Case Files 013

Chapter 15: Dog Carrying a Human Head

What is love that humans would relinquish life and death for it.

Love is always something people yearn after, it symbolizes purity, beauty and kindness. But what if this proclamation of everlasting love was written on a grey wall in blood?

That was the situation Gu Chen and I found ourselves in at a building project. The apartment building had 30 storeys in total and the bloody Chinese love poem was left on the 15th floor, right in the middle. The building had no elevator so when poor old me reached the crime scene, I was about to cough out my own blood. The project was halted because there was an issue with budget. They were halfway through the construction when they realized they ran out of money so everything stopped. Ol' Zhang had been working here for more than a month already. His daily job was to prevent people from sneaking in to steal the abandoned building materials. This building site was where he slept, ate and lived. Even though the contractor had run out of budget, they were still able to afford someone like Ol' Zhang.

Yesterday night, Ol' Zhang killed yet another dog. He realized there had been an increase in the number of stray dogs and cats recently. Perhaps because the site was large and abandoned, it had become a heaven for the strays. They could have easily slipped in through the fence. Ol' Zhang was a dog-eater, in fact he had devised a system to source this specific kind of meat. Ol' Zhang would stay away from those with collars or came from an expensive breed, because clearly, they were someone's pets. Speaking of which, Ol' Zhang had some problems understanding the lengths that people had gone to pamper this species of animal that he saw as nothing more than sourced meat. One time, he was on the bus when he saw a young woman hugging a pet dog wearing clothes. On top of that, she was feeding it milk from a bottle too! She probably did not treat her own child that well. Ol' Zhang felt like he was being bulldozed by the wheel of time.

Ol' Zhang though minded his own business, all he cared about was his own livelihood. And Ol' Zhang showed no mercy towards stray dogs. The stray cats should consider themselves lucky because their meat was sour. Ol' Zhang used old ham to attract the stray dogs and then used his own makeshift club to smash into their canine heads. Ol' Zhang was almost 70 already but he was still as strong as an ox. The dog brain would often splatter with a swing. After that, Ol' Zhang would use his knife to skin his prey. The dog meat was cooked with other spices and they all ended up inside Ol' Zhang's stomach.

In fact, when we received Ol' Zhang's report and arrived at the building site, we were greeted by sheets of dog skin and piles of dog bones beside Ol' Zhang's temporary tent. The ground was stained black with blood and colonies of flies were buzzing around them. This abandoned site was Ol' Zhang's kingdom until yesterday night when he discovered an infiltrator.

Ol' Zhang's job description involved him patrolling each floor of the 30 storey building every night, this was the rules given by his boss. Honestly though, even if Ol' Zhang skipped the work, no one would have known. However Ol' Zhang still completed his duty every night, not because he was a responsible person, because he needed to care for his stomach. Ol' Zhang set dog traps at different spots of the building and his nightly patrol was basically him collecting his snares.

Ol' Zhang was doing his rounds like usual yesterday night but this time Ol' Zhang caught not a dog but a person. The person got their feet tangled into a rope trap Ol' Zhang set up near the first floor stairwell. When Ol' Zhang was about to approach the person, the latter had just struggled loose from Ol' Zhang's rope snare. Ol' Zhang had no idea what this person was doing at this place so late at night. He was about to give the person a scolding when the person leaped up and ran. In the dark, Ol' Zhang did not get a good look at the person. He only knew the person was young and around 1.7 metres tall. He did not even know whether the person was female or male.

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Ol' Zhang was about to shrug it off, thinking it was just a petty thief who was dumb enough to fall into his dog trap. However, at that moment, Ol' Zhang heard something moving in the empty corridor above him. Ol' Zhang shone his flashlight upwards and saw nothing. However, Ol' Zhang definitely heard the sound, it was a dripping sound.

The chill wind blew. The building site was dark, supplying electricity to power the lights would cost more than Ol' Zhang's monthly salary. Definitely the contractor would not do that. Therefore, the only source of light was Ol' Zhang's old flashlight. Ol' Zhang took a step back to inspect the building from a larger picture, the dark windows looked like monster eyes. Ol' Zhang was afraid but he still decided to go take a look. That's why they say curiosity kills the cat. Ol' Zhang took the step one by one. In the silent night, the only sound he heard was the echoes of his own footsteps. Ol' Zhang moved slowly but eventually he reached the 15th floor.

