Chapter 2

“Did anyone see you?” Triệu Tuấn asked. “Or do you have any evidence that neither of you went out during that time?”

Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn thought for a moment and shook her head.

“No... definitely not. We're always very careful. We don't want anyone to see us. He isn't divorced yet, after all.”

Curious, I asked, “Did he promise to get divorced?”

This time, her answer was immediate.

“Of course! He wants it more than anyone.

“I'm the one who hasn't completely agreed. That's why it's dragged on.”

That remark struck both of us as odd.

In years of investigations, we had encountered plenty of affairs.

Usually, the third party was the one pushing, doing everything possible to persuade the married person to leave the marriage.

But she said she hadn't fully agreed.

That could mean Chung Trạch Hoa was the one pursuing her.

In other words, he might do whatever it took to meet her conditions.

What conditions had she set?

We didn't want to think in such a vicious direction.

But this was a murder investigation.

We had to consider every possibility.

So we reassured her gently.

“Then there shouldn't be a problem. If you can corroborate each other's accounts, there's probably no reason for suspicion.”

She visibly relaxed.

Taking the opportunity, we asked for her cooperation and obtained her phone without difficulty.

We intended to investigate further and examine her messages with Chung Trạch Hoa.

Unfortunately, their entire chat history had been deleted.

We had to ask the technical team to recover it.

While waiting, we didn't rest. We moved straight to the next interview.

Hân Hân's grandmother.

A vicious old woman.

What we discovered about her would shake our view of people even further.

Her name was Lý Hồng Mai. She was fifty-five.

Her husband had died years earlier.

Neighbors said her preference for boys was extreme and completely undisguised.

Because her son had only one daughter, she complained daily to the older people in the complex about wanting a grandson to hold.

At the time, birth restrictions were still strict.

Lý Ngọc wasn't an only child. A second baby would mean a huge fine and could even affect Chung Trạch Hoa's fairly stable job.

That could have given the grandmother a motive to harm her own granddaughter.

Without evidence, though, it remained only suspicion.

In the interview room, we let her cry and complain for a while, then got to the point.

“You said you went to play mahjong that morning. Your fellow players say you stayed less than twenty minutes, took a phone call, and hurried away.

“Where did you go after that?”

She stammered endlessly.

One moment, “Nowhere. Just wandered around.”

The next, “I don't remember.”

It was infuriating.

Finally, Triệu Tuấn went straight for the heart of it.

“Tell the truth! We've already spoken to your son and daughter-in-law. Of everyone in the family, you hated the girl most.

“Either explain where you went, or we'll investigate you as the killer.”

She exploded.

“I didn't! It wasn't me!

“So what if I hated her? That doesn't mean I pushed her off the balcony!

“I only went to see a friend... an old friend...”

“Name? Where?”

Realizing she couldn't hide it, she answered hastily.

“Old Trương... at his shop. Old Trương's Convenience Store on East Street.”

“Old Trương? The convenience store? Trương Đức Dân?”

Now Triệu Tuấn was astonished.

She nodded weakly.

“You know him?” I asked quietly.

He answered through gritted teeth, under his breath.

“Damn it. He's a human trafficker. Served seven years. Got out a few months ago. We've been keeping an eye on him.”

I was startled and turned back toward her.

She lowered her head guiltily and didn't dare say more.

I understood.

This woman was truly frightening.

She didn't merely hate her granddaughter.

She had actually considered getting rid of her.

We left the room.

That mother and son were certainly an education.

And their family was suffocating.

We both thought she had planned to sell Hân Hân to Trương Đức Dân, then pretend traffickers had abducted her.

An ingenious way to “deal with” the child.

Then her son could have another baby and give her the grandson she wanted.

To verify it, Triệu Tuấn immediately went to find him.

I also suspected that negotiations over the sale might have failed, prompting the grandmother to return home and kill Hân Hân herself.

Before we could pursue that theory, something more important intervened.

The technical team came to me with the recovered messages between Chung Trạch Hoa and Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn.

I had thought the grandmother was horrifying enough.

The father was worse.

It was the worst possibility we had considered.

