A few hours after completing all the necessary investigations, everyone returned to the center.
Will was busy with another case, so this time Larry had to handle the work.
The guard staff felt a chill when they saw the funeral car behind them, as if the very air had turned cold. They forced a smile and looked at the burly man.
"Max, buddy, isn't he supposed to only take criminal cases at this hour?"
Max, after sobering up a little, adjusted his suit, tucked his neck into the collar of his shirt, and despite the freezing midnight wind, felt his legs go numb after standing for a while. He patted the staff member's shoulder as if they were close friends.
"There's never any rest for law and order. Even if it's late and we're on holiday, we still have to work."
"My team is the most pragmatic. No holidays, no breaks—work is more important than anything else. Hurry up and find someone to help us transfer the body!"
The employee didn't mind the overly friendly tone and nodded after thinking for a moment. "Hmm, Larry—your boss—the most impressive forensic doctor the agents have ever met, they say he's pretty good. I've never seen him in the field!"
The group worked together to move the body into Autopsy Room No. 1, also known as the High-Decomposition Autopsy Room. As its name implies, this room has the best ventilation system and is now Larry's personal autopsy room, rarely used by others. Luckily, it was cold, so even the stench was more tolerable.
The pale guard officer ran out as soon as they delivered the body, looking at them with pity. Max suppressed a laugh—this always happened.
"Look, Larry, they're pitying us again."
We work so hard, earning only a few thousand dollars a month, and most people can't even bear to look at us.
Even though their work was essential for bringing justice to the dead—maybe not today, but perhaps tomorrow it would bring them peace—everyone still looked at them strangely.
The agents believed Larry was no different from a killer, since he immersed himself in the minds of murderers to profile their methods.
"That's the life we live."
"Sometimes I wish I had never become a forensic doctor…" Max thought this sort of comment would annoy Larry, but he simply smiled.
Everyone in this job had thought that at some point. Looking at bodies, investigating lives—those things had affected Larry's mind in some way.
But he didn't mind, because something much greater pushed him to keep working.
Looking at the mass on the autopsy table, Larry took a deep breath and put on the gas mask.
Seeing that his second assistant tonight had already moved the X-ray machine aside, indicating that the direction had been determined, Larry rotated his finger clockwise, and the assistant quickly adjusted the ventilation system to maximum.
It seemed to relieve the issue somewhat. He looked at Jane, who was standing behind him.
"Go up to the second floor and watch the video from the isolated area—don't torture yourself." Larry first tried to get Jane to step away.
"No, give me a mask."
"There's no need. Trust me." Larry knew Jane didn't have the stomach for scenes as harsh as this.
"I have to do it!"
Larry looked at Jane, then nodded in resignation at her insistence.
He knew Jane wanted a clearer understanding, since the more directly she could see the autopsy process, the easier it would be to find the killer—many details simply could not be conveyed in a written report.
Jane put on the gas mask, and Larry approached the autopsy table. Max had already taken the photos, and the external appearance had been documented. Now all that was left was to open it.
However, Larry continued inspecting it, turning the body over to examine the back, which seemed to be wrapped in many sheets.
As for how they knew it was a body—well, you didn't need to be a genius to identify the smell and the humanoid shape inside the wall.
"Pliers!"
Max quickly selected the tool without hesitation.
Following Larry's instructions, he cut the copper wires one by one. The assistant next to Max removed all the wires and placed them on the table beside them.
Larry examined them carefully.
"Did Dilon try to get fingerprints off these?"
"He sprayed the reagent, but there was no reaction. I guess the outer layer was stuck too tightly to the concrete, so it didn't leave any prints."
Larry nodded, and with his assistants, worked together to remove the outer wrapping. Only then did they discover that the body wasn't wrapped in just one layer—there was still another plastic sheet underneath, secured with copper wires.
Max hurried to cut the wires. This time, no one else needed to be called. He approached and began spraying luminol reagent along the edge of the plastic sheet. A few fluorescent spots gleamed along an edge, and he quickly cut that piece of plastic.
Upon lifting this layer, they found a blanket wrapped inside. The blanket had hardened into a stiff shell, and all four of them struggled to lift it and fully reveal the body.
