“Four-point restraint,” Chapman began, focusing his pen like a pointer in a college classroom. The slender body was resting on a wooden ladder about eight feet long. The victim’s ankles and wrists were bound to narrow rungs above her head and below her feet. The cord used to hold the woman in place was firmly knotted and secured. Longer pieces of a thicker rope dangled from parts of the frame, and two of them still had rocks attached to their tips.

Mercer was bending over now, looking at the extremities from every angle. “Somebody went to an awful lot of trouble to make sure this body didn’t come to the surface anytime before Christmas, wouldn’t you say?”

He tugged at one of the loose lengths of rope, holding up the ragged end, from which it appeared a weight-perhaps another rock-had torn free.

Over the top of his head I could see Craig Fleisher, the oncall medical examiner, walking toward us. He waved a ing and added, “Better move quickly, the vultures are gathering.” Next to his parked car the satellite dish sitting above a Fox 5 television truck was suddenly visible. The first field reporter had already picked up word of the unusual find from a police scanner, and it would take only minutes before other camera crews joined him to try to get the most salacious shot of the corpse.

“What have you got, Mike? A drowning?” Fleisher asked.

“No way, Doc. Throwing her overboard was just a means of disposing of the body.” We all leaned in closer as Chapman placed his hand on the crown of the woman’s head and moved it slightly to the side. He slipped his pen beneath her matted black hair, which was still wet and splayed against the wooden crosspieces of the ladder, then lifted it gently to expose the scalp. “Skull was bashed in back here, maybe with a gun butt or hammer. I’d bet you’ll find a fracture or two when you get in there tomorrow.”

Fleisher studied the gaping wound. He was stone-faced and calm, running his fingers over the rest of the rear of the head. “Well, she wasn’t in the water very long. Only a day or two at best.”