It was an ugly job. Neither of then spoke as they wrestled with the makeshift noose, as they shouldered the deadweight and lowered it to the bed.

"Visual evidence of blood in victim's ears, in nasal passages. Indication of blood vessel eruption in the eyes. No head or facial trauma evident. There are no visible wounds other than the bruising around the neck, which is consistent with strangulation by hanging."

She opened her field kit, took out a gauge. "Time of death established at fourteen-ten."

Eve reached over, shut down the laptop. "Bag this, log it and have it transported to my home office."

Then she stepped back and took a long, careful look at the bedroom. "She didn't exhibit the same level of violence as the other vics. You can see she'd been spending most of her time in here, popping blockers and tranqs, trying to sleep off the pain. She got a little messy, a little careless with housekeeping and appearance, but she didn't run around breaking furniture."

"People handle pain differently," Peabody said as she bagged the laptop. "Like you. You pretend it's not there. Like it's a personal insult and you're going to ignore it so it'll go away. Me, I go straight for the holistic stuff. Early childhood training. But if that doesn't work, it's better living through chemistry. And guys, like my brothers and my dad, they whine. A guy gets sick he reverts to babyhood. Which includes temper tantrums."

"That's interesting, Peabody."

"Well, you know. Testosterone."

"Yeah, I know. In these cases, the two males-three counting Halloway-tried to beat the pain and anyone who got in the way. And the female tried to suppress it with traditional methods. Everybody failed, everybody died. And here's what else everyone did. Burrowed."

"Burrowed, sir?"

"Holed up. Climbed into their nest, or the closest thing to it. Cogburn was locked in his apartment. Maybe if his neighbor hadn't come along, hammering at the door, shouting, cursing at him, he'd have stayed there until he died, or until he killed himself."

She studied the messy, makeshift noose. "Terminate and end the pain. I bet it's programmed into the virus. Fitzhugh, holed up, self-terminated. Halloway, the only one who wasn't a target, the only one who was exposed outside of his own home, burrowed into Feeney's office. If we hadn't kept him busy, I think he'd have offed Feeney, then turned the stream on himself."

"Cogburn and Halloway." Peabody nodded, following the dots. "They were the only two who had contact with anyone during the last stages of the infection. If they hadn't…"

"Would they have just opted out, like Mary Ellen George? Shuts herself in, blocks her incomings, ignores anyone who comes to the door. Terminates."

"Wounded animal instinct? The burrowing," Peabody asked.

"Human nature. It's logical. And it makes sense for Purity. They don't want to take out the innocent, just the ones they've judged guilty. They're looking for minimum negative fallout. They want public support for their cause. Even with the incidental casualties, they're starting to get it."

"They won't keep it. No, Dallas, they won't. I'm not going to believe most people really want something like this." She gestured toward the body.

"We had legal executions for what, over two hundred years in the grand old U.S. of A.," Eve reminded her. "Illegal ones have been going on since Cain bashed Abel. Under the polish, Peabody, we're still a primitive species. A violent one."

She thought of Roarke. And sighed. "Turn her over to the ME. Open the scene to the sweepers. I'll be talking to Hippel."

She turned on her own recorder as she walked into the small, cheerful office space off the living area. Officer Baker stood on post while a young black male with a muscular build sat with his head down and his hands dangling between his knees.

Eve wagged a thumb at the doorway, and Baker stepped out.

"Mr. Hippel?"

He lifted his head. His skin was a rich chocolate just now faintly tinged with the green of nausea.

"I've never seen… I've never… It's the first…"

"Do you want some water, Mr. Hippel?"

"No, I… The officer got me a glass. My insides are too shaky to drink."

"I need to ask you some questions. I'm Lieutenant Dallas."

"Yeah. I saw you on-screen doing that deal with Nadine Furst." He tried to get his lips to curve up, but they just trembled. "She's hot. I always try to catch her segments."

"She'll be thrilled to hear that." Eve sat down on a small, tufted chair. "Ms. George contacted you."

"Yeah. I hadn't heard from her in a couple weeks. We broke things off. Mutual," he said quickly. "We didn't fight or anything. Just time to move on, that's all. Okay, maybe she was a little steamed. Maybe I wanted to move on more than she did, but we didn't fight. Okay, maybe we had an argument."

He choked on his own guilt, spit out information while Eve sat in silence and let him run through it. "Maybe we yelled at each other some. Jesus, Jesus, she didn't do that because I dumped her, did she?"

"When did the dumping take place, Jay?"

"Maybe two weeks ago. It'd been coming on. I mean, hey, she's a fine-looking, sexy lady and all. Plenty of coin, too. But I'm twenty-four, and she's not. Guy needs a piece or two his own age once in a while, right? Only natural. And Mary Ellen, she was getting a little territorial. Crimping my style, got me?"

"Yeah. The last time you saw her, did you notice anything different about her?"

"Different? No. Same old Mary Ellen."

"She didn't complain of headaches or discomfort."

"She was feeling fine. We went out to a club, had some laughs, got ourselves a privacy room and banged. Came back out for a couple drinks, and she sees me scoping out some skirts and gets steamed. So we had a kind of argument and broke it off."

"And today, when she contacted you?"

"She looked bad. Man. Nose was bleeding, her eyes are all red. She's crying and yelling. I didn't know what the hell."

"What did she say to you?"

"Said I had to help her. 'Somebody's got to help me.' Said she couldn't stand it anymore. 'They're screaming in my head' is what she said. I tried to calm her down, but I don't even think she heard me. I thought she said: 'They're killing me.' But she was crying so hard, I'm not sure. I thought somebody must be hurting her, all that blood on her face. So I called emergency and got my ass over here. I work just around the corner at the Riverside Cafe. How I met her. I got here right before the cop, and I'm trying to get them to let me go up. Then the cop came, and we went up, came inside. There she was."

He lowered his head again, this time all the way down between his knees.

When she finished at the scene, she swung by the morgue. Morris already had Mary Ellen George's brain removed.

Even for a seasoned homicide cop, the sight of that pulpy mass of gray matter on a sterile scale was a little off-putting.

"Definitely expanded her mind," Morris said. "But it doesn't appear she managed it by reading the great works of literature or exploring other cultures."

"Har-de-har. Tell me you've isolated the cause."

"I can tell you this. Preliminary scan shows a healthy forty-two-year-old female. Broke her left tibia at one point, healed beautifully. She's had some minor face and body work. Excellent job all around. Have to wait on the tox reports to tell you if she considered her body a temple or believed in chemical enhancements."

"Her body's not a big concern of mine right now. Tell me about her brain."

"Massive swelling that would have resulted in death within hours. Irreversible, in my opinion after the initial spread of infection, which is confirmed on the other brains in question by the neurologist I've brought in. The brain contains no foreign matter, no tumor, no chemical or organic stimulant. The infection, for lack of a better word, remains unidentified."