"The time of death was roughly twenty-four hours ago. Judging by the water and pollutants in their lungs, they did drown. But drowning victims might look peaceful, or occasionally show a spasmodic smile. They wouldn't look this... uniform, unless someone was controlling their thoughts."
Nygma took off his gloves and picked up a report from the desk. "If this were a cult, drugs would usually be involved... None of these girls showed any signs of sexual assault, and their blood tests were perfectly normal. We found no hallucinogens or stimulants. Several of them had never even smoked marijuana."
He sat down, looking thoughtful. "And... their stomach contents were remarkably similar. They all consumed the same dessert and black tea about four hours before death. That isn't something a group of girls from such different backgrounds would happen to do independently... Based on what we have, the only explanation is a master hypnotist capable of putting at least fifteen people under deep hypnosis at once, who controlled them and made them jump into the water to kill themselves."
"That's way too far-fetched." Li Jie vigorously rubbed his hair. "You believe in hypnosis? Aren't those people all just shills for magicians?"
"No, hypnosis does exist. It's just that if the hypnotist and the subject don't know each other, and the subject strongly resists the instructions, the chances of failure are very high. But there's something you might want to pay attention to..."
Nygma pointed at the victims' clothes off to one side. "See those clothes? Although the victims themselves looked different, their overall appearance was almost identical. Bright blue, full A-line dresses, white aprons, long blond hair with black headbands, white stockings, and black Mary Janes. What does that remind you of?"
"Huh? Uh... uh..."
Li Jie thought it seemed familiar too, but he had absolutely no idea. Just as he was about to give up, a burst of barking from stray dogs outside flashed through his memory like lightning.
"I've got it! The Wizard of Oz!"
"Uh..."
Nygma sighed. "Think again, Jay. There's a riddle, too. Why is a raven like a writing desk? Remember?"
"A raven? All I know is that magpies can build bridges in the East. What, can ravens in America double as writing desks?"
"No, Jay. Alice. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
"Hmm... I know it. Pretty famous..." Li Jie looked at him blankly. "But I've never read it! Don't look at me like that. It's just a cultural difference. I bet you've never read Water Margin or anything like that, either."
"No, actually, I have." Nygma shook his head with a calm smile. "In Chinese, too."
"Holy shit. I seriously can't take this kind of blow anymore. Is there anything you can't do?" Li Jie sighed. "All right, let's change the subject. Where do we start?"
He vaguely remembered a villain connected to Alice, but couldn't recall the name or what that villain had done. He immediately began counting points off on his fingers. "The victims' identities and social connections. Any anime conventions or counseling sessions they had in common. Witnesses who saw them last. Check clothing stores for bulk purchases, and counseling clinics for practitioners... What am I missing?"
"No." Nygma shook his head. "That isn't the most important thing." He walked over to the pile of blue-and-white dresses and picked out two.
"Notice that of the fifteen victims' identical outfits, twelve have relatively crude cuts, stitching, and materials, and were clearly made by the same person. Only three are more refined, with the characteristics of commercially mass-produced clothing."
"Hear me out." He waved a hand to stop Li Jie from interjecting. "Perhaps you're about to say this suggests the suspect was short on money. But to me, it shows his obsession with creating his own perfect Alice by hand. He was practicing, and getting better and better. As for the last few, perhaps he ran out of time."
"If he's part of this scenario too... then... who are you?"
Nygma pulled out a sheet of paper and drew a large question mark on it. He glanced up at Li Jie and was about to speak, only for a flicker of disappointment to cross his face.
"The Queen of Hearts was obsessed with cutting off everyone's heads. Alice was merely one of the people who angered her. The Cheshire Cat came and went mysteriously, keeping its distance from Alice. The Moon Rabbit...? No, Alice brought it nothing but panicked anxiety and trouble. So... who was most obsessed with Alice?"
He kept talking, entirely absorbed in his own explanation, and wrote a name on the paper.
"I've caught you, Mad Hatter."
"Uh..." Li Jie scratched his head. "What... does that even mean? Are we supposed to go arrest some perverted tailor?"
"It means I'm going to try profiling the suspect," Nygma said as he continued writing. "A tall top hat, a vacant gaze... childlike logic, trapped in frozen time... This means..."
His pen paused briefly, then continued. "He may struggle with social interaction, or... in some respects, see himself as a child who can never grow up. We can't even rule out a physical abnormality, such as being unusually short, or an actual dwarf."
"Go on, Jay. He might hide the hat, but he'll definitely have one." He pressed the paper into Li Jie's hand. "Catch him and let me have a look."
"FUCK! You picked up two dresses, looked at the stitching, and then figured out what the damn suspect looks like. How the fuck did you connect those two things?!"
Li Jie stared at him in shock. "This world is nothing like I imagined. Once we finish this case, I'm definitely getting my IQ tested and applying for disability benefits."
"Ha!" Nygma laughed, looking rather pleased with himself. "Go on, Jay. I'm sure you're not bad yourself."
