Dragon Bones (Red Princess 3)

Hulan held up Wu’s flyer. “This cannot be a coincidence. I think it’s why Zai sent me. That, and the dam.”

But that wasn’t at all why Zai sent her. He’d given David and Hulan the gift of a second chance. That Hulan was blowing it off wounded David more than he could absorb.

“I’m suspicious of Stuart Miller’s presence here and his connection to the dam,” she continued, oblivious to his silence, “as well as Wu Huadong’s claim that he could stop it. And—”

She stopped speaking. The silence that weighted the room was much louder than the one they’d experienced back at the Wus’ hovel.

He picked up his satchel and went to the door. “Let’s find Fong.”

It was a test to see just how much she wanted to exclude him from her activities. But maybe she wasn’t ready for a full confrontation, because she glided past him and through the door as though nothing had happened.

He followed her down the hallway to Lily’s room. A couple of Hom’s men stood outside. Pathologist Fong stepped into the hall. He had quite a bit to say about the way he’d been brought to this backwater in a military helicopter that, according to him, should have been decommissioned forty years ago, the nature of the facilities, and the conditions under which he had to work. As per Hulan’s request, Lily’s body had not been moved or anything else in her room disturbed. This meant that, when Fong arrived, Lily had been dead for some time in hot weather. The first thing he’d done was open the window. All of this was beyond the pale as far as the pathologist was concerned.

“Come inside, Inspector,” Fong said in English. “I’ll show you what little respect you have for my position.”

“I have the greatest respect for you, Pathologist Fong. That’s why I requested you. Only you—”

Fong snorted in mock disgust, then opened the door to Lily’s room. Two long tables had been brought in. Fong had set up his equipment on one and Lily on the other. Flies buzzed over the dark, bloody outline on the bed where her body had been. Vats of water occupied a corner, and extra lights exposed Lily’s body with clinical harshness. She lay naked on the table. With her veins emptied and her skin washed clean, she appeared desiccated, wrinkled, and tinged blue.

“You moved her,” Hulan observed.

“I saw what I needed to see on the bed, but I can tell you right now you should have just sent her to Beijing.”

“You can take her tomorrow,” Hulan said. “I wanted you to see her here. Every crime scene is a message, and I wanted to know what you thought.”

“Stop trying to flatter me. It doesn’t become you.”

David watched in grim fascination as Hulan reached into her bag, then slid a pack of Marlboros across the table. She didn’t smoke but had thought ahead to have the bribe handy. Fong took a cigarette, lit it, and slipped the pack into his shirt pocket. Temporarily placated, he described what he’d discovered.

“You can see I haven’t cut her open. What’s the point, unless you want to know what she had for dinner?”

“She ate here in the guesthouse,” Hulan informed him.

“See? Why do extra work when I can get the answers I need from you?”

Fong peered up at Hulan, and it struck David that although the pathologist was speaking in English, they’d tuned him out completely.

“What killed her?” Hulan asked.

Fong rubbed his chin in feigned concentration. “My guess would be she bled to death.”

“Pathologist….”

“Ha! You’re so serious, Inspector!” Fong approached the body. “Her feet were cut off and she bled out. But think about that. I understand you said good night to her around nine. You found her at eight. So eleven hours passed.”

“One of the foreigners saw her about midnight,” Hulan said.

“So perhaps eight hours from the time that the last witness saw her to when you found her. During that time she was drained of her blood and positioned back in her room before rigor mortis could set in. That process begins immediately at death and usually becomes manifest within two to four hours, then advances until approximately twelve hours. In hot weather, such as you have here, it can disappear as soon as nine hours after death.”

“Which means what?”

“The questions I keep asking myself are: How long did it take for her blood to drain, and at what point did she die?” He squinted at Hulan. “I’m trying to establish a time of death.”

“And?”

“Hard to do, because I can’t use the usual methods. Livor mortis, the purple discoloration of the skin that we usually find, is determined by how the blood settles, but most of her blood is gone. Body temperature is usually reliable, but readings are difficult in this situation, because her temperature would have dropped very quickly as the blood drained. But then maybe I have to compensate for that because the air temperature in this room is so warm. When I get her back to Beijing, I’ll run a few tests.”

David was appalled at the matter-of-factness of the conversation, but Fong wasn’t done.