Chapter 97: The Psychologist – 4
“I’ve really never forgotten you… no matter how many years.”
That “never forgotten” was very meaningful.
“For you to remember me so seriously, it makes me a little embarrassed.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. Your maverick personality was always easier to remember. In comparison, I was just a well-behaved, unremarkable girl in high school, with just good grades.”
After a simple meal, Lian Huizhu suggested they go for a walk. “You’re not in a hurry, are you, senior? Is someone waiting for you at home?”
“No one, but there is a hamster.”
Passing by a drink stand, she took the initiative to order a bubble tea.
“Do you want one, senior?”
“Yes, it’s been a while.”
“I remember you used to like milk tea too.”
“Now that I’m older, I prefer red wine and coffee.” She tossed the can of black coffee in her pocket, a gift from Tao Qianya after the autopsy.
“I see. Your tastes have changed. I was just about to say you’ve barely changed at all.” Lian Huizhu’s tone was filled with envy. “Whether it’s your height, your appearance… or your temperament.”
“That’s my biggest worry.”
“Your appearance?” Seeing her nod, Lian Huizhu was taken aback. “Why?”
“It’s a long story. In any case, my wish is to get rid of this baby face and become an auntie as soon as possible.”
Lian Huizhu chuckled. “Ha, what do you mean, become an auntie as soon as possible? What a luxurious wish.”
The two of them were very different in height, and their strides were also very different. Lian Huizhu had to deliberately speed up, and she noticed, so she slowed down her pace. “You’re still as gentle as ever, senior.”
“Huh?”
She squinted with a smile and took Tang Yingli’s arm. “By the way… I noticed.”
“Noticed what?” Tang Yingli, who was chewing on a pearl, answered lightly.
“Your pinky ring is very pretty.”
She held up her left pinky. “I bought it when I came back, at a department store in the East District.” And then she had immediately run into the bombing.
“In the male-dominated Criminal Investigation Division, do you wear a pinky ring to ward off unwanted advances, or do you just not want to be in a relationship from the bottom of your heart?”
Taking a deep breath, Lian Huizhu smelled the light, elegant fragrance on her.
“The lock on the ring is a clear hint, meaning you’re not ready to open your heart to anyone yet, or you haven’t found someone who can understand you, right?”
Facing the psychologist who was so good at listening, Tang Yingli felt a sense of pressure in a conversation for the first time.
“I just think this ring is very pretty.”
She smiled. “I see. I was overthinking it.”
“But I have indeed never been in a relationship.”
“Because no man is worthy of you,” Lian Huizhu said definitively. “Worrying about love is foolish, so you just don’t consider it. What you need is someone who completely understands you, who is willing to sacrifice and accommodate you. Such a man is too rare.”
Her tone turned cold. “You make it sound like I’m destined to have others accommodate me.”
“I’m sorry… I was too judgmental.”
“I’m not your patient, and I have no intention of consulting you about my troubles.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
The two of them were silent for a moment, only their hands were tightly linked. Lian Huizhu tasted a faint bitterness in her milk tea. “Maybe it’s because we suddenly met again after so many years, and I was too happy… maybe you don’t feel this way, senior, but the moment I saw you in the office, I was really very surprised.”
“Yes, I could tell.”
They walked to the MRT station entrance together. “After the semester starts, I will definitely find a chance to go back to the university and listen to your lecture.”
“That’s not a good idea. Your patients will protest.”
“That’s true. Alright.” Lian Huizhu gave a gentle smile. “Then we’ll be in touch.”
Tang Yingli waved with a smile, and she looked back at her reluctantly until the escalator had taken her out of sight.
**
Zhou Jinglin stared at the scab on her left palm, and after a long moment, she put it down and pouted unhappily. “Why is it you?”
“Because the teacher and Dr. Tao are still doing an autopsy. I was afraid you were hungry, so I brought you a bento box.”
She let the nurse bandage her wound. Cai Yuwei expertly set up her meal table. “Did a big case happen?” Still doing an autopsy at seven.
“It’s not clear. But just, a few bodies were sent over… uh, you know.”
“How would I know if you’re not clear?” But she knew he was afraid of seeing a corpse, so she didn’t press further.
Opening the bento box, her eyes lit up. “It’s Beijing-style pork ribs.”
