A Devil's Mind Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright ©2013 Gangxueyin

  Translation copyright © 2016 George A. Fowler

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as 犯罪心理档案 (Criminal Minds—The Files) in 2013 by Modern Press in Mainland China

  Translated from the Chinese by George A. Fowler

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503937031

  ISBN-10: 1503937038

  Cover design by David Drummond

  CONTENTS

  CHARACTER LIST

  PART 1 A DISMEMBERED CORPSE

  PROLOGUE

  1 A DISMEMBERED CORPSE APPEARS AGAIN

  2 AT THE CORPSE DUMP SITES

  3 ANALYSIS OF THE DUMPED CORPSE CASES

  4 DISMEMBERED CORPSE REPORT

  5 CRIMINAL PROFILING

  PART 2 THE MYSTERY OF THE ABUSED CHILDREN

  6 SERIAL DISAPPEARANCES

  7 THE MOLESTED GIRL

  8 A CHILD-ABUSING DEVIL

  9 HELL ON EARTH

  10 A CASE WITHIN A CASE

  11 THE PHONE CALL FROM HELL

  PART 3 SMALL-TOWN MANIAC

  12 FORCED REASSIGNMENT

  13 THE PATH OF DEATH

  14 MOTIVE TO DESTROY

  15 A TOMB AND A MUTILATED CORPSE

  16 A SMILING KILLER

  17 THE WRITER SUSPECT

  18 WRITTEN IN BLOOD ON A DORM WINDOW

  PART 4 THE KILLING CURSE

  19 A WOMAN’S HEADLESS CORPSE

  20 THE UNPREDICTABLE, EVER-CHANGING NATURE OF THINGS

  21 HUMAN DUMPLINGS

  22 THE HEADS THAT TILTED UPWARD

  23 DIVINE CURSES

  24 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

  25 THE RIDDLE OF THE MANUSCRIPT

  26 BEST FRIEND AND SUSPECT

  27 A DISASSOCIATED PERSONALITY

  PART 5 PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFESSION

  28 ESCALATING THE CRIME

  29 LOOKING AT THE HEADS

  30 CORPUS DELICTI

  31 THE KILLER APPEARS

  32 A WRETCHED LIFE

  33 THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  CHARACTER LIST

  Crazy Monk: The self-appointed guardian of Yongxiang Temple in the 1980s and a suspect in the Gaoshen Village serial killer case.

  Ding Damin: Street sweeper Shen Xiulan’s husband.

  Ding Xin: Shen Xiulan’s daughter.

  Du Jun: Member of the PSB task force investigating the Yin Aijun and Wang Li cases.

  Fang Dawei: Municipal Criminal Investigation Division chief and deputy head of the Gaoshen Village Serial Killer Case task force.

  Feng Wenhao: Orthopedic doctor. Former classmate of Yin Aijun and Liu Xiangming.

  Fu Changlin: Deputy head of the J City PSB task force handling the corpse dismemberment cases, Gulou District Cold Case Group head, and former head of the Criminal Investigation Division.

  Fu Xiaoning: Husband of Liu Xin.

  Gu Feifei: Director of the Material Evidence Forensics Center of S Province; she is a crucial forensic pathologist for the dismemberment cases and is intellectually brilliant but cold and aloof.

  Guan Bo: Native of China’s Northeast and former jailbird. A suspect in the missing children case. He is also called Geezer.

  Guo Xin: A boy, the final child to be kidnapped.

  Han Yin: Professor in applied sociopathy who is recommended to the J City police force to help solve a grisly crime. He has excellent intuition and possesses rare detective sensibilities.

  He Jun: Teacher Zhao’s son-in-law, the husband of the murdered Liu Xiao’e.

  Hu Zhiguo: Deputy chief of criminal investigation, J City PSB.

  Huang Chuanjun: Yin Aijun’s class master at Old Capital University.

  Huang Ling: Another of Teacher Zhao’s primary school students and now considered a bad girl.

  Kang Xiaobei: A PSB officer who is determined, intense, thoughtful, and hardworking.

  Li Lan: The second female victim in the Gaoshen Village serial killer case.