When he reached the 15th floor, Ol' Zhang was hit by a heavy smell of blood. He used his flashlight to look around and saw that someone had written something on the wall. Ol' Zhang was illiterate. He didn't even know how to write his own name. His parents died when he was young and he had never been to a day of school. However, Ol' Zhang was a student from the school of life. The person that he encountered earlier was probably a vagrant, one of those graffiti artists. Even though Ol' Zhang had no artistic cell in his body at all, he still leaned closer to study the characters that he could not understand. As he approached, his leg knocked into something and he immediately aimed his flashlight at it.

The light revealed a pail, the blood inside had splashed everywhere. Ol' Zhang quickly righted the pail, this pail was something Ol' Zhang could recognize. Due to his background, Ol' Zhang never wasted food. As a master dog-catcher, Ol' Zhang was also a master at preparing food using all parts of the dog. After eating the dog meat, he would reserve the dog's blood to make blood tofu. When it came to cooking with dogs, Ol' Zhang was a self-made expert. He normally used this pail to store dog blood. Ol' Zhang cursed loudly at the young individual who had stolen his food ingredient to use as painting ink and left this unrecognizable scrawl on the wall. Concluding the whole incident as a minor nuisance, he carried the pail of blood and returned to his tent.

On his way back, Ol' Zhang couldn't help dipping his finger into the pail to taste the blood. When he placed his finger into his mouth though, Ol Zhang froze to the spot. The day after, Ol' Zhang decided to call the police and the first thing he said was, "I've tasted human blood."

That was how Gu Chen and I ended up here, greeted by this love poem on the wall. It was confirmed that the writer used fresh blood because there were dried blood trails that flowed down the wall. However, we couldn't make the fast judgment that this was human blood purely based on Ol' Zhang's statement, it still needed to be tested at the lab.

"I don't know whether this is supposed to be romantic or crazy." Gu Chen commented.

"Officers, come down please!" Ol' Zhang shouted from outside the building, "This is bad, there's a dog holding a human head in its mouth!"

A dog holding a human head in its mouth?

We stood at the 15th floor and looked down. A Husky was strolling through the streets with indeed a human head in its jaw. The head belonged to a female, her long hair covered her features so her face couldn't be seen clearly. The neck stump was not dripping, so her blood had already dried. The side of the woman's head was caved in like it was hit by blunt force trauma. The citizens were traumatized so much so that they forgot to scream. When the owner of the Husky saw her pet come back with the head, her mouth fell open. She threw out a frisbee for her dog to fetch, she was not expecting a human head to return instead.

"What the!" Seeing the human head in the dog's mouth, I couldn't help but gasp, "What in the world is happening?" When Gu Chen and I arrived downstairs, the Husky's female owner was slumped down on the ground. She was in a state of shock. The people around finally started to scream. I shouted over them. "We're with the police, please stay away. Hurry and get the head out from the dog's jaws." I told Gu Chen who was still reeling from shock.

"How do you expect me to do that?" Gu Chen groused.

"I don't know, but do something, it's contaminating the evidence!"

Gu Chen tried many different ideas but the Husky refused to let go without an order from its owner, which was of no help to us. Seeing as the crowd was gathering, Gu Chen decided that it was time for desperate measure. He jumped at the Husky and wrestled with the large dog. This was definitely not something you'd see every day. Thankfully Gu Chen was a trained officer and he ultimately managed to wrangle the human head off the dog. I removed my shirt, wrapped the head in it and jumped into the car.

"The moving sound that Ol' Zhang heard last night probably came from this human head." I told Gu Chen.

With great discomfiture, Gu Chen tried to imagine what I was suggesting, "In other words, that youngster sneaked into this abandoned site at night with a decapitated head and used it to write a love poem on the wall?" Well, that was chilling to think about.

In the dark night, someone sneaked into the site with a decapitated human head. They stole Ol' Zhang's pail, and placed the human head inside it. They moved up the stairs and slithered through the darkness. When they reached the 15th floor, they took the human head out and used it as a pen of sorts, to write down the love proclamation on the wall.

About that time, Ol' Zhang was setting up his dog trap. So when the writer descended the stairs, they stepped into Ol' Zhang's trap.

Logically speaking, that sounded correct but if I was to place myself in the culprit's shoes, I couldn't explain a lot of things. I see myself as a passionate and calm poet, I would never panic from falling into a dog catcher's trap. So who was that young person from yesterday night and who was the actual writer?

"Why are you barechested?" Xiao Liu asked when he asked me. "And what is that wrapped inside your shirt? It looks round like a watermelon! It has to be one! It's the perfect summer dessert!" Xiao Liu followed me into Captain Zhao's office. "Let me show you how to cut a watermelon, I'm an expert at this." Xiao Liu moved to unwrap the shirt.

"What the fuck?! This, this is a human head!"