“Yes, don’t you love it? There was a long line at dinner time. Good thing I ordered in advance.”
“It sounds like you had this planned.” She smiled, and he gave a dry laugh without refuting it.
Cai Yuwei had also bought a portion for himself, and as the two of them were having dinner, he finally said that the three bodies that had been sent for autopsy had all come from a fire.
“…They were charred black. When I left work, the family and the prosecutor had just arrived. The crying was really…” he shook his head.
“What about the other one?”
“Dr. Tao said the identity is still unknown, but the location was an empty house. The chief suspects that a nearby resident was attacked by a culprit and then thrown into the house to destroy the evidence.”
“Destroy the evidence…” she chewed on her chopsticks, “to think that something like this would happen in a metropolitan area. It’s really unexpected.”
“Yes, but that’s not the only unexpected thing. The doctor who gave the lecture today is not only Dr. Tao’s medical school classmate,” he took a bite of rice and said with his mouth full, “but also the teacher’s high school junior. The world is really so small.”
“You said that doctor is the teacher’s what?” Jinglin turned and questioned fiercely.
“Um, the teacher’s high school junior…” Cai Yuwei waved his chopsticks, “by the way, I recorded the lecture. It’s about how to deal with psychological stress. Do you want to listen?”
“I’m not interested.” She asked urgently, “What psychologist? Are you close to her? How did the teacher react when she saw her?”
Jinglin’s rapid-fire questions made him unable to keep up. “Uh… she seems to have been invited by Dr. Tao to give us a lecture… I’m quite close to her. While we were waiting for the autopsy, she was chatting with me, and it was almost all about the teacher. She later seemed to have gone straight to the operating room to wait, as if she were determined to see the teacher…”
“What’s her name?”
“Lian Huizhu.” He asked timidly, “Jinglin, are you okay?” Her expression was very unpredictable.
She grabbed her phone and looked at it. It was already 7:15. The autopsy, which had started around four, should be over by now. She forcefully pressed Tang Yingli’s phone number, but then hung up before it connected. “No… it would be strange to call now, as if I were interrogating her…” closing her eyes, she muttered to herself.
“Jinglin?”
She put away her phone and stared at the pork ribs in her bento box. For some reason, the dish had become less appetizing.
“It’s nothing. Let’s eat.”
**
After yesterday’s investigation, a tense, low pressure filled today’s meeting.
“Yesterday, there were two arson cases. The two deceased who have been identified so far are Zhang Wenqing, sixty-five, and Liao Tianfu, sixty-eight. The fire started at the entrance of their apartment, on the third floor…”
At that time, Zhang Wenqing was cooking lunch, and her husband, Liao Tianfu, was resting in the bedroom for some unknown reason. By the time she discovered the fire, Zhang Wenqing had gone back to the bedroom and had managed to wake Liao Tianfu, but she had forgotten to turn off the gas in the kitchen, which had caused the oil pan to catch fire, creating a situation where they could neither escape from the main door nor from the only path to the balcony, which was blocked by the kitchen fire. In the end, the two of them had died together at the kitchen door.
“The old woman was holding something in her hand before she died, probably a spatula or something. In the end, it was completely burned, leaving only a gap in her palm,” Tao Qianya said, pointing to the photo. The two old people had already been claimed by their family after the cause of death had been determined.
“As for the second case, it’s a little more complicated. The fire started about two streets away from the first case, this time in a townhouse. The previous owner had passed away from an illness, leaving this house, and the children had sued each other for the property, so the house has been vacant until now…” Fang Zijun couldn’t help but sigh as he recounted. “But the house was set on fire by an arsonist, and an unidentified male corpse was found inside.”
“When I was doing the autopsy with the teacher yesterday, we preliminarily determined that the head injury may not have been the fatal wound, and that the deceased had been burned to death in a coma. According to Chief Fang’s on-site investigation, the deceased was found in an old closet, and it’s very likely that he was attacked and then taken to the empty house. The culprit, in order to cover up his crime, set a fire and burned him to death.”
“If it was just to silence him, why was it necessary to burn down the house too? Couldn’t he have just gotten rid of him directly?” Jian Minggui asked.
“We have to assume that we are dealing with a serial arsonist.”
Tang Yingli rested her chin on her hand, her index finger on her lips. “He knocked down the third victim for some reason, maybe he was discovered before he committed the crime… in any case, the arson is the key. Since he was going to burn down the house anyway, why not get rid of the little bug in his way at the same time?”
