“It may be important to a homicide investigation.”
“Really!”
“I have heard about Chief Inspector Chen before,” her husband cut in for the first time, speaking to Weng. “He has worked on several important cases.”
“If we heard anything about his family,” Weng said, “it’s because of a trick played by Pan, the owner of the Old Mansion restaurant.”
“That’s interesting. Please tell me about it.”
“As soon as Ming sold the mansion to the government, Pan had his eyes on it. None of the residents wanted to move out. And there also might have been a number of potential buyers. So Pan started rumors about the mansion being haunted and those superstitious stories spread really fast. We had to check into it.”
“You have a lot of responsibilities, Comrade Weng.”
“It’s ironic. We found out that those tall stories had been started much earlier, during the Cultural Revolution, by the Tong family, who lived underneath the garage attic. After Mei’s death, the Tongs claimed to have heard noises in the room upstairs and footsteps on the staircase too. Even after her son moved out. Her neighbors had questions about her strange death, thought that she must have been wronged, so it was understandable for them to believe that her spirit came back to haunt the house-at least the attic. As a result, the Tongs got the ‘haunted attic,’ which no one else wanted-”
“Sorry to interrupt again. You said something about her strange death. Can you tell me about that?”
“I don’t know any details. Her family suffered a lot during the Cultural Revolution. Both her husband and father-in-law died. She and her son were driven out of the mansion and into the attic above the garage. In the second or third year there, the boy also got into trouble. And then one day, she rushed out of the attic, stark naked, fell down the staircase, and died. It’s possible that all these travails proved too much, and she collapsed. Still, the way she died was suspicious.”
“Did it happen in the summer?”
“No, in the winter. There apparently was some talk about her rushing out of a bath, but that isn’t true. It was out of the question for her to take a bath there, there was no heating in the attic,” Weng said, shaking her head. “Pan was really effective with his ghost stories. Soon he convinced every resident, including the Tongs, that the whole mansion was haunted. Accidents happened there and people were panicky. He reached agreements and bought out all of the residents.”
“Did you find out anything else about Mei’s death during your investigation?”
“The superstitious part aside, one of her neighbors said that she did hear strange noises in the attic, like moaning and groaning, in the depth of night for a couple of nights before the boy’s release-before, but not after. The Tongs confirmed that, adding that they also heard her weeping in the night, though they were rather evasive about the part after the boy’s release.”
“Did they see anybody with Mei in the room-anybody coming or going there?”
“The Tongs said they heard something that sounded like a man’s grunt, but they weren’t sure after so many years.”
“Is there anyone in the neighborhood who knows about the Ming family, someone I can approach directly?”
“Well, most of the residents from that time have since moved away, as I’ve explained. But I’ll check around. With luck, I may have a list for you early next week. Some are still here, I believe.”
She might or might not find anybody, and it could take days. But tomorrow would be Thursday. There would be another victim before the weekend.
Still, he could see that was about all she knew. There was nothing else he could do here this evening. He rose, reluctantly, when her husband cut in again.
“There’s one man you should talk to, Comrade Chief Inspector. Comrade Fan Dezong. He used to be a neighborhood cop here. Now he’s retired.”
“Really! Can I visit him this evening?” Chen said. Like a neighborhood cadre, a neighborhood cop usually lived in the area.
“He still has one small room here, but most of the time he stays with his son, babysitting his grandson. He comes back over in the morning and for the weekend. He patrols the food market in the morning.”
“Do you have his son’s address or phone number?”
“No, we don’t have it here,” Weng said. “But you won’t miss him early tomorrow morning.”
“From five to seven thirty,” the husband said. “He’s highly punctual for his patrolling activity, even in the cold winter. An old-fashioned cop.”
“That’s great. Thank you so much for your help.”
Chen’s cell phone rang. He made an apologetic gesture to them and pushed the talk button.
“It’s me, Xiang. I haven’t learned anything about her son, not yet, but I remember that Mei called him ‘Xiaojia.’ So his name could be Mingjia. People like to add ‘xiao’ or ‘little’ to the given name as a sort of endearment, you know. Also, I dug out a notebook. The name of Comrade Revolutionary Activity is Tian. He wasn’t of the Shanghai Number Three but the Number One Steel Mill.”
“That’s important. I don’t know how I can thank you enough, Professor Xiang.”
“I’ll make a couple more phone calls about her son tomorrow. I’ll let you know as soon as I have learned anything.”
Flipping closed the cell phone, he almost forgot he was in the company of the neighborhood committee cadre. He turned back to her, his thoughts still in turmoil.
“Thank you so much, Comrade Weng.”
“It’s a great honor that you have visited us here,” Weng said, walking him to the door. “I’ll check around first thing tomorrow morning. It’s something urgent, I understand. Now, you’d better hail a taxi on Hengshan Road. It’s cold outside.”
TWENTY-FIVE
OUTSIDE, IT WAS A cold night.
Turning toward Henshan Road, he glanced at his watch again. Almost nine thirty.
Henshan Road stretched ahead, like an unfolded belt of neon lights glittering around the restaurants and nightclubs. Not too long ago, he had visited one of the nostalgic bars here, with White Cloud.
Where could she be tonight? In another bar, or in another’s company, possibly.
He was not in a hurry to go home.
Some of the pieces he had gathered seemed to be coming together. He had to make sure that they converged into a whole before those half-formed thoughts faded into the chilly night, like in a song.
The Old Mansion was close by. It was magnificently lit at this late hour, as if still intent on stirring up memories of the nightless city, though he wondered if it could have been so flashy and flamboyant in Mei’s day.
He walked in, waiting in a spacious lobby for a hostess to lead him to a table. It was evident that the restaurant enjoyed good business.
There were several old pictures on the walls. One of them presented a middle-aged man standing with several foreigners in front of the then new mansion. A picture taken in the thirties. There was a small line underneath the picture: Mr. Ming Zhengzhang, the original owner of the mansion. Chen didn’t find a picture of Mei. It wasn’t a good idea to evoke the memory of the Cultural Revolution; nowadays, few would be interested.
The restaurant owner had done a good job reviving the place. The dark-colored oak panels, the antique grand piano, the oil paintings on the walls, the carnation in a cut glass vase, not to mention the shining silverware on the tables, all contributed to the period atmosphere. People here could believe they were back in the thirties, instead of in the nineties.
But what about those years in between?
History is not like a soy sauce stain, easily wiped away by the pink napkin in the hand of the pretty waitress who was leading him to a table by the tall French window. He asked her a question about how the mansion became a restaurant.
She said with an apologetic smile, “Our general manager paid a large amount to the original residents, more than ten families, and then refurbished the whole house. That’s about all I know.”