The Hamlet Murders by David Rotenberg Page B

came off more as the appropriate gesture for someone who says goodbye using the word toodles.

    Lily took the report from the young coroner. The young man’s hands were noticeably shaking. No doubt this was the first time he’d had to do an autopsy on a Caucasian. It was often a trying experience for Han Chinese. The very size of white people, even lying inert on a metal table, could be daunting. Then there was the smell. Han Chinese eat very few, if any, dairy products. The Caucasian diet of milk, cheese, yogurt, etc., leaves, to the Han Chinese olfactory sense, a most unpleasant odour on the skin. Then, of course, there was the fact of the suicide, so un- Chinese. At least for males.
    Lily thanked the young man and indicated that he was to leave the room. She looked at Geoff’s body. The handsome face, the inevitable thickening of middle age, the long – almost elegant – fingers. She briefly examined the ligature marks on the neck and compared them to the data she had about the rope that was in her office with the rest of the physical evidence. Then she checked for defensive wounds. Nothing. No skin under his nails, no cuts to either his skin or the clothing that he had worn.
    She examined the clothes. Well worn but not terribly expensive jeans, a vest – odd to wear in the heat – a broadcloth shirt with a Bloomingdale’s label. Lily knew from her CNN-watching that this was an expensive American store. The shirt, like the jeans, was well worn. Underwear, standard North American issue. It was his shoes that struck her as odd. They were of some sort of soft but durable lightbrown leather with a thong shoelace. Totally flat on the bottom with shoemaker’s nails in the soles. They had been handmade; machines didn’t leave the heads of nails visible. She lifted the shoes and was surprised by their light weight. Then she held them away from her face and was again surprised, this time by the pleasing fact of their dimensions. There were the normal kind of scuff marks that shoes pick up and a bit of paint on the outside edge of the right shoe.
    She put the shoes down and looked at the body again. For the first time, it occurred to her that she had a relationship, no matter how tenuous, to this entity on her autopsy table. Fong had been her first husband. Fong’s first wife, Fu Tsong, had loved this man. Lily had loved Fong. Fong had loved Fu Tsong. Fu Tsong had loved Geoffrey Hyland. It creeped her out.
    She took out her cell phone and called Chen. His voice was reassuring. It was wonderful to live with someone who was thrilled just to hear from you. They chatted briefly about the investigation then Chen asked about her daughter, Xiao Ming. She told him that her mother was baby-sitting and had promised not to play mah-jong. The slamming down of the tiles bothered the child.
    Chen laughed. She loved that. He found her funny, he found her beautiful, he found her infinitely desirable. She found him just right for her present needs. She ended the conversation and returned to the report.
    The alcohol level in Geoff’s body was high but not extraordinary, unless he wasn’t much of a drinker. She made a note to check. She flipped the pages of a basically negative toxicology report then stopped as something leapt out at her.
    There had been a stain on his underclothing. It was seminal fluid mixed with Nonoxynol. Lily grabbed her book on chemical compounds and began to search. There was very little information on Nonoxynol except that it was an anti-organic – a toxic substance used to eliminate growth. No specific uses were named. She grabbed her pharmacology book and repeated her search. Nonoxynol wasn’t even listed.
    She closed the book and thought. Whatever this was, it was mixed with seminal fluid, so probably had something to do with sex. Lily didn’t know much about Western contraceptive practices but she knew where to look. Six minutes of Google later and she had her answer. Nonoxynol was the active ingredient in