The Crazy Truth
Twenty-one days after the hedgehog vanished, Hal and I pinned down Vince at a long-distance bus station and found an 18cm hedgehog plushie on him.
I've seen vicious killers who nearly sent me to the afterlife during arrest. I've seen pathological liars who required triple espresso to interrogate. I've seen clueless juveniles who still smiled when discussing case details.
But Vince left a lasting impression.
I still can't forget that interrogation, and the rage I couldn't suppress.
Vince sat in the interrogation chair, his curtain of bangs obscuring his eyes. He picked at his fingernails, flicking away the grime. I held up Linda's photo for identification. Vince lifted his gaze and suddenly smiled.
"She was my woman."
That was Vince's opening line.
"On October 14th, where were you?"
That was my standard opening.
Vince scoffed and shook his head. "I know what you want to ask."
"Good," I set down Linda's photo and crossed my arms. "Your fingerprints match the scene, and the saliva on the victim's been confirmed by DNA. This is an open-and-shut case. You're not getting away. Talk."
"You don't think dying by my hand was the best outcome for her? I kept her from becoming a whore."
Vince kept shifting in his seat, but his eyes stayed glued to the photo. "She was the most beautiful, the purest woman I'd ever seen. When she posted photos on that social app, I fell for her. Other women only sell their bodies and flirt—any man can get cozy with them—but she was clean, different from all those sluts."
Vince harbored a twisted obsession for Linda.
He described every detail of her online presence with eerie precision: when she changed her bio, which days her selfies were playful and which days she seemed troubled, what lyrics she shared on Valentine's Day and what they meant, how happy she looked when receiving gifts... He even knew her punctuation habits.
"She was my goddess. I thought about her every day, wanted to chat with her, wanted to send her chocolates..." Vince gazed at Linda's photo with obsessive devotion, then shifted abruptly. "But on July 15th—I remember it clearly—she disappeared. I couldn't find her anywhere. She vanished from the platform without telling me. I spent over half a month trying everything, and when I finally found her, she'd changed."
Vince asked me if I knew what despair felt like.
I told him to cut the crap and confess.
"She changed. She became like all the other materialistic women—not just wanting gifts, but demanding flowers and paid livestream rankings. Any man with money, she'd chat with him. I didn't want her calling other men 'honey,' so I spent thirty thousand in one night! Every day I sent her gifts and red envelopes. Whatever she wanted, I'd sell my own pots and pans to buy it. Two hundred and eighty thousand... I spent two hundred and eighty thousand on her. All my money, my old man's pension, my grandmother's medical money... just to keep her from becoming a whore!"
From goddess to slut—Vince found justification for degrading Linda, convinced he had the right to own a woman he deemed cheap and dirty.
"I gave her everything I had, and she still wanted more—she had to go beg other men for money. What did that make me? I spent two hundred and eighty thousand on her, and she took my money to travel abroad, but wouldn't be with me? I couldn't understand it... I needed to confront her."
I swallowed my impatience. "How did you find her address?"
Vince smiled, his gaze drifting as if reliving when Linda was still his goddess.
"Once, she posted photos from a really fancy hotel restaurant, saying how good the buffet was. I searched—that was the only location. Another time, she went to a book club event, said it was her first time, and that the venue was close to home. I looked it up online—find out which bookstore hosted the event, and you narrow down where she lives. And once, she took a selfie with flowers on her balcony, and I could see the name of the mall across the street. So I came to find her."
Linda didn't even know Vince. How could she have reasoned with him?
The first time, Vince staked out near Riverside Gardens and startled Linda. She denied knowing him, said she'd never taken his money, and told him to stop harassing her or she'd call the police.
Vince wanted to attack her then, but there were too many people near the complex entrance.
"I don't get it. She changed—who knows how many men she'd slept with for money—and I still wanted her, but she claimed she didn't know me?"
Unable to process the rejection, Vince returned to his cheap motel, grew increasingly angry, and posted Linda's photos on an online forum asking netizens to help locate her. He lied that his girlfriend had cheated on him, was living with another man, and was spending his money on a younger lover.
Netizens were outraged. Vince soon had Linda's exact address. On the day of the murder, Vince brought a knife and rang her doorbell. Linda, probably thinking it was her delivery, opened the door without checking the peephole.
"She tried to shut the door when she saw it was me. I forced my way in, held the knife to her, and asked if she was determined to be a whore. She kept saying she didn't know me and threatened to call the police. How dare she call the police? I gave her two hundred and eighty thousand!"
At the height of his agitation, Vince slammed the table.
I couldn't hold back either—I slammed my palm on the desk and pointed at him. "Don't act tough with me! Just state the facts!"
Vince glared at me, finally rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. "I was so angry I stabbed her a few times. If she could sleep with men for money, why not with me? I told her I could pay—it was her screams that scared me. I thought the neighbors would hear, so I slashed her throat. I'd just started pulling off my pants when the doorbell rang. Her phone rang too. I figured someone had heard, so I held still. When the doorbell stopped, I cleaned my hands, grabbed my clothes, and walked out. There was a delivery bag at the door, so I took that too. I'd spent all my money trying to find her—I wasn't leaving without her."
"Without her—meaning without the hedgehog plushie."
Mentor had been right all along. The hedgehog wasn't just a stuffed toy. It was a birthday gift from Jay, and Linda practically clutched it everywhere—it appeared in nearly every selfie. Vince had noticed this small, intimate detail and fixated on it.
If it were anyone else, they would have taken the phone, the wallet, the jewelry—anything of value. But Vince took only the hedgehog because to him, it was Linda's most precious possession.
He wanted to make Linda his, but Linda fought back and screamed, destroying his fantasy. So he grabbed the hedgehog—if he couldn't have the woman, he'd have the thing she held dearest.
I couldn't look at his sickening face anymore.
"Case closed. Take him away."
Vince was dragged off, still babbling about being Linda's one true love.
I told Mentor, "I want to go home."
Mentor patted my shoulder and said, "Good job today."
I didn't feel like I'd done a good job. Outside the interrogation room, I saw Jay sitting alone on a bench, clinging to a hedgehog plushie that was still stained with blood, silently weeping.
I walked past him without a word.