The crisp morning mist, stirred by the cold wind in the forest, formed fine ripples, first brushing past the Joker's terrified expression and then getting blown into Victor's eyes, skimming his fingertips where a dry spot of dark red crust lay at the tip of his little finger, like a black hole beneath a dune.
"Damn it, hurry and press down on that corner, or the blood's going to seep into the cracks." Anna's shout reverberated through the office.
Victor stood by the door with his hands covered in blood, while Nora carried over a toolbox, opened it, and handed a saw to Anna. Anna cursed under her breath and looked down at the body at her feet.
At that moment, the clock in the office pointed to 6 a.m.
"We have, at most, half an hour left," Victor said. "I don't want to be late for the party that Shiller is hosting, and neither does anyone else."
"Then chop quickly!" Anna said. "This damn no-good picked the worst time to come. We need at least two large boxes to pack him up!"
"Why do you think he came specifically for you?" Nora asked, looking up. Her voice was gentle, but her expression was somewhat icy. The stench of blood filling the room didn't make her flinch.
"I ..." Victor stammered, "I'm sorry, but they must know my only weakness is you. To make me work for them, they would only come looking for you."
"Thank goodness you're alright," Victor said, half-kneeling on the ground. "I don't want to treat you as if you're some helpless little girl, but today was too dangerous. If you hadn't noticed him tracking you and just walked into the market, maybe down some alleyway when you came out ..."
"You're still worrying too much, Victor," Nora sighed. "His tracking skills were unbelievably poor. I don't know who would choose a barehanded attack, but at least I have a gun."
"Thank you for deciding to bring him here so we could deal with him together," Victor said sincerely. "Thank you for trusting us and not choosing to face it alone."
"Things have already turned out this way; let's not dwell on the past," Anna said. "We need to clean him up as quickly as possible. A cleaning crew will come to tidy up the office, and I don't want to be late for Shiller's housewarming party either, since we have no idea who's hosting it."
Victor sighed, "We can't freeze him whole; the car isn't big enough. First, we'll cut him up, then freeze the pieces so there won't be any smell."
"But where do you plan on tossing them?" Anna asked, frowning. "Please don't tell me something stupid like the sewers; you know Gotham's sewers are never quiet."
After pondering for a while, Victor suddenly said, "Have you seen the Fishing Report?"
"That newspaper that keeps reporting who caught how big a fish? I teach math, and I have even more fools under me than Shiller does; where would I find the time to read that?"
"There's a lake near Shiller's house, a very large one," Victor said, looking at Anna.
"Are you insane?! You want to dump a corpse in front of Shiller?!"
"He won't notice, and even if he does, he won't care," Victor said. "I don't believe there aren't any of his masterpieces sunken in that lake. I know all too well the kind of people who end up befriending him."
"You're of the same kind as he is, the same kind of lunatic," Anna said sharply. "The good husband is your perfect human mask."
"I certainly don't hope to become his standard for measuring madness. We need to hurry up; don't forget we still have to pick up the others," Nora concluded decisively.
The heavy mist engulfed both Anna and Victor as they stood with fishing rods, watching Shiller's figure move down the grassy slope. Anna asked, "Do you think he's noticed?"
"I don't know, but he doesn't usually appear behind me like that," Victor shook his head. "It could also be my guilty conscience."
Glancing at her watch, Anna said, "We're early enough; the others will probably take another half hour. Let's get this over with."
As Shiller's figure completely vanished over the grass, Anna and Victor lifted the two boxes hidden at the bottom, uncovering numerous human limbs frozen solid in the dense ice when the boxes were opened.
"Have you ever seen his brain?" Anna asked.
"Of course not, I don't have such peculiar tastes."
"Sometimes I really doubt someone's got a lizard living in their brain," Anna mused as she poured ice block after ice block from the boxes into the pot. "Have you seen Ratatouille?"
"You mean the rat that never abides by kitchen hygiene rules? So you're saying a lizard is manipulating people like he did?"
"Otherwise, I can't make sense of how someone could score a zero on my exam."
They chatted idly while tossing the ice blocks into the lake, placing the smaller parts on top, quickly finishing the task. Anna, with some difficulty, retrieved a chunk of a corpse from the bottom of a large box.
"Hmm?"
She made a puzzled noise, and Victor instantly turned to look. Anna had turned the chunk over, pointing at something and saying, "What's this? It looks like some kind of metal object."
Victor immediately saw the bone and said, "I'm not much for anatomy, but I know this isn't a human's lumbar vertebra."
"Don't you think this tracking incident is a bit strange?" Anna asked.
"Of course, but I must protect Nora's self-esteem and not act as if the whole world revolves around me," Shiller said. "Besides, Nora is quite picky and insists on going to the supermarket two neighborhoods over, which isn't very safe. It's easy for someone who obviously looks like an intellectual and a rich lady to get targeted there."
