In the basement of the county hospital in Graycliff, there was no sound of rain.
The buzzing industrial exhaust fans sucked away the last trace of the damp, fermenting scent of the Northwest Pacific forests. In its place came the pungent odor of high-concentration sodium hypochlorite (bleach) mixed with formaldehyde. This smell was extremely overpowering, brutally penetrating the nasal cavity and scraping against the mucous membranes.
Six rows of high-wattage, cold white fluorescent tubes hung from the ceiling. The light fell unobstructed onto the stainless steel dissection table with a drain in the center. The table reflected a stark, sharp light that stung the eyes. In this extreme brightness and dryness, nature's disguises were exposed, leaving only pure physical and biological reality.
Sheriff Brody leaned against the pale green tiled wall. He had taken off his waterproof overcoat, stained with red mud, leaving only a gray long-sleeved uniform shirt. He held a cup of now-cold black coffee, but didn't drink it. A layer of dull grease floated on the surface. At the autopsy table, County Medical Examiner Dr. Harris stood with his back to him. Harris wore a green waterproof surgical gown and double-layered latex gloves. He held a black rubber hose connected to a wall faucet in his hand.
Water cascaded across the stainless steel surface, making a monotonous "whoosh" sound.
Julian Carter's body had been stripped of his fluorescent orange hunting jacket and muddy work pants. He lay there naked. Just hours before, he had been a powerful figure in the county, inheriting vast tracts of forest land—the mayor's prospective son-in-law—and now he was nothing more than a six-foot-long, 180-pound lump of flesh. Large, irregularly edged purplish-red lividity had formed on his back and the back of his legs due to the deposition of blood caused by gravity.
Harris turned off the tap and tossed the hose into the sink.
"Too much mud." Harris's voice sounded muffled and flat through the mask. "His bespoke hunting suit was too waterproof; all the water and humus from the bottom of the mine was trapped inside the zipper."
Brody put down his paper cup and walked to the opposite side of the dissection table.
Julian's head was now clean. The dark red bloodstains and grayish-green moss residue that had covered the left half of his face had been washed away by the water, revealing a bloodless face.
Brody's stomach clenched involuntarily.
The image of death frozen on Julian's face was more gruesome than it had been seen in the dim light of a flashlight in the mine. When a person falls from a height and faces an inevitable impact, their muscles contract violently out of biological instinct. They usually clench their teeth, their faces contort, and their hands protect their head or internal organs.
Julian's arms had indeed suffered severe fractures in the fall. The severed end of his left radius pierced his skin, exposed to the cold air.
But he didn't protect his face. There was no defensive posture whatsoever.
Under the glaring operating lights, Julian's eyes remained wide open. His pupils were completely dilated, a murky gray-blue. Most horrifying was the curve of his mouth. Because rigor mortis had completely spread to his masseter and cheekbone muscles, his facial muscles were being pulled back as if by extremely hard steel wires. Two rows of white teeth were fully exposed, forming an exaggerated, almost ear-to-ear, grotesque smile.
This was not an expression a human could make under normal circumstances. This frenzied muscle spasm, a mixture of extreme fear and a kind of morbid excitement, usually only appears in the instant before the central nervous system is completely destroyed.
"Look at his hands," Harris said, picking up a pair of graduated medical tweezers and gently manipulating Julian's stiff right hand fingers.
Brody leaned closer. Julian's fingernails were crammed with black grime.
"He was frantically scratching at something before, or during, the fall. The edges of his nails were severely split and curled." Harris probed the nail bed with tweezers, picking out a tiny fragment and placing it in a nearby glass petri dish. "It's all dirt particles, quartz fragments, and bark fibers. No human skin tissue, no scabs, no clothing fibers."
Harris looked up at Brody through his goggles. "Sheriff, he didn't engage in any physical struggle with anyone. At least before the fall, no one pressured him, pushed him, or tried to control his hands. If they had, with his high school quarterback physique, they would have had chunks of flesh torn off. But these hands are clean, just mud."
No wounds. No weapon. No defense.
Only a freefall, a maniacal laugh, towards the depths of the earth.
Brody didn't reply. He stared at the pale, sun-damaged mark on Julian's wrist, a result of wearing a Rolex gold watch. The watch had been taken as evidence at the scene; the crystal was shattered, and the hands were permanently stopped at 9:14 PM last night.
At 9 PM last night, Graycliff was experiencing a powerful autumn storm.
"Break it open," Brody said, taking a half-step back, his voice cold and hard.
The forensic pathologist nodded. He turned and picked up a scalpel from the metal tray. Due to rigor mortis, the corpse's abdomen was taut. The blade made a precise cut below the collarbone, forming a perfect "Y" shape.
Subcutaneous fat and yellow muscle tissue were rolled back to either side. The sound of the chainsaw cutting through the skull and the sharp rib shears severing the sternum was extremely jarring in the enclosed basement, accompanied by a crisp cracking sound like snapping a thick, wet tree branch.
The moment the chest and abdominal cavities were fully opened, a strong, pungent odor filled the air, instantly overpowering the bleach smell in the room. It was a mixture of stomach acid, undigested animal fat, and highly fermented alcohol.
Brody frowned, resisting the urge to cover his nose.
Harris skillfully dissected the organs. He removed the entire stomach, weighed it on a nearby electronic scale, and then cut it open with a scalpel. Thick, dark brown stomach contents flowed down the incision into a stainless steel tray.
