Now that it had been frozen awhile, the body showed clearer signs of damage. The nail marks on the forearms had started to turn blue. Encouraging.

  I dissected the forearms and found indisputable subcutaneous hemorrhaging—the victim had been restrained while alive.

  “The victim has constraint injuries,” I announced.

  “Craniotomy next?” Big Bao inquired.

  I nodded and used a scalpel to slice through the skin on the scalp. Dark blood immediately poured out. I grabbed a basin to catch it.

  “How is there blood coming from under the skin?” Big Bao asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s not coming from under the skin—it’s subgaleal bleeding. The scalp is dense; even if it bled, it would be very limited. This is coming from the subgaleal layer—the loose part that allows our scalps to slide around on our skull. Once it starts bleeding, it bleeds a lot.”

  Because the victim’s subgaleal bleeding was mostly toward the top of the head, which didn’t appear on the CT scan, and we’d been focused on the intracranial hemorrhage and skull fracture, we hadn’t known about it until now.

  “How can there be a subgaleal hemorrhage? Isn’t that usually caused by hair pulling?” Big Bao asked.

  I didn’t answer as I separated the subgaleal layer from the scalp until the scalp was flipped down over the forehead wound. The skull fracture had cracks coming off it like spokes.

  I used a magnifying glass to examine them. “I’m more and more convinced this is a murder case.”

  Lin Tao peered over my shoulder. “Why?”

  “Look, the victim’s forehead fracture has several central points, and the spokes are interrupted by other primary fractures.”

  “The fracture lines being interrupted,” Big Bao explained, “means the victim’s skull was struck repeatedly. You can’t fall and hit your head in the same spot more than once.”

  “Even if it wasn’t an accident, it could still be suicide,” Lin Tao said. “Like if he repeatedly hit himself with something.”

  I shook my head. “We have to consider the injuries all together. Like Big Bao said, a subgaleal hematoma is usually only caused by the hair being pulled.”

  “So,” Big Bao added, “looking at the two wounds together, someone probably pulled the victim’s hair and threw him to the ground. That would result in deceleration of the head that could cause a contrecoup injury.”

  Lin Tao nodded, then shook his head. “But why would the killer not finish him off? Disposing of a living body doesn’t make sense, does it? Also, why was there only one pair of shoe prints?”

  I waved off Lin Tao’s questions. “Don’t worry. I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I’ve basically figured it out. Now that my suspicions have been confirmed by the autopsy, I’ll explain it to the whole task force.”

  “Playing hard to get again.” Lin Tao pouted, puffing out his lip.

  I smiled. “Don’t touch that dial.”

  I stood behind the podium in the task force room, shining a laser pointer at autopsy photos on the screen. Big Bao sat nearby, controlling the slide show.

  “Based on the autopsy,” I said, “we have concluded that someone wrestled the victim to the ground, grabbed his hair with both hands, and slammed his head repeatedly into the ground, causing serious injury.”

  “You still haven’t answered my questions,” Lin Tao whined.

  “You’re right. Well, injuries like this would have made the victim lose consciousness, which the killer probably mistook for death. That shows the killer was very flustered.”

  “That’s not the key issue,” Lin Tao said impatiently. “Why are there footprints from only the victim, not the killer?”

  “Are you certain they’re the victim’s?”

  “Of course! There was only one pair of footprints at the scene. If they weren’t the victim’s, how did he get there? Flew? Carried by a ghost?”

  “Probably not a ghost, but couldn’t a person have carried the victim?” I said.

  Lin Tao was perplexed for a second, then said to himself, “Oh right.”

  “According to my analysis, after the killer thought the victim was dead, he threw the victim over his shoulder like a sack and carried him to a remote location.”

  I mimed picking up Big Bao, even though I definitely couldn’t.

