If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, I never would have believed a place like that was hidden just outside our bustling city. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting the sense of calm sink in. I’d always dreamed of a quiet country life.

  “Wow, what a great place to hide a body!” Big Bao said, completely spoiling my moment.

  Walking into the abandoned quarry was like entering a space apart from the hustle and bustle of the city. Only a tower and some dilapidated brick buildings remained. Half the mountain had been hollowed out, its yellow core exposed. Because the digging went very deep, the center had become a pond. Locals had paved the ring-shaped dirt road around it with gravel.

  Under the light of the mid-autumn moon, I could make out the silhouettes of a few people strolling along the water.

  “It’s normally not so quiet,” Hu said with a smile. “But today’s a holiday, and it’s getting late. Usually there are more locals here exercising.”

  “Exercising?” I asked.

  Hu nodded. “A lot of people come to walk or jog around the pond in the evening—probably because the air’s good. But after eight or so, it’s dead out here.”

  “Wait, they run in the dark?” I looked up. If not for the exceptionally bright moonlight, the area around the pond would be pitch-black.

  “Well, it’s not totally dark at six or seven in the summer,” Hu said. “No one comes in the winter.”

  “How do you know all this, Hu?”

  “My hometown’s five miles from here,” he said, pointing.

  “When did you get the call?” I asked.

  “Came in at six-oh-five,” a detective nearby said. “It was probably the first people coming to exercise.”

  “They found the body?” I said as I put on my gloves and stretched, watching the silhouettes and flashlight beams by the pond in the distance.

  “No,” the detective said. “They saw smoke. There’re only stone and water in the quarry, so what would catch fire? Some of them went closer and saw the flames, so they assumed someone was burning trash.”

  “Do people often burn trash here?” I asked.

  The detective nodded and pointed at the ground. “If you look closely, this gravel road has lots of black stains, all from trash fires.”

  “But they realized it wasn’t trash?”

  “Yeah, the locals said the fire started to die down. One said the burning object had a human shape, thought it might be a valley spirit or something. Another laughed at that, so the two of them made a bet. They got a little closer to check it out and realized it was a person on fire.”

  “A body, you mean,” Big Bao said, curling his lip as Lin Tao leaned on him in distress.

  “Right, a body,” the detective said, scratching his head.

  Next to the pond was a heap of ash on soft mud. Because the villagers used wet clothes to fight the fire, ashes flew in all directions. In the middle of the ashes was a curled-up, human-shaped figure.

  The surface of the body was completely carbonized, all black. The face and head were especially dire, with the skull showing through in some places.

  “Ooh,” Lin Tao said. “I remember what you taught me on that construction-manager case. The boxing stance doesn’t mean the victim was burned alive, right? To figure out if a body was burned before or after death, we have to look at the respiratory tract and carboxyhemoglobin levels in the blood. So to figure that out, we have to wait for your autopsy.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said, staring at the ash pile.

  “Huh?” Lin Tao said, bending down to follow my gaze into the ashes.

  “Heat will make muscles contract, but not to such an extreme degree. Look, the thigh is bent all the way up to the chest; that couldn’t be caused by fire.”

  “You’re saying the body was already curled up before being set on fire?” Lin Tao asked.

  I nodded as I opened the body bag and lifted the figure into it with Big Bao’s help. The body was very light, not because the victim was frail but because fire evaporates all the water from the body.

  “So we can’t be sure it’s a murder case, then,” Lin Tao said.

  I didn’t say a word, just took out an evidence bag and started collecting ashes.

  “These ashes are precious,” Big Bao said. “We can get a lot of physical evidence from—”

  He stopped short as all three of us spotted something at the same time.

  Two long, black, rectangular objects appeared where I’d swept away the ashes. After having a technician take a photo, I carefully picked up the objects. They were probably metal, lighter than alloy.

  “What is it?” Big Bao asked, squinting. “Metal, eh, yeah, should be the murder weapon, right?”

