of merchandise that has already been sold. A-Jiao these days is like a piece of sold merchandise, and she will never be on sale again.
On the other side of the phone, Jiang Zhengkai let out a slight sigh after he hung up. He knew A-Jiao bore him a sincere and ardent love. Likewise, he truly loved A-Jiao as well. Nevertheless, he did tell a little white lie while he was on the phone with her just now. Even though there was another murder case in the alley, he wasn’t actually busy right now. The alley murders were all unsolved mysteries, so despite the fact that all of his subordinates were running around looking for evidence, he knew none of them would find anything useful. The people who had knowledge of what had happened had either turned into skeletons or were not on friendly terms with the police. After all, the way prost.i.tutes viewed the police was akin to the way a mouse would view a cat.
Jiang Zhengkai couldn’t bear the thought of asking A-Jiao directly of her time in the alley because he didn’t want to hurt the woman he loved, but he knew that he couldn’t make any progress with the case if he didn’t ask her. On this subject, his heart was especially conflicted, which was why he had paused for almost a minute on the phone. He was hoping that A-Jiao would volunteer to help and proactively tell him what she knew. Nevertheless, he trusted A-Jiao, trusted that the woman he loved could not in any way be involved in those murders.
“Inspector Jiang, shall we depart?” Lu Xiaoqiang warmly asked as he entered Jiang Zhengkai’s office. “Sergeant Zhang is all set up.”
“Alright then,” said Jiang Zhengkai as he stood up to leave. “Let’s go check out the crime scene!”
At the scene of the seventh murder, Jiang Zhengkai, Zhang Nan, Lu Xiaoqiang, and Mu Mingyuan from the Material Evidence Division all stood inside the room where the murder had occurred. They carefully observed the building across from them. According to Wu Xiuping, the black spots were most likely a refraction of light reflected off the building opposite where they were. This hypothesis was acceptable to both Jiang Zhengkai and to the a.n.a.lysts at the Material Evidence Division, but a hypothesis was only a hypothesis. They needed to find evidence to support it.
“It looks like these windows are the most suspicious,” said Mu Mingyuan as he pointed at the photograph in Jiang Zhengkai’s hand. “Inspector Jiang, Sergeant Zhang, could you send some men to investigate the backgrounds of these units?”
“Done!” simultaneously said both Jiang Zhengkai and Zhang Nan in response to Mu Mingyuan’s request. Zhang Nan then wrote down the positions of the various windows that Mu Mingyuan had pointed out and gave them to one of his officers. “Guo Wei, go coordinate with our colleagues responsible for household registrations and have them search these housing units. Remember to not give those households any reason for alarm.”