  Liu Liang: The son of Teacher Zhao and the younger brother of Liu Xiao’e.

  Liu Xiangming: Former classmate of Yin Aijun and class leader; after an unsatisfactory teaching career, he now plays the stock market in Old Capital University’s Student Department.

  Liu Xiao’e: Daughter of Teacher Zhao.

  Liu Xiaohua: A girl, and the first of six children kidnapped.

  Liu Xin: Victim of the Taiping Town Wu Family Hillside killer.

  Ma Wentao: Contemporary of Xu Sanpi, owns a bookshop also frequented by Yin Aijun, and is a would-be writer.

  Mi Lan: Another female victim of the Wu Family Hillside killer.

  Mou Fan: Very successful writer. Former schoolmate of Xu Sanpi.

  Officer Liu: The police officer in Willow Tree Market Township who guided Han Yin and Ye Xi to Diamond Mountain Village in search of Yu Meifen.

  Old Zhang: The father of another murdered girl.

  Shanshan: Ye Xi’s former senior high schoolmate, a supercilious social climber.

  Shen Xiulan: J City Sanitation Department street sweeper who discovered body parts in both cases.

  Song Juan: Wife of Wang Cheng.

  Station Chief Cai: The chief of a police station in Q City where the murder of girls had occurred.

  Station Chief Wu: The Gaoshen Village police station chief.

  Su Jin: The owner of a beauty parlor and a confidante of Yin Aijun who pushed the police to reopen her friend’s murder case.

  Sun Jian: The president of a publishing house; a former schoolmate of Xu Sanpi.

  Teacher Zhao: Gaoshen Village’s longtime primary school teacher and the mother of yet another murder victim.

  Tian Mei: J City’s third murder and dismemberment victim.

  Wang Cheng: A migrant worker operating a fruit stand in J City and father of a kidnapped girl.

  Wang Hong: The kidnapped daughter of Wang and Song.

  Wang Li: A female, a company accountant, who was murdered and dismembered around New Year’s Day 2012.

  Wang Wei: Former classmate of Yin Aijun and Liu Xiangming. Wang teaches at the College of Finance and Economics.

  Wu Chengqiang: J City PSB chief.

  Xia Jingjing: Kang Xiaobei’s girlfriend and a receptionist at the J City Public Security Bureau guesthouse.

  Xu Sanpi: A former Old Capital University student, owner of a bookshop Yin Aijun frequented, and currently a minor writer and protégé of an influential uncle in J City.

  Xue Min: Wang Wei’s wife, a fellow teacher at the College of Finance and Economics, and a former roommate of Yin Aijun at the university.

  Yao Gang: A member of the PSB task force investigating the Yin Aijun and Wang Li cases.

  Ye Xi: The chief of a criminal investigation division of J City PSB.

  Yin Aijun: Female student at Old Capital University who was murdered and dismembered in January 1996.

  Yin Dexing: Yin Aijun’s father; resides in Gaoshen Village, Qianyan Town.

  Yu Bo: Q City PSB’s deputy bureau chief.

  Yu Meifen: Yin Aijun’s roommate at university and the first to notify the faculty about Yin’s disappearance; later, she is F
eng Wenhao’s lover.

  Zhang Dan: The first female victim in the Gaoshen Village serial killer case.

  Zhang Nan: Best friend of Liu Xin.

  Zhao Chaoming: Husband of Zhang Nan.

  PART 1

  A DISMEMBERED CORPSE

  PROLOGUE

  January 18, 1996

  J City. Heavy snowfall.

  J City’s first snow of the winter began falling yesterday evening. Snowflakes danced in the air, floating and falling on avenues and back alleys, blanketing the entire city in the whitest and purest snow. It is tranquil and solemn. The broad main street is as pristine as a sheet of white paper without the slightest bit of grime or so much as a ripple. The few tire tracks and footprints are quickly hidden by the fresh snowflakes. A perfect day for dumping a corpse!

  The snow finally stops at 4:00 a.m. Along the broad, empty avenue, a ge-cher ge-cher ge-cher sound echoes. Sanitation worker Shen Xiulan is pushing her little four-wheeled cleanup cart toward her section of the road.