"Thanks, Ed. Sorry for making you sneak into the morgue with me in the middle of the night. I'll get going." Li Jie sprang to his feet. "But seriously, I might get promoted to sergeant early next month. Are you really not coming to the East End?"
"Uh... I... congratulations, Jay. I... but right now, I..."
"Okay, I know. It's fine if you have reservations right now. I'll get the East End's Forensics Division set up first, then ask you again next time we meet. I'll keep asking until you agree."
"...Thank you, Jay. Honestly, I think you're starting to sway me." Nygma smiled a little sheepishly. "Next time. I think next time..."
"Next time, I'll have Wilson teach you Michael's moonwalk. Lots of girls like that." Li Jie yawned. "I'm off to investigate. See you."
"See you," Nygma murmured with a smile at Li Jie's retreating back. He stood up and glided through a fluid sequence of dance steps, finishing with an elegant turn and a deep bow to the row of bodies in the morgue drawers.
"The moonwalk? I can do that too..."
"They had almost nothing in common. Apart from two who went to the same school, the others were cheerleaders, office workers, punk girls, students, even streetwalkers. Their families ranged from comfortably middle-class to buried in debt." Over the uproar at Central Headquarters, Gordon drained his coffee in one gulp. "Even a serial killer wouldn't dispose of a whole batch of bodies at once. Harvey, what do you think?"
"I think I'm dying of exhaustion. Want some more tea?" Li Jie refilled the teapot, watching Alan yawn as he sifted through the files. "I'm going to request a McDonald's for our precinct."
"That would be great, sir. Take a look at this..."
Alan pulled a sheet from the thick stack of files. "Last year, someone reported that her daughter had been kidnapped, but two days later, the girl came home on her own in a daze. No injuries, no ransom demand, no sexual assault. She'd just been changed into a blue dress, white stockings, and black shoes. The girl returned to normal about a week later, but never remembered where she'd been."
He handed the report to Li Jie. "Sir, would this... be any use?"
"Of course it's useful. Let Uncle Harvey show you what a man's intuition looks like." Harvey Bullock spat out his cigarette butt and lined the victims' photos up across the desk. "Look. What do you see?"
"They're all women? Their looks... at least by my standards... they aren't all beauties, either." Gordon leaned over the desk to study them closely. "Quit keeping me in suspense. Spit it out."
"They're all the sweet, approachable girl-next-door type. Sure, some aren't that pretty, but they all look innocent and cute." Bullock took two doughnuts out of the microwave and handed one to Gordon. "I'm afraid that Nygma guy was right. This really is someone obsessed with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But that hypnosis stuff is pure bullshit. If you ask me, we should bring in Narcotics. Odds are it's some new hallucinogenic stimulant."
"You're right. This really is useful." Li Jie drew a circle on the map. "The last report was near Crime Alley. The one before that..." He marked a second location. "Gotham's northern outskirts. This time, the bodies drowned at the estuary by Triangle Bridge."
He circled each of the locations. "Could this guy be hiding somewhere between these spots? A dwarf..." He looked at the paper Nygma had written for him. "Find out if any of them knew a dwarf in a top hat!"
"We can't just sit around waiting for news." Gordon put his notebook away and checked his pistol. "We need to talk to our informants. Any word from the officers checking the psychiatrists?"
"No, not yet. Those so-called counseling experts usually advertise themselves as social elites who can see straight into people's hearts. Then the moment they heard this involved murder, they scrambled to admit all their hypnosis was just a money-making scam." Bullock propped his feet on the desk. "Getting this agitated will only tip him off. Don't worry. Something will turn up."
"Sir, we've got a big problem!"
Anna hung up the phone and sighed at Li Jie. "That Cloaked Figure has appeared again. He's beating people up in the street."
"Oh, FUCK! He went to... wait, you said he's beating people up in the street?" Li Jie froze for a moment. "In the street, not at one of Falcone's places?"
"Yes. Witnesses said they saw him questioning a bunch of thugs near Triangle Bridge with his fists and cash. They also asked whether calling it in would earn them an informant's reward."
"Hah! I bet those homeless guys called it in themselves." Li Jie curled his lip. "He's probably following this case too... I guess that gives us another helping hand? But honestly, I wouldn't get my hopes up."
"Sir, don't be so pessimistic. That isn't like you. Want a snack to perk you up?"
"I mean it." Li Jie pushed away the chips Anna offered him. "If we're on the right track, we're dealing with a master hypnotist who's a dwarf in a hat-we'd better hope he doesn't know how to use a Force choke. If we manage to catch the suspect, sure, we can beat a confession out of him, but first we have to make sure we've got the right person. Besides, there are at least tens of thousands of people in that area. If we screen them one by one, the suspect will get wind of us long before we find him."
"So we..."
Looking at Alan's and Anna's expectant faces, he closed the map and his notebook. "Go home and sleep."
"Huh??"
"Don't 'huh' me!" Li Jie pointed at the two dumbfounded officers. "Since we don't have a solid lead, working ourselves to death here won't make the criminal turn himself in. Go get a few hours of sleep. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to see an old friend."
Before you continue