  “Yeah,” Lin Tao said, leaning in for a closer look. “But how could it be so easy to find?”

  51

  I carefully looked the two metal objects up and down, then dropped them in an evidence bag. I smiled and said, “Too light, couldn’t be the murder weapon. But I can say with some certainty that this is a murder.”

  “How do you know?” Big Bao asked.

  “Two metal rods, the same size and length, lying perfectly parallel beneath the body. What are they likely to be?” I asked.

  Lin Tao frowned and thought it over. “Oh, I know. They’re suitcase handle rods!”

  “Exactly, from a rolling bag. It must have been cloth, because everything burned away but the metal rods. Which tells us the body was transported here in a suitcase before being burned.”

  “This would explain why the body is so curled up!” Big Bao said ecstatically.

  “Right,” I said. “Someone stuffed it in the suitcase. Don’t get too excited, though.”

  “Oh right.” Big Bao toned down his mood. “It’s a murder; should be serious.”

  “Well, no need to be too sad either.” I laughed. “Even though the force is shorthanded because of Eleventh Finger, I think this evidence is such that we can narrow the scope of the investigation and break this case soon.”

  Chief Hu walked over. “What’s the plan, men?”

  “Chief,” I said, “would you ask an officer to take some of the ash to the lab to see if they can test for an accelerant?”

  “Of course, I’ll send someone now,” Hu said.

  “Great. Then we’ll go to the autopsy room. With the body burned this bad, it’ll be hard to get an ID. Hopefully trace detection can find some shoe prints or tire marks or something.”

  “It’s after ten—I wonder if the show is still going on,” Big Bao said, leaning against the inside of the car window and looking out at the moonlight.

  “It was you, ya jinx,” Lin Tao said. “You had to shoot your mouth off about relaxing for the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

  Big Bao smiled in embarrassment.

  The full moon shone into the autopsy room, reducing the usual gloom. As I was about to turn on the lights, I suddenly heard a rustling sound.

  There couldn’t be anything in there besides the body on the autopsy table, right? I thought. No way the person is still alive—not with those burns.

  Fear made it hard for my fingers to find the light switch. I muttered to myself as I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight.

  A shadow suddenly darted out from a corner, flashed onto the table, and disappeared out a window. I jumped and dropped my phone in fright.

  Lin Tao grabbed me. “Shit! Ghost!”

  His overreaction calmed me down. I shook my arm free. “Dude, grow a pair.”

  I picked up my phone and used its flashlight to find the light switch. The large room was instantly bright. The body bag was right where it should be on the table, the victim lying peacefully inside.

  Pointing at dusty paw prints, I smiled and said, “Ha, some ghost. Come on, trace guy. Test these prints and see what we can learn about the cat that just jumped out the window.”

  Lin Tao was a little embarrassed. He scratched his head and said, “What’s a stray cat doing here in the middle of the night? There’s nothing to eat.”

  “Ugh, I think burned bodies are even grosser than bloated ones,” Lin Tao said, taking out his camera and covering his nose.

  “Really?” I said. “Bloated bodies stink so bad, they make this burned one seem fragrant.”

  Lin Tao put up a hand to get me to stop talking, then retched a little and said, “How am I ever going to eat barbecue again?”

  The victim was male, but we couldn’t gauge age because his face was gone. When the fire started, he was probably lying with his right side against the suitcase, so the skin there was not highly carbonized. But his left side, which must have been facing up, was severely charred. The only way to get the body straight was to make cuts on the skin and muscle around the joints.

  “Doesn’t cutting like that damage the evidence?” Lin Tao asked. “Are you keeping track of how many cuts you’re making to release the joints?”

  “Yes. And the victim’s original wounds, whether they occurred before or after death, can be distinguished from the ones we make during the autopsy.”

  “Oh? How?”

