Free The Hua Shan Hospital Murders by David Rotenberg

picture is of the actual cage that we found. Personally I doubt it.”
    “How could the papers get the pictures, Lily?”
    “They could have been dropped off with the stringers but we’ve checked. They both deny it. Both also deny they wrote the story. They claim the story and picture arrived at their head office in America by e-mail before the bomb went off. When the stringers confirmed the facts of the blast, their papers ran the story. There is no traceable e-mail traffic from the Middle Kingdom to these newspapers so we have to assume the e-mail came from somewhere else. This bomber could have an accomplice or he could have set his computer in America to send e-mails on a certain day to certain papers.”
    “Can e-mail do that?”
    “If you have the right software it’s no problem.”
    “How about these stringers?”
    “What about them?”
    “You believe these guys – these stringers – Lily?”
    “I do. They’re both old China hands. They both have good reason to want to stay here and therefore play by the rules.”
    “And the reason they want to stay here, Lily?”
    “One is married to a Chinese girl, the other has a weakness for Chinese women.”
    “Ah.”
    “Ah, indeed, Fong.” Lily smiled at her own cleverness.
    “Is that all, Lily?” Fong prompted her in English.
    She shot him a hard look. “Not all, Fong, and it know you!” she retorted angrily in her version of English. Her hands trembled as she opened a small transparent folder. She put on a pair of reading glasses. She didn’t look up as she read the Mandarin characters. Her voice was soft – distant – so un-Lily-like.
    “The fetus was of a seven-month-old male. Two pounds three ounces. Han Chinese. It seems to have been partially mummified. Perhaps by the blast. No matching DNA markers with known suspects or other victims. No way to tell how long ago it died–” She stopped, realizing the implication of what she had just said. If it had died it must at one time have been alive. She shook her head. Fong was frightened she might break into tears. She didn’t. “The fetus was wrapped in a flame-retardant metal sheathing with an asbestos lining – industrial strength, easy enough to find at any construction site. The lining, that is. The metal was titanium.” She turned the page and continued to read. It took five more minutes for her to complete her report – all very dry, very accurate – pretty much useless and she knew it. She closed the folder and reached for her tea. When she brought the steaming liquid to her lips her glasses misted over. It hid the tears in her eyes.
    Fong allowed a moment of silence, then said, “Find out what the hospital does with discarded fetuses.” No one moved. No one wanted that assignment.
    “They flush them or throw them in the garbage,” said Lily, her voice thickening. “I checked this morning assuming that none of the men around this table would mind if I did this part of the investigation.”
    “Thanks, Lily,” he said in English.
    “Hey, please aim do I.”
    “Right,” Fong thought but said nothing to her. He turned away from her. “You,” he said pointing to the nearest cop, “find the route between the People’s Twenty-Second Hospital and the nearest incinerator. It may even be in the hospital. Now.”
    “Fine,” said the cop getting to his feet. He strode to the door and pushed it open. A muffled “ouch” came from the other side. A stubby rat of a man poked his head around the door and smiled when he saw Fong. Then he saw Lily and he positively beamed.
    Lake Ching’s Captain Chen had come to the big city.

CHAPTER EIGHT
THAT NIGHT
    Lily and Fong took Chen out for dinner that night in the Old City. Even as they walked toward the restaurant Fong wondered if Chen was going to get along in Shanghai. He was such a rube! He kept bobbing around to take in the sights. It made him bump into person after person – a definite no-no on Shanghai’s constantly packed streets.
    Chen