“Makes sense,” Big Bao said, pushing his glasses up on his nose with his arm. “Tomorrow we can find out who the tomb belongs to. Seems like a big family—maybe they wanted to sacrifice someone.”

  There was a deep rope groove in the victim’s neck. Baking in the sun all day had turned the skin to leather. The inner surface of the victim’s eyelids was bloodshot; blood in the heart incoagulable; fingernails black and blue.

  “There are some subtle signs of resistance. There’s slight peeling where the ropes rubbed against the limbs, and the rope tied from the feet to the tree was loose; it fell off as soon as that officer touched it,” I said. “If this were BDSM, I don’t think the strangulation would be so severe.”

  The case was murky. There was no basis to infer why the killer committed the crime. Our intuition was that it was some kind of sacrifice based on some old superstition, but then there were also the robbery angle and the aborted sexual assault. Or maybe those were a diversion to confuse the investigation.

  Unable to get any more clues from the wounds, we extracted the victim’s gastrointestinal organs to determine when and what she last ate.

  Testing a victim’s intestinal contents is a rather revolting process. The forensic scientist has to scoop them out one spoonful at a time and individually analyze each of the forms. This particular stomach was all but empty. All that was left was a pasty substance.

  “Typically, it takes six hours for a person’s stomach to empty out. If she died at three in the morning, at least nine hours after dinner, her stomach would have long been empty. Since there is something in her stomach, she probably ate around midnight—noodles, bread, something dry.”

  “Well, judging by the contents of the small intestine, she didn’t eat dinner. But she probably ate lunch around one or two o’clock.” Big Bao stood over the victim’s small intestine, neatly dissected, on the autopsy table. “There’s a large empty stretch in the middle of the small intestine, which means she didn’t eat again until midnight, like you said.”

  “Most of the chyme has turned to paste,” he went on, “but there’re still some identifiable fibers, probably some meat and vegetables. Oh, tomato skin.”

  “Sounds like she was kidnapped after lunch yesterday,” Lin Tao said.

  With the autopsy complete, we were getting ready to extract the victim’s pubis to estimate her age when the officer responsible for coordination came in and said, “Chief Hu wants you to hurry to the seventh-floor conference room.”

  I looked up at the clock and sighed. “Is there a development? It’s already after eleven; we’re exhausted.”

  “There is,” the officer said with a nod. “We’ve ID’d the victim.”

  “That was fast!” I said. “Then we don’t need to test the pubis—we can leave her intact. How’d you get it?”

  “While you were doing the autopsy, our search team found the victim’s clothing on a path near the cemetery. Another team took the fork up to the abandoned brick factory and found a bag of fresh cookies along with a purse. Inside were some business cards, cheap makeup, and a wallet. There were no bank cards or money, but there were discount cards and ID.”

  “Right, right. The victim ate something like a cookie around midnight,” I said. “The bag probably did belong to her.”

  “The body’s DNA is still being analyzed and compared with the woman’s parents,” the officer said. “But toxicology test results are back. The victim didn’t take any depressants or sleeping pills.”

  “The victim didn’t resist and wasn’t drugged,” I said softly. “But she stayed with the killer in a remote place for a long time and ate cookies, even went to the cemetery and undressed and didn’t fight being tied up. How could that be?”

  23

  The victim’s name was Qi Jingjing. Jing means “calm,” and apparently her personality fit her name—quiet and introverted.

  From the victim’s relatives, friends, and colleagues, we learned that Jingjing’s father had been laid off and couldn’t find another steady job, so he’d been trying to get day-laborer gigs. Not long ago, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. The whole family’s economic burden, including the cancer treatments, fell on the shoulders of Jingjing, and the young woman worked like a maniac to support everyone.

  Jingjing worked in sales and marketing at an interior decorating company. The more she worked, the more she earned. Even though she was only twenty-one, she’d started in the industry after graduating from a technical junior high school and was already an old hand with lots of contacts in the building materials industry. In order to make extra money in her spare time, she worked as a broker. For example, if she introduced a raw materials supplier to a building materials factory, she would earn a fee.

