Lei Mi - Profiler

"Oh, uh, I'm fine," said Fang Mu, taking his hand from out of his bag, where he had been grasping the handle of the military dagger.

"The library is about to close," said Librarian Sun, still badly shaken, "so when I saw you lying on the desk fast asleep, I figured I'd go wake you up. I didn't expect you'd scream and leap up like that. Scared me half to death."

"Sorry," said Fang Mu, "I was just having a bad dream." He forced himself to smile.

"Don't worry about it," said Librarian Sun, patting him on the shoulder. "You may be young, but you still need to take care of yourself."

Fang Mu nodded, but said nothing more. After gathering his things, he grabbed his bag and left the reference room.

The deceased was one Thomas Gill, 41, a white male from the United States, formerly in charge of hiring at the JiangbinCityUniversity foreign teachers administrative department. On the night of the murder, he took a cab from the school gate to the nearby Evening Breeze Jazz Club. There he had several drinks, but no one paid attention to what time he left. This above information was gleaned from his cab driver, who often picked up people outside the school gates, and the staff at the club.

Cause of death was shock due to blood loss. According to the autopsy, by the time his body was discovered, the victim had already been dead for at least 15 hours. He had been stabbed a total of 21 times in the chest by a sharp blade measuring five to seven inches in length and approximately 1.5 inches in width. Based on the location and appearance of the victim's wounds, the killer seemed to be a right-handed adult man standing between 5'7" and 5'10".

Other than the victim's watch, which had been set to 5:25:25, none of his belongings had been touched. His money, bank card, and credit card were all still in his wallet.

Based on an investigation of the crime scene, it was determined that the pigpen where the victim was found was not the scene of his murder. Since the victim was quite heavy, the killer had probably used some sort of vehicle to transport his body. The testimony given by the individual who reported the crime and the results of the autopsy both indicated that the victim was probably left in the pigpen between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Police interviewed people living near the crime scene in hopes of finding someone who had seen a suspicious vehicle that day, but they came away with just about nothing. Only one person, a roughly 70-year-old woman, said that on the day the body was discovered, she happened to spot a white car parked near the crime scene. Unfortunately, she was unable to provide the car's make, model or license plate number. And because so many cars had driven past the crime scene by now, even if the killer's car had been parked there, its tracks would be impossible to find.

Interestingly, according to the victim's coworkers, he had been gay. This made police suspect that perhaps the killer was gay as well, or rather had merely pretended to be so that he could trick the victim into accompanying him to the murder scene, where he then took the man's life.

The U.S. and Chinese heads of state had visited each other's nations at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. This was perhaps even more significant for the new American president, who was making his first visit to China. A high-ranking U.S. military officer was also set to visit China at the end of the year, and now the whole world was watching as military relations between the two countries appeared to warm. Therefore, the U.S. consulate in JiangbinCity was paying close attention to this case and had spoken on multiple occasions with the city government and Public Security Bureau in hopes of obtaining a speedy resolution.

The special investigation team could feel the pressure.

Another bright afternoon. As usual, Tai Wei and Fang Mu were sitting on the bench beside the basketball court, a stack of absurdly thick folders beside them.

First, Tai Wei updated Fang Mu on their current progress investigating the case. Fang Mu listened closely, rarely interrupting. Finally, with a downcast look on his face, Tai Wei said that they still hadn't found any clues as to the next murder. Fang Mu thought for a moment, and then grabbed one of the case folders and began reading.

While he was looking through the evidence photos, Fang Mu paused on one of the pictures for a long time. In it, the contents of the victim's wallet were spread out on a table. In addition to a bank card and credit card from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and a certain amount of U.S. dollars and Chinese renminbi, Fang Mu also saw a strangely-colored bill, but because it was halfway covered by some of the other items, he couldn't make out its denomination or form of currency.

"What's this one?" asked Fang Mu, pointing at the unknown bill. "The one in the middle."

Tai Wei looked over. "Oh, that one. It's British. Five pounds."

Fang Mu frowned. "Why would he be carrying British currency in his wallet?"

"He's a foreigner," said Tai Wei casually. "They always walk around with foreign currency."

"Yeah, but this guy's an American. For his day-to-day life, all he should need in his wallet are dollars and renminbi. Why carry around pounds? And why only five?"

This question stumped Tai Wei. Scratching his head, he said, "Maybe… maybe it had some sentimental value for him. Why?" He looked at Fang Mu. "Are you thinking this is a clue to the next crime?"

"I can't say for sure," said Fang Mu, shaking his head. "I just think it's a little peculiar. I'll have to do some more research."

"All right. So how's it been over here? You found anything?" Tai Wei looked over the stack of documents Fang Mu had brought along. He knew the kid was going to tell him what was inside, but he was too impatient to wait.

As Fang Mu nodded, his eyes became calm and resolute.

"Things are beginning to come into focus," he said.

"Really? What do you mean?"

"Hold your horses; let's do this one thing at a time." Fang Mu laid the folders from the first four cases in a row. Tai Wei noticed that atop each of the four stacks he placed several sheets of photocopied text.

"Let's start by looking at the second case," said Fang Mu. "At the scene of the first crime, the female victim was found with a syringe stuck in her chest. I believe this was meant to hint that the second crime would take place at a hospital, or that at the very least it would have something to do with the medical profession. Sure enough, it was committed at the school hospital, the victim was a forty-three-year-old woman, and the cause of death was heroin poisoning." Here Fang Mu paused, took the photocopied papers from atop the second stack and handed it to Tai Wei. "Take a look at this."

Taking the papers from him, Tai Wei looked at them. They appeared to have been copied from various books and journals, and each was covered with Fang Mu's underlines and scribbled notes.

"It's probably a little disorganized," said Fang Mu. "Why don't you look through it while I narrate?" Then, speaking slowly, he began. "What you're looking at are some documents on the infamous British serial killer Harold Shipman. In 1963, when Shipman was seventeen, he knelt at his mother's bedside and watched her die of cancer at the age of forty-three. This incident was an enormous blow to him, and it became the turning point of his whole life. For this reason, he decided to study medicine. Before she died, his mother had been in such pain from her illness that for a long time she had been forced to rely on heroin and morphine to get through each day. Therefore, Shipman desired to kill others by using a lethal combination of these drugs. With his mother dead, he could not tolerate other middle-aged women getting to live their own safe and happy lives."

Tai Wei had forgotten to look at the documents in his hands, but rather had stared open-mouthed at Fang Mu this whole time. Unperturbed, Fang Mu continued to speak in the same slow, calm manner: "In 1970, he graduated from medical school, and soon became known as an unusually skilled and highly ethical family doctor. However, he was never able to truly forget what had happened to his mother. In 1984, Shipman began using heroin to kill his own patients, selecting as his victims mainly women around the same age as his mother when she died. By the time he was arrested at the end of 1998, he had poisoned a total of two-hundred-fifteen people to death."