Chapter 10 Chapter 8 Let me take another look at your smiling face

I slept in the car for hours - I was so drunk that no taxi driver wanted to touch me, but not drunk enough to think knocking on Mom's door was a good idea.When I woke up, my mouth tasted like something dead in my mouth.It took me twenty minutes to let go of my twisted neck in the cold, gloomy morning, with the damp seeping into my bones. The streets were wet and empty.Church bells toll for morning mass, but no one heeds it.I found a depressing café full of depressing Eastern Europeans and made myself a nutritious breakfast: soggy muffins, five or six pain relievers, and a big pot of coffee.When I figured I wouldn't be over the limit, I drove home, threw the clothes I'd worn until Friday morning into the washing machine, took a scalding hot shower, and thought about my next move.

For me, the case is closed with a big "END" written on it.If the ball king wants to handle the case by himself, let him handle it, whatever.He may be a nuisance, but this time his competitiveness suits my wishes.Sooner or later, the king of the ball will give Rosie justice, if there is any justice at all.He'll even take the initiative to keep me up-to-date, not necessarily with good intentions, but I just don't care. In less than a day and a half, I've had enough of my family to last me another twenty-two years.As I showered that morning, I bet my soul against Satan that nothing in the world would bring me one step closer to faithfulness.

Just a few chores left to do before I throw this mess back into the goddamn eighteenth hell.I've always thought "ending" was a bourgeois bullshit concept invented just to satisfy crooked therapists.However, I still need to make sure that the body in the basement is really Rosie, and I need to know how she died, and whether the king and his men have found any clues to show where Rosie was going before she was stopped that night. The disappearance of Rosie Daly left a scar in my life that I couldn't get rid of when I was growing up.Thinking of the scars gone made me so top-heavy and off-balance that I did stupid things like drinking and getting drunk with my siblings.Two days ago, just imagining the sight would have sent me screaming all the way up the mountain.I figured I'd better wake up soon before I did something stupider and paralyzed myself.

I found clean clothes to change into, went to the balcony to light a cigarette, and called the king of football. "Franco," he said, with the right level of politeness to let me know he didn't want to take my call. "What's your business?" I added a little embarrassing laughter to my words: "Qiu Wang, I know you are a busy person, but I hope you can do me a favor." "I'd love to, buddy, but I've got a little—" Brother? "Then I'll be blunt," I said, "I have a buddy named Yeats in the team, do you know him?" "I've seen it."

"That guy is interesting, isn't he? We had a few drinks last night, and I told him what happened, and he laughed at me for being dumped by my girlfriend. Anyway, regardless of how hurtful it is for my co-workers to look down on my sex appeal." How deep, I bet him a hundred pounds that Rosie really doesn't want to abandon me. If you have any clues that can give me the upper hand, I will share half of the winnings with you." Yeats looked fierce, looking as if even Xiao He eats cats and is not friendly to people. The ball king will not ask him to check. The ball king answered quite well: "All information related to the investigation must be kept confidential."

"I'm not trying to sell to the Daily Star. According to my last impression, Yeats is still a policeman, just like you and me, only bigger and uglier." "But he's not on my team, and neither are you." "Please, Ball King, at least tell me if the body in the basement is Rosie? If it's a dead Victorian, I'll obediently pay Yeats and settle the matter." "Franco, Franco, Franco," the ball king said with a touch of sympathy. "Brother, I know you're not feeling well, okay? But do you remember what we said earlier?" "Clearly. After all, you want me to mind my own business. That's why I gave you such a good proposal, brother. Just answer the little question just now. Next time you see me, I'll buy you a few drinks. Congratulations on solving the case."

The ball king hesitated to answer. After he felt that I should understand how much he disagreed, he said: "Franco, we are not in the vegetable market. I am not interested in haggling with you to help you settle the bet. This is a murder case. My men and I must concentrate on our work without interruption. I thought you knew you couldn't interfere, and to be honest, I'm a little disappointed in you." Suddenly, one night in my mind, at the Temple Mo Police Academy, the king of the ball didn’t know which nerve was wrong. On the way home, he asked me if I dared to compete with him to see who could urinate on the wall the highest.I wondered when did he become a middle-aged megalomaniac, or had he always been that way deep down, temporarily overshadowed by the testosterone of puberty?

"You're right," I said with a face of shame, "but I really don't want that big guy Yeats to think that I'm easy to bully, do you know what I mean?" "Well," said the ball king, "you know, Franco, it's good to be competitive, but it's not good to be self-defeating." I dare say this sentence has no meaning at all, but the tone of the ball king shows that he is sharing life wisdom with me. "I'm having a hard time understanding that, man," I said, "but I promise I'll think about it and talk about it." I said that and hung up.

