Silent Testimony - Chapter 89

[Tao Tao, I’ve been summoned. I’m heading to the police station now.]

Outside the Bureau’s autopsy suite, Tao Ling sat on a waiting bench, the tear stains on her cheeks not yet dry. Her mind replayed the WeChat message Li Hewei had sent five minutes ago because Tao Ling hadn’t picked up her phone. Though Li Hewei had unsent the message after only ten seconds, Tao Ling had captured its contents clearly.

Currently, her mind was a chaotic mess. The urgent matters piling up felt like they were stuck together with thick paste, leaving her physically and mentally exhausted. She found herself completely unable to respond to Li Hewei.

An Yu finished a basic reconstruction of Tao Yang’s remains and walked out of the autopsy room, handing the Next of Kin Informed Consent form to her. “Xiao Tao, I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” With the sound of Liu Yun’s heartbroken wailing echoing in her ears, Tao Ling bit her lip and signed her name at the bottom.

An Yu took the form back and patted her shoulder in comfort. “Forensic Doctor Chen from Shujiang will be handling the autopsy. You’re on bereavement leave now, so you don’t need to pull your shift on the second day of the New Year. Get some rest.”

“Okay.” Once An Yu left, Tao Ling reached out to support Liu Yun. Her usually clear voice was now low and raspy. “Ma, we have to go to the first floor.”

Based on the records from Tao Yang’s disappearance three years ago, the Major Crimes Unit was contacting the last friends and relatives to see him alive: Tao Ling, Tao Zhong, two other cousins, and Tao Yang’s childhood friend.

Liu Yun nodded wordlessly, her steps unsteady as she leaned on Tao Ling to move. As they stepped out of the elevator on the first floor, they ran straight into a hurried Tao Zhong.

“Second Aunt,” he called out.

“Oh, you’re here,” Liu Yun replied.

“What happened to Second Uncle? I was working at the factory when you called, I couldn’t hear clearly.”

Tao Ling explained hoarsely, “Acute cerebral hemorrhage caused by high blood pressure. By the time he was found, it was too late to save him.”

Tao Zhong sighed. “Sigh, Second Uncle was so forgetful. I kept reminding him to take his meds.” He didn’t stop there, immediately asking, “Is it true? Was Yang’s body found at the Li family’s place?”

Tao Ling gave a muffled, “Mhm.”

Tao Zhong rolled up his sleeves. “The killer must be her. There are so many cases of people killing their spouses these days and hiding them in freezers.”

Liu Yun gasped, her eyes wide with shock. “No… no, it couldn’t be. Xiao Wei treated us with such sincerity.” Just a few days ago for her 51st birthday, Li Hewei had treated her to dinner and given her a 1,000-yuan red envelope. The genuine affection had been clear to her.

“Second Aunt, you can know a person’s face but not their heart,” Tao Zhong retorted. Just then, Officer Liao called out from a distance, “Tao Yang’s relatives!”

“Here.” Tao Ling remained silent. It felt as though her chest was stuffed with cotton, making it impossible to breathe.

Officer Liao directed Tao Zhong and the childhood friend to Interrogation Rooms 1 and 2, respectively, leaving Tao Ling and her two cousins waiting outside.

In Interrogation Room 1, Qiu Wan led the questioning while Xiao Lyu recorded.

“Tao Zhong, what was your relationship with the deceased?”

“He was my younger cousin.”

Qiu Wan turned serious. “Please describe in detail the events of July 8, 2013—the day the deceased registered his marriage. When and where did you meet, what did you talk about, and when did you part ways?”

Tao Zhong recalled, “It was probably around 5:00 PM. Yang called saying he was in a bad mood and asked me to go to Auntie Meng’s food stall for dinner. His treat.”

Qiu Wan caught the key point. “In a bad mood? Why?”

“What else? Relationship troubles. Ten years of unrequited love finally ending in marriage should have been a joyous occasion, right? But guess what? Yang complained that Li Hewei wouldn’t even let him touch her hand.”

Qiu Wan’s expression grew grimmer. She leaned over to whisper to Xiao Lyu, “Request a transfer of the chat logs between Li Hewei and Tao Yang.”

Qiu Wan sat back up and signaled Tao Zhong to continue.

“I told him to take it slow. It was a long-distance relationship, after all; they needed to adapt. Yang said that during the three months they were ‘dating,’ he felt like a pathetic sycophant. He’d message her constantly, only to be brushed off with two or three words—if she replied at all.”

“He wanted to video chat, but Li Hewei always refused, saying she was busy with work.”

Qiu Wan asked, “Anything else?”

“Plenty, but I can’t remember it all. Yang had been drinking; he was spilling everything.”

