Profiler (Fang Mu Eastern Crimes Series Book 1) (39 page)

Fang Mu cut him off. "What about the car? The killer needed a car to commit his crimes, so where's Meng Fanzhe's? And you don't expect me to believe that he killed Jin Qiao and skinned Xin Tingting in his own dorm room, do you?"

"Renting a car would not have been a problem. And he most likely also rented a place somewhere off-campus to commit his crimes."

"Rented a place? Then why'd he bring all this stuff to his dorm room? Wouldn't it be a lot safer to just leave it in his apartment?"

For a moment Tai Wei couldn't respond.

The door suddenly opened and Deng Linyue ran in, breathing heavily. Du Yu followed behind her, a tray of food in his hands.

Deng Linyue froze when she saw Tai Wei, but rather than say hello to him, she immediately turned to Fang Mu. "Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

Seeing the gauze on his finger, she made an alarmed outcry, rushed closer and took his hand.

"My God! You're injured and it's still bleeding! We need to get you to the hospital." She looked Fang Mu up and down, speaking rapidly before he could reply. "You're not hurt anywhere else, are you? I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I only just heard the news. I came too late."

She seemed about to cry, but Fang Mu pushed away her hand and continued to stare at Tai Wei, waiting for him to answer his last question.

Tai Wei ignored Fang Mu's questioning look and opened the documents to the photo of the hammer.

"You came just in time," he said to Deng Linyue. "Look here. Was this what the killer was holding on the night of the crime?"

Deng Linyue looked at the photo. "It seems…like it was. Yes, it does look like it." But noticing Fang Mu's stern expression, she quickly added, "I'm not really sure. Aren't all hammers the same? Oh, I don't know, I don't know!"

Tai Wei glared angrily at Fang Mu, slammed the folder closed, and then stood up. "I'm going to go. Keep your phone on and don't run off anywhere in the next few days. As soon as there's any news, I'll let you know." He grabbed his briefcase and left.

The dorm was enveloped in silence. Du Yu looked at Deng Linyue, and then at Fang Mu. He pointed to the food on the desk. "You should eat something, Fang Mu. I bought you breakfast."

When Fang Mu didn't say anything, Deng Linyue smiled apologetically and said, "Thank you, Du Yu."

"I guess I'll be going then," Du Yu said, grabbing his backpack. On the way out, he whispered to Deng Linyue, "Make sure you look after him."

After Du Yu left, the dorm room fell into an even more unbearable silence. For a while Deng Linyue sat quietly beside Fang Mu, but when she saw that he wasn't going to say anything, she took the food tray and tried to hand it to him. "You should really eat something."

When Fang Mu wouldn't take it, she scooped a spoonful of rice porridge and lifted it toward his mouth.

He turned his head away. "I don't want to eat. You should go. I want to be alone for a while."

Having no other choice, Deng Linyue placed the tray back on the desk. In a soft voice, she said, "I'll stay with you."

He shook his head. "Don't bother. You should head back."

She bit her lip. Her voice rose despite herself. "Do you really…find me so awful?"

He considered her for a moment, and then said helplessly, "No. There's just nothing you can do to help me."

"There's nothing I can do to help? How can you not need my help at a time like this?" She suddenly stood up. "I know your emotions are painfully raw at this moment, and although I don't understand what happened or why that person wanted to kill you, I still want to be a consoling shoulder for you. Can't you be a little warmer to me?"

"No!" His voice leapt to an angry tone. "Do you
really
understand me? Do you know what kind of person I am? Do you know the burden you'll have to bear if you're with me? You can't do it!"

"What makes you think I can't? After what I went through, what else could be too much for me?"

Not wanting to argue with her any further, he stood up and opened the door. "Either go or don't go, but if you stay, I'm leaving!"

Tears were now running down her face. Deng Linyue could only stand there and stare at him for several seconds. Then she bolted past him and ran out of the room.

As Fang Mu watched her figure disappear down the end of the hall, he was awash in both unspeakable guilt and exhaustion.

Deng Linyue, you don't understand. The scariest part isn't knowing what he's going to do; it's having no idea when he's going to do it.

One day later, Tai Wei called to tell Fang Mu that the blood on the black sheet was proven to be Jin Qiao's. This, combined with Tai Wei's account of the killer's appearance from when he'd chased him through the gymnasium and the library record which proved that Meng Fanzhe had taken out all the books in May of 2002 – which closely conformed to the dates of the murders – made it appear Meng Fanzhe really had been the perpetrator.

That day, Meng Fanzhe's mother arrived at the school.

Meng Fanzhe's father had been dead for a long time, so his mother was there alone. As soon as she heard the news, she hopped on a train and rushed to
Jiangbin
City
. Because her heart was not strong, she had already fainted twice in the university president's office.

It was Zou Tuanjie who told Fang Mu the news. When Fang Mu saw the woman himself, it was noon of that same day.

An older, white-haired woman, she was escorted by two policemen up to Meng Fanzhe's room to gather his effects. As soon as she saw the police tape outside his door, she began to sob.

Several students from the law school, including Fang Mu, stood outside Meng Fanzhe's room and watched his mother haltingly open the door. As soon as she walked inside, she looked all around, as if she was expecting to see Meng Fanzhe and hear him say, "
Mom, you've come.
" After her gaze swept the room, she knelt beside his bed, pulled his blanket beneath her nose and inhaled as intensely as she could. She began to wail, an anguished cry of misery and loss. After she cried for a long time, the policemen reminded her why she was there. She slowly stood up and organized her dead son's belongings.

