I looked at my two brothers and felt moved. Other than the boss, they might be the only two people who really trusted me. “Thank you. I think I’m going to sleep here the next few nights. If you guys don’t have anything to do, come help me look over these cases?”

  Watching the two of them quietly leave, I wondered whether I would even be functional right now if not for their trust and support.

  My strong adaptive powers came in handy again as the files slowly sucked me into a world without distractions. I even began to calculate the number of murders and unnatural deaths in each province and their ratios to one another.

  I learned that, in a province with several million people, there were seven or eight thousand unnatural deaths each year. The largest number were traffic accidents; then came suicides and sudden deaths, followed by disasters and accidents. The suicide files were the most interesting. Forensic scientists had to be extra careful examining all suicide wounds to eliminate the possibility that they were actually caused by someone else.

  For example, I found one case where the photos showed a victim with her throat slit, much like the Eleventh Finger victims, but the examiners had deemed it suicide. The reason was that the blood spatter around the body didn’t show any gaps. If someone had been next to her, cutting her throat, as the blood flew through the air, some of it would have been blocked by the killer’s body.

  Province-level forensic scientists usually get called in on difficult cases, so they have less experience with unnatural death than lower-level forensic staff. I suddenly understood the boss’s desire for me to use this time to fill in some gaps.

  The archives also contained files on unresolved murder cases. Our murder-clearance rate was one of the best in the world, so there weren’t that many. And a portion of the cases had clear suspects attached to them and just hadn’t gone to trial yet. Still, there were several cases where investigators had eventually given up.

  As I flipped through the cold cases, I realized it was almost two in the morning. Horror stories often paint two a.m. as a time when strange, terrible things happen. Sure enough, I looked down and broke out in goose bumps.

  The file in front of me was an abandoned-baby case from earlier that year in Dragon City. To be more precise, it was a case in which the baby died and its corpse was discarded. In the photo was a trash can on the side of the road, and next to it was a woven wrap for carrying babies. Outside the wrap was a rope that had come loose from the smooth fabric.

  I turned to the next page, a picture of the baby’s body. There were no visible wounds. Its face mouth, nose, and neck were intact, but the face was bluish, so it had possibly died of disease. But what caught my attention were the marks on either side of the baby’s thighs.

  The night was dark, and so many terrible things had happened, but sitting there next to the filing cabinet, I felt not fear but incredible excitement.

  Because I knew those marks were the key to solving the Eleventh Finger.

  62

  The sides of the baby’s thighs had many postmortem strap marks. So after the baby died, whoever abandoned the body tied string around the legs to make it easier to move. But because the legs’ soft tissue was thick and elastic, the string came right off, leaving those distinct marks.

  Additionally, the baby’s outer thighs showed cuts from a sharp object. The clean lines told me it was a knife, but the person only scratched the skin without injuring the muscle.

  “Rope grooves!” I yelped, my voice echoing in the room.

  After several attempts to tie up the legs, the killer must have resorted to that method to keep the strings in place. The technique was entirely consistent with the one used to tie up bodies in the Eleventh Finger cases.

  Could it be the same person?

  I eagerly scanned the rest of the file.

  The forensic scientist on that case was Zou Shuwen. Two months later, he retired, so when we found the rope grooves on the bodies in the current cases, Old Zou wasn’t around to tell us about the abandoned-baby case.

  According to the file, Zou had performed a local dissection and examined the baby’s heart. He found Ebstein’s anomaly, a rare congenital heart defect in which the tricuspid valve leaks blood backward into the right atrium. As a result, the right atrium becomes enlarged, and if the leak is severe enough, congestive heart failure can result.

  It was an abandoned-dead-baby case, not a murder. The unit handling it did some investigating and found no clues, so the case was closed.

  Then I saw a note that made my head spin with excitement. Apparently, the baby wrap from the photo was still locked in the Dragon City bureau evidence room, never having undergone DNA testing.

