Kelly was six two and a hundred and sixty pounds when he was watching his weight. Most people describing him used “thin” because “skeletal” was impolite. He’d started growing his hair when he got out of the army and hardly quit in the ensuing twelve years. It hung down his back in a frizzy, uncontrolled mass and was matched by a straggly beard and mustache.

Technically, since he’d worked his way out of vice and into homicide, he should have cut both back. But he still worked, occasionally, under cover and he’d managed to convince his bosses to let him hang onto the whole schmeer. Since he had a good track record for running down even tough murder cases, the powers-that-be turned a blind eye to someone that looked like a cross between the grim reaper and Cousin Itt.

As the corpse’s legs were stretched out the open cavity of her torso and abdomen became evident and he squatted down to look at the incision. Something sharp, but not as sharp as a knife, had opened the young woman’s body up from just above her mons veneris all the way to her throat. The edges of the cut were haggled; it was more of a rip than a cut, thus the name the papers had slapped on New Orleans’s latest serial killer. And, as usual, all her internal organs were missing.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “You know the problem with being me? It’s always being right.”

“Same MO,” the coroner’s assistant said, pointing at the cut. “I’d love to know what he’s using.”

“They’re using,” Lockhart replied, standing up as another car pulled down the dirt road. “And if I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s a claw, a big one like a velociraptor’s.”