Johnny Dennison’s kitchen was immense, roughly 40 square meters, with enough space for three or four people to work simultaneously. Refrigerator, oven, a bread maker... It could be said that this kitchen was equipped to produce all the food and beverages needed for typical parties. Johnny Dennison’s body lay face down, back up, beside the refrigerator. He had a clear blunt-force trauma wound on the back of his head. Blood had pooled on the floor, staining the collar of his clothes crimson. Not far in front of the corpse was a cube-shaped object covered with a black cloth. Atop the black cloth rested a garishly pale pink carnation. Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly. Carnations, also known as *Dianthus caryophyllus*, were the most commonly used flowers for mourning the deceased in the United States. Black cloth, carnations... Were these items left behind by the killer? Dean didn’t rush to inspect it. After surveying the kitchen, he knelt before the corpse and observed it carefully. Based on the victim’s profile, Dean confirmed it was indeed Johnny Dennison; he had seen the man’s photograph in Daisy’s book. Johnny Dennison was about 184 centimeters tall, dressed in casual wear, slightly overweight with a prominent belly. The visible side of his face bore an expression of shock, as if he had been surprised by the attack in his final moments of consciousness. Dean pinched the man’s arm. It felt stiff, but the joints could still move, albeit much more sluggishly than a living person’s, as if its mechanical joints had rusted and jammed. After death, blood and body fluids cease to circulate, causing joints and muscles to stiffen. When the body’s water content starts to evaporate and these fluids permeate each other, the body becomes soft again. This change typically takes about 70 hours: Muscles and joints begin to show signs of rigor mortis within 30 minutes to two hours after death. Read full story at 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✦𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✦𝓷𝓮𝓽 Around 9 to 12 hours, the entire body stiffens. Only after about 30 hours postmortem does the body’s rigidity subside, and it begins to soften gradually. Of course, this applies to normal temperature conditions. If the ambient temperature is above 35 degrees Celsius, the 70-hour process of rigor and softening can be reduced to within 24 hours. The current midday temperature in Los Angeles was estimated to be between 18 to 26 degrees Celsius. The room did not have climate control active. Therefore, Dean was relatively certain that Johnny Dennison had died before 11:00 AM this morning. He then felt Johnny Dennison’s armpit. After death, the body stops producing heat, and its internal temperature gradually drops until it matches the ambient temperature. During this process, heat dissipates faster from the body’s surface than from its internal organs. Standard forensic examinations measure liver temperature; Holz had done this before. Dean, lacking equipment, could only check the surface temperature. The armpit is the area with the smallest margin of error for this method. Johnny Dennison’s armpit was hairy and had a rank odor, which was somewhat revolting. Fortunately, the tactile feedback was useful. Dean could faintly feel residual warmth through his thin gloves. This indicated Johnny Dennison hadn’t been dead for more than five or six hours; otherwise, his body wouldn’t have felt noticeably warmer than the surroundings. Considering the state of rigor mortis, Dean deduced that Johnny Dennison had died between 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM. However, this time frame wasn’t precise enough. Dean carefully lifted the deceased’s forearm slightly and examined the skin on the downward-facing side. He was looking for livor mortis. Livor mortis occurs after death when blood, no longer circulating, settles due to gravity in the lowest parts of the vascular network. This causes capillaries and small veins in those areas to fill with blood, appearing as dark red or purple patches visible through the skin. These patches, or lividity, typically begin to appear about two hours after death and become more pronounced over time. They usually first appear on the parts of the body facing downwards. Patches of livor mortis, appearing as speckles of medium intensity—neither too dark nor too light—were visible on Johnny Dennison’s forearm. Considering Dennison’s overweight physique, Dean refrained from drawing hasty conclusions. He lowered the man’s arm and instead pried open one of his eyelids. After death, the cornea gradually loses transparency until the pupil is no longer visible, eventually turning a