Case Files 013

Chapter 142: The Body

Er Xiao walked towards one of the shelves and pushed it aside. Then he knelt down and pried off a large piece of brick. Then a hole appeared. It had a long ladder going down. Er Xiao went down the ladder first, followed by me. Then, it was Ol' Xia and Lee Danan. Uncle Lee and Sun Kangning's father stayed on the surface to look after the unconscious Gu Chen and Chief Zhou.

Er Xiao switched on the light and I could see the entire underground storeroom clearly. I examined the surroundings closely and realized the space wasn't that big, it was about half of the size of the store aboveground. Big boxes stacked together against one side of the wall. A pool of blood sat in the middle of the room. It had already dried. Following the trail of blood, a dead body then appeared before me.

Due to the refrigeration of the wintry season, the body didn't show much decomposition. Even though Luo Sumei had been dead for 4 days already, in this heatless basement, she looked so perfectly alive. The woman was naked, leaning against a box. This was a very broken body, both of her arms were missing. I slowly bent down to examine the stumps around the shoulders. Even though I wasn't a professional coroner, I had picked up some basic skills from being around Guan Zhenglin for so long.

One of the wounds was relatively smooth, the skin flap had layers of patterns. That should be made by Lee Danan as he sawed away the arm. The other shoulder's wound was more uneven with shredded meat and shattered bones, it should be the arm bitten off by the dog.

The body's left leg was also missing. There was a long circular wound where the thigh connected to the hip. The skin was peeled back to expose the white bone within. Looking at the cross section, the bone was snapped to the left. After Ol' Xia chopped through the bone, he practically yanked the leg off.

The body's right leg had all of its flesh shaved off. The thigh bone was exposed for all to see. Some bits of flesh still stuck to the bone. Similarly there was a cut around the woman's right breast. I looked up and noticed the head was still connected to the woman's body. Other than that I noticed a ligature mark around the woman's neck. From the impression, the force was applied from behind. The image that appeared in my head was of a person using a rope to tie around Luo Sumei's neck from behind and then pulled. I used my hands to press on the ligature mark and then I realized there was a thinner line underneath the bruising. The smaller line appeared like it was made from something like a wire. It was well hidden by the other wound. So there were 2 ligature marks, the narrower one had cutaneous petechiae on it. This proved that the marks were caused by two different types of binding.

Luo Sumei's eyes were open and her expression was unsavory like it was frozen in the moment of her death. Guan Zhenglin once told me that this was called cadaveric spasm. I shivered involuntarily as I took in the woman's open eyes, and mask of fear. A surge of rage burned through me, if I had a gun now I would shoot all of these bastards.

It was plain to see how desperate Luo Sumei felt when she died. It was clear how cruel these people were. But what kind of motive would drive this group of normal villagers to murder a living human in such a sadistic manner?

I personally believed there was a demon living in all of us and under certain circumstances, the demon would be unleashed. It would explain why the honest and shy Lee Danan managed to do something like this, and how the caring father would kill without hesitation. Luo Sumei might be a gold digger but she didn't deserve this punishment.

I suppressed my rage and continued my examination of the body. The vagina showed tearing so she was indeed raped before she died. Er Xiao leaned against the wall and mumbled, "Many times, when you make the first mistake, it's a slippery slope from then on. The more you try to cover it up, the harder the truth is to hide. Actually, I never thought to kill her at the start." I was enraged but my mind was surprisingly clear, this was a new height of anger that I hadn't reached before.

"This is not a simple murder, a murder needn't be so cruel." I turned to Er Xiao. "This is dismemberment. You tortured a living human just to hide the truth? Also how do you explain the rope marks around Luo Sumei's neck?"

Er Xiao shrugged, "That was me. It happened during the scariest moment of my life." Staring at the body, Er Xiao continued, "I undressed her when I raped her. When I returned to this place, she was almost frozen solid. She still had a breath but it was very weak. After the group decided on the solution, we launched into action immediately." Then the 3 of them grimaced in pain like they were hit by a memory that they never wanted to face again in their lives.

When Er Xiao spoke, his body was shaking, "I will never forget that moment, it was 2.40 pm 4 days ago." As if to calm himself, Er Xiao lit a cigarette, "At the time, Ol' Xia and I were cutting up the body, but suddenly Luo Sumei sat up. Could you imagine that? A person whom you thought was dead suddenly sprang up. When she did, the 5 of us got the fright of our lives." Er Xiao described the situation, "At the time, Ol' Xia and I were halfway through her body. We almost got her leg and arm off. She screamed, oh the screams" Er Xiao took a deep drought of the smoke. "I was so scared! I knew no one would have heard her. The convenience store was deserted because of the snow. But I was still scared, scared that her scream might attract someone's attention." Er Xiao placed the cigarette on his trembling lips and signaled for Lee Danan to continue on his behalf. Lee Danan nodded. He turned to me. "Ol' Xia hacked through Luo Sumei's right leg from the surprise. But that only made Luo Sumei scream even louder. Ol' Xia recovered and jumped on her body. The rest of us moved forward to press on her limbs."

Lee Danan looked at Er Xiao and continued, "Then Er Xiao got so frightened that he grabbed a rope from the nearby box, no, wait, it was not a rope, it was the kind of plastic binding strap on the outside of the boxes." I nodded, from the width of the wound around Luo Sumei's neck, it did look like it could be made from this kind of strap. But the smaller, thinner mark was definitely not made by the same material, so what caused it?

"Er Xiao yanked one off and tied it around Luo Sumei's neck. While we kept Luo Sumei down, he strangled her. It lasted for about 3 minutes, her face was red until she eventually stopped struggling." Er Xiao had already finished his cigarette by then. He patted Lee Danan on his shoulder. "I really didn't expect her to be still alive, I didn't want to do this. I knew she must have been in great pain when she died. She must hate us deeply. But I never wanted to injure her, I was just too overwhelmed by fear."

There was definitely something else still amiss here, why didn't they bring up that smaller ligature mark? The voice in my head told me that this case was not over yet.

Seeing the frown on my face, Er Xiao added, "This time, Luo Sumei was definitely dead. She would not come back again, but the fear within me never disappeared. I knew that after Luo Sumei's disappearance, the police would eventually turn to First Drain Village."

"Okay." I allowed him to continue.

Er Xiao explained, "Lee Luo told us that we couldn't dump all the body parts all at the same time, instead we should dump them one by one. That way, the police would be confused, and the more confused the police are, the safer we'd be."

I shook my head. "So, do you feel safe now?"

Er Xiao shook his head. "We did consider burying her body deep inside the mountain."

"Yes." I stared into the man's eyes and questioned, "Why didn't you do that? The police wouldn't be able to open a case without a body, but instead of doing that, you even reported the case yourself. Can you tell me why?"

Er Xiao sighed, "The most dangerous place is the safest place, that was what I thought. The police would never expect normal citizens like us to commit such crazy crimes, they would think it's the work of some psychopath, but I guess I was wrong." Er Xiao sounded defeated, "The original plan was for me to tell you I've seen someone run down the highway after we dumped the head. We were so close. When we saw how close you were to the truth, Lee Danan already offered to sacrifice himself."

Lee Danan looked at Er Xiao and said, "I don't have many friends and don't have much time left. If I can do something for my friends before I die, I am more than glad to do it. But, I don't think Officer Wu is going to give us this opportunity."