'Holyshit,' said Stansfield.

    Thevictim was a white male of undeterminable age - undeterminable partly becausethey could not see all of his face. He was lying in the middle of the smalldusty storage room, amid cardboard boxes, plastic buckets, wooden forkliftpallets. Jessica immediately saw the deep purple bruises on his wrists andankles. The victim, it appeared, had been shackled. There was no blood, no signof struggle in this room.

    Buttwo things gave her pause. First, the victim's forehead and eyes were wrappedin a band of white paper. The paper was about five inches wide and completelyencircled the man's head. Across the top of the band was a streak of brown, astraight line drawn in what could have been dried blood. Beneath it was anotherspot, this one a nearly perfect oval about an inch wide. The paper overlappedat the left side of the man's head. It appeared to be sealed with red sealingwax. The right side had another smear of blood, which looked to be in the shapeof a figure eight.

    Butthat wasn't the worst of it.

    Thevictim's body was completely nude. It appeared to have been shaved clean, headto toe. Pubic hair, chest hair, arm hair, leg hair - gone. The body's scrapedand abraded skin indicated that it had been shaved roughly, violently, perhapsin the past day or so. There appeared to be no new growth.

    Thesight was so grotesque that it took Jessica a moment to take it all in. She hadseen quite a bit. Never anything like this. The indignities of homicide werelegion, but there was something about the final degradation of being left nakedthat made it all worse, a communique from the killer to the rest of the worldthat the humiliation of violent death was not the last word. For the most part,you didn't just die in this life. You were found dead.

    Jessicatook the lead, more out of instinct than from any sense of duty. Hers was aboys' world and the sooner you peed in the corners, the better. She had longsince turned the word bitch from an epithet to a badge, an emblem asgolden as her shield.

    Stansfieldcleared his throat. 'I'll, uh, get started on a canvass,' he said, and quicklytook his leave.

    Therewere some homicide detectives who liked the idea of being a homicidedetective - the prestige, the pay, the cachet of being one of the chosen - butcouldn't stand being at a crime scene. Apparently, Stansfield was just such adetective. Just as well, Jessica thought.

    Shecrouched next to the victim, placed two fingers on his neck, checking for apulse. She found none. She examined the front of the body, looking for somesort of entrance or exit wound. No holes, no blood.

    Sheheard voices outside. She looked up to see Tom Weyrich coming down the steps,his gear in his hand, his photographer in tow. Weyrich was an investigator forthe medical examiner's office with almost twenty years on the job.

    'Topof the morning, Tom.'

    Weyrichwas in his early fifties, with a dry wit and a reputation as a thorough andexacting investigator. When Jessica had met him five years earlier he had beena meticulous and classically attired man. Now his mustache was irregularlytrimmed, his eyes red and tired. Jessica knew that Weyrich's wife had recentlydied after a long fight with cancer. Tom Weyrich had taken it hard. Today heappeared to be running on fumes. His slacks were pressed, but Jessica notedthat his shirt had probably been slept in.

    'Hadthat double up in Torresdale,' Weyrich said, running his hands over his face,trying to wring out the exhaustion. 'Got out of there about two hours ago.'

    'Norest for the righteous.'

    'Iwouldn't know.'

    Weyrichstepped fully inside, saw the body. 'Good God.' Somewhere beneath the trash andshredded cardboard an animal scurried. 'Give me a good old execution-style twotaps to the back of the head any day,' he added. 'I never thought I'd miss thecrack wars.'

    'Yeah,'Jessica said. 'Good times.'

    Weyrichtucked his tie into his shirt, buttoned his suit coat, snapped on a pair ofgloves. He went about his business. Jessica watched him, wondering how manytimes he had done this, how many times he had placed his hands on the coldflesh of the dead. She wondered what it was like for him, sleeping alone thesedays, and how he, more than anyone, needed to sense the warm flesh of theliving. When Jessica and Vincent had been temporarily separated a few yearsearlier, it had been the thing she'd missed the most, the daily intimatecontact with the warmth of another human being.

    Jessicastepped outside, waited. She saw David Albrecht across the street, gettingexterior shots of the building. Behind him, Jessica saw his sparkling new van,which had his website address painted on the side. It also had what Jessicafigured was the title of his movie.

    Comingsoon: AREA 5292

    Clever,Jessica thought. It was obviously a play on Area 51, the area in southernNevada central to UFO conspiracy theories. The number 5292 was PPD parlance fora dead body.

    Fifteenminutes later Tom Weyrich emerged.

    'Bringingall my training to bear,' he began, 'I would conclude that this is a deceasedperson.'

    'Iknew I should have gone to a better school,' Jessica said. 'COD?'

    'Can'teven give you a presumptive cause of death until we unwrap his head.'

    'Ready?'Jessica asked.

    'Asever.'

    Theystepped back inside the storage room. Jessica snapped on latex gloves. Of latethey were bright purple. They knelt down on either side of the body.

    Theband of paper was fastened with a small wad of sealing wax. The wax was aglossy crimson. Jessica knew this would be a delicate operation, if she wantedto preserve the sample.

    Shetook out her knife - a four-inch serrated Gerber that she always carried in asheath around her ankle, at least when she was wearing jeans - and slipped itunder the circle of hard wax. She pried it gently. At first it looked as if itmight split in two, but then she got lucky. The specimen fell off in one piece.She placed it into an evidence bag. With Weyrich holding the opposite side ofthe paper band, they unveiled the victim's face.

    Itwas a horror mask.

    Jessicaestimated the victim to be about thirty-five to forty, although most of thelividity was gone and the skin had begun to sag.

    Acrossthe upper portion of the victim's forehead was a single laceration, runninglaterally, perhaps four or five inches in length. The cut did not appear to bevery deep, splitting just the skin in a deep violet streak, not deep enough toreach bone. It appeared to have been made with either a razor blade or a verysharp knife.

    Justabove the right eye was a small puncture wound, the diameter of an ice pick ora knitting needle. This too seemed shallow. Neither wound appeared to be fatal.The victim's right ear looked to be mutilated, with cuts along the top andside, all the way down to the lobe, which was missing.

    Aroundthe neck was a deep welt. Death appeared to be a result of strangulation.

    'Youthink that's the COD?' Jessica asked, even though she knew that the cause ofdeath could not be conclusively determined until an autopsy had been performed.

    'Hardto tell,' Weyrich said. 'But there is petechiae in the sclera of his eyes. It'sa pretty good bet.'

    'Let'ssee, he was stabbed, slashed and strangled,' Jessica said. 'Real hat trick.'

    'Andthat's just the stuff we know about. He might have been poisoned.'

    Jessicapoked around the small room, carefully overturning boxes and shipping pallets. Shefound no clothing, no ID, nothing to indicate who this victim might be.

    Whenshe stepped outside a few minutes later she saw Detective Joshua Bontragerwalking across Federal Street, clipping his badge to his jacket pocket.