"Holy God, a mummified corpse!"
The body was completely naked, dark brown, with slightly bent knees and arms crossed over the abdomen.
The limbs and head were mummified, while the torso was severely saponified. In these times, it was extremely rare to see a corpse in such a condition.
Larry carefully separated the deceased's arms and found a small pillow under the abdomen. Along with the assistant, he slowly separated the pillow from the corpse.
Only then did they realize that the deceased's abdomen consisted solely of skin and ribs, with a slightly curved incision in the center.
Larry reached under the sternum, finding only a hard, solid mass with no organs inside. The pillow only served to fill the empty abdominal cavity.
Lifting a towel stuck to the deceased's hip—indicating the victim was male—they noticed it was black and rigid. With a crack, they tore it off, causing several people to let out choked gasps.
Even mummified, it was clear that the genitals and a large amount of flesh between the legs were missing, making all the men instinctively press their thighs together.
"My God, they cut it off!" Dilon exclaimed, and then, remembering Jane's presence, felt embarrassed and turned toward Larry in apology.
After all, he knew what Larry was like when it came to work.
"Sorry, I'm a little drunk," Dilon said—not as alarmed as Max, but frowning.
"Boss, why does it smell so bad even though it's mummified?"
"It's hard to say. After all, many conditions are needed for a corpse to mummify. It may have decomposed partially in a closed space, reaching saturation, and then slowly dried out."
"And then, when that favorable environment was broken, it began decomposing naturally. Maybe it has something to do with the holes made in the wall during the renovation, which allowed the smell to escape."
Larry pinched the victim's abdomen, noting the texture of the wound—almost like leather. He lifted his glove to his eyes and noticed the surface felt grainy, sandy.
"Salt or sand…" Larry thought, then turned to ask, "Jane, did you find out when the hotel was built and who the contractor is?"
Jane was startled but replied, "When I went down, I asked the hotel's shift manager. He told me the hotel was built by the Speex Construction Group. Construction began last September, and it didn't start operating until mid-year."
"As for the commercial concrete and most of the construction, everything was subcontracted. The specific contractors and subcontractors have to be provided by them."
Larry nodded at Jane, threw the grains of salt he had in his hand into a stainless steel tray, producing a faint crackling, and everyone gathered around.
Max picked up a few grains of salt with tweezers and examined them carefully under a magnifying glass.
They were hard, pale yellowish-white crystals, difficult to distinguish by appearance alone. He looked at Larry with a puzzled expression.
"Boss, what is this?"
Larry reached again into the chest cavity of the corpse. Using the handle of his scalpel, he scraped off a dozen grains of salt and sand from the hardened mass, dropping them into a tray. This time, they were much larger.
"This is a mixture of coarse salt and sand! They removed all the internal organs of the deceased and filled the thoracic and pelvic cavities with a large amount of salt and sand, practically preserving him. That's probably why the body mummified."
Larry carefully examined the surface of the victim's body. The bones of the limbs and torso were intact, with no fractures or external injuries.
"Monica, did you take a full-body X-ray of the deceased earlier?"
"Yes!" Monica answered, turning on a computer next to the autopsy table and selecting the X-ray of the deceased's head. Several images appeared on a large LCD screen; the first was of the deceased's feet.
"There were fracture marks on the metatarsals of the first to fifth toes of the right foot. The fractures were parallel and all located on the dorsum of the foot. This type of fracture is usually caused by blows or crushing from heavy objects."
"However, the fractures had not healed well. It seems they removed the cast too early, before healing was complete."
"It appears the deceased didn't have an easy job and performed heavy physical labor. He didn't want to rest for long. The fractures likely occurred about half a year ago, and the healing was poor."
Larry continued scrolling through the X-rays—from the legs to the torso.
After that, he carefully examined the radiographs.
There were no more fractures or injuries. Even the ribs and hyoid bone were intact.
Larry's fingers stopped when he reached the head. It was a lateral sagittal X-ray.
A thin object was clearly embedded in the deceased's skull.
It pierced from the occipital region all the way to the orbital floor.
There were no visible defects or fragments. The object was thin and sharp. The neck and tip were slender.
What was this?