Perhaps you will despise me. Despise me for leaving without saying goodbye, despise me for my weakness and my cowardice. I am just an ordinary girl, longing to be protected, yearning for a peaceful and romantic life. The instant you rescued me in the gymnasium, I fell in love with you. Just as when a princess is rescued by a prince, I had no choice but to fall in love with you.
And yet I know that you are not my prince. And I am neither as brave nor as strong as I imagined.
Yesterday morning, I saw everything that happened at the pool with my own eyes. When you finally revealed that the killer was after you, my first reaction was fear. I didn't even have the courage to go hug and comfort you; instead I fled back to my dorm by myself. Yes, I was scared, more scared even than that night in the gymnasium. The killer had already murdered your best friend's girlfriend, and I was probably next. Waiting for death is more frightening than death itself — at last I understood what this saying meant.
Why does he want to kill you? Why did he have to kill so many other people? I know you will not be willing to answer these questions, but that is all right. At this point, the answers are no longer important to me. Although I once believed that I was brave enough to stand by you through every trial, when I was truly confronted by the possibility of death, I chose to do the same thing that any normal girl would do.
Forgive me, forgive me for being an ordinary girl who once thought she was something more. Perhaps you never did love me; now I truly hope that is so. Because if it is, then for both you and I, this will be a little easier to bear.
I will pray for you.
Deng Linyue
12/25/2002
Although the letter was short, Fang Mu was still reading it over half an hour later.
His mind and heart were at ease.
He tried to tell himself: She has left you. You should be filled with sadness.
And yet, feeling a chill unlike any he had ever experienced, he couldn't keep from laughing aloud.
Good, very good.
At last, you are alone again.
Though perhaps, you have always been alone.
CHAPTER 25
The victim was a 23-year-old girl from the city of Kaifeng in Henan province. She had been an English language grad student in the Jiangbin City University Foreign Language Department's class of 2003. The cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation, the murder weapon likely a hemp rope. The victim's hymen had already been broken prior to the night of her murder and there was no sign of rape. According to the autopsy and the testimony of the victim's friends, her time of death was determined to have been between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on December 25. After the victim was strangled to death, heavy makeup was applied to her face, and then her body was placed in the JiangbinCityUniversity outdoor pool and her ankle was tied to the drain with a hemp rope. The pool was then filled with water.
According to an examination of the scene, the killer used a hammer-like tool to smash the lock on the pool gate so he could transport the body inside. No fingerprints or footprints were found at the scene.
According to the victim's schoolmates and boyfriend, the yellow tube top, short leather skirt, black platforms, and blonde wig that she was wearing when discovered did not belong to her. Her original clothes were not found at the scene.
In addition, a piece of paper was found inside the platform shoes that the victim was wearing. Because it had been underwater for a long time, the writing was unclear. However, it was later identified as a page from the sixth edition of a fourth grade Language and Literature summer reading textbook published by the People's Education Press. This page in particular was from Resplendent Sunset.
According to the victim's boyfriend, on the night before the murder he received two strange phone calls, after which he and the victim got into an argument and she left alone. The police soon located the phone number in question at the telecommunications bureau. They discovered it had never been used to make any other calls besides those two that night. After further investigating the number, they found that it had been purchased from a private seller, and as a result no identification was needed to be shown. Therefore, it is be impossible to determine who had made those two calls.
"Right now, this is all I've found. The case is being handled by Old Zhao and his men, so I had to pull a few favors to even learn this much." Tai Wei passed the case folder to Fang Mu. They were in Fang Mu's dorm room, going through what they could of the evidence report available to them. "Oh, and there's another thing. Over the last few days I've gone to several hospitals around the city, including the one where Ma Kai was treated, and looked into the psychologists they have on staff. You should know, though, that right now I'm only able to investigate this on my own, so my effectiveness is limited. Up 'til now I haven't found anything of value."
Fang Mu smiled at him. "Thank you," he said.
Tai Wei just carelessly waved his hand.
You still believe in me. I can tell, even if you don't say it aloud.
"How's it going over here?" Tai Wei asked. "Any progress?"
Fang Mu looked down at one of the pictures in the folder. In it, a seductively dressed Zhang Yao lay beside the freezing pool.
"What does an outfit like this make you think of?" asked Fang Mu, showing the picture to Tai Wei.
Tai Wei didn't mince words. "A prostitute. This is the classic sex worker getup."
"That's correct." Fang Mu nodded. "This time he was copying the Green River Killer."
"The Green River Killer?"
"That's right. Do you still remember those two symbols I told you about? The ones that were written on the window of Meng Fanzhe's home?" Fang Mu grabbed a piece of paper and sketched something on it. "At the time I thought he had written a lowercase q and an uppercase A. Later I realized I was mistaken, and in fact he had written GR, both uppercase. Because the letters were written on a condensation-covered window, when the water drops slid down it made them look like a q and an A."
"GR? Green River?"
"Exactly. The Green River murders began in 1982 in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. The killer was named Gary Ridgeway. In total he killed over forty-nine people, the majority of them female prostitutes and young women who had run away from home," Fang Mu said. "The bodies of his first few victims he dumped in the Green River, which was located in the southern outskirts of Seattle. The person who discovered the first victim said it looked like she was standing in the middle of the river. This was because the killer had wedged her legs into a crack between some rocks on the river bottom." He shivered. "This was identical to what I saw in the pool that day. Beginning in 1987, the police made Ridgeway their prime suspect, but because they had no evidence and he was twice able to pass a lie detector test, he managed to get off scot-free. Then DNA testing began to be used in criminal investigations. Last year, the police compared a sample of his saliva with the semen that was found in one of the victims. It was a perfect match. Still, even after his arrest, Ridgeway has continued to deny his guilt. Because several of his initial victims were found in the Green River, and because Ridgeway's initials are G.R., he is known as the Green River Killer."
Tai Wei frowned in thought. "The majority of the victims were prostitutes… Is that why Zhang Yao was made to look that way?"