Detective Rossi waited outside the morgue for the medical examiner to return. She replayed the recorded audio from her interview with Stewart Harvey, scrutinizing details from the conversation in an effort to identify contradictions in his story or pertinent details she might have missed in his tales of tunnels and skulls and missing rosary beads. Harvey furnished a compelling argument for stealing the car to get help, but further probing into his IRS records painted the picture of an insolvent author who owed more than fifty thousand dollars in back taxes. If Harvey was guilty of anything, it was a lack of common sense. No one in their right mind would socialize with Simon Hollis, let alone cohabitate with him. Assuming Harvey was an innocent guest in Simon’s house, and assuming Harvey’s story checked out, he offered a unique perspective on Simon Hollis. A potential Trojan Horse to uncover new evidence against Hollis for crimes committed outside the bounds of the triple homicide for which he was previously convicted.

She pondered Harvey’s community college transcript and his previous life in Nashville but found no connection between him and Captain Wallen aside from the eight-minute call they shared. She paused the audio playback when the medical examiner approached. “Ready?” she asked the petite man in green scrubs and Lennon bifocals resting above his surgical mask.

“Put this on,” the medical examiner replied, extending a mask for Rossi.

“You trying to protect me or the deceased?”

“It will dampen the smell.”

Rossi put the mask on and breathed through her mouth. She passed between a set of double doors marked Authorized Personnel Only and entered the climate-controlled autopsy room with an ambient temperature of sixty-two degrees. Fluorescent lights hummed softly. Banks of cabinets stood at the rear of the windowless room near a rack of white lab coats soiled in brownish-red blood stains.

The medical examiner lifted a sheet to expose the body of Chun Lin lying face up on a stainless-steel autopsy table with her mouth closed and a sutured Y-shaped incision from shoulder to shoulder. “Meet Dr. Chun Lin, age fifty-seven. Cause of death, cerebral hematoma resulting from blunt force trauma to her frontal lobe. I found a distinct impression, suggesting a blow from a heavy metal object like a pipe or steel rebar.”

“I read your initial report,” Rossi stated. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

The medical examiner unhooked a clipboard from the stainless-steel table equipped with running water and drainage holes. “I processed the skin cells taken from under her fingernails. No match to Simon Hollis or anyone else in CODIS.”

“Run them again.”

“I did. Twice.”

“What about the teeth?”

“Based on blood coagulation in Dr. Lin’s gums, I suspect most were removed pre-mortem.”

“He wanted her to suffer,” Rossi pondered out loud.

“No vaginal tearing or signs of bruising in her lower extremities to suggest sexual assault. Her heart, lungs, and kidneys all fell within normal range for a woman of her age. By all accounts, Dr. Lin was in good health.”

“Until she was violently assaulted.”

“I realize you’re targeting Simon Hollis, but if I were you, I would widen the net for other suspects.”

“You think Simon Hollis is innocent?”

“I believe what the science tells me.”

“Do you believe in DNA testing?”

“Of course.”

“Then, in your professional opinion, is it possible for DNA samples to become cross contaminated.”

“Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely to happen? No. All accredited DNA labs must abide by strict federal testing standards. The likelihood of cross contamination is miniscule.”

“But not impossible?”

“Neither is winning the lottery. My opinion, more likely someone on the inside set the ball in motion.”

“You mean adulterate evidence on purpose?”

“Like I said… the probability of cross contamination is trivial, but humans make mistakes. Sometimes on purpose.”

“What about Chun Lin?”

“As far as her death is concerned, I documented what I uncovered from her autopsy. Beyond that, I’m not at liberty to speculate.”

“Our canvas turned up nothing. No one lives in the immediate vicinity of where Lin’s body was found. No shops. No bus stops. No red-light surveillance. No ATM cameras. Almost like Simon Hollis picked the perfect location to commit this crime.”

The medical examiner peeled his gloves off and tossed them in a biohazard bin. “Sort of. Significant blood pooling in Dr. Lin’s extremities and her lividity suggests she was killed somewhere else roughly six to eight hours before her body was moved.”

“From where?”

“That falls in your wheelhouse, detective, not mine.”

Rossi nodded. If Chun Lin was murdered at a different location from where her body was found, then someone else wrote the SRH initials in her blood.

The medical examiner escorted Rossi outside the morgue and removed his surgical mask. “You could be looking at a copycat killer.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Why don’t we grab a bite and postulate about this case over dinner?”