"I don't know if the whole world revolves around you, but there certainly seem to be too many people revolving around you lunatics," Anna said as she looked at the bone. "Take it down, and throw the rest into the lake."
Victor looked around, took out the Freeze Gun, and defrosted the ice, but prying off the skeleton was difficult. It took him a great deal of effort to tear that piece of bone off. After refreezing the chunks of the corpse, he said to Anna, "You throw it. I need to wash my hands over there. Can't be discovered."
As his finger stroked the Freeze Gun's chamber, Victor stared intently at Joker's face, ready to shoot him the moment he dared utter another word related to corpses, and call Arkham Asylum to send a transport.
No one would believe this maniac, Victor thought. He was Shiller's good friend, a renowned professor, currently the leader in the field of low-temperature physics, a Nobel Prize nominee—who would choose a madman over him?
Victor glanced back slightly and saw Nora's eyes, calm and collected. Yes, he was still a good husband. Their story had spread far and wide – the tale of a man who dived into scientific research for his gravely ill wife and achieved immortal success. It had always been well received by the public.
Victor's grip on the Freeze Gun tightened.
At the same time, Gordon's eyes were also firmly on Joker, his hand on his gun holster. Unlike before, the gun at his waist wasn't fastened tightly, and the safety of the weapon inside was off.
With a clack, Gordon placed a box on his desk, glanced at his watch, and called out to someone outside.
The policewoman came in, and Gordon, while arranging the items in the box, said, "Is the car ready? Take these records down for me first, just place them on the left side of the trunk. I'll carry the record player myself."
The policewoman nodded, took the box, and left. Gordon then pulled out another, larger box from under his desk containing an antique record player.
Gordon gazed at the old record player with satisfaction. He was determined to make an impression at Shiller's housewarming party, letting everyone know he scored such a treasure on a single trip to the flea market.
Not to mention the records he had urgently ordered—classics of old music, far superior to whatever pop music was around nowadays... Wait a minute, why didn't Winnie criticize his taste in music just now?
Gordon looked towards the door with some confusion.
When he had asked Winnie to help transport these things in her car yesterday, she had complained the whole way, insisting on playing what sounded like chanting raps on the car radio. To see her today, silent about the records – that wasn't like her.
Winnie had just joined the force this year and was Gordon's academy classmate. She had finished in the top three of her class at the Chicago Police Academy for three consecutive years. It had been quite a struggle for him to bring her here. They were like friends but also like father and daughter, often joking and ribbing each other during work hours. Was she in a bad mood today?
Gordon, puzzled, immediately took the record player downstairs, only to find that Winnie had placed the box on the right side of the trunk.
The right side already had some insulated boxes, which contained the veggie skewers Gordon had prepared in advance. He knew that Shiller and his friends were mostly meat-eaters.
But there might be some vegetarians or ladies who prefer fruits and vegetables among them, and it would be impolite to not have any veggies prepared. So he had bought vegetables the night before and made them into skewers, in case Shiller and the others forgot.
The records, if placed on top of the insulated boxes, wouldn't allow the trunk to close, and there was so much space left on the left side – why didn't she put them there?
Winnie was usually very efficient in handling tasks, especially packing with a woman's attention to detail and caution. Even though she was now handling her cases independently, when she was Gordon's assistant, she always kept his office exceptionally tidy and wouldn't work like this.
Gordon thought she might be in a bad mood, so he went over and patted her shoulder, saying, "You start the car. I'll take care of this."
After placing the box, Gordon moved to the driver's side door wanting to chat with Winnie, only to discover her turning the car key to the left.
Most cars are started by turning the key to the right, and while some can open the door by turning to the left, Gordon's car wasn't one of those. Turning to the left would not work.
Gordon narrowed his eyes.
He quietly reached for his gun, and as Winnie turned to look at him, Gordon broke out in a cold sweat.
Winnie's eyes, one looking left, the other right, whirled chaotically within their sockets.
Bang!
Looking at Winnie lying in a pool of blood, Gordon's expression was unflinching. After a few seconds of stillness, rage appeared on his face.
Hearing the gunshot, his subordinates ran out. The leader, upon seeing Winnie on the ground, did not show any shock, but looked at Gordon seriously and asked, "Them again?"
"Find the real Winnie," Gordon said.
"What about the body? Boss, we can't let the residents see her; it will cause panic. If we send it to the coroner, they'll find out the bullet type..."
"What's the need to send it to the coroner?" Gordon said somewhat coldly. "I'll call Lawrence later and just stuff it in the morgue at the hospital."
He was about to continue but paused and then said, "Never mind, go get Brock. We need to figure out a way to deal with this thing."