  I was about to call Lin Tao and Big Bao but then realized they would be sleeping. I could tell them the good news tomorrow.

  I was elated not just because the injustice done to me would soon be righted, but because the terrible serial killer that had been toying with us all these months would finally be brought to justice.

  Exhausted, I passed out on a row of chairs in the archives.

  As soon as I woke up, I called Big Bao and Lin Tao and told them about my discovery. Lin Tao couldn’t contain his excitement, while Big Bao blankly asked, “What’s your point?”

  Lin Tao and Big Bao hurried to the task force to report my findings and requested the baby wrap be immediately sent for testing. Then they came to the archives to go through the files with me.

  “Even if we get the suspect’s DNA off that baby thing, what do we do with it?” Big Bao said. “Ten million people live in Dragon City. We can’t even use DNA to find a suspect in a little town of one thousand. How are we gonna do it in a provincial capital?”

  “We can’t use DNA to find the person,” Lin Tao said, “just to confirm it’s him once we have a suspect. I actually think the best thing right now is to make a criminal profile.”

  I nodded. “Okay, let’s see, this person is psychologically disturbed. He’s ruthless. And I bet he’s already had problems with the police, which is why he’s been trying to provoke us.”

  “Don’t forget,” Lin Tao said, “he must have a personal grudge against you, or he wouldn’t be trying to set you up! What I want to know is how the hell he got your DNA.”

  I blushed. “I swear, my conscience is clear!”

  “I was arguing with Forensic Scientist Han about whether the killer is male or female,” Big Bao said, racking his brain. “Right now, I really think he was right that the killer’s a woman.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “He made the point that the killer’s cut marks didn’t seem strong like a man’s. And poisoning is much more common for female murderers.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t agree with Han before, so what changed?” I asked.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot the last couple days. Like you told us before, with serial murders, you have to look at all the cases together,” Big Bao said. “One key connection in these cases is that the first four victims were all men.”

  “But the fifth was a woman,” Lin Tao said. “So how does that work?”

  “Think about it. What kind of person is easily tricked into drinking poisoned alcohol or water? Either an acquaintance or someone who’s trying to sleep with you. There was no connection between the first four victims, no common acquaintances. So the only thing left is sex.”

  I slapped the table. “For once, Big Bao, your reasoning makes perfect sense! But then why would the last victim be a woman?”

  Big Bao pulled a report from his bag. “These are the results of the latest investigation. The last victim was gay!”

  Lin Tao and I were both stunned. It was a perfect confirmation of Big Bao’s theory.

  “And get this,” Bao said. “The men were all either single or away from their wives. There was the doctor who came to Dragon City to study, the lawyer and businessman who came for work, and a rich playboy. What they all have in common is susceptibility to having an affair. The woman must be the same. I really think our hypothesis is correct. We’re going to catch the killer!”

  “But why would she switch to a woman this time?” I asked. “Did she want to keep us from making that connection?”

  “We can’t rule out that possibility,” Lin Tao replied. “Of course, it could be that she’s also attracted to women.”

  “So what should we do now?” Big Bao asked.

  I rubbed my temples. “Do you guys know which bars lesbians go to? There can’t be very many in Dragon City.”

  “What?” Lin Tao said. “You want to sit and wait for her to come to you?”

  “Yeah, hold up,” Big Bao said. “How are you going to pick a neighborhood? And even if you somehow get the right bar, how are you going to know who’s the killer?”

  “I’m not sure. But I somehow think if I can just run into her, I’ll be able to tell. Don’t forget, she wants to frame me. I should be able to notice something that’s off.”

  “Hm,” Lin Tao said. “That makes some sense. Since she tried to frame you, you definitely have some connection. I bet she’s a jilted girl you dumped.”

  I turned red again. “Hey! Ling Dang was my first love!”

  “Stop flirting, you two,” Big Bao said. “You still didn’t address my first question. How are you going to choose the location? Dragon City is big!”

