Chapter 84: Three Missing Persons (2/2)

“So Xiaozhang has been missing for a month and a half. Has his family not come to look for him?” I asked.

“It seems that he’s severed all contacts with his family for many years. His landlady even asked me to pay the water and electricity fee that Xiaozhang owed. It’s ridiculous!”

“Do you know his address?”

“Give me a minute, I’ve got it in his employee files. I’ll copy it for you.”

The manager then handed me a piece of paper with Xiaozhou’s address on it. When we were about to leave, he offered us two bottles of mineral water, but we refused.

Xiaozhang’s residence was three streets away from the supermarket. When we arrived, we found Xiaozhang’s landlady. She was a middle-aged woman. When she heard the name Xiaozhang, her ears pricked up. She animatedly described him as a terrible tenant who liked to litter and often dumped dirty water out the window. He even moved away without informing her, and when she went into his room, she discovered that the TV had been on for a whole week. He now owed her more than a hundred yuan in electricity fees!

“Is the room rented out to someone else now?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “I’m still looking for a tenant on 58.com. By the way, officers, can you help me spread the word about this room? It’s a nice warm place and the rent…”

She went on to advertise her house for a while.

“I’m sorry,” Xiaotao interrupted her. “We’re from the criminal division. We can’t help you with this.”

“Criminal division?” The landlady was shocked. “What has that kid done? No wonder he’s always so reclusive. He’s always shut himself in his room. He never talks to anyone. He must’ve done something that he doesn’t want anyone to know about.”

The landlady had been speaking a lot. If we didn’t stop her, she’d probably run her mouth till sundown. Xiaotao interrupted her to ask if we could see Xiaozhang’s room. She agreed and led us there.

We all walked into the room. The landlady had already cleaned it inside and out. I looked at it roughly and said, “Did you say that when Xiaozhang was gone, the TV and lights were all on?”

The landlady quickly nodded. “Exactly!”

“What about the door?”

“The door was closed, but it was unlocked.”

“Do you remember what he wore when he left?”

The landlady tried to recall her memory. “I remember that when I came in here, his shoes were still at the door and his coat was lying on the chair.”

I saw an ashtray on the window sill. Xiaozhang was probably temporarily going out to buy cigarettes, and then he was kidnapped. You could easily notice a grown man getting kidnapped, so this meant that the murderer obviously had a car.

It was not a trip in vain after all. What I mainly wanted to find out was whether the murderer had premeditated the kidnap and murders for a long time or if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing—judging from what I’d discovered, it was obviously the former.

Xiaotao found a box of military magazines under the bed. In addition, I also saw some model tanks, all of which were hand-made. People who liked these things were usually the indoor type.

I looked out of the window and saw an old run-down building.

“What is that building used for?” I asked the landlady.

“Nothing,” she answered. “It’s just an unfinished building that’s been abandoned. Apparently, the contractor and the investors didn’t see eye to eye about something, so the construction project was halted suddenly. It’s been that way for several years. Tramps often spend the night in there. It’s really bad for the security and sanitation of this neighborhood, but the neighborhood committee has done nothing! Officers, you must do something about this!”

I wondered if the landlady thought we were miracle workers who could make everything bad go away with just a point of the finger. The thought amused me.

“Wanna go check it out?” asked Xiaotao.

“Sure!”

We thanked the landlady and excused ourselves. Then we went to the abandoned building. I had a feeling that we wouldn’t be able to find any clues here though, considering that it had already been a month and a half since Xiaozhou went missing.

Every time I went up a floor, I stopped and looked at the room that Xiaozhang rented. The fourth floor offered the best view of it. I checked the floor and found some cigarette butts. They consisted of three different brands of cigarettes in total. Could it be that the murderer had left them there?

I sniffed the air and detected some unusual smells. I finally turned my eyes to a large concrete pipe beside me...

1. A website for classified advertisements, like Craigslist.

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