A Grand Game of Chess
Finn Carter, his face flushed red, said, "There's nothing to hide, and it's not really a secret either. It's my dad—he had another seizure a while back, a pretty bad one. We took him to the hospital, and the doctor wanted him to get some scans done, but it was way too expensive. We couldn't afford it. So I mentioned it to my aunt."
Marcus Shaw said nothing.
"She took out two thousand right then and there and shoved it into my hands. I told her I couldn't accept it—that she didn't earn money easily either. She said it was fine, that saving a life came first, and insisted I take it, wouldn't take no for an answer. So I told her, alright, I'll treat it as a loan from you, and I'll pay you back as soon as I get my wages. Before I left, she even gave me a folk remedy—said she'd asked around for me. Said if you stew sheep brain with wolfberries and eat it twice a week, the seizures won't come as often."
Marcus Shaw frowned. "When your dad had his seizure, why didn't you tell me?"
Finn Carter lowered his head. "You've already helped me so much. I didn't want to be more of a burden."
Marcus Shaw smothered the fire rising in his chest and asked, "Is he better now?"
Finn Carter hesitated, unsure how to answer.
"I mean your dad."
"Oh, oh yeah, he had two rounds of scans, and he's been eating the sheep brain too. Much better, pretty stable now."
Marcus Shaw was quiet for a moment, then said, "During your conversation with her, did you ever step away?"
Finn Carter thought about it and said, "No, I don't think I did." Then, a moment later, he corrected himself. "Actually, wait—I did leave for a little bit. My boss called me to the storeroom to help him sort tires. But just for a little bit, just two or three minutes."
Marcus Shaw's face hardened.
Finn Carter's eyes went wide. "It was her?"
Marcus Shaw said nothing.
"How is that possible? She's such a good person. How could she hurt you? Are you sure you haven't got it wrong?"
Marcus Shaw still didn't answer.
As he was leaving, Marcus Shaw reached for his pants pocket, but Finn Carter immediately said, "Uncle, no need, I still have enough to get by. You're all like this—it makes me feel like a burden."
Marcus Shaw pulled his hand back and asked, "Really enough?"
Finn Carter smiled. "If I'm really running short, I'll come borrow from you."
Marcus Shaw patted him on the shoulder. "That's a promise, then."
He'd barely taken two steps when Finn Carter called after him again. "Hey, um, should I be calling you Uncle or Brother? I can't quite figure it out."
Marcus Shaw zoned out for a second before turning his head. "Either's fine. Either's fine."
---
He'd barely gotten back to the station and was about to organize his materials to report to Captain Harris when he spotted Lucas Lutz hovering outside the door, eyes darting inside.
"What are you doing?"
Lucas Lutz didn't say anything, his expression odd. He tilted his head, signaling Marcus Shaw to step outside.
Marcus Shaw followed him to the conference room and watched as he mysteriously closed the door behind them. "What's going on?"
Lucas Lutz didn't answer. He pointed at a chair, telling him to sit.
Marcus Shaw sat down. Lucas Lutz remained standing, glancing out the door twice more before wringing his hands and saying, slowly, "I—I—I want to confess something to you. A mistake."
Marcus Shaw tilted his head and looked at him.
"That time when you were monitoring Dominic Hale's phone and rushed over there, but he got away—that was—that was me. I tipped him off."
Marcus Shaw slammed the table and stood up. "It was you?"
Lucas Lutz lowered his head as far as it would go. "It was me, it was me, all my fault. But I had my reasons—can you hear me out first?"
Marcus Shaw sat back down, forcing patience. "Fine. Let's hear what reasons you could possibly have."
Lucas Lutz's face was crestfallen. "I was being blackmailed."
He pulled out his phone and found a text message to show Marcus Shaw: "Your master's thesis and your professional title paper were both plagiarized from foreign literature, with a 30.8% duplication rate. I have already compiled the evidence. As long as you do one thing for me, I will not report you."
Marcus Shaw frowned.
"There's another one after that."
Marcus Shaw kept reading: "I want you to monitor Marcus Shaw's every move until he identifies a suspect's phone number, and it appears he is taking this very seriously. If he attempts to trace the location, you must find a way to notify that person in advance to keep them from being caught by Marcus Shaw. And send that number to my email: KGGGKCFDF@163.COM."
No wonder Lucas Lutz had shown up at the Technical Division that day too.
Lucas Lutz said, "After you left, I used the division's virtual dialing software to send a text to Dominic Hale. I was afraid of getting caught, so I quickly deleted the outgoing record."
Marcus Shaw's face was livid, but he said nothing.
Lucas Lutz hurriedly sat down across from him and said, "My family isn't well off, you know that. My parents sacrificed a lot to put me through school—it wasn't easy. I had to make something of myself."
Marcus Shaw threw his phone onto the desk. "So you plagiarized your thesis? And now you think you're justified?"
Lucas Lutz's face scrunched up. "Come on, those papers are all just people copying each other—you know that as well as I do. I was afraid of getting caught, so I specifically copied from foreign sources. But I didn't expect someone would still find out. Who do you think this person is?"
Marcus Shaw figured it had to be Vera Magnus. She'd been using Dominic Hale as cover to buy herself more time—of course she didn't want him caught too quickly.
Marcus Shaw suddenly remembered: the day they picked up Finn Carter, she'd stood in the station corridor, studying the contacts list for ages. She must have been memorizing Lucas Lutz's number—and probably not just his either.