“When did you leave the food stall?”

“Around 8:00 PM. We moved to a KTV, drank half a dozen beers, and I went home close to midnight.”

Xiao Lyu looked at the chat logs received from the Technical Unit and whispered to Qiu Wan, “What he’s saying matches the logs.”

Qiu Wan reviewed the previous statements from the missing persons file. Her meticulous nature spotted a discrepancy. She asked Tao Zhong, “You said you went home close to midnight. Why does the KTV front desk record show you leaving at 10:39 PM?” Back then, the disappearance had been handled by the General Squadron as a simple missing persons case; they hadn’t followed up on the obvious loopholes.

Tao Zhong’s eyes dodged Qiu Wan’s sharp gaze. “Oh… I… I probably remembered it wrong.”

“Are you sure?” Qiu Wan slammed her hand on the table. “Tao Zhong, this is now a major criminal case. Every word you say will be used as evidence in court. Do you still dare to talk nonsense?”

Tao Zhong was visibly shaken. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he stammered, “I… I…”

“Speak!”

“I saw he was in a bad mood, so I suggested we go for a ‘massage’.”

Qiu Wan guessed the subtext. Her brow furrowed. “Which massage parlor?”

“The one at the Lulin Hotel,” Tao Zhong confessed. “Look, men are under a lot of pressure to provide for their families. We need a little recreation now and then.”

Qiu Wan remained non-committal. “Did you stay the night?”

“No, I wouldn’t dare!” Tao Zhong’s mind raced as he suddenly had an epiphany. “Officer, is it possible Li Hewei found out Yang went to a prostitute and killed him in a fit of rage during an argument?”

Qiu Wan remained silent, but Xiao Lyu cut him off. “Stop speculating. The police will investigate.”

Tao Ling saw Li Hewei again during the lunch hour. It was only a fleeting glance as Li Hewei was led into an Interrogation Room—a place specifically meant for suspects against whom the police already have some modicum of evidence. Tao Ling watched her disappear, and a sudden, sharp clarity pierced through her grogginess.

Her heart felt hollow.

When it was her turn, Tao Ling faced Qiu Wan in Room 1. After the routine questions, Qiu Wan got straight to the point. “Everyone says Tao Yang and Li Hewei didn’t act like a couple. What is your opinion?”

“It was… okay.” Tao Ling couldn’t be certain the “original” host hadn’t committed the murder, but she knew the real reason the original host had distanced herself from Tao Yang. She just couldn’t say it out loud.

“Be more precise,” Qiu Wan pressed.

Tao Ling looked up, her eyes red. “After my brother went missing, Sister Wei helped us look for him. In her spare time, she traveled all over the country with my mother. We were scammed out of nearly 300,000 yuan, and Sister Wei spent a lot of her own money too.”

“They didn’t even have a wedding, so my mother and I were very grateful to her.”

Xiao Lyu leaned in to whisper to Qiu Wan, “This is verified. Li Hewei frequently posted appeals on social media and used her connections to place missing persons ads in newspapers.”

Qiu Wan gazed at Tao Ling’s exhausted face. Though she hated to do it, she had to ask, “What about Tao Yang? Did he mention anything to you on the night of the dinner?”

“He…” Tao Ling’s hands, resting on her lap, clenched into fists. Her whole body was as taut as a violin string about to snap.

Qiu Wan waited patiently, truly loath to hear Tao Ling say anything that would hurt Li Hewei. She softened her approach: “Tao Ling, you only need to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for now. Do you understand?”

Tao Ling bit her lip. “Mhm.”

“Did Tao Yang say Li Hewei was unwilling to even hold his hand?”

Tears pooled in Tao Ling’s eyes. An uncontrollable pain exploded from her heart. “Yes.”

Though she was technically testifying against the “original” host of that body, the person currently facing investigation was the lover she saw every single day.

“Did they have a huge fight because of it and part on bad terms? While Li Hewei went to a party with friends, a frustrated Tao Yang contacted the others to go drinking?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve seen the chat logs. Their interaction really didn’t look like a normal couple. Did Tao Yang ever complain to you in private?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t just the night of the incident. Tao Yang used to gripe to her often: [Does she even like me? I share funny videos and she doesn’t even react. I send three voice notes and she replies with a single ‘Oh’. What does that even mean?]

Qiu Wan followed up with the final blow. “Tao Zhong said that Li Hewei once laid down ‘three ground rules.’ She told Tao Yang that if he didn’t agree to them, they could get a divorce the very next day. Is that true?”

“Yes.” A sense of suffocation spread through Tao Ling’s entire body, as if every bone were being slowly crushed by a massive boulder. She tilted her head back, and tears fell silently from the corners of her eyes.