Who Killed David

The time was about 10, one cold night in autumn, somewhere in Northeast China, October, 2007.

 

1. A Dead Body on a Bus

 

At the moment, a bus was coming slowly into the bus terminal, the streetlights giving off dim light in the cold wind, and quite few people in the streets. This was the last bus today; passengers were going off at the bus stops along the road. The driver jammed on the brakes, turned his head back, saw a person in black whose head dropped down still sitting in a seat. He shouted: “Hey, time to get off, bus terminal here. To his surprise, that person made no response to what he said. He thought that what the hell was going on with him who dared sleep here and now.

 

The driver got up and came over to the stranger’s side. He lightly pushed him and spoke loudly, “Hey man, get off now...” But suddenly the person fell from the seat without a word before the driver ending his talk. It was so horrible that his heart was pounding in haste. He plucked up his courage in panic and stretched his forefinger onto the nose of the passenger. It was deadly cold, no breath, he’d been dead for some time.

 

The cold wind blew outside the bus in the darkness, the shadows shook behind the trees, awfully quiet.

 

2. Capture Murderer

 

The police came quickly as soon as they received telephone call and investigated into this murder case. They discovered that the person didn’t die of suicide, for a big clear scar of some blunt object in the back of head was found. Who killed the person, when and where the murderer started to act, and when and how the corpse got onto the bus.

 

The murderer impossibly killed him on the bus among the passengers. Seen from the wound, it took a lot of strength to hit with a big blunt object, it was not proper to commit an act of violence on a bus. It might be that someone brought him onto the bus and got off at one of bus-stops.

 

The police monitored the bus line strictly in time, hoped for a turn for the better in this case.

 

One of a few nights, a hotelman made a call to the police station and said the deeds of two lodgers seemed strange and, there might be a catch in it somewhere.

 

The two lodgers, a middle-aged man and a young man, lived in the first floor and ran away madly the moment they saw the police. However, they were not able to escape from the police’s fingers even if exhausting all their energies. Facing the armed police and bystanders around them, hearing the alarm sound of police cars, the older man failed to hold back his emotions in panic; his will went to pieces and, knelt down to the police, he said painfully with tears, “Ok, I say, I say, I say all the truth…”

 

3. How David Died

 

We are the peasants in Jingyang village. Recently, we continuously lost several little pigs in weeks in my pigsty. We thought that someone stole my pigs for sure. Nothing happened when we took turns to watch the pigs at night, and pigs were gone when we didn’t. There should have been 12 little pigs there, but only several ones left now. My whole family was poor; you know what they mean to us. We were so pained to think of this and vowed that we must catch the thief. We must make him pay for what he had done. We would let him compensate for our great losses.

 

So, every day my son and I stuck to staying up late to watch our pigs. One night, we turned off all lights and watched TV show quietly, suddenly, we heard the cries of the pigs. We walked lightly out of the house from the back door in order to catch him. We saw someone, from behind, bending over the wall of the pigpen, with a lighted cigarette sparking between his fingers. I thought, “Good boy, this time you are dead.” We walked up to him from behind. My son gave him a fierce hit at the back of the head with a shoulder-pole as we shouted in chorus, “Catch thief!”

 

I yelled loudly at him, “You bastard, being caught now, get up, and come to police station…” Although I yelled still, he just lay on the ground, without moving. I came close to him and discovered that he just was the gambler David of our village, dead. I broke down at a stroke. It was all up with us now. I cried, “How it could be, how you beat him to death? What shall we do now…” My son said, “I never expected he was too weak to support the hit”.

 

We were so scared. We looked tensely around, nobody here; finally, we decided to conceal the dead body in the dark night in order to weasel out of the legal obligation. We removed him into the pigpen, covered him with desiccated branches. But unfortunately, Thomas

happened to make his way to us unsteadily with a flashlight.

 

“What are you doing here?” He said. “Oh, nothing, just looking after our little pigs. ” I said. Then he started to glance round inside the pigpen. He shone his flashlight slowly along the wall, then, stopped, in a corner, he gazed on that pile of branches. Suddenly, a leg met his eye.

 

“Speak it out, what’s on earth the matter with both of you? Or else I’ll call the police.” He shouted.

 

“Oh, buddy…buddy, don’t go. I beg you. My son carelessly killed a thief who had stolen our pigs. That’s all. But he didn’t mean to, really. I beg you not to tell anybody; you know the situation of my poor family, he is the only son and we can’t stand any blow.”

 

After that I rushed home to take three thousand Yuan. I said, “Oh, my buddy, here it is. Do me a favor, please?”

 

“You expect me not tell others with this chicken feed?” He frowned.

 

Then I went back and took all the money from the bottom of the bed. “Ok, that’s all I have, 1.5 thousand. Help us, please!”

 

“All right, but how do you deal with the corpse?” he said.

 

“We may dig a hole somewhere and bury him.” I replied. He told us that we’d better take him onto a bus and get off on one of bus stops since it was too late now and there were few people. He said nobody knew that. My son and I thought that might be doable, so….

 

4. A Message from the Doctor

 

Now the peasant and his son were both put into the prison. However, one day they received a message from a legal medical expert, they were told that David died of myocardial infarction and he had been dead for about half an hour before being hit. The news extremely surprised them and the police.

 

According to the doctor’s analysis, the victim had been dead for about half an hour before he was hit; half an hour was enough to put out a cigarette. On the contrary, the cigarette was still burning when the victim was hit, so someone must have juggled things in this case.

 

The police came back to the scene of murder. They found the half-smoked cigarette and discovered some footprints deep in the road. It seemed as if someone walked with heavy things. Was it that someone carried him here? On further investigating, it was found that David went to a friend’s house for mahjong on the night of crime. The man was called Thomas.

 

5. Who Was the Real Murderer?

 

That night we were playing mahjong. We each won some money except David, who almost lost all his money. Hopelessly, David said: “This time I put my shirt on it, if I win, I’ll get more money than what I lost.” To our surprise, he really won this time; he suddenly burst into laughter, and then fell from the chair, died. Catching the sight of it, all at once everyone else dashed out of the room, disappeared into the night, only David and I left.

 

I took all his money, moved him out of my house. I just wanted to find a place to bury him. I thought to myself on the way, “David and Peter had disputed on foundations. Peter’s pigs were often stolen recently, who knows; maybe the thief is just David. I could put the blame on him, and make a sum of money,” I laughed as I thought.

 

I put David on the wall of pigsty, and put the rest of a cigarette between his fingers, in order to make him clear in the dark night. And I took a branch to hit the pig with strength, then, went into hiding.

 

When I saw Peter and his son coming out of their house, hitting and hiding David, I pretended to be a drunk and came up to them, squeezing money out of them, finally, suggesting them putting David onto bus…