  “Since he was in a coma, his head and feet were dangling. As a result, the blood from the victim’s forehead wound flowed toward his hairline. Since the crime was committed indoors, not in the marsh, the front of the victim’s shirt didn’t get muddy. And this explains what the two people who called in the crime saw! The victim’s body would have blocked the killer’s head, so in the moonlight, the two looked like one huge, headless figure.”

  “How do you know the attack took place indoors?” a detective asked.

  “Because of the shirt,” I said. “And also, there was only one set of shoe prints. If the victim was killed indoors, he wouldn’t have been wearing shoes, and the killer would have walked away from the pond without shoes.”

  “If the victim was carried like that, wouldn’t his blood drip on the ground?” Lin Tao asked.

  “Forehead wounds bleed relatively little, so if some blood fell into wet mud, it wouldn’t be visible,” I said.

  “Then why did the prints make it look like the person was lost in phantom disorientation or whatever?” the detective asked. “Did the killer have that, maybe?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “If the killer really was disoriented, he wouldn’t have thought to keep carrying the body, just dropped it. My guess is the killer was searching for a safe place to discard the body, but panic made him indecisive. Then, when the high school kids shouted, he got scared and dumped the body near the pond he’d passed earlier. Since we didn’t find wounds on the back, the victim was probably placed very softly on the ground, which would take some effort. That’s when the killer’s shoes got stuck in the mud.”

  “But if he left the scene without shoes, why didn’t we see any barefoot prints on-site?” Lin Tao said.

  “Because the killer was wearing socks. We know there’s a little path from the main road to the center of the reed marsh. I think the killer probably left some faint sock prints on that path when he got away. And then the first responders barreled up the path and covered up those prints, which is why you didn’t find them.”

  “That’s perfectly possible,” Lin Tao said, glowing. “It’s a big area, sock prints are faint, and we were looking for characteristic marks like sole patterns, so we really could have missed them.”

  “Does this clear up everyone’s doubts about it being a murder?” I asked.

  Everyone nodded.

  “Virtuosic, Qin. Everything they say about you is true, but now we’ve got a goddamn murder to solve!” Secretary Zhao laughed. “So, you wanna help us out with a profile of the criminal?”

  “Of course. It’s his godson, Xie Hao.”

  “Oh? Based on what?”

  “First, the killer was flustered after the crime and rushed to get rid of the body. Especially if it was done indoors, the killer was likely close with the victim. Second, the killer placed the body gently on the shore even though it would be better hidden in the water, which indicates emotional attachment. Third, Xie Hao was strangely eager to cremate the body and tried to refuse an autopsy. Fourth, the victim didn’t have other family, and our investigation hasn’t turned up any problematic social or business relationships at all. Someone with a simple life like that—the killer can’t be far.”

  Secretary Zhao nodded in approval. “Let’s nail that asshole. Thinks he can murder his father in my district! So the scene of the crime is Xia Hao’s home?”

  “Seems likely,” I said. “I think we have to do two things next: first, conduct a secret search of Xie Hao’s home, and second, ask Xie Hao’s friends to confirm whether or not the shoes found on-site belong to him.”

  While officers detained the stocky Xie Hao at the brick kiln, we employed Lin Tao’s lock-picking skills to enter Xie Hao’s home.

  It was a single-family cottage. Xie Qingong knew Xie Hao liked peace and quiet, so he’d spent a lot of money to buy him this house outside of town.

  There were granite tile floors, solid wood furniture, and chic decor.

  “Where should we start?” Big Bao asked.

  “If your father was visiting, he’d probably be in the living room. Let’s start there.”

  The seams between the granite tiles were all chalk white, but I found some marked with black.

  “Bao, check this out. I bet you a bowl of beef noodles this is human blood,” I said.

  “Bet or not, I say it isn’t,” Big Bao said.

  A quick tetramethylbenzidine test came up positive.

  “All right, dinner’s on you again!”

  Big Bao was excited too. “Hey, case closed! I’ll buy you all the noodles you want.”