  “With a job like that,” the lead detective said, “you’re rarely in the office, so Jingjing’s coworkers weren’t surprised when she was out all day yesterday. They all said nothing unusual had been going on with her.”

  “Based on our examination, Jingjing had never had penetrative sex,” Big Bao said. “Did the investigation turn up anything about her possibly being homosexual or asexual?”

  The detective shook his head. “No one gave us any indication of that. In fact, and you’ll be interested to hear this, on the day of the incident, she went on a blind date with a man.”

  “We checked the victim’s phone,” Chief Hu added. “She received a call around eleven a.m. on July third from her blind date, so that may be when she went. From twelve to two, there were a lot of calls. We investigated a little and found they were either clients or public phones, so no leads. Around three p.m., her phone was turned off.”

  “This blind date sounds highly suspicious,” Big Bao said. “Who is he?”

  “A businessman named Cao Zhe,” the detective said. “A couple weeks ago, he came to Dragon City to open a shop, which is now under renovation.”

  “How tall is he?” Lin Tao took out an isometric shoe print photo.

  After excluding the shoe prints of the villagers and police, Lin Tao identified several samples of the killer’s shoe print.

  “Cao Zhe’s five six,” the detective said. “Skinny.”

  “Really seems like it’s gotta be him,” Big Bao said. “But what girl just takes her clothes off? I bet the blind date was going well, then little bossman went looking for a secluded place to get romantic, but he turned out to be a pervert.”

  “The undressing wasn’t necessarily voluntary,” Hu said. “The clothes were all torn. That is, the killer cut them off with a knife.”

  “Using a knife wouldn’t necessarily be about coercion,” I said. “It could be because the body was already tied up and they couldn’t be removed in the usual way.”

  “If that’s the case, why did Qi Jingjing give in to being tied up?” Big Bao said.

  I shook my head to say I didn’t know.

  “I doubt it was Cao Zhe,” Lin Tao said. “Based on the footprints, the killer was probably about five eleven. There’s a margin of error, but not that big.”

  “I don’t think it was him either,” I said. “How could a guy who came to Dragon City just a couple weeks ago know that area so well? Know the old cemetery, know the abandoned brick factory? I’ve been living in Dragon City for years, and I didn’t know about them.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Captain Nie said. “He may have been the last person to see Jingjing, so we arrested him, and he’s currently being questioned.”

  I frowned and didn’t say anything, annoyed at the captain’s rashness.

  “You all keep at it,” Lin Tao said, apparently a little annoyed too. He looked at his watch. “Overall, this case looks like a robbery. I doubt it’s the businessman, but I’ll reserve judgment. It’s late. We’re going to call it a night.”

  When I got home late that night, my wife woke up bleary-eyed and made me a bowl of noodles. She sat down to keep me company as I stuffed my mouth.

  “So what kind of case do you think it is?” Ling Dang asked.

  “I think it could be some kind of ritual sacrifice,” I said.

  “Did you look at the inscriptions on the tomb?” she asked. “If it was a ritual, then it must have been done on some important day.”

  “Right!” I slapped the table. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that earlier. Want to go with me and have a look now?”

  “No way I’m going,” Ling Dang said, her face full of fright. “And you shouldn’t either. You need rest.”

  I laughed and gave her a kiss. “I was just kidding. The tomb isn’t going anywhere—we can look tomorrow. But that really is a good idea, my better half.”

  “The whole thing sounds terrifying.”

  Early the next morning, July 5, I got Lin Tao and Big Bao to drive with me to the scene. There were a dozen or so officers still searching for clues as I walked straight up to the tombstone where the body was found.

  The inscription read: “Li Huaxai, Martyr and Anti-Japanese Hero.”

