The first case

There was definitely something wrong with this world.

Nick was certain there was nothing wrong with his mental state. He had minored in psychology in college.

During his earlier critical incident leave, he had not only seen a psychologist as arranged by the police department, but also privately completed an MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) questionnaire. The results had shown no problems.

He had even paid out of pocket for a physical at a private hospital, and his brain CT scan had come back completely normal too.

After ruling out personal factors as thoroughly as possible, Nick had reached his final conclusion: the problem was not him, but this world.

Yet Hancock was thoroughly unimpressed after hearing his account. "I hear smart people are always very confident. Is it possible you actually have PTSD, and all of this is just hallucinations? I suggest you keep seeing your psychologist."

"If they're hallucinations, why does everything look normal when I look at you? And Wu, Inspector Raynard, and everyone else at the station?"

His partner shrugged, indicating that he had no idea. "The human brain is one of the most complex things in the world, as unfathomable as the stars. Maybe you only hallucinate when you see strangers?"

Nick was about to argue further when their phones rang simultaneously inside the car, interrupting him.

The first-generation iPhone had only been released the previous year. Although he was not particularly keen on iOS, he had held his nose and bought one anyway. Smartphones were, after all, much more convenient.

Hancock still used a Nokia, and there was something inexplicably comical about hearing the two phones' respective classic ringtones sound together.

Their leisurely weekend was ruined by the call, however. Inspector Raynard had assigned them a case. It was time for overtime.

At three in the afternoon, Hancock's old Mercury sedan, which also served as the partners' unmarked police car, stopped at the entrance on the west side of Balch Creek Canyon in Portland Forest Park.

Portland was a rather distinctive city. Its wet, cold, rainy winters and hot, dry summers made it ideal for growing roses, hence its nickname, the City of Roses.

It had the highest forest park coverage of any city in the United States. A network of trails running through and around the entire urban area linked more than thirty separate parks.

Residents could set out from almost anywhere in the city and reach a forest-covered park in under twenty minutes.

That was also why Nick was quite fond of this city that seemed to have been built in a forest. At the time, Portland could count as one of the few American cities that truly practiced environmentalism.

A park police officer in a camouflage uniform, with a silver five-pointed star badge on his chest, greeted the two detectives. The three then followed a woodland trail, walking for nearly fifteen minutes before finally reaching their destination.

The PPB forensics team had already arrived and cordoned off both ends of the woodland path.

"A panicked hiker stopped me and said they'd seen something pretty horrifying. At first, I didn't understand what they meant, until I saw that."

The park police officer led them past the tape and pointed toward a thick-trunked Douglas fir.

The buzzing of flies further pinpointed the location for them. Nick crouched beneath the tree and pushed aside the shrubs, revealing a severed arm.

"The other parts of her body are scattered around here. We're still working on collecting them."

The park police officer looked to be in his early fifties, but perhaps because he frequently patrolled the woods on foot, he had kept in good shape rather than putting on weight as easily as white men his age. He stood well back, looking unable to bear the sight.

Although it was only a severed arm, covered in unidentified tooth marks and grime, with its fingers missing, Nick could still judge from his rudimentary knowledge of forensic medicine that its owner was probably a young white woman.

After following the ominous cawing of crows deeper into the woods, the three encountered an even more disturbing scene: a red athletic jacket torn into strips, human internal organs giving off a powerful odor, and a pink women's Nike shoe.

The earthy woodland smell, originally mingled with the scent of humus, was overwhelmed by the stronger stench of blood. Nick and Hancock had gone less than twenty meters farther before they had to stop, because the forensics team's work had only just reached that point.

"I always thought wolves and bears had been gone from Forest Park for years," Hancock said, covering his nose and frowning.

"You're right. I've never seen any large carnivores around this area. Ever since the fire in 1951 destroyed about 650 hectares of woodland in the west, even wildcats have all but disappeared here."

The park police officer's answer left Hancock somewhat puzzled. "So you suspect this is a body dump in a murder case? Do you have any other evidence?"

"Of course." The park police officer motioned for them to follow and spoke as he walked. "Usually, we can identify the kind of wild animal from its tracks. Anything capable of doing this would have to be something like a North American brown bear, a coyote, or a cougar.

"So I searched the surrounding area and made an interesting discovery."

He stopped in front of a fallen dead tree, bent down, and pulled away a vine. A clear footprint was impressed in the black humus beneath it.

"Wild animals don't wear shoes. When I found this fresh footprint, dew was still seeping into the depression, which means it couldn't have been more than two hours old."

Nick quickly took out his phone and photographed it, then called toward the forensics team still working behind them. "Get the casting kit. There's a shoe print here."

"Coming right over!" someone called back against the backdrop of crows and other unidentified birds.

"Let's wait for the DNA results to establish jurisdiction over this case. But don't worry, we'll handle the preliminary investigation," Hancock said, patting the observant park police officer on the shoulder.

There was a reason America was called a federation. The checks and balances between local and federal power had produced many things that Chinese people found hard to understand, such as a police authority structure that could be described as fragmented, if not utterly disjointed.

Agencies such as the FBI, the United States Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which handled interstate matters and federal law, belonged to federal law enforcement.

Departments such as the NYPD (New York City Police Department), LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department), and PPB (Portland Police Bureau) belonged to local municipal law enforcement.

There were also state police in each state, along with county law enforcement, where towns too small to have their own police departments entrusted policing to local sheriffs.

Beyond these, there were police who exercised law enforcement powers within specific geographical areas or particular systems, such as park police within the federal Forest Service's law enforcement system, campus police responsible for campus safety, and the long-established postal police.

Certain airports and some public transportation facilities also had dedicated police units.

In principle, because this case had occurred inside Forest Park, the PPB had no jurisdiction. But given Portland's unusual circumstances, with almost seamless connections between the entire city and its forest parks, the two sides had long ago reached an understanding on such issues.

Simply put, if DNA testing proved this was an ordinary wild animal attack, jurisdiction would remain with the park police. If it was confirmed to be a criminal case, jurisdiction would transfer to the PPB.