Silent Testimony - Chapter 51

Li Hewei confirmed repeatedly that the “Brother Yong” mentioned by Peng Liang was indeed Jiao Yong. She and Qiu Wan immediately headed to the subject’s residence to take a statement. By the time they left, it was already close to 3 a.m.

“I’ll drive,” Li Hewei quickly pulled open the driver’s side door.

“Okay.” Qiu Wan handed her the keys, a light, subtle smile playing on her lips. “I can fall asleep the moment I hit the bed.”

“Sleeping three hours in two days, you’re the undisputed Iron Woman.” Li Hewei waited for her to settle into the passenger seat, fasten her seatbelt, and started the car.

“A hard-working life.” Qiu Wan closed her eyes to rest, raising her hand to massage her brow.

“You go back and get more sleep. Are you going straight to Luocun tomorrow morning?”

“Yes. Wen Gui’s death certificate and hukou (household registration) photocopies are all available. His son is a courier, so he should know Jiao Yong.”

Li Hewei rested her wrist on the steering wheel and didn’t reply further. Unconsciously, the breathing beside her gradually became steady. Falling asleep in a mere ten-minute drive, Li Hewei couldn’t help but sigh. She gently stepped on the brake, pulled the car over, reached for the jacket in the back seat, and covered Qiu Wan with it. Thinking she should reciprocate, she silenced her phone and sent a photo to Cheng Yingqiu.

[Taking care of her for you.]

Half a minute later, Cheng Yingqiu replied: [Ah! Sis, you’re a wonderful person.]

[Insomnia?]

[Aiya, we reporters are on standby 24 hours a day; we never turn off our phones, even when sleeping.]

[So, are you blaming me for waking you up?]

[No! I’ll treat you to dinner when I get back.]

[Keep sleeping. I’m driving.] Li Hewei put her phone away, restarted the engine, stepped on the gas, and the car lights illuminated the road, gradually disappearing towards the edge of the moonlight.

“Sister Wang, you are in charge of interrogating Zhang Dalong.”

“Xiao Zhou, try your best to recover the deleted surveillance footage from the computer. The bank side is handled by Xiao Liao.”

…

The next day at 11 a.m., Qiu Wan arranged the tasks and drove with Li Hewei to the Wen family home in Luocun.

It was nearing noon when the police car parked at the Party-Mass Service Center. The local village cadre led the two women on a motorbike along a small road, eventually switching to walking across a stretch of farmland. Li Hewei asked casually: “Sister Qiu, how did you sleep last night?”

“Not bad, four hours of deep sleep.” She asked the village cadre, “Comrade, which funeral home is closest to Luocun?”

“The neighboring Wen’an Town. Although Luocun belongs to Wanyang, it’s far, so everyone goes to Wen’an.”

“Do you know the contact number for the Wen’an Funeral Home?”

“It’s registered on the office computer. I’ll ask a colleague to check.”

Qiu Wan nodded: “Okay, thank you.”

“That’s Wen Gui’s house.” The village cadre pointed to the dilapidated mud house to the right of the banana trees ahead.

“Good.”

Li Hewei closely followed Qiu Wan’s steps, crouching down to push aside the banana leaves. After circling the mud wall, she saw a rural woman squatting by the door, scrubbing clothes.

Qiu Wan quickly approached, half-crouching, and asked softly: “Are you Wen Gui’s wife?”

The woman looked up, squinting as she sized them up: “You are?”

Qiu Wan showed her police ID: “Oh, we are police officers.”

The woman was instantly stunned, unsure how to respond.

Qiu Wan explained the situation concisely: “May I ask where your son is? The police have some questions, but we can’t reach him.”

The woman wiped her wet hands on her waist apron and stood up: “Xiang Zai went to Wen’an yesterday. He left his phone at home.”

“Oh, I see.” Qiu Wan pulled out a photo of Jiao Yong: “Big Sister, do you recognize him?”

The woman glanced at the photo: “Of course, I know him. That’s Brother Yong. He helped a lot when Ah Gui passed away.”

Li Hewei immediately followed up: “How exactly did he help?”

“Xiang Zai delivers packages at Brother Yong’s station, right? After Ah Gui passed away, he drove over overnight, worked hard, helped us go to the clinic to get the death certificate, and arranged for the Taoist priests to perform the rites.”

So Jiao Yong handled everything. No wonder they got the hukou and death certificate so easily. She continued the line of questioning: “Where was Wen Gui cremated?”

“Wen’an Funeral Home. He was taken for cremation on the morning of the 19th. We don’t have money to buy a burial plot, so the ashes are kept at home on an altar.”

Li Hewei turned her head to look at Qiu Wan, who had already put her voice recorder into her pocket. She nodded her thanks to the woman: “Thank you for your cooperation.”

The woman rubbed her hands and pursed her lips: “It’s my first time talking to the police. I thought police officers were all men.”

Qiu Wan smiled in return: “Girls can become police officers too.”

A girl who had been sitting by the stove cooking, constantly observing them, ran out, her eyes twinkling: “Sister, can I do that too?”

“Of course, you can.” Li Hewei noticed her height was barely 1.4 meters and that she was dishevelled. She pulled out a wet wipe, bent down to wipe the soot from the girl’s nose, and asked gently, “What grade are you in?”

“Fourth grade.”

“Why didn’t you go to school today?”

“My brother is running errands in Wen’an. I’m helping my mother with chores.”

“Remember this: study hard, pass middle school, high school, and go to university.” She stood up and lightly patted Qiu Wan’s shoulder. “This is our captain. She directs twenty or so male colleagues. So, what boys can do, we girls can also do, and sometimes even better than them, understand?”