Jian Minggui’s expression was unhappy.
“I know you will be confused and even angry when you hear me compare the deceased to a little bug, but to a criminal who gets pleasure from arson, a person may really just be a little bug that can be seen everywhere,” she crossed her legs, “if that’s not the case, why can they so easily set fire to other people’s homes? Because they don’t see people as people at all.”
Cai Yuwei raised his hand. “Has it been confirmed that the two cases were committed by the same killer?”
“Regarding this point, the Shilin precinct is still investigating, but as the teacher said, for now, we are inclined to treat it as a serial arson by the same person.” The first fire was reported fifteen minutes earlier than the second.
The culprit must have had a vehicle. The two locations were only two streets apart, and it would have been very easy to start two fires in fifteen minutes.
“The third victim had a removable denture in his mouth, so there must be a record of it. We will compare the dental mold data to further confirm his identity,” Tao Qianya said.
“The culprit is very likely to continue to set fires,” she stood up from her seat, looked around at the people around her, and said, “Chief Fang, from now on, please pay attention to every fire report, and at the same time, have the police and fire personnel pay attention to the onlookers at every fire. If you see any suspicious behavior, please investigate immediately.”
“What kind of behavior?”
She bit her lip slightly and said reservedly, “The kind of behavior a man often does when he’s sexually aroused.”
Including Fang Zijun, all the police officers in the room were embarrassed.
“According to research, almost all serial arsonists are male. They vent their emotions through arson, and it is said that they can get a pleasure similar to a sexual orgasm. Many arsonists will stay in a place where they can see the scene, watching the police and fire personnel run around, and at the same time, do the thing I just mentioned.”
“Okay, I’ll have the police and fire personnel pay attention.”
“Also, look for any other fire reports in the Taipei area recently, and try to find out the culprit’s M.O. and the location of the arson, to narrow down the scope of the culprit.” She pushed up her glasses. “He’s definitely not a first-time offender.”
“Understood. Ah Mu, I’ll leave this task to you. You assist the teacher.”
Chen Huomu nodded. “No problem.”
**
“Fire, fire, fire… why is it always related to fire?”
Xiangrong and Cai Yuwei were filtering through the surveillance footage, but because it had only been confirmed that the culprit was male, it was very difficult to find him.
“Again?”
“The Keys case was too.”
“I almost forgot about that.”
“By the way… would someone really do that at a fire scene?” Xiangrong was suspicious.
“I-I don’t know. You have to ask the teacher.”
“The teacher is so bold. She was the only woman in the meeting just now, and she wasn’t shy at all… huh? Where’s the teacher?”
He turned and found that Tang Yingli was not at her seat.
“Did she go for coffee? Oh, this is not good… let’s go to the monitoring room to see. Let’s go.” Cai Yuwei shot up and patted the back of his chair.
“Oh.”
Meanwhile, taking advantage of the break after the meeting, Tang Yingli slipped into the evidence storage and found the evidence bag with the ceramic fragments.
She didn’t turn on the main light, but held a flashlight in her mouth and quickly scanned each fragment through the ziplock bag. The entire ox was unglazed only at the bottom. She focused on checking it and finally found the clue she was looking for.
“67…” holding the fragment, she smiled and immediately took a close-up of the number with her phone.
The moment she took the picture, her phone received a message from Chen Huomu. It’s time to go. She put the box back, quickly left the storage, and, pretending to be nonchalant, went to the long corridor outside the operating room and got a can of black coffee.
She savored the unique bitter-sweetness of the black coffee while replying to Chen Huomu. He’s already found a few fires that have happened in the Taipei area since the spring festival? So efficient. She adjusted her scarf, threw the empty can into the trash can, and was about to go back to the office when she saw a movement at the door of the operating room.
Then, a middle-aged man cried out, “Tao Qianya, you don’t even know your own uncle who took care of you. What kind of medical examiner are you?”
Her heart skipped a beat, and in the next second, Tao Qianya was hit hard and fell to the ground.
“After your parents died, who took you in? You ungrateful…” the man pressed down on him and beat him, completely losing his reason, and the prosecutor who had come with him was at a loss.
Pressing her lips together, Tang Yingli immediately rushed forward.