Because the majority of Meng Fanzhe's things had been taken by the police as evidence, there only remained enough affects to fill his mother's small travel bag. As she left the room, holding the last things her son had left on this earth, she suddenly said to one of the policemen, "Would I be able to see the boy that my son attacked? I just can't believe my son could ever kill someone."

The man's eyes rested for a second on Fang Mu's face down the hall before he said tersely to the woman, "No, that won't be possible."

At once everyone's eyes fell on Fang Mu. 

He paid no attention to them, just watched as Meng Fanzhe's mother hobbled down the hall and then disappeared through the door at the end.

The watching students weren't yet ready to leave. They continued to crowd the hall, and every now and then one would look over at Fang Mu and whisper something to the people around him.

With what seemed to be a great deal of determination, Zou Tuanjie walked over to him. "Fang Mu, why did Meng Fanzhe want to kill you?"

Fang Mu stared at him for a few seconds. "I don't know."

Fang Mu really didn't know. For the past two days, he had been going over and over everything that had happened between him and Meng Fanzhe, and he couldn't find a single motive for the guy to want to kill him. There was also too much of a disparity between Meng Fanzhe and the killer Fang Mu had theorized; while he often reminded himself that his profiles were never going to be perfectly spot-on, these differences were simply too great.

However, a few things were undeniable: Meng Fanzhe had marked the equation of "7" on Fang Mu's door, and then tried to kill him. Also, a lot of evidence
had
been discovered in his dorm room.

Still, Fang Mu couldn't picture Fang Mu as the sly and ruthless individual who had committed all the crimes, especially not after seeing him pressed against the window of the police car, crying soundlessly. Fang Mu just kept telling himself again and again,
It's not him, it's not him
.

In that instant in the police car, Meng Fanzhe was obviously begging for him to help.

Was this really how the killer would behave?

Soon after, the special investigation team began pulling out of
Jiangbin
City
University
campus. Prior to their departure, Tai Wei went to tell Fang Mu about the latest developments in the case. After searching through Meng Fanzhe's belongings, police had not found any sort of receipt from a car or apartment rental, nor had they discovered anything else that indicated he had rented either of these things. Still, based on the rest of the evidence, they were positive that the murders were his doing. Since he was now dead, the police decided to close the case.

After listening to this, Fang Mu was silent for a moment. "In other words, your conclusion is that Meng Fanzhe was the killer?"

Tai Wei nodded. "That's right."

"Do you really believe he was the killer? Or would you just prefer to believe it?"

Tai Wei made an effort at self-control at what sounded much like an accusation. "What do you mean?"

"Meng Fanzhe was not the killer!"

"What's your evidence?"

Fang Mu hesitated.

"Intuition? What's more reliable: intuition or facts?" Tai Wei's annoyance turned to a low level of rage. "Do you take us all for idiots?" he asked testily. "There's no denying that you've been a huge help to this case, but we've done our part as well!"

"How about the motive? What was Meng Fanzhe's motive?"

"Shit! Can't you see the guy was a lunatic? Since when do lunatics need a reason to kill people?"

Fang Mu scowled back at him. "Could a lunatic have planned such precise murders? Could he have copied all those other serial killers?"

"He…he probably didn't lose his mind all at once…"

"Really?" Fang Mu flung his cigarette far away.

Tai Wei continued to smoke impatiently. Suddenly his eyes narrowed on Fang Mu. "Maybe you're just being difficult because you're simply ashamed that the profile you predicted fit someone completely different than Meng Fanzhe. Is that really it?" He laughed, and then added in a stinging tone, "And especially since all this happened in front of your girlfriend?"

"Go fuck yourself!" Fang Mu bit back at him, and stormed off.

Rather than return to his dorm, Fang Mu headed to the library. For the past few days he had practically lived there, taking out all the books that had been found in Meng Fanzhe's dorm room and reading through them one by one. He hoped to find some clues about the course of Meng Fanzhe's psychological transformation, and although he knew it was probably hopeless, at the moment it was the only thing he could do.

Actually, he could completely understand where Tai Wei was coming from. They had been working on the case for nearly half a year; add to that the foreign pressure from the Thomas Gill murder, and everyone was just hoping to solve it as soon as possible. However, he refused to accept the verdict. Meng Fanzhe was not the killer – of that he was sure; but he had no way of proving it.

Suddenly his phone rang. All the students reading nearby glared in his direction. Frowning at him, Librarian Sun nodded toward the hall, indicating to answer it outside.

Fang Mu waved at him apologetically, grabbed his phone and ran out into the hall.

Flipping open his phone, Fang Mu saw the number wasn't in his phone book. When he looked at the area code, his heart skipped a beat – it was from
Suijing
City
.

Meng Fanzhe's hometown.

"Hello?" he said into it.

He heard an old woman's voice on the other end. "Excuse me, is this Fang Mu?"

"That's right. Who am I speaking to?" he asked politely.

"I'm Meng Fanzhe's mother."

His mouth fell open. How did she get his number? "Oh, hello, Auntie. What did you want to talk to me about?"