What scheming. What an elaborate game of chess.
Marcus Shaw snapped back. Lucas Lutz was still babbling: "I didn't think it was a big deal. If we didn't catch him this time, there'd always be a next time. You're so capable—you'd get him eventually. What else was I supposed to do? The person only asked me to do this one thing. If I didn't, I'd be destroying my own future." He pushed up his glasses and waited for Marcus Shaw's reaction.
Marcus Shaw didn't feel like talking. He didn't even look at him, just exhaled sharply through his nose.
Lucas Lutz, face reddening, pressed on: "Can you be the bigger person and help me cover this up? Dominic Hale's dead, but his phone is still in your hands. Doesn't it have the text I sent? Won't they trace it back to me sooner or later? You saved me once—do me this favor too, won't you? See it through?"
Marcus Shaw slammed the table again and roared, "You've got some nerve saying that with a straight face! I saved you once, and this is how you repay me? Did it ever occur to you—if I'd caught Dominic Hale sooner, if I'd cracked the case sooner, maybe we could've gotten to Vera Magnus earlier, and she wouldn't have had time for what came next, and maybe Mikey wouldn't be dead?"
Marcus Shaw's eyes were red, the muscles in his face twitching.
Lucas Lutz shrank into his chair, too scared to speak, as Marcus Shaw kicked his chair aside and stormed toward the door.
As Marcus Shaw pulled the door shut, Lucas Lutz said in a small voice, "I repaid kindness with ingratitude. I'm sorry."
Marcus Shaw couldn't be bothered with him. He went to report what he'd found to Captain Harris and moved to issue a citywide wanted notice.
---
The wanted notice had been issued.
Captain Harris was stunned. He said someone this dangerous had to be brought in as soon as possible. Then he headed to the sub-bureau to figure out how to report the situation to the Municipal Bureau and the Provincial Department.
That night, Marcus Shaw stayed at the station, reorganizing the Dominic Hale case file. He kept only items one, seven, and eleven, and moved everything else under Vera Magnus's name.
With this restructuring, the previous inconsistencies finally clicked into place.
Marcus Shaw added the motive, reconstructed the details of the method, read through everything a few times, and felt the logic was sound. Now they just needed Vera Magnus in custody.
Once he finished, Marcus Shaw stood and stretched, then made himself a cup of instant noodles. He'd barely taken a couple of bites when he found himself missing the noodles Nora made for him, and that never-changing fried egg. He quickly pulled out his phone and called her: "I sent you an MMS—it's the wanted poster for the killer. Memorize that face, you and Mom. Watch out for her."
Nora was quiet for a moment before saying yes.
"And I'm not home—so keep the doors and windows locked. Lock the deadbolt on the security door too."
"Don't worry, honey. I've learned my lesson."
Marcus Shaw wanted to say more, but he felt how powerless words could be—saying too much would only add to the helplessness. So he swallowed the rest.
After hanging up, Marcus Shaw wolfed down the rest of the noodles, and was about to drink some of the broth when Nora called back.
"How... how is it her?" Her voice was trembling.
"What, you know her?"
"She used to sweep the floors at our school."
"About when?"
"A year ago."
A year ago? Marcus Shaw's heart jolted. That was right around the time Mikey was killed.
"She always had a smile on her face. Loved greeting people. She even chatted with me—said she liked the work, not too tiring, and the boss was decent. But after a month, she left. No idea why."
"She chatted with you?"
"Yeah, she liked asking about other people's families." Nora suddenly went quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was thick with tears. "I remember now. Before Mikey's accident, she struck up a conversation with me one time. She was watering the plants, and as we talked, I mentioned Mikey—said my brother-in-law also liked plants and the outdoors... Oh my god—it was her, wasn't it?"
Marcus Shaw said steadily, "It was. It really was her."
The sound of muffled crying came through the phone.
"The day I came to bring you your medicine—she must have been right across the street, running that food cart. No wonder when I was hailing a cab, she kept turning her body away so I couldn't see her face."
"Honey, don't cry. This isn't your fault. When someone sets their mind to doing harm, you can never be on guard enough. They'll always find a way to get their information."
After he hung up, Marcus Shaw felt his temples throbbing. He touched his forehead—he was sweating. He dug through his bag for his pills, but couldn't find them. Then he remembered: exactly because he hadn't been taking them lately, he must have left the bottle at home. So he poured out the instant noodle broth and drank a few mouthfuls of cold water instead.
The way Nora had called him "honey" bounced around inside him like a rubber ball, ricocheting off his insides, occasionally grazing his heart and making him flinch.
After a while, it hit him again: that time beside the cold noodle stand, he had taken his medication while no one was looking and tossed the pill bottle into the trash. Vera Magnus must have picked it out.
Which meant the anonymous letters he'd been receiving all along—those were her handiwork too.
She wanted him to break mentally as well.
---
The next morning, Marcus Shaw traced Vera Magnus's ID to a small inn.
The owner said, "She stayed long-term, almost a year. Left last week. Still has some things she hasn't collected."
The room was at the very end of the corridor. One of the hallway lights had burned out, and the further in you walked, the darker it got—just like Unit 5 back then. The owner followed behind, explaining, "My husband's been away the last couple days. He'll replace it when he gets back."
"Aren't you worried guests will walk into the wrong room?"
"Not likely. Only long-term tenants stay on this wing. They could find their own rooms in the pitch black."
He switched on the light. It was blinding.