  Shen Xiulan stops next to a big dumpster at the mouth of an alleyway. She takes a deep breath. Finally shaking off the last of her sleepiness, she reaches for the broom in her cart, gives it a shake, and begins sweeping.

  Just then, a little whirlwind blows out of the alleyway, scattering snow all over her. The snow buildup in front of the dumpster blows away, revealing a dark travel bag that looks very garish against all the whiteness.

  “Really! Ugh, some people! Can’t be bothered to take the garbage all the way to the dumpster. Have to leave it on the ground next to it!”

  Shen Xiulan shakes her head and picks up the bag. But just as she’s about to throw it into the bin, she wonders, What’s in here? She sets it back down, unzips it, and looks inside.

  It’s daybreak now, and in the hazy light, the contents seem to be a chunk of mangled bloodred pig meat covered in bits of ice. Shen Xiulan inches forward to take a sniff. Nothing out of the ordinary, she thinks. Maybe some wholesaler carelessly dropped his pig meat on his morning delivery. Or maybe some rich guy threw it out. What a waste! Even if times have changed for the better, only a few years ago, we’d have used the fat for cooking oil.

  Shen Xiulan sighs, zips up the bag, picks it up again, and puts it in her cart. She’s going to bring this meat home and give it to Lil’ Yellow.

  Lil’ Yellow is a stray dog she met on the roadside while sweeping. Back then, the small dog was incredibly filthy, and his two little front paws were bleeding. He was whimpering and had fixed his tormented and helpless eyes on Shen Xiulan. Her good-natured heart melted. She carried the dog home in her arms, and she and her daughter gave it a bath and bandaged its cuts and sores. Once clean, the little mutt’s golden fur shone through, and Shen Xiulan’s daughter named the dog Lil’ Yellow.

  Finding the package of meat feels like a lucky start to Shen Xiulan’s day. She works energetically on her section of the road until there’s no longer a speck of snow to be seen. She collects her tools and heads home with the cart.

  She lives nearby, so she often sneaks home after her morning shift to make her husband and daughter a hot breakfast.

  Shen’s building belongs to her husband’s work unit, and their neighbors are his coworkers. It’s a friendly neighborhood, and she greets her neighbors warmly as she takes out the key to her door.

  Sure enough, her daughter hasn’t bothered to wash her face before playing with the dog in the living room. Her husband is still in bed.

  “Xin, stop playing and go wash your face and brush your teeth.”

  Shen Xiulan puts on her slippers and sets the travel bag down in the kitchen doorway.

  As she hangs up her work clothes, her daughter asks, “Mom, what’s in the bag?”

  “A package of meat I found on the road. It’s for Lil’ Yellow.”

  “I’ll give him a piece. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. Just don’t get your pajamas dirty.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Shen Xiulan stands at the sink, soaping her hands and face. She hears the clacking of her daughter’s slippers as she goes to the kitchen, followed by the sound of the bag’s zipper. Then, a moment later, she hears a piercing shriek.

  She has never heard such a heart-piercing sound from her daughter. Her face covered in soap, she rushes out of the bathroom. Her husband dashes from the bedroom, awakened by the scream.

  Xin sits on the floor by the kitchen door, dazed, her eyes aghast and her mouth gaping, frozen in terror. She stretches out her little hand, which is clutching a bloody finger.

  The man shouts . . .

  The woman screams . . .

  The dog wildly barks . . .

  The little girl’s horrified eyes are fixed on the bloody finger . . .

  1

  A DISMEMBERED CORPSE APPEARS AGAIN

  March, 2012

  A police academy in northern China

  Han Yin sat in the quiet office in the Department of Criminal Psychology, fiddling with his mouse. His eyes, hiding behind dark retro glasses, were fixed on the computer. He was preparing for his big class later that afternoon.

  It had been a while since he finished an assignment with the local police force and returned to academic work. Though he was glad to have left the stress and long hours of criminal investigations behind, Han Yin couldn’t help feeling a little bored. And he had put on quite a bit of weight.