  44

  In addition to traces of the victim’s blood, we found evidence of cleaning. And employees at the brick kiln identified the shoes we’d found at the scene as Xie Hao’s, not Xie Qingong’s.

  Xie Hao tried to hold out, but after a few hours locked in an interrogation room with the bulldog-like Secretary Zhao, he was reduced to a sniveling mess.

  “I loved my father, I know he didn’t have an easy time raising me, and he gave me a better life.”

  “Then why’d you kill him?” Zhao asked.

  “He was so stingy and indecisive. That’s why we could never grow the brick business. I told him so many times: Put some more money into it; no matter how much we produce, it’ll all get sold. But he always refused, refused, refused. He was the legal owner, so I couldn’t do anything. I just wanted to get more business; that’s it.”

  “So you killed him?”

  “Two nights ago, he came to eat at my house, and I told him, ‘Dad, you’re sick, and medicine is expensive. With our current production capacity, we barely make enough to cover it. We have to expand production.’ But for some reason—maybe he forgot to take his medicine—he started to hit me. So I reacted. It was self-defense!”

  “Listen, you disgusting little ingrate,” Zhao snarled. “I know you’re feeling very, very guilty right now. But don’t you dare bullshit me. Self-defense, my ass.”

  Xie Hao put his head down and started to cry. “Okay, fine. He really did start to hit me, but he wasn’t that strong. I grabbed his hands fast and wrestled him down. Then he cursed at me, calling me a son of a bitch and saying I wasn’t really his kid. I got mad and grabbed his hair and hit his head on the floor. I really didn’t think he’d die or anything. I really didn’t.”

  “How did you know he was dead?”

  “I checked whether he was breathing—he wasn’t.”

  “Idiot. If breathing is really weak, you can’t feel it with your fingers. Another mind ruined by television,” Big Bao said with a sigh from the other side of the two-way mirror as we watched the interrogation.

  Under the interrogation room lights, Xie Hao went on. “I was so scared, didn’t know what to do. I grabbed him and took off. I thought walking around the reed marsh would calm me down.”

  I tapped Lin Tao and Big Bao on the shoulder. “Let’s go home. Zhao’s got this covered.”

  “Missing that little wife of yours?” Lin Tao said.

  “You know it,” I said happily.

  45

  In recent years, most county police forces around the country had built their own autopsy rooms, which greatly improved our working conditions.

  Once autopsy rooms became common, open-air autopsies became rare, and doing an autopsy at a hospital morgue even rarer. And thank goodness, because those were worse. The cold and roaring AC unit made the room like an icy coffin. Even grimmer, you were surrounded by bodies covered in sheets, and if you didn’t pay attention, you might bump into one and reveal a pair of eyes or a pale hand.

  Whenever I did an autopsy at the morgue, I felt watched.

  I imagined the bodies saying, So that’s how y’all do autopsies. Shame you have to do one on me. Will it hurt?

  I’m sure it sounds strange, a forensic scientist being scared of a morgue.

  Forensic scientists go through a strange progression. When you are just starting out in your career, it’s normal to be a little scared. Then the fear turns into compassion for the victims. Later, hatred for the criminals. Finally, indifference. It’s not emotional indifference but indifference toward life and death. You see past it all.

  This seeing past it all is the result of accumulated experience and a shift in focus. When a forensic scientist is completely absorbed in finding clues and evidence, no fear, pity, or hatred matters. But for some reason, the morgue distracts me from the work at hand and turns me back into a sentimental, naïve version of myself.

  Once the new autopsy rooms were constructed, I swore I would never go back to a morgue. Of course, that didn’t last long.

  In the middle of September, I got a call. The Eleventh Finger serial killer had added another victim to his list. And the place where the body was discarded? A hospital morgue.

  It’d already been five months since June 6, when Zuo Fangjiang’s dismembered body was found, then Meng Xiangping and Cheng Xiaoliang after that. Three months of countless officers working every angle and losing sleep. And still, we had no idea what demon was responsible.

