Dead Men Tell No Tales

Fan Zhen scanned her husband's face for signs of trouble as he descended from the prison bus. He'd seemed nervous lately and had complained of threats against him. But now hope had surfaced once again. After repeated denials, prison authorities in Harbin, near the Russian border, had announced that Fan's husband, Zhu Shengwen, would be home by the Lunar New Year, granted medical parole after seven years in jail. All that remained were some medical exams that Zhu, who suffered from hypertension, was scheduled to undergo on the afternoon of Dec. 29, the day of Fan's visit. As a guard watched,...