cloudy gray-white. This change also follows a predictable pattern: Small white spots appear on the cornea 5-6 hours after death. Cloudy patches form in 10-12 hours. In 15-24 hours, it turns foggy, but the pupil is still discernible. After 48 hours, the pupil is no longer discernible, and the cornea is completely opaque and ashen white. Beneath Johnny Dennison’s eyelid, the corneal transparency was significantly reduced and the pupil was dilated. However, it hadn’t become completely turbid yet; only small white spots had appeared within the cornea. From this, Dean determined that Johnny Dennison had been dead for at least five or six hours. It was now just past 1:00 PM. Combining this with the previous observations of the body, Dean now estimated Johnny Dennison’s time of death to be between 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM. At that hour, many people would have just been waking up. Teresa, the nanny, under normal circumstances, would also be preparing breakfast for the family around this time. However, she had reported the death around noon. Where had she been before that? And Johnny Dennison’s wife and son—over such a long period, even if they skipped breakfast, wouldn’t they have found it strange that their husband and father was missing? Dean temporarily set aside these questions and began to examine Johnny Dennison’s injuries. Upon examination, the most obvious injury on Johnny Dennison’s body was a depressed fracture caused by blunt-force trauma to the back of his head. Blood on the wound had clotted and scabbed over. Based on its contour, the experienced Dean was certain the murder weapon was a blunt object with a curved surface, similar to a baseball bat. The wound was clean, indicating a single, fatal blow with no subsequent strikes. The killer must have ambushed Johnny Dennison from behind; Dennison apparently had no defense against the assailant. The wound was convex on the top and concave on the bottom. According to force analysis, this meant that when the killer struck, the center of force of the weapon was lower than the point of impact on Dennison’s head. This indicated the killer was not tall, and the weapon was likely short. The image of Teresa, the nanny with the doll-like face, resurfaced in Dean’s mind. Although he hadn’t seen Teresa standing, But who was he? A single glance had been enough. Her vital statistics, her proportions, and her approximate height—Dean had a clear picture. Teresa had long legs, a slim waist, and a perky rear, but her height was probably only about 1.6 meters. If she wielded a short weapon, like a rolling pin, and swung it upwards, it would align perfectly with the force analysis of the wound on the back of Johnny Dennison’s head. Crucially, Teresa was the family’s nanny. Even if she stood behind Johnny Dennison holding a weapon, he likely wouldn’t have suspected anything, only showing surprise and astonishment in his final moments. There was another crucial reason Dean suspected Teresa. The victim’s wound was located at the back of the head. The back of a human head is actually a very vulnerable area. It’s composed of bone, nerves, and skin tissue, protecting the brainstem and cerebellum within. A heavy blow to this area can cause fainting or nerve damage at best; at worst, it can lead to a vegetative state or brain death. This is why elderly people sometimes faint or even die after losing their balance and hitting the back of their head, perhaps against a wall in the bathroom or toilet. Although Johnny Dennison was a man over 1.8 meters tall and weighed at least 200 pounds, a woman striking him on the back of the head with a blunt object could easily have inflicted such an injury. It was also the most vulnerable spot where someone could so easily kill a man of Johnny Dennison’s stature. Currently, the suspicion against Teresa, the nanny, was strong. Dean whistled softly. This case seems quite easy. Whether Teresa was the murderer still required confirming her opportunity and motive. She was at the scene and couldn’t flee. There was no immediate rush to confirm these. The preceding examination, though seemingly intricate, had taken Dean less than two minutes. He shifted his gaze to the cube-shaped object covered with black cloth in front of the victim. This object seemed strikingly out of place. Leaving specific items at a murder scene was a common tactic employed by arrogant serial killers. They used these items as signatures, distinguishing their crimes from other homicides and flaunting their unique, twisted tastes. Such individuals were invariably arrogant at heart. Teresa, the nanny, didn’t seem like that type of person. So... What lay beneath that black cloth?