Rossi gave a sideways glance. “Seriously? I can still smell the formaldehyde in my hair.”

“Somewhere local. There’s a great Italian place near here.”

“You work with the dead. I do better with the living.”

“What if I told you I was hung like a horse?”

“I’d tell your dog to sleep with one eye open.”

The medical examiner nudged his glasses on his nose, perplexed by the odd axiom. “You know where to find me when you change your mind.”

Rossi took the stairs from the morgue to the surface street exit and put her hands on an iron railing to stretch her lower back. She hadn’t eaten since the night before and hadn’t slept more than a few hours in days. She’d worked grueling cases throughout her career, running herself ragged to find missing evidence or a key witness afraid to come forward. She’d left her personal life on hold more often than not, and yet in spite of the hours, the endless sacrifices, and the ever-present push to do more with less, she loved the job. She thrived on the difficult cases, motivated by her quest to find the truth, no matter how elusive or inconvenient. Victims deserved justice. The guilty deserved punishment under equal application of the law. No favors. No waivers. No exemptions.

She grabbed her phone on the first ring and pressed it to her ear. “Tell me you found something in the car.”

“I can tell you what I didn’t find,” the crime scene technician replied. “And you’re not going to like it.”

* * *

Stu sat on concrete steps outside the Greek Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park. Alone and inconspicuous among local residents and tourists commingled outside the four-story replica, he kept a watchful eye on anyone who approached his general location near the base of a towering pillar. Absorbed in random thoughts about a perilous predicament more bizarre than all the fiction he’d ever written, his world unraveled in ways he couldn’t begin to comprehend.

He called Lisa for the umpteenth time on a prepaid phone and heard the same mailbox message when Royce emerged from the parking area and approached him. “What took you so long?” Stu asked when his talent agent came within earshot.

“I missed a turn.”

Stu stood up from the steps and ambled toward the pond near a group of strangers walking a chocolate lab on a leash. “Did anyone follow you?”

“I’m not sure, Columbo. I wasn’t looking. What happened to your face?”

“I bumped it.”

“With what? A brick paver? You sounded frazzled on the phone.”

Stu stopped walking and threw his hands in the air. “Don’t bullshit me, Royce. I trusted you. Now the police think I’m involved in some cop’s disappearance.”

“Are you?”

“Of course not! I told them about the skull I found and the tunnel under Simon’s garage.”

“What did they say?”

“It’s what they didn’t say that bothers me. They think I’m a suspect.” Stu moved away from Royce to check the jogging path for lingering eavesdroppers. “I found rosary beads that belonged to a rideshare driver I believe Simon murdered. I also found human teeth stuffed inside the driver’s seat of Simon’s Mustang. If that’s not proof, what is? Simon Hollis played us. I think I saw it from day one. I just couldn’t accept it. This whole situation is out of control.”

“You seriously think Simon Hollis is capable of murder?”

“I think we all are, given the right circumstances.”

“Does Simon know you found the teeth?”

Stu continued walking under a streetlight near the jogging path beside the pond. “I haven’t seen Simon since the night before. I’m not going back there, Royce. Not ever.”

“What about the book?”

“I’ll send you what I have.”

“I assume it isn’t finished?”

“I can fill in the rest from secondary research, or you can pay me for the work I completed and find someone else to pick up where I ended. I’m out.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Not my problem,” Stu declared.

“It is if Simon goes back to prison.” Royce followed Stu toward an open parking lot, where a rideshare driver waited. “The publisher is already getting nervous about the lack of progress. You signed a contract to write an epic biography. You can’t walk away now.”

“Watch me.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“If I were you,” Stu insisted with a long pause for dramatic effect, “I’d get on the right side of the law. Tell the police what you know and steer clear of Simon Hollis.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“To do what?”

“Get on with my life.”

“You need this book.”

“I need my wife. And an agent who takes me seriously.”

“You’re wrong about Simon Hollis.”

Stu waved at the rideshare driver in the silver Nissan sedan. “I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. Simon Hollis isn’t one of them.”

Royce watched Stu approach the car and open the rear passenger door. “How do you know the driver’s seat was his?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Mustang was a project car. He procured replacement parts from all over the country. The seat could have come from anywhere or anyone.”

Stu held the door and looked at Royce. “If you believe that fiction, you’re a better writer than I am.”