  He had gotten a great deal out of his year of on-the-job training, not only by handling some fairly typical and research-worthy cases but also by participating firsthand in a number of major investigations. He’d succeeded in solving a serial killer case within a month, earning him some recognition in the police world. Now that he had returned to academic teaching, his classes were always filled with various professional “groupie” students. The college was pleased to accommodate the students’ interest in learning and to have a professor with rock-star appeal. All his lectures now took place in the large auditorium to accommodate the crowds.

  He was happy with his professional achievements but wished he could make a big breakthrough in his special field of applied sociopathy, a field that had come to China fairly recently. There hadn’t been many opportunities to put it to use; to date it had still been mainly drawn from Western theory. Although humans behave in similar ways, their mental activities could not be of one mold, especially in different social systems, stages of social development, and social environments. Although Han Yin hoped to land a case in applied sociopathy, that sort of opportunity rarely presented itself.

  Han Yin’s afternoon class was going to deal with two fundamental points of behavioral evidence analysis: criminal modus operandi (or MO) and criminal labeling. In actual practice, these points play an important role in related cases and in anticipating crimes of a psychologically aberrational nature but are also extremely easy to confuse. So Han Yin talked about them together, hoping that by using parallel real cases for comparative purposes, the students could intuitively gain a clearer understanding of the distinctions.

  Han Yin was good at this. He disliked scripted teaching, and his blackboard notes were extremely sparse. Usually his notes featured nothing more than a subject heading. He preferred integrating the knowledge points into real cases and probing those together with the students. If it was the same routine, day after day, year after year, of being dogmatic and formulaic and going through the motions, Han Yin wouldn’t have enough interest to keep going. His father was a businessman, and given Han Yin’s qualifications, he could have chosen many professions. He’d chosen teaching because it gave him the opportunity to be spontaneous and engage in conversation with others interested in the subject matter.

  His office phone rang while he was going through his personal case library, searching for material he could cite. It was the school president. He sounded agitated and told Han Yin to get over to his office immediately; a provincial leader wanted to meet him. Han Yin quickly tidied his desk and walked out.

  Several hours later, a Boeing 737 la
nded at an airport in J City of S Province in southern China. Han Yin exited with the other passengers. In early March, the temperature shifted quickly between warm and cold. The warm afternoon sunlight gently spilled over him.

  He walked through the security gate, stopped, and gazed around the reception hall. He couldn’t help but notice a pretty woman standing nearby. She seemed to be about his age, thirty years old, but women knew how to take such good care of themselves that he couldn’t know for sure. The woman wore her hair in a fashionable bob, the type with the bangs falling to her eyebrows. Her face was slender, her eyes sharp, her complexion fair and rosy. Her makeup was tasteful—just right. In her gray Western-style suit and stilettos, she appeared dignified and capable, with a strong aura of female charm. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she stood very erect, with her legs spread far apart. She scanned each passenger coming through the gate, her gaze settling on Han Yin for only a few seconds before moving on. He recognized the strong territorial posture so common to police officers.

  Han Yin smiled and walked up to the woman. He stuck out his hand and said, “Hello. You’re from municipal PSB, I think?”

  She looked at him blankly, then lightly shook his hand. “You must be Professor Han Yin?” When he nodded, she broke into a delicate smile and said, “I’m Ye Xi, I’m in charge of the PSB’s criminal investigation division here. So glad to meet you. If I may say so, I never expected you to be such a handsome, young, scholarly looking fellow.”

  “Hardly, hardly! And I’ve never seen a head of criminal investigations as pretty as you.”

  Ye Xi withdrew her hand and glanced behind her. Then she turned back and asked, “How did you know it was me?”

  “Just a wild guess.”

  “A wild guess? Really?”

  Ye Xi only half believed him and wanted to pursue it further, when the sound of panting came from behind her. A big man with a cheerful expression held a sign with Han Yin’s name on it. He wiped his forehead and said, “Chief Ye, he’s here?”

  “What took you so long?” She gave the man a withering look, then smiled. “Professor Han Yin, Officer Kang Xiaobei, from our division.”

  “It was hard to find parking! How come the plane was actually on time?” He grinned and laughed. Then he turned to Han Yin and reached for his luggage. “Sorry for making you wait. I bet it was a long trip, so I’ll just help you with your bags, all right?”