The girl nodded seriously: “Yes!”

During the return journey, Qiu Wan noticed Li Hewei’s grave expression and silence, and proactively started a conversation: “Did that remind you of Xiao Tao?”

Li Hewei was surprised: “You know too?”

“Yes. The preference for boys is extremely serious in Wangyan Town. When I used to go to the countryside for poverty alleviation, I knew that in half of the local rural households, girls would go out to work or get married after graduating from middle school. They were only 16 or 17 years old. If you brought up the marriage law, they would just hold a banquet and have children, then register the marriage when they reached the legal age—some don’t even get marriage certificates.” Qiu Wan had worked for nine years at the police station in Tao Ling’s hometown, assisting the government in rectifying rural backward customs, going door-to-door to counsel people.

“Fortunately, things have improved a lot in recent years, but Xiao Tao must have suffered a lot when she was young.”

Li Hewei murmured: “Mhm.”

“She took the college entrance exam in 2010, right? It seems she was the only student from Tongping Village in Wangyan Town accepted by a key university that year.”

“Yes, she started school late. She took the college entrance exam close to 20.” Li Hewei couldn’t imagine the state of Tao Ling’s childhood life. Her eyes were sore, and she tilted her head back, trying to hold back her emotions.

“It’s alright. Things will only get better from now on.” Qiu Wan stepped onto the motorbike. Turning her head, she noticed Li Hewei’s reddened eyes and remarked emotionally, “You two sisters-in-law get along quite well. Xiao Tao must be especially grateful.”

“Mhm.” Li Hewei gathered her complicated thoughts and mounted the motorbike with her.

Qiu Wan contacted the Wen’an Town Funeral Home to receive the relevant documentation. Moments after she arrived at the police station, Xiao Liao reported good news: “Boss, on September 19th, a man surnamed Qin withdrew 200,000 yuan in cash from Shujiang. Guess what he was using it for?”

“What for?”

“Gambling, of course! Sister Wang called Mr. Qin, who tried to cover up, claiming he was travelling abroad and needed to exchange currency in Hucheng (Shanghai).” Xiao Liao clapped his hands excitedly. “But who is Sister Wang? She directly stated that the cash was linked to a vicious murder case. Mr. Qin immediately confessed, admitting he went gambling in Wanyang Town that afternoon.”

Wang Cen said modestly: “It was just a standard questioning technique.” She asked about their findings at the Wen family home: “How was Luocun?”

“We obtained the material for Wen Gui’s cremation. In just four days, he was cremated twice.”

The moment Qiu Wan’s voice fell, Xiao Zhou suddenly exclaimed: “Boss!”

Wang Cen chided him: “What did you find? Don’t make such a fuss.”

“Look at the recovered surveillance footage. Isn’t the person signing Zhang Dalong?”

Everyone’s attention focused on the computer screen. The man in the picture wore a baseball cap and a mask, but the distinct birthmark on his neck gave him away.

Qiu Wan’s face lit up with joy. Suppressing her inner excitement, she gathered all the documents and turned around: “Sister Wang, you and Xiao Zhou go to Interrogation Room 1 where Zhang Dalong is. Hewei, we’ll go to Interrogation Room 2 and see what excuses Jiao Yong can come up with.”

In the center of the interrogation room, Jiao Yong had shed his flashy jacket, now wearing a blue inmate uniform. His hands were cuffed to the interrogation table. Like a statue encased in concrete, he silently faced the clerk.

Clang, the metal door opened and closed again. Jiao Yong looked up, gave a cold snort: “It’s you again?”

“Thank you, we’ll take over.” The clerk walked away, closing the door. Qiu Wan said seriously: “Jiao Yong, we have solid evidence that you hired someone to murder Qian Gang.”

Jiao Yong’s lip twitched almost imperceptibly: “What evidence? Is Zhang Dalong framing me?”

“He was loyal to you; using emotional appeals didn’t work on him.” Qiu Wan showed him the cremation documents from Wen’an Town Funeral Home. “Wen Gui. You’re familiar with him, right?”

Jiao Yong’s eyes widened instantly.

Qiu Wan organized her thoughts, calmly reconstructing his crime process: “Wen Xiang works at the courier station. Knowing that his father, Wen Gui, had passed away, you pretended to kindly help arrange the funeral, but in reality, you took the opportunity to steal his cremation documents.”

“Wen Gui had two death certificates. How did you manage that? Did you claim the first one was lost and apply for a second one?” Qiu Wan walked up to him with her phone and opened a photo. “The registration book for replacement documents at the rural clinic: September 17, 2015. Deceased: Wen Gui. Agent: Liu Yang, your errand boy.”

“I…”

“Have you thought of an excuse?” Qiu Wan stared at his ashen face. “You returned the original hukou to Wen Xiang on the 20th. Then, on the 22nd, you deliberately invited Peng Liang to drink, getting him drunk. The next day, Zhang Dalong took the death certificate, the hukou photocopy, and Qian Gang’s body to the funeral home to handle the formalities. A person with a hangover and a foggy brain was easily confused by a few words from you, and he hastily signed the cremation application. Qian Gang’s remains are now gone without a trace. Did I get anything wrong?”

Listening to Qiu Wan’s calm narration, Jiao Yong clasped his hands together. With irrefutable evidence before him, he shook his head in resignation: “You’re formidable. No wonder…”

“No wonder what?”

No wonder Xiao Yang said you wouldn’t rest until you achieved your goal… Jiao Yong naturally didn’t voice this, changing the subject instead: “Nothing. I admit defeat.”