I lit another cigarette and watched the Sunday shopping crowds come and go on the pier.I love immigrants.Children now come from several continents more than they did twenty years ago.Irish women are busy turning themselves into scary orange lollipops, and the rest of the world is busy filling the void they leave.One or two of them, I immediately wanted to marry and bring Holly back a dozen younger brothers and sisters, a dozen of what my mother called "mongrel" children. The forensics guy was useless, I ruined his afternoon of porn surfing, and he absolutely ignored me.Still, Cooper likes me, and he works weekends, so unless there's too many cases, the autopsy must be over by now.There's a good chance those bones told him something I wanted to know.

Anyway, Holly and Olivia were already furious, waiting an extra hour would not make much difference.I toss the cigarette and get into action. Cooper was hated by almost everyone, and these people thought he was volatile.In fact, they have never been able to figure it out, Cooper just doesn't like boredom, and his tolerance value is extremely low.Bore him just once (and the King of Balls apparently can bore him to death), and you're out forever.As long as you keep him interested, he will do whatever you want.Many people dislike me for this and that, but no one says I am boring. The Municipal Funeral Parlor is not far from the pier, just a few steps from my house, in a beautiful red brick building that is over a hundred years old behind the bus station.I rarely get the chance to go in, but just thinking about it makes me happy, as does the idea of ​​the Major Crimes team using Dublin Castle.Our work runs like a river through the heart of the city, and we deserve access to the best parts of the city's history and architecture.However, that day felt different.Cooper was weighing, measuring, and examining the remains of her, a girl who might have been Rosie, in the red brick building.

