The Dead Girl
My name is Ryan, and I've spent two years as a beat cop and three years in homicide. I can't claim vast experience—just bad luck, catching the eye of a mentor who investigates cases with ruthless thoroughness, involving me in some truly bizarre and unbelievable cases.
Some of those cases became fodder for tall tales over beers and barbecue; others, my wife insisted I write down, to speak once more for victims who can no longer speak for themselves.
The first case I want to tell you about involves a hedgehog plushie that had been missing for twenty-one days.
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It was mid-October, at Riverside Gardens, Building A, Unit 7, 16th floor. The police cordon stretched from apartment 1602 all the way to the elevator lobby.
When I slipped on my shoe covers and stepped inside, the scene in the living room stopped me cold.
A young woman in her early twenties lay face-down on the sofa. Her left temple bore a gash, her left arm dangled near the floor with multiple slash wounds, and her right arm was pinned beneath her body.
She wore a light gray fleece sleep top, with a man's jacket draped over her lower half. From the exposed portions, it was clear her sleep pants had been pulled down to her ankles.
But the most striking detail was the throat wound—the killer had severed her carotid artery, and blood had sprayed across the sofa, floor, coffee table, and even the water-blue wall across the room.
The victim's death was brutal. Old Hal from our team sighed. "How did this happen..."
It was my mentor who answered: "From the defensive wounds on her arms and the drip marks near the entryway, the victim initially confronted the killer face-to-face, instinctively raising her arms to protect her head. With the killer blocking the door, she turned and fled toward the bedroom—she either tripped accidentally or was pushed, hitting her forehead on the coffee table. While dazed, she was dragged onto the sofa and assaulted. During this, she screamed for help, and the killer, fearing someone might hear, slashed her throat from behind."
Hal nodded and asked, "Whose jacket is that?"
I fielded this one: "The caller is Jay, the victim's boyfriend. I asked him a few questions—he said he came to find his girlfriend around nine, the lights were already on, and he immediately saw her half-naked in a pool of blood. Jay panicked and called the police right away. He couldn't bear to look at her like that... so he covered her with his jacket."
The jacket's sleeves and hem were soaked with blood, and several bloody footprints overlapped on the floor beside the sofa.
Mentor pinched the bridge of his nose. "He moved the body?"
"...He did."
This was giving me a headache too. Not only had he moved the victim, he'd contaminated the scene—potentially destroying shoe prints from the killer. If Jay had been crying and sweating from nerves, he might have even compromised the killer's DNA.
Mentor massaged his brow. "Arrange DNA collection. Ryan handles the scene. Hal canvasses the neighborhood—the insulation in this building is decent, so the neighbors might not have heard anything. Check the corresponding floor in the building across the way."
"Got it!"
My mentor's surname was Yang. He'd been a star at the police academy, recruited by the city bureau before he even graduated. The moment he left school, he joined homicide, and at thirty-three, he got stuck with me.
Back then, I was still working community cases at a local precinct when I stumbled into a bureau investigation and helped out a bit. The night the case closed, I was crouching on the curb trying to light a soggy cigarette, and Mentor walked up behind me with a light.
"Want to be a detective?"
"Come on, man," I grinned at him, looking miserable. "I'd like to live long enough to collect my pension."
Human nature being what it is, six months later I'd wormed my way into the squad, became his apprentice—no tea ceremony, but I did buy him two cases of initiation liquor, and we both got chewed out by the deputy captain the next morning.
Three years with my mentor, and the first thing I learned was: paperwork doesn't sleep.
The Riverside case meeting kicked off at 23:15 that night. I walked through the scene details first.
"The victim is Linda, twenty-six, works an admin desk at a bank.
Preliminary time of death around seven p.m. The cause of death is the throat wound, inflicted left to right. The victim was found partially undressed—sexual assault suspected. No financial loss at the residence, but one item is missing: an 18cm hedgehog plushie, a birthday gift from Jay.
Additionally, we checked Linda's phone—she ordered delivery that evening, marked delivered at 19:03. Strangely, no food containers were found anywhere on the premises.
Scene comparison: no suspect shoe prints, fingerprints, hair strands, skin cells, or dust have been recovered and submitted for analysis. The murder weapon is currently missing."
Hal added his findings from the neighborhood canvas: "At 17:45, building security cameras show the victim entering in her work clothes. Around seven, a resident in the building across the way heard a piercing scream that stopped abruptly—the direction was unclear, but the timing matches the estimated time of death."
I frowned. "Could it be a delivery driver—crime of passion?"
Mentor leaned back in his chair, looking distracted. "The murder weapon wasn't left at the scene, which means the killer likely brought it with them and didn't dare leave it behind."
Armed entry, but no theft. The killer likely knew the victim, while a delivery driver's targeting would be too random.
I rubbed my chin. "Though we can't rule out a driver who recognized the address and seized the opportunity... Boss, what have you been thinking about since we started?"
"The hedgehog. Where did it go?"
"Huh?"
---
Where did the hedgehog go?
Mentor cared about that, but even if the hedgehog had come alive and walked away, the investigation couldn't revolve around a stuffed toy.
The day after the hedgehog vanished, Hal and I split up—he'd track down the delivery driver, and I'd look into Linda's social circle.
Hal had spent half his life in homicide—rank-wise he should be a star, performance-wise he was still bronze. His lead came back empty: the delivery driver hadn't entered the apartment, had called Linda but got no answer, left the food at the door, sent a message, and left.
He heard nothing, saw no one.
Hal's lead went cold.
I had better luck. I found something.