  The case was especially strange because the three known victims weren’t connected in any way, and none of their money had been taken. So what was the killer’s motivation?

  Now, with a new Eleventh Finger murder, we didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, because we hadn’t broken the case, another innocent victim was dead. But on the other hand, a new body could mean new clues.

  It was a hospital on the brink of collapse. So many awful stories of medical malpractice had come out that no one was willing to go there. Over the last ten years, the facility had become horribly run-down, but no one wanted to spend money fixing it up. It got so bad, they couldn’t even maintain a sanitary environment. Now all that remained was a relatively valuable piece of land.

  “Patient A went to the hospital for a mastectomy. The cancer was clearly in the left breast, but the doctor removed the right.” Big Bao sat in the car, rehashing the jokes that circulated about the hospital for the benefit of the new forensic interns. “Patient B went in for an appendectomy. Afterward, he was in horrible pain and went back to ask why. Wouldn’t you know it, they forgot the anesthetic.”

  “Oh, and Patient C is a classic.” Big Bao grinned. Then seeing the interns looking serious, he said, “Patient C went in for small-bowel hernia surgery, which should be a minor operation. They got the IV in, prepped his skin, shaved him, gave him local anesthesia, and right before they started cutting, he heard one of the doctors ask the other, ‘Never done a hernia repair before. You?’ ‘First time for everything!’”

  One of the interns let out a laugh.

  “Hey now,” Big Bao said sternly, “I’m not telling jokes. I’m teaching you medicine. A doctor shouldn’t hurt people instead of saving them, and a forensic scientist who can’t solve a case is a waste of space. So listen up!”

  Over the years, I’d heard a lot of jokes about that hospital and hadn’t known how much stock to put in them. Now, arriving at the frightfully dilapidated building, I realized things might be even worse than that.

  The morgue was in a flat-roofed cottage at the eastern corner of the hospital grounds.

  I looked at the unstable building in dismay. This thing had better not come down on our heads.

  I saw a lot of technicians putting up caution tape at the morgue entrance and bustling about. I walked hopefully into the security office and started chatting with the guard.

  “Who found the body?”

  “On his way in this morning, a doctor saw a white bag in the doorway, one of our body bags,” the guard said. “The doctor thought it was strange. The hospital hasn’t had much business lately and no one has died, so how could there be a body? Even if there was a body, it shouldn’t be in the doorway. So he looked closer and saw the body bag wasn’t zipped and there were intestines coming out. He called the police.”

  “Your surveillance video, did the police take it?” I asked.

  “Surveillance video? Do you know how much it costs to maintain that kind of equipment?” The guard snorted. “I don’t think I’ve seen a working camera the whole time I’ve been here.”

  “But if the killer dragged a body to the hospital last night, someone must’ve seen that, right?”

  “Nah, buddy. They won’t pay for night shift. You know, I sit here half the day, still have to drive a cab at night.”

  “So there’s no one here in the evening or at night?” I asked.

  “The entire security staff, you’re looking at it,” he said, puffing out his chest.

  I suddenly felt dizzy. This killer knew exactly what he was doing. No one would see him dump the body, but it would quickly and easily be found.

  “Then is there any surveillance nearby, at least? Or if a car came in, there’d be headlights—maybe a doctor on duty would notice?” I made a final effort.

  “Not so far as I know,” the guard said. “Our gate is unlocked twenty-four hours, and at night the place turns into a parking lot for locals. We’re supposed to chase them away, but no one bothers. Wouldn’t notice if someone came this way and dropped the body.”

  I opened my mouth but couldn’t come up with any meaningful questions, so I thanked the man and walked bitterly toward the caution tape outside.

  Chief Hu was already there, dressed in a hazmat suit and holding two gloves soaked in blood. “The simpler a case seems, the harder it turns out to be.”