I asked the counter to speak to Cooper and he came out to meet me himself.Like everyone else that weekend, though, he wasn't too happy to see me. "Detective Kennedy," he said carefully, as if the name smelled bad, "he made it clear to me that you were not part of his case team and didn't need any information on the case." Luckily I bought him a drink too, the ungrateful bastard. "Detective Kennedy should take it easy," I said to Cooper. "Anyone can be interested in a case without having to be on his team. It's an interesting case, and... well, I don't want news Spread the word, but if the deceased is as we have speculated, then she and I are neighbors who grew up together." As soon as Cooper's bead-like eyes lit up, I knew he was going to be curious. "yes?" I lowered my head and pretended to be hesitant to speak, teasing his curiosity. "Actually," I said, looking at my thumbnail, "I dated her when we were teenagers." He was hooked.His eyebrows hit his hairline, and his eyes brightened.If he hadn't found such a suitable job, I would be worried about what this guy is usually doing. "So," I said, "you can understand that I'd really like to know what's going on with her—if you happen to be free and willing to tell me all over again, of course. As for Kennedy, it doesn't hurt to know." Cooper's mouth twitched, almost laughing."Come in," he said. Narrow and long corridors, elegant stairs, old but not bad paint on the walls - someone hung fake pine needles for decoration, so that the festival and solemnity quietly balance.If it weren't for those small details, such as the cold and dignified air, the smell, the blackened floor tiles and the rows of stainless steel freezers against the wall, this long mortuary with high windows and ceiling decoration is equally moving.A board is inlaid between the lagers of the freezer, engraved in neat characters: feet first, name tag hanging on the head. Cooper pursed his lips in thought as he brushed the edge of the freezer with his fingers, one eye half-closed. "Our new guest," he said, "well, that's right." Then he took a step forward and pulled out one of the mortuaries in one breath. Those who work undercover will have to learn to turn on the switch soon.It got easier over time, and then it was even too easy.As long as you click in your heart, the whole scene will appear on the small screen in the distance, lifelike, allowing you to watch the screen to formulate strategies, push this character from time to time, move that character, and be alert, focused and safe like a general planning a strategy.People who are slow learners end up switching teams, or sitting in an office instead.I flipped the switch and started watching. The iron plates lined up the bones perfectly, like a work of art, like the final piece of a puzzle.Cooper and his men had cleaned it a little, but the skeleton was still brown and greasy, save for the two rows of teeth, which looked as if they had been brushed with Colgate toothpaste.The remains looked so small and fragile that they couldn't be Rosie.At that moment, I really expected so. A group of girls on the road giggled and screamed uncontrollably, faintly transmitted through the thick glass.I felt the room was too bright, and Cooper was standing too close, watching me too closely. He said: "The skeleton belongs to a young Caucasian female, with a height between 170 and 180, and a medium to slightly strong build. From the analysis of the development of wisdom teeth and the degree of incomplete healing of the epiphysis, the age should be between 18 and 22 years old. between." He stopped here, and I couldn't resist asking him, "Can you be sure that she is or isn't Rosie Daly?" "I don't have an X-ray of the dentition, but the medical records state that Rosie Daly had a filling, on the lower right molar. The deceased also had a filling, on the same tooth." He picked up the jawbone between thumb and forefinger so it was facing down, and pointed toward the mouth. I said, "A lot of people do too." Cooper shrugged and said: "Indeed, although coincidences are unlikely, they still happen. Fortunately, the method of identification is not just a dental filling." Two slides were snapped onto the light box and overlapped each other. "Look," he said, turning on the light. It was Rosie, smiling brightly, with her back against the red bricks and the gray sky, her chin raised, her hair blowing in the wind.At that moment, she was the only one in my sight.Then I noticed her face was covered with little white forks, and then I saw the hollow skull beneath her face. "From the marks I marked," Cooper said, "the anatomical features of the deceased's skull, including the size, angle and spacing of the eye sockets, nose, teeth, jaws, etc., are completely consistent with Rosie and Daly. Although It is not enough to make a conclusion, but it can be reasonably inferred that the two are the same person, especially after adding dental fillings and other factors. I have notified Detective Kennedy and asked him to notify the family at an optional time. Even in court, I would also venture to point out that the skeleton in front of me is Rosie Daly." I said, "How did she die?" "Detective Mackey," said Cooper, waving his hand at the skeleton, "I know what you see. Once the body is reduced to skeleton, the cause of death is almost impossible to determine. She was obviously attacked, but I can't completely rule it out. Certain possibilities, such as she happened to have a heart attack at the time of the attack, etc." I said, "Detective Kennedy seems to have mentioned a fractured skull." Cooper gave me an extremely contemptuous look. "Unless I'm mistaken," he said, "as far as I know, Detective Kennedy is not a medical examiner." I forced a grin at him and said, "He's not a professional jerk either, but he's pretty good at the case." Ku Tang twitched the corner of his mouth again. "Well," he said, "it's a coincidence, but Detective Kennedy is right, there is a fractured skull." He stuck out a finger and turned Rosie's skull on one side. "Here," he said. The thin white gloves gave Cooper's hands a damp, lifeless look, as if they had shed a layer of skin.The back of Rosie's skull looked like a windshield that had been smashed with a golf club more than once. The cracks spread in all directions like spider webs, bouncing and intersecting each other.Almost all of her hair had fallen out, tangled by the side, but a few strands remained clinging to the shattered skull. "If you look closely," Cooper tapped the crack with his fingertip, "you will see that there are fragments at the edge of the fracture and that the gap is not complete, which indicates that the skull was squishy when it was injured, rather than dry and brittle. In other words: The fracture was not formed after death, but was caused at the time of death or not long ago. The reason is several heavy blows, I guess at least three times, the surface of the murder weapon is flat, more than ten centimeters wide, without edges or sharp corners." I forced myself to suppress the urge to swallow, he would definitely see it. "Well," I said, "I'm not a medical examiner