"He had a good appetite at dinner," Harris said, rummaging through the muddy, semi-digested contents with a glass rod.
Scattered on the tray were large chunks of unchewed meat and the remains of half a roasted potato.
"Steak. Judging by the fiber structure, it's top-quality ribeye." Harris brushed a few scraps aside, the glass rod tapping the tray with a crisp sound. "And a large amount of bourbon. Very strong."
Brody clenched his fists, staring intently at the nauseating, viscous substance. "Did you look for anything else? Powder, capsule fragments, or some kind of…poisonous plant growing in the wild?"
In Brody's thirty years as a sheriff, if someone died without any external injuries but with such violent hallucinogenic convulsions, ninety percent of the time it was due to an overdose of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), PCP (angel dust), or some kind of biological toxin that directly affects the nervous system.
Harris meticulously sifted through the stomach contents and the remaining fluids in the first part of the intestines. Time ticked by with the roar of the exhaust fan.
Twenty minutes later, Harris looked up and removed a glove soaked with stomach acid.
"No." The forensic pathologist's tone held a barely perceptible hint of confusion. "There was no gelatin residue from dissolved capsules. No cellulose from plant leaves or fungi. His digestive system contained only an extremely expensive dinner. Even if the poison had entered the bloodstream, given the rate of digestion in his stomach, it couldn't have been ingested more than two hours ago. It's impossible to find no physical residue."
Oral ingestion was ruled out.
Brody felt a dull ache in his back molars. If Julian hadn't ingested the pills, nor had he been given poisonous mushrooms, how did something capable of completely shutting down the brain and plunging him into a state of delirious hallucinations get into his body?
Intravenous injection?
"Look for subcutaneous needle marks. Don't miss a single pore. Between the fingers, between the toes, under the armpits," Brody instructed.
Harris changed into a new pair of gloves and picked up a high-powered magnifying glass. Another long and deathly silent half hour passed. Every inch of the corpse's skin was roughly examined, and apart from a few superficial abrasions from blackberry vines, nothing was found.
The autopsy seemed to have reached a dead end. The young man, his chest and abdomen ripped open, was like a perfect machine that had spontaneously ceased functioning.
Harris habitually moved to the head. Cleaning the skull fragments caused by the fall was the final step of the autopsy. He picked up a pair of medical forceps and sterile cotton swabs, preparing to clean the blood clots and sediment accumulated in Julian's nasal cavity.
The cotton swab was inserted deep into the right nostril. It touched the nasal turbinate mucosa.
When the swab was pulled out, besides the dark red streaks of blood, the once snow-white cotton was now stained with an extremely faint, almost invisible, powdery substance.
It wasn't the grayish-black of soil, nor the dark red of blood clots, but a highly unnatural purplish-brown, imbued with some eerie vitality.
Harris's movements froze. He brought the cotton swab up to the operating light, squinting. Deep within the mucosa, where the respiratory tract directly connects to the alveoli, an astonishing number of tiny particles adhered.
"Sheriff." Harris's voice dropped a notch.
He quickly cut a small piece of nasal mucosa tissue covered in powder, placed it on a slide, added a drop of saline solution, and covered it with a coverslip. Then, he walked to the Leica binocular microscope on the workbench against the wall.
He adjusted the focus. A powerful spotlight pierced the glass slide.
Harris stared at the microscope for a full ten seconds. He straightened up and moved aside. "You'd better see for yourself."
Brody strode over, bent down, and brought his eyes close to the eyepiece.
In the blinding light, he saw a horrifying scene in the microscopic world. Along the edges of those pinkish human cells, countless nearly perfect oval particles clung densely. They had thick walls, and their surfaces even had extremely fine, thorn-like textures. They were a near-deadly deep purplish-brown.
They weren't industrially synthesized powder. They were reproductive life forms.
"What is this?" Brody's voice sounded like it had been sanded.
"Spores." Harris removed her mask, revealing a face pale from prolonged lack of sunlight. "Fungal spores. And not the tiny amounts that naturally fall from the ground. This density… it's like his last breaths forced his entire lungs into an exploding cloud of poisonous mushrooms. This stuff enters the bloodstream directly through the nasal cavity and the numerous capillaries in the lungs, crossing the blood-brain barrier in seconds and directly destroying his amygdala."
Forensic medicine and plant toxicology, at this moment, coldly overlapped.
Brody sat bolt upright, the microscope eyepiece slamming against his brow bone, but he felt no pain.
In the entire town of Graycliff, only one person knew the toxicity of every inch of the North American mahogany forest. The person who spent her entire life with fungi, decaying wood, and highly poisonous plants; the savage woman, known as the "witch" by the townspeople, who resided in the ruins of the north slope greenhouse.
Hours earlier, Brody's intuition at the crime scene had now materialized into a tangible, deadly accusation.
These tiny, purplish-brown powders were more deadly than any bloodstained knife left at the scene. Nature wouldn't magically grow legs to stuff poison into a human's nostrils.
"This is murder," Brody whispered. Not stating it to the medical examiner, but giving his own brain a final command.
An invisible, blunt blade, leaving no visible wound, had silently slit Julian's throat in this unseen dust.
Brody turned, grabbed his waterproof coat draped over a chair, and strode open the heavy metal door to the autopsy room. The echo in the corridor drowned out the roar of the exhaust fan.
He was now going to knock on the glass door deep within the redwood forest.