They hadn't merely mentioned Hân Hân.

They had openly discussed “dealing with” her.

Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn had written:

“I will never accept your daughter. If you bring her with you after the divorce, get out of my life. I'm not raising that bitch's child.”

He replied:

“But her mother has problems. She can't look after her. What am I supposed to do?”

“I don't care. You have to deal with her.”

The frightening part was that he agreed.

“It's all right. Wait for me. I'll think of something.”

Chilling.

What exactly did “deal with her” mean?

The more I considered it, the colder I felt.

It was hard to imagine what sort of life Hân Hân had endured in that family.

Perhaps her mother was her last refuge.

Reality was about to teach us a bloody lesson.

Another group of colleagues was verifying Lý Ngọc's alibi.

She was so unstable that she had needed a sedative in hospital, making a statement difficult to obtain.

At last, they reported back.

She really had gone for medical treatment.

We hadn't found an appointment because she had lied about which hospital.

The place she actually visited was a psychiatric hospital.

Yes.

She was a psychiatric patient.

Not one of the three adults in that household was normal.

What sin had Hân Hân committed in a previous life to be born into such a family?

We still needed to make a formal request to the hospital for her precise diagnosis and the full account of her appointment that day.

A colleague had already tried approaching her doctor privately.

The request was refused.

As mental health professionals, they were bound by strict patient confidentiality.

To obtain the records, we had to send an official written request.

That would take time.

Still, her medical visit was genuine.

Considering her reaction after the incident and her state of mind, we didn't think she was likely to be the killer.

Such overwhelming grief would be difficult to fake.

Our principal suspects remained the mother and son.

The father wasn't merely having an affair.

To be with Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn, he had agreed to “deal with” his own daughter.

The grandmother, wanting a grandson, had approached a human trafficker.

Her intentions could hardly have been good.

By then, we were almost certain one of them had killed the girl.

Solving it shouldn't be too hard.

We had no direct evidence yet, but further investigation would expose a flaw.

That confidence made us careless.

The truth was much more complicated than it looked.

First, suspicion against Lý Hồng Mai was quickly dispelled.

Triệu Tuấn soon brought Trương Đức Dân to the station.

He was only in his early forties.

But perhaps prison had been so harsh that he looked fifty or sixty.

He was so afraid of the police that from the moment he entered the station until he reached the interview room, he kept protesting that he had done nothing.

We began questioning him immediately.

Eager to get out, he answered almost everything.

“No, really! That damned old woman is crazy! She wanted to sell her own granddaughter. How could I agree to that?”

He sounded deeply aggrieved.

“I haven't done that sort of thing since I got out. Believe me. You have to believe me...”

He sounded sincere, but clearly he was still concealing something, telling only half the truth.

Of course, we were prepared.

Triệu Tuấn asked, “According to Lý Hồng Mai, she abandoned her mahjong game and rushed to meet you after your call.

“What did you say that made her so eager?”

He froze for several seconds.

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Much later, he lowered his voice.

“I... only wanted to swindle some money out of her.

“I pretended to agree on the phone. I was going to ask for a deposit.”

Then he quickly looked up.

“But officers, I really wasn't going to do it! I've had bad luck lately. Lost money gambling. I just needed some cash. It's true. Please believe me...”

I interrupted with the question that mattered more to me.

“How long was she in your shop? When did she leave?”

“Around... half past ten? No... maybe eleven...”

He couldn't seem to remember.

Triệu Tuấn shouted, “This is important! Think carefully! If you end up being treated as an accomplice, get ready to go back to prison!”

He shook with fright and went pale.

To get himself out of trouble, he reluctantly revealed something extremely useful.

“Actually... my shop... has a surveillance camera.”

Triệu Tuấn slammed the table.

“What is wrong with you? Why didn't you say so when we came to get you?”

Under the scolding, he could only lower his head.

We didn't understand then why he had waited until Triệu Tuấn became angry to tell us.

Later, when we watched the footage, we understood.

What it showed left everyone speechless.

Triệu Tuấn went back to collect the recording.

I met again with the two colleagues who had examined the scene of the fall.

They had found several more clues.

First, the physical traces.