But, then, when I gave it some thought, I suppose it shouldn’t have been such a surprise after all. There was something about the sexual energy that was alien, and having been down this road before, I knew exactly what it was. The arousal was patently feminine, just as the fear was wholly masculine.

I simply stood there for at least a solid minute, maybe even two, struggling to center my thoughts on the ethereal migraine and deny the other sensation. If my ploy was truly working I couldn’t say, but since there was no repeat of the tickle, I pressed forward.

Continuing around the end of the bed, I made my way over to the table. Its surface was crusted with reddish-brown smears of dried blood in various patterns just like the mattress cover. One recognizable outline was almost certainly that of a knife or maybe even a pair of scissors. Others were not so defined, some of them large, some of them small. I had seen what Miranda had done to Officer Hobbes back in Saint Louis, so I knew mutilation was a big part of her sick turn-on. Therefore, it really wasn’t a stretch for me to imagine a severed body part or two from the victim being responsible for the more generous stains.

Here and there, around the edges of the table, a silvery glint of bi-chromatic fingerprint powder glimmered in the soft light. A basic effort to go through the motions, I assumed, because I’m sure the police didn’t really expect to find anything by way of a usable print here.

Thus far I had been observing a hands off policy, making it a point to look but not touch. I wish I could say the decision was because I didn’t want to disturb anything given that the scene had apparently not yet been cleared.