Bolinger could smell the gore the second he walked through the door. When he saw the body, he took a deep breath.

"Holy shit," he uttered.

A tech snapped off a shot and stepped to the side. The girl lay on her back in the middle of the floor, naked. A thick band of duct tape encircled her head, covering her mouth. Her eyes were frozen wide with horror. Blood was everywhere. Bolinger moved closer.

"Watch it, Sergeant!" cried a scowling tech as he darted toward him. Bolinger sidestepped a bloody organ he couldn't identify and crouched down next to the body. There were bruise marks around her neck, and Bolinger found himself involuntarily hoping that was how she died. On the couch were what he presumed had been the girl's clothes. Oddly, they were folded. That told him she probably got naked on her own and that she knew whoever did this pretty well. Carefully, he poked through the clothes. There was no underwear or bra anywhere, and Bolinger wondered if there was a reason or if it had simply been the girl's style.

There was a scuffle in the entryway accompanied by Farnhorst's bark. Bolinger looked up to see a large man with long dark hair. He pushed his way into the living room. Bolinger stood up to face him. Before he could speak, the man, who wore faded jeans and cowboy boots, froze in his tracks and let out a maniacal howl that made Bolinger reflexively draw his gun. The man's face was contorted and he pulled at his own hair. When Farnhorst and his partner got hold of either arm, the man burst into a wild flurry of arms and legs. Farnhorst, who weighed in at about three hundred pounds, went flying like a lawn chair. The other cop, too, went sideways into a lamp, and they both crashed to the floor.

The maniac's howl turned to a bloodcurdling scream, and he shot toward the door. Bolinger was after him with Farnhorst and his partner in tow. The man bolted out the door and down the driveway, screaming all the while.

"Stop him!" Bolinger shouted.