Lei Mi - Profiler

As Fang Mu followed Tai Wei out of the room, he sensed that Meng Fanzhe was again becoming anxious and upset. Fang Mu wished he could reassure Meng Fanzhe that Professor Song was highly unlikely to take attendance a second time that day, but he didn't have time. The look in Tai Wei's eyes made him too nervous to think about anything else.

When they reached the hallway, Fang Mu asked Tai Wei in a whisper: "What is it?

Did something else happen?"

"Yes. No deaths, but another girl has gone missing."

The words slipped out of Fang Mu's mouth. "She's young, isn't she?"

There was no need to respond. The look in Tai Wei's eyes made the answer obvious.

At around 10 p.m.. the night before, Police Substation Eight in the Hongyuan District received a report that a female first-year student at NumberEightMiddle School had gone missing. According to those who gave the report (the student's parents), she was a 13-year-old named Xu Jie. Normally Xu Jie would head straight home after school, arriving around 5 p.m., but by 10 p.m. there was still no sign of her. Filled with worry, the parents searched for her every way they could, all without success. Finally, they notified the police.

During the subsequent investigation, an important piece of information was provided by the owner of a street-side barbecue stand. At around 4:40 p.m. on the day of the disappearance, the owner had seen a girl fitting Xu Jie's description speaking to a very thin, slovenly-dressed young man. Feeling that this man's physical characteristics were very similar to those described in the so-called "vampire's" arrest warrant, the officers of the local substation immediately contacted the city bureau's special investigation team.

Fang Mu and Tai Wei soon arrived at the address where the witness had seen Xu Jie and the young man. As Fang Mu surveyed the area, Tai Wei asked him, "You think this is our guy?"

Fang Mu didn't respond. Instead he asked: "You have a map of this area?"

"One step ahead of you," said Tai Wei, as he reached into his car and grabbed one.

Realizing they had been thinking the same thing, Fang Mu smiled.

After all this time the kid finally smiles , thought Tai Wei as he opened the map.

"Seems you've also noticed how geographically concentrated the murders have been," said Tai Wei. He pointed at a section of the map. "Here, here, and here-they all took place in this same area. And the little girl disappeared somewhere around here as well." He looked up at Fang Mu. "Normally, when a suspect commits multiple crimes in roughly the same place, we assume he's unfamiliar with the area, and most likely is not from around here. So then why do you think he lives nearby?"

"This guy's an exception," said Fang Mu, shaking his head. "His crimes are highly random-and he puts essentially no thought into choosing his victims. However, this time is a little different." He raised his head to look at Tai Wei. "He's begun picking children."

Tai Wei thought for a moment. "In that case, you think this little girl is still alive?"

"It's possible." Fang Mu checked the calendar on his watch, and then thought in silence for a moment. "The killer normally commits a murder every twenty days, more or less; however, this time it's been only a week since his last crime. He's probably hoping to store-up some blood reserves, so that when he needs them, they'll be easy to get."

It was a bright and sunny morning, but hearing this, Tai Wei couldn't help but shiver. " Storing " a living human being until the time you should need her. Then slaughtering her like a pig and drinking her blood. What kind of person would do that?

"Let's head to the psychiatric hospitals," said Fang Mu, hopping into the car. "If I'm right then we still have some time. We'll catch him for sure before he feels the need for blood."

Most hospitals in JiangbinCity contained a psychiatric ward, but when it came to stand-alone psychiatric hospitals, there were only two in the whole city. Tai Wei told his subordinates to visit the regular hospitals (emphasizing that they were not to let the PSB director know), while he and Fang Mu would investigate the psychiatric ones.

They were looking for someone who had either sought consultation or been admitted to the hospital for paranoia in the last five years-particularly blood-related paranoia. The staff at the first hospital was actually quite cooperative; unfortunately, they had no record of such an individual. At the second hospital, however, the moment Tai Wei explained their reason for coming, the hospital director immediately thought of someone.

The person in question was a man named Feng Kai. Two years ago, when Feng Kai was 26, his father and older brother died within months of one another, and he became severely depressed. After being admitted to the hospital, Feng Kai responded well to treatment, and his depression appeared to be going away. But then one time, while a nurse was walking the grounds outside the hospital, she saw Feng Kai catch a small bird and drink its blood while it was still alive. After that, he began demanding that the hospital give him a blood transfusion, believing that he was afflicted with a serious case of anemia. But when the hospital gave him a detailed physical examination, they found his hemoglobin count to be perfectly normal. Feng Kai refused to accept this result, however, and continued to believe he was dangerously anemic. It was because of this that the hospital discovered he was also suffering from paranoia. After receiving treatment for paranoia for a period of time, Feng Kai suddenly left without a word.

According to the doctors and nurses, Feng Kai was about 5'8", very thin, and a slob. His room was always a total mess. Feng Kai did not enjoy socializing with others, and no one ever came to visit him. The hospital did try to locate him after his disappearance, but they learned that the address he had registered with was a fake.

This discovery made Fang Mu and Tai Wei unbelievably excited. Thinking that Feng Kai was probably a fake name as well, Fang Mu advised Tai Wei to investigate city records for a father and son who, in the last two years, died one after the other from a blood disease. He also told him to search the whole city-and Hongyuan District especially-for a man fitting the description of this "Feng Kai."

It took two days for the search to finally bear fruit. JiangbinCity had over 1,244 people named Feng Kai, and not one fit the description. There were also no cases within the last two years of a father and son surnamed Feng each dying of a blood disease. However, in 1988 and 1999 respectively, a father and son surnamed Ma had died of aplastic anemia. The father, Ma Xiangwen, was a widower with two sons. Within a year of his father's death, Ma Tao, the elder son, contracted acute aplastic anemia and died soon after. The younger son, Ma Kai, inherited the father's home, where he lived now, at 83-4 North Evergreen Street in Hongyuan. The address was no more than three miles from the locations of the five crimes.

"That's him!"

They were in the housing registry room of the Hongyuan Police Substation, and Fang Mu had just been shown a picture of Ma Kai. There wasn't a trace of doubt in his voice.

In the picture, Ma Kai's hair was neat and clean, his expression composed. But in his slightly dull-looking eyes, Fang Mu could see a reservoir of anxiety and despair.

At this point, Tai Wei was still very cautious. He had the witnesses from the fourth murder case (victims: Yao Xiaoyang and Tong Hui) and the kidnapping case (victim: Xu Jie) brought to the station. The witness to the kidnapping could not be certain that Ma Kai was the man he had seen that day. The food stand proprietor, however, was absolutely certain that Ma Kai was the man who had bought a bottle of mineral water from him on the day of the double murder.