  “Well, as you know, antemortem wounds will bleed and turn red; postmortem, they turn yellow,” I said. “Now, since the body has been burned, whether they happened before or after death, the wounds are all black. And the heat made the skin around the edges crimp and harden. The incisions we’re making won’t be crimped, and a yellow layer of fat will be exposed, so it’s easy to tell the difference.”

  It was hard to get good information with so much damage, but we found chest wounds indicating the victim was stabbed while alive. Since livor mortis isn’t visible in burn victims, we couldn’t determine whether they died of blood loss, so Big Bao took a scalpel to the abdomen to see if there was damage to the internal organs.

  “Wait!” I shouted, and opened the victim’s arms. Two pieces of cloth fell out from under the armpits.

  I picked them up and shook off the ashes. “Clothing under the armpits is protected, so it usually doesn’t burn like the rest of the clothes. I almost forgot to check.”

  Lin Tao took out a magnifying glass.

  “Looks like two layers melted together,” I said, using tweezers to separate them. “The inside is black, nice, maybe silk. Outside is thick, white, looks cheap.”

  “It’s been eighty-some degrees out,” Lin Tao said. “Who’d wear two layers?”

  I smiled. “A doctor in a lab coat!”

  The clue boosted my mood, and suddenly the moonlight outside seemed even more beautiful.

  I cut open the victim’s trachea and, as expected, there were no signs of ash. With no indication of acute respiratory distress, we could be sure the victim was burned postmortem.

  The victim’s rib cage was crisp and easy to cut through. Inside, all the organs were intact.

  “Bodies are amazing.” I sighed. “See how well our skin protects our internal organs?”

  Lin Tao touched his own chest with a pained look.

  “The victim’s aortic arch is ruptured,” said Big Bao, poking it with a hemostat.

  “Then shouldn’t there be more blood in the chest?” Lin Tao asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “but the fire evaporated the blood. In any case, this confirms the victim died from a sharp object puncturing the aorta and resulting in loss of blood.”

  “Stomach is empty—looks like the victim didn’t get to eat any mooncakes for the festival.” Big Bao shook his head regretfully.

  “Shoot,” I said. “I was hoping we could get some clues from the stomach contents.”

  “What about the pubic symphysis?” Big Bao asked.

  It had been boiling away in the pressure cooker and was just about ready for examination.

  “Looks like the victim was in his early thirties,” I said, studying the pubic symphysis’s shape.

  “How many thirtysomething doctors could live in that little village?” Lin Tao said. “We’ve got the age and the occupation—should be able to get the ID pretty soon.”

  I shook my head. “Who said the victim lives in the village by the quarry?”

  “True,” Lin Tao said with a nod. “The body was in a suitcase, so I guess it could’ve come from anywhere.”

  “Well, not just anywhere,” I said, shaking my head. “Not a lot of people know about that place, or how to get in. Regardless of where the victim was from, the killer had to be familiar with the area.”

  “So how are we going to ID the body?” Lin Tao said.

  I took off my jumpsuit and looked at the clock. It was already one in the morning. “By pulling an all-nighter and sifting through these ashes.”

  The three of us took all the bags with ashes in them and shook them through a sieve, looking for any larger objects that could be useful evidence. We found a few zippers and a card-shaped thing.

  “The zipper has a brand on it,” Big Bao said. “GTFP—how do you pronounce a name that’s all consonants?”

  “Consonants? Ha.” Lin Tao was amused. “GTFP is a high-end luggage brand.”

  “Good thing we’ve got a shopaholic on the team,” I teased, “otherwise we wouldn’t know which brands are any good.”

  “What do you mean ‘shopaholic’?” Lin Tao said defensively. “It’s called being fashion-conscious, okay? Fashion-conscious!”

  “A high-end brand, huh?” Big Bao asked. “Could it mean the killer’s well-off?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “What if the killer committed the crime in the victim’s home and then used the victim’s suitcase?”

