"Certainly, we'll test for carbon monoxide. But that doesn't explain what I'm smelling."

"And you're sure?"

"I know what I'm smelling," I said.

"You think he's a homicide, don't you," Danny said to me.

"No one should be talking about this." I pulled a cord down from an overhead reel and plugged in the Stryker saw. "Not to the Chesapeake police. Not to anyone. Not until all tests are concluded and I make an official release.

I don't know what's going on here. I don't know what was going on at the scene. So we must exercise even more caution than usual."

Marino was looking at Danny. "How long you been working in this joint?" he asked.

"Eight months."

"You heard what the doc just said, right?"

Danny looked up, surprised by Marino's change in tone.

"You know how to keep your mouth shut, right?" Marino went on. "That means no bragging to the boys, no trying to impress your family or your girlfriend. You got that?"

Danny held in his anger as he made an incision low around the back of the head, ear to ear.

"See, if anything leaks, me and the doc here are going to know where it came from." Marino continued an attack that seemed completely unprovoked.

Danny reflected back the scalp. He pulled it forward over the eyes to expose the skull, and Eddings' face collapsed, sad and slack, as if he knew what was happening and was grieving. I turned on the saw, and the room was filled with the high whine of blade cutting bone.

Chapter 3

THE SUN HAD DIPPED LOW BEHIND Ika veil of gray, and snow was several inches deep and hung like smoke in the air. Marino and I followed Danny's footsteps across the parking lot, for the young man had already gone, and I felt bad for him.

"Marino," I said, "you just can't talk to people like that.

My staff knows about discretion. Danny did nothing to merit your treating him so rudely, and I don't appreciate it."