Flesh was unnaturally pale in the dying light of the autumn afternoon, the torso a hideous stub that had tumbled from a scoop of trash and landed on its back. I thought it was Caucasian, but was not sure, and maggots teeming in the genital area made it difficult for me to determine gender at a glance. I could not even say with certainty whether the victim was pre- or postpubescent. Body fat was abnormally low, ribs protruding beneath flat breasts that may or may not have been female.

I squatted close and opened my medical bag. With forceps, I collected maggots into a jar for the entomologist to examine later, and decided upon closer inspection that the victim was, in fact, a woman. She had been decapitated low on the cervical spine, arms and legs severed. Stumps were dry and dark with age, and I knew right away that there was a difference between this case and the others.

This woman had been dismembered by cutting straight through the strong bones of the humerus and femur, versus the joints. Getting out a scalpel, I could feel the men staring as I made a half-inch incision on the torso's right side, and inserted a long chemical thermometer. I rested a second thermometer on top of my bag.

'What are you doing?' asked a man in a plaid shirt and baseball cap, who looked like he might get sick.

'I need the body's temperature to help determine time of death. A core liver temperature is the most accurate,' I patiently explained. 'And I also need to know the temperature out here.'

'Hot, that's what it is,' said another man. 'So, it's a woman, I guess.'

'It's too soon to say,' I replied. 'Is this your packer?'

'Yeah.'

He was young, with dark eyes and very white teeth, and tattoos on his fingers that I usually associated with people who have been in prison. A sweaty bandanna was tied around his head and knotted in back, and he could not look at the torso long without averting his gaze.

'In the wrong place at the wrong time,' he added, shaking his head with hostility.