  So it was a martyr’s box tomb built after the founding of the People’s Republic. Rumor had it Li Huaxai’s descendants had fought to keep the land as a cemetery, but the bodies were slated to be moved so developers could come in.

  “Born September 8, 1910. Died July 4, 1941.”

  I felt a shudder of excitement. “The murder took place yesterday morning. Yesterday was the fourth day of the seventh lunar month!”

  I watched Lin Tao and Big Bao shudder too.

  Lin Tao smiled and said, “Looks like we’re gonna solve this case.”

  Meanwhile, Cao Zhe’s interrogation had led nowhere. Cao Zhe said he wasn’t interested in Qi Jingjing and went home alone right after lunch.

  “The video at the entrance of the place where he’s staying confirms it,” Captain Nie said with some frustration.

  “See?” I was a little proud. “He didn’t meet the criteria for the murderer. But did you get anything useful out of him?”

  The lead detective shook his head.

  “What time did they finish eating? Did Jingjing get any calls afterward?”

  “There’s a phone not far from the restaurant that takes prepaid cards. She got one call from that number after her lunch date.”

  “People still use those cards?” I mused.

  “If you’re trying to avoid being traced,” Lin Tao said.

  “Right.” I looked to the chief and said, “The tomb the girl was tied to belongs to an anti-Japanese martyr, and she was killed on the anniversary of his death. I think you all should prioritize looking into that martyr’s family members. There’s a strong possibility that this was human sacrifice.”

  “I still don’t understand why Qi Jingjing didn’t resist,” Chief Hu said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, but this is our only lead. Chief Hu, why don’t we talk a bit about the Eleventh Finger case?”

  “Good, good, good! Talk!” Nie said in a rush. It was clear that a month without a clue was weighing on the leadership.

  “There have been some developments in the Eleventh Finger case,” Hu announced. “We were able to ID the skeleton by the side of the road.”

  “That fast?” I was amazed at their efficiency.

  “Been looking from the moment we realized it was missing a finger,” Hu said. “Asked for assistance from the neighboring provinces and cities too. What’s more, DNA testing confirmed the finger and the skeleton belonged to the same person.”

  Hu paused, then said, “The victim is Meng Xiangping, a urologist at Qingxiang City Hospital. This year, he was training in the provincial hospital. He would go back home every weekend, but on May sixteenth, he didn’t show. His wife called the police on May eighteenth.”

  “The timing is consistent with our estimate,” I said. “Xiangping died a little more than two weeks before Zuo Fangjiang. We only found Zuo Fangjiang first because his corpse was discarded downtown. So did we look into Xiangping’s activity before he died?”

  Hu nodded and said, “We did. May fourteenth, a Wednesday night, a coworker saw Xiangping in the hospital cafeteria. He was off the next day. Then, on Friday, the sixteenth, he was on call, but no one spoke to or saw him. Since he lived alone in a dorm, no one was keeping track of him until Saturday, the seventeenth, when his wife called his office.”

  “Is that all we got?”

  “Yes. There’s no way to track his movements after that point,” Hu said with regret.

  “What about his social relationships?” I pressed.

  “Nothing yet.”

  Hu looked despondent. What was the link between the two men? Why were they killed one after the other, disemboweled, and dismembered? What was the point of all this?

  “Let’s focus on the cemetery case for now,” Hu said. “We still don’t have enough clues to track down the Eleventh Finger killer.”

  My human-sacrifice theory was soon discounted.

  “I knew the date-on-the-tomb thing was a coincidence.” Captain Nie laughed, a little bitter about having been wrong about Cao Zhe. “Human sacrifice? In this day and age?”

  “How’d you rule it out?” I wasn’t fully convinced.

  “Li Huaxai’s descendants haven’t lived in Dragon City for over a year,” Nie said. “He had only one son, who already died, a grandson who’s fifty now, and a granddaughter who’s forty-seven. The two of them take care of their eighty-year-old mother in Nanjiang. According to Nanjiang City’s public security bureau, they haven’t been back to Dragon City in the last year.”