  I smiled and took out a drawing compass. “When we had some downtime between cases recently, I boned up on crime mapping. It’s very popular abroad, but a lot of people here think it’s superstition. Remember how Su Mei made that computer program to simulate currents and locate that grave in the sewers? It’s kind of like that, but with crimes.”

  “Oh yeah,” Big Bao said. “And the local guys used that to find the heroin addict in our doctor murder case, right?”

  “Exactly, and it worked. Some experts think the early crimes in a serial case happen within a certain radius of the killer’s principal activity zone, then expand outward.”

  “That does sound a little abstract,” Lin Tao said.

  “Got nothing to lose,” I said.

  “Are you going to use the places where the bodies were disposed of?” Big Bao asked.

  I frowned. “We know the killer has a car. The bodies could be disposed of anywhere, so that won’t work. I say we map the places the victims were last seen alive and see where the center is.”

  Big Bao grabbed a map of Dragon City and a red pen. “Meng Xiangping went missing at this hospital, here. Zuo Fangjiang went missing at this bank, here. Cheng Xiaoliang lived near the university and was killed there. Liang Fengzhi went missing here. Should Liu Cuicui go on the map too?”

  I nodded and took the pen. “According to the reports you stole for me, Liu Ciuciu was murdered in her rental house in this trendy neighborhood.”

  I used my compass to connect the points. The result was a lopsided oval. In the middle, I drew a blue circle. “Look, what’s this place?”

  “It’s the 3754 District!” Lin Tao shouted. “That neighborhood is all nightlife—bars, clubs, karaoke. You nailed it!”

  I smiled. “Amazing. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a crime mapping convert! It looks like Bao was right. The killer very definitely used attraction to gain her victims’ trust.”

  “I’m a little confused, though,” Lin Tao said. “The initial investigations of the victims should have looked at bars and nightclubs. Wouldn’t they already have checked the surveillance video? Why didn’t they find anything?”

  Big Bao raised his hand. “I can answer that, actually. I have a friend on the video team. He was complaining to me a few days ago, said they have an office full of hard drives. They’re scouring video footage from all over the city—without a crime map, it’s way too much. Plus, the victims weren’t wearing very distinctive clothing, and bars are really dark. So they either haven’t gotten to the video from the bars on that street, or they looked at it and didn’t spot anything.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “So what are we waiting for? The killer took part of the last victim’s body. She’s definitely planning another murder.”

  “Let’s go!” Lin Tao said. “That neighborhood is crawling with hot women. If nothing else, we can enjoy the view.”

  But Big Bao looked worried. “Qin, are you sure you can spot the killer? And isn’t this dangerous? You’re a great forensic scientist, but you’re not Superman.”

  Big Bao’s concern was like a needle bursting my balloon. He was right. Could I really just walk into a bar and find the killer? And what would happen if I did?

  63

  Just then, Big Bao’s phone rang.

  “Hello?” Big Bao saw it was a task force detective and answered on speakerphone.

  “Results are back,” the detective said. “The baby wrap had two people’s DNA on it. One was the baby.”

  “And the other?” Big Bao asked anxiously.

  “The baby’s mother.”

  “Did you check the DNA registry?” Big Bao asked. “Any hits?”

  “No.”

  “Guess we’ll have to go find her ourselves,” I said as I gave Big Bao a pat on the back. “But you’re right about it being too dangerous for me to just sit in a bar. We may be forensics guys, but what we need is an old-fashioned detective stakeout.”

  The three of us sat in the car we’d borrowed from Han Liang, parked at one end of the main drag of the 3754 District. Fashionably dressed men and women bounced between bars and clubs.

  “I feel old,” Big Bao lamented. “Can’t believe anywhere in Dragon City is so busy this late.”

  Less than an hour later, he was snoring.

  I gave Lin Tao a cigarette, and we rolled down the window and lit them, not speaking. Only the glare of the neon kept us awake.