  “No. This means that the victim and killer were both well-off,” Lin Tao lectured. “Using such a fancy suitcase to burn a body is a terrible waste.”

  “The left side of this card didn’t get burned!” Big Bao exclaimed. “Feng? P? What’s that mean?”

  Big Bao and I looked expectantly at Lin Tao. He smiled. “Don’t worry, boys. The shopaholic’s got you covered.”

  52

  “Did you forget our conversation when we were waiting outside the TV station?”

  “About seducing your reporter friend?”

  Lin Tao fake punched me and said, “About being VIPs. I said we were VIPs; you said we weren’t . . .”

  “Oh, it’s a VIP card!”

  Lin Tao grinned. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s a VIP card for Silverworld Towers in downtown Dragon City. That’s the only place they sell GTFP.”

  “So they probably stuck the card in the suitcase after buying it and then just left it there. Would a store like that keep a registry of their VIPs?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Awesome!” I said. “Now we have something to show at the task force meeting.”

  By the time we hurried over to the meeting, it was already three in the morning. The detectives had no leads, so they were just waiting for us, looking tired and cranky.

  “The victim died of blood loss from a knife wound to the chest.” I looked at Director Zhang, who was heading up the task force. He didn’t seem too interested in the cause of death.

  “And,” I continued, “the victim was a physician, thirty-some years old.”

  “And . . . ,” I said, trying to create a little suspense, “we have reason to believe he was a VIP member of Silverworld Towers!”

  Lin Tao’s eyes widened. “I thought we weren’t sure if the suitcase belonged to the victim or the killer.”

  “I thought it over on the way here, and I think it’s gotta be the victim’s,” I said. “First, the cloth in his armpits. When do doctors wear white coats? At work. Which means the victim was probably attacked at work.”

  “Or after the doctor was attacked, the killer took the body to his own home and put him in the suitcase there?” Big Bao asked.

  I said, “No way. The killer couldn’t have curled the body into the suitcase once rigor mortis set in. That means there wasn’t much time between committing the murder and putting the body in the suitcase.”

  I paused and went on. “Plus, this doctor had some money, which explains the fancy luggage.”

  “Oh?”

  “He probably worked at a private clinic. Killing someone in a busy hospital and moving the body would be very difficult,” I said.

  “Makes sense,” Zhang said. “I’ll send some officers to check Silverworld Towers’ VIP list for a thirtysomething doctor.”

  “There can’t be many,” I said. “By tomorrow morning, I mean, later this morning, we’ll have good news.”

  It was after nine a.m. when my phone woke me up and I knew the good news had arrived.

  “We’re pretty sure we got the ID. A young doctor from a private storefront clinic in East Dragon City’s Chengwang Town,” Chief Hu said. “Director Zhang already sent a team over. You should go right away.”

  “How far is it from the scene?” I asked.

  “About six miles.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  When my team arrived, Hu brought us up to speed.

  “The doctor’s name is Li Kehua,” he said, “and he probably does make quite a bit of money. The clinic was open yesterday morning. Then, around two in the afternoon, people came to do their IV treatments and realized the clinic was closed. It didn’t open again. Since it was Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone assumed Dr. Li had gone home to celebrate. At six o’clock this morning, after we found Li’s name on the VIP list, we broke down the door and found blood on the floor.”

  “Six miles from the quarry, though?”

  “Tells us the killer had a vehicle,” Hu said.

  “But why would the killer take the body that far away?” I asked.

  “Maybe to hide it?”

  “Doesn’t make sense. The killer knew the place well, so he knew people exercised there and would spot the fire.”

  “Maybe he thought it’d make it harder for us to ID.”

  “Just shutting the body in the clinic would have been smarter, don’t you think? Moving the body and burning it calls much more attention. Do you think it could be an acquaintance of the victim who was afraid once we got the ID we’d find him?”

  “Hard to say,” Big Bao said.

  “You guys go in and look,” Lin Tao said, already in his site-survey gear.