  Captain Nie signaled for the lead detective to take over.

  The detective opened his notebook and said, “All of Li Huaxai’s family moved to Nanjiang last year. His great-grandson, eighteen-year-old Li Jianguo, is attending college away from home. He comes back to Dragon City occasionally and stays with his mother’s sister. She’s raised him since he was small, and they have a good relationship.”

  “And why isn’t this Li Jianguo a suspect?” I asked. “Don’t forget, the call to Jingjing was from a prepaid card. Only college kids would still mess around with that crap.”

  “Do you even know your great-grandfather’s name?” Captain Nie asked me. “I’m talking name, not the day he died. A great-grandson, a college student, is he really gonna remember the day his great-grandfather died and murder a goddamn person for him as a sacrifice?”

  I scratched my head. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe this was just a robbery. What did Jingjing and Cao Zhe eat for lunch?”

  “Tomato, fried egg, kung pao chicken, and some vegetables,” the detective read from his pad.

  “Looks like he was telling the truth,” I said. “Consistent with what we found.”

  “Guess this investigation shows that examining stomach contents is useless,” Captain Nie said haughtily.

  “Right now, we don’t even know if the victim and killer knew each other,” Lin Tao said, trying to smooth things over. “Even if they were acquaintances, I don’t think she would just let someone tie her up and cut off her clothes.”

  “But they also would have had to know that area really well,” I said. “How many people know about the graveyard and the old brick factory?”

  “A fair number. People who live around there all know,” the detective said.

  “Too bad you need a matching sample for footprints to be useful,” Lin Tao said.

  Suddenly, a detective rushed into the room. “Jingjing’s debit card was just used to empty her account—twenty thousand yuan!”

  Captain Nie jumped up. “Did we get the thief on video?”

  The detective shook his head. “No, he was wearing a hat and glasses, so we can’t see his face clearly.”

  Captain Nie sat back down. “So you busted in here for no reason.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s still useful. First, we know some of the suspect’s physical characteristics. Second, we can be sure at least one of the motives was theft.”

  “Right, right.” The detective nodded hard. “Five eleven, well-built, carrying a shoulder bag.”

  “That’s consistent with our estimates from trace evidence,” I said, looking at Lin Tao.

  “But we still can’t narrow the scope of the investigation,” Big Bao said. “Dragon City has seven million people. How are we gonna find him?”

  “Let’s go back over the body and see if we find something new,” I said.

  “Without new developments in the Eleventh Finger case, we don’t have much to do,” Chief Hu whispered to me as we left the conference room. “Other than going back to the autopsy room, what else can be done on this case?”

  I thought a second, then said, “The periphery search already gave us all the clues it could from Jingjing’s belongings. So now we have to do the same for what the perp was carrying.”

  Hu lowered his head in thought.

  “Those bags of cookies,” I prompted.

  “Yes, right,” Hu said.

  “So, check out the bags. See where they came from, where they’re usually sold.”

  Hu nodded and said, “I’ll tell the captain to have his men take a look. Maybe there are fingerprints or something.”

  “Our perp knows a lot about criminal investigation,” I said. “He knew to wear a hat and glasses to withdraw the money. I doubt he’d leave fingerprints on the cookie bags. My recommendation is to start with the cookie manufacturer.”

  “Good idea,” Hu said, turning to leave.

  I looked at Big Bao. “Okay, let’s get moving.”

  Lin Tao had gone ahead of us to the autopsy room. When we arrived, he said, “I just tested the victim’s bag and wallet and didn’t find anyone else’s marks, not even glove smudges. There’re only the victim’s fingerprints. I think she may have given her money and bank card to the killer.”

  “That leaves two possibilities. One, they knew each other,” I said, “or two, she was threatened.”

  “Like I’ve been saying, the victim didn’t put up much resistance, maybe out of fear,” Big Bao said. “We know Jingjing was a timid person.”