  Suddenly, Big Bao blurted out, “Four fours! Raise eight, right?”

  “What?” I said, laughing.

  “He started learning a new card game called Broken Egg,” Lin Tao explained. “He’s already addicted.”

  “You mean he’s talking in his sleep?” I said.

  “You didn’t know he talks in his sleep?” Lin Tao grinned.

  “Does he still sleepwalk too? One time he walked into the autopsy room and scared the crap out of me.”

  As we laughed, the street began to fill with men and women walking unsteadily in twos and threes.

  “Closing time,” I said, straightening up.

  “People don’t call it that anymore,” Lin Tao said. “Do you think this is still the nineties?”

  As the flow of people increased, I scrutinized each face, trying to find a needle in the haystack. It was almost two a.m. again, and the bad sleep I’d had from crashing in the archives was catching up to me. I began to feel drowsy.

  The bar crowds slowly dispersed, but we hadn’t seen anything of note.

  “I don’t think this is going to work,” said Lin Tao, key already in the ignition. “We can’t just keep waiting around with our fingers crossed hoping the Eleventh Finger killer will happen to walk by our car and you’ll happen to recognize her.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Did I just hear someone yell?”

  “What?” Lin Tao strained his ear.

  A sharp female voice came in through the window. “Pond! Pond!”

  All the hairs on my body stood on end.

  A woman wearing a gold skirt and black stockings entered our field of vision. A girl came over and said a few words to her. Then the woman started walking away alone.

  Unlike everyone else, she seemed completely alert. She took out her phone, shook her shoulder-length hair, and seemed to sigh.

  As the light of the phone hit her face, I saw she was gorgeous.

  “Anyone else think ‘Pond’ sounds really familiar?”

  Lin Tao frowned. “She looks familiar too. Oh God, oh God. I know who it is.”

  “Who?” I asked, staring out the car window.

  “Shui Liang’s wife,” Lin Tao said as he shook Big Bao awake.

  Shui Liang was the bank security guard serial killer in the Yuntai cold case I’d gone back and solved. He had been sentenced to death, and the sentence had been carried out. When we searched Shui Liang’s house, we met his wife briefly, and she spoke one ghostly sentence to me. Pond sounded familiar because that’s what Shui Liang screamed as they carried him away.

  “Holy shit! It’s her!” I said. “She said then she wanted to cooperate with me, but really she wanted to incite me by becoming a serial killer!”

  “When she said she wanted to cooperate with you, I thought she meant she was gonna seduce you,” Lin Tao said with a humorless laugh. “So how did she get your DNA? You didn’t . . .”

  “No way!”

  “Female, perverted by suffering, hates you, hates the police,” he said. “She fits the profile perfectly.”

  “C’mon! Let’s get her!” Big Bao said, wiping the drool off his mouth and pulling out handcuffs.

  “Where’d you get those?”

  “I took a combat training course. Everyone got billed for equipment.” Big Bao opened the car door.

  I held him back. “Did I miss something? You’re a forensic scientist! You examine bodies! You did a two-day combat course, and now you think you’re the Terminator?”

  “I got an A!” he insisted.

  “Easy, big fella,” I said. “If she’s the Eleventh Finger killer, we definitely won’t let her get away, believe me.”

  “Next we have to secretly get a sample of her DNA, right?” Lin Tao said.

  I shook my head. “No. Let’s follow her and see where she lives. That’s more than enough for tonight. This woman is tricky. If we try to get her DNA now, first, it would go against protocol. Second, it could arouse suspicion, do more harm than good.”

  “But how will we know if the DNA on the wrap was hers?” Lin Tao said.

  “I have an idea.”

  Pond lived in a small detached house near the strip. After we watched her go inside, we quietly left.

  That night, I slept better than I had in ages.

  The next morning, Big Bao and I went to the DNA testing lab to find the lab director. “Director Zheng, I’m sure you have a ton of work right now, but I really need you to do me a favor.”