either, but I feel like a blow like that could be fatal." "Tsk," Cooper said with a sneer, "it's possible, but we can't be 100% sure about this case. Look here." He groped in Rosie's throat, fished out two small bone fragments, arranged them in a complete horseshoe shape, and said, "This is the hyoid bone, which is located at the top of the throat, below the jawbone, and is used to support the tongue and protect the airway. As you can see, it is relatively large. One of the ends is completely amputated. Diagnostically, a fracture of the hyoid fracture is almost certainly either a car accident or strangulation." I said, "So unless she was hit by an invisible car driving into the basement, she was strangled." "This is a very interesting case," Cooper reminded me, waving the hyoid bone at me. It was still soft, but this fracture, like the rest of the deceased's injuries, was clearly the result of death. The only possible explanation is that she was strangled violently by someone with great strength." I said, "It's a man." "A male is more likely, but an emotionally strong female is more likely to commit the crime. Based on all injuries, the most likely hypothesis is that the attacker grabbed her by the throat and caused her head to repeatedly hit the wall. The impact of the wall and the strength of the attacker, The two forces were in opposite directions, and together they fractured the hyoid bone and compressed the airway." "So I couldn't breathe." "Suffocation," Cooper said with a corrective look at me, "this is my humble opinion. Detective Kennedy is right. Intracranial hemorrhage and brain damage from severe head injuries can lead to death, but it may take several years." Before that, she may have died of hypoxia, either because of artificial strangulation or vagus nerve suppression caused by strangulation, or airway blockage caused by hyoid bone rupture." I kept pressing the switch, pressing hard.For a second, I saw the fine lines on Rosie's neck when she laughed. In order to completely sink my sanity, Cooper said to me: "Other than that, there were no other fatal injuries to the bones of the deceased. However, the body has decomposed to such an extent that it is impossible to determine whether there is any soft tissue injury, such as whether the deceased was sexually assaulted or not. " I said, "I remember Detective Kennedy seeming to say that the dead man had clothes on. I don't know if that makes any sense." He pursed his lips and said: "There are very few fibers left, and the forensic personnel did find artificial substances similar to clothing on or near the bones, such as zippers, metal buckles, and hooks and loops commonly used in bras, etc., showing that she and a whole set or Close, the whole outfit buried together. However, that doesn’t mean the clothes are where they should be. Both the decomposition of the body and the infestation of rodents can shift the clothes, making it impossible to tell if they were on her or just next to her.” I asked, "Is the zipper open or closed?" "And the hook and loop of the bra that was pulled up. It's not evidence because she probably pulled it on after the attack, but I think it's at least informative." "Nail," I said, "is the nail broken?" Rosie would absolutely fight back, fight back like hell. Cooper sighed.I have already started to bore him, just asking the standard questions that the king of the ball must have asked.I have to interest him, or I'm out. "Nails," he nodded disinterestedly at the scratches next to Rosie's hand bones, "disintegrated. Like the hair in this case, part of the nails remained due to the alkaline environment, but they were severely damaged. , besides, I am not a magician, so I cannot guess the condition of the nail before it breaks down." I said, "If you still have time, I'd like to ask one or two more things before I leave you alone. Do you know what the forensic officers found on her besides the remains of clothing? Like keys?" "I think," Cooper replied coldly, "the forensic department should know better than I do. He was holding the freezer with one hand, ready to close it. If Rosie had the key, either her father returned it to her, or She stole it, anyway, which means she could have walked through the front door that night and didn't. Then I just want an excuse that she's avoiding me." I said, "Of course, doctor, it's not your job at all. But many of them are well-trained dogs, half of them are, and I'm not even sure they know which case I'm talking about, let alone Give me the correct answer. And you should understand why I don't want to take my chances on this case." Cooper raised his eyebrows slightly, looking sarcastic, as if he knew what I was doing but didn't care.He said: "The forensic officer's initial report listed two silver rings and three silver earrings, identified by the Dalys as matching jewelry owned by their daughter, and a small key, which apparently matched what was found earlier at the murder scene. The lock for the suitcase, one of those crude locks made in the factory. No other keys are mentioned in the report, and there are no fittings or other things." And just like that, I was back where I was when I first saw the suitcase: dazed without clues, thrown into weightless darkness, unable to grasp anything.At this time, I realized that I may never find the answer, which is possible. Cooper asked, "Are you done?" The morgue was very quiet, save for the hum of the thermostat.I never regret it, just like I never get drunk, but that week was an exception.I watched the brown skeletons lay naked in Cooper's fluorescent lights, and I wished deep down in my heart that I would stop and let the sleeping girl rest in peace.Not for me, but for her.She is everyone's now.Cooper's, the king's, and the place of loyalty, let them touch and point, and use them as they please. The Land of Loyalty should have started a leisurely and pleasant process of digestion, turning her into a local legend: both a ghost story, a cautionary tale and an urban myth, telling us that "this is how life is".Her memories will be swallowed up like the soil beneath her swallows her up.It is better for her to stay in the basement, at least only those who love her will touch her memories. "Well," I said, "that's all." Cooper closed the mortuary with a long metallic scrape.The skeleton disappeared, back in the honeycomb freezer, with the other question-marked corpses in Cooper's hands. I took one last look before stepping out of the morgue.I saw Rosie's still bright face on the light box.Luminous and transparent, the crystal eyes and impeccable smile are as thin as paper, covering the decayed bones. Cooper sent me away, and I thanked him in the most flattering tone, promising to give him a bottle of his favorite red wine for Christmas.He waved me goodbye at the door and walked back to the mortuary to do what he would do when he was alone, God knows what quirks.I turned around the corner and slammed on the wall, and my joints were scratched and bruised.I bent over and clenched my fists. The pain only lasted for a few seconds, but it was enough to burn my heart to nothing.