The Silent Girl

the head.
    The last two victims were Arthur and Dina Mallory, both found near a corner table where they had been sitting. Arthur was shot twice, once in the back of the head, once in the spine. His wife was hit three times, the bullets punching into her cheek, her mid-back, and her skull. Scanning down to the pathologist’s summary, she saw that he’d concluded the same thing she did: that Dina Mallory had been moving when she was shot the first two times, probably trying to flee her attacker. Maura was about to set the report aside when she noticed a sentence describing the dissection of the stomach and duodenum.
    Based on volume of gastric contents, which appear to include spaghetti fragments with a tomato-based sauce, the postprandial period is estimated to be one to two hours
.
    Maura opened Arthur Mallory’s autopsy report and scanned down to the examination of his stomach, which, as was routine in an autopsy, had been slit open and the contents collected.
    Gastric contents appear to include cheese and meat, with partially digested fragments of lettuce. Postprandial interval estimated at one to two hours
.
    This did not make sense. Why would the Mallorys, their bellies full of what appeared to be an Italian meal, be sitting in a Chinese restaurant?
    The description of gastric contents, of macerated lettuce and tomato sauce, had ruined her appetite. “This is not the way to start off breakfast,” she said, closing the folder. “It’s a beautiful day and I’m going to make pancakes, how about that? Let’s not think about this anymore.”
    “What about the missing bullet?” said Rat.
    “Even if we could find it now, it wouldn’t change the conclusions. The bodies have been long buried or cremated, and the crime scene’s been cleaned up. To reopen a case, you need new forensic evidence. After this many years, there’d be nothing left.”
    “But there’s something wrong about all this, isn’t there? You think so, too.”
    “Okay.” She sighed. “Let’s assume the cook didn’t kill himself. Let’s assume someone else, a person unknown, walked in and started shooting. Why didn’t the cook just run?”
    “Maybe he couldn’t get out.”
    “There’s another exit from the kitchen. The report said it opens into an alley.”
    “Maybe the door was locked from the outside.”
    She pulled up the crime scene images on her laptop. This was completely inappropriate viewing for the boy, but he had raised good questions, and nothing he’d seen or heard so far appeared to have rattled him. “Here,” she said, pointing to the kitchen exit. “It looks like it’s ajar. So there’s no reason he couldn’t have fled. If he heard gunshots in the dining room, anyone with common sense would have run out that kitchen door.”
    “What about that door?” He pointed to the cellar door, blocked by the cook’s body. “Maybe he was going to hide down there.”
    “The cellar’s a dead end. It makes no sense to head that way. Look at all the evidence, Rat. He’s found holding the gun. There’s gunshot residue on his hand, which means he was in contact with the weapon when it was fired.” She paused, suddenly thinking about the extra bullet casing. The gun was fired twice in the kitchen, but only one blast was heard. And the Glock had a threaded barrel, so it couldbe fitted with a silencer. She tried to imagine an alternate sequence of events. An unknown killer executes Wu Weimin. Removes the silencer and places the weapon in the dead man’s hand. Fires one last time to plant gunshot residue on the victim’s skin. It would explain why only one blast was heard and why there were two bullet casings in the kitchen. But there was one detail she couldn’t explain with that scenario: why Wu Weimin, given the chance to flee out the back exit, had chosen to remain in the kitchen.
    She focused on the cellar door. On the cook’s body, lying in front of it. Blocking it. Suddenly she thought: Maybe he couldn’t flee.
    Because he had a very good reason to stay
.

L UMINOUS PROBABLY GOING TO MAKE THIS WHOLE PLACE LIGHT up,” said Jane. “According to the realtor, all they did after the event was wash down the walls and mop the floors. The linoleum was never replaced. So I’m not sure what this exercise is going to prove.”
    “We won’t know until we look, will we?” said Maura.
    They stood outside the old Red Phoenix restaurant, waiting for the crime scene unit to arrive. Total darkness was needed to properly