Tuesday, July 24, 2:30 PM

The woman’s naked corpse lay sprawled on the floor. Her arms were outstretched, her legs spread. The insides of her thighs were crusted with dried blood. More blood had congealed into a sticky puddle on the floor beneath her.

New Orleans homicide detectives Sean Murphy and Juan Gaudet stood near the dead woman’s feet.

“He hurt her before he killed her,” Murphy said.

Gaudet nodded. “You think it was our guy?”

“Look at the ligature marks on her neck.”

“But there’s no plastic cable tie this time,” Gaudet said.

Murphy took a step toward the woman’s head and leaned forward to examine her neck. The discoloration from the ligature contained tiny ridge impressions, like those found on a cable tie. “He must have cut it off.”

“He left them on the other victims.”

Murphy stood up. “It’s him.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I’ve got a feeling.”

“You got a feeling?” Gaudet asked, his voice sarcastic.

Murphy nodded. “It feels like our guy. The way he put her on display in the middle of the floor, like she was sacrificed on an altar.”

“The other ones weren’t posed.”

“They just weren’t this obvious,” Murphy said as he stepped over the dead woman’s left arm and squatted beside her head. “He’s getting more into the act itself. He’s gaining confidence and developing into a more sophisticated killer.”

The crime scene was inside an old club on North Rampart Street called the Destiny Lounge. The club had been closed since Katrina. After the storm, it had become a toilet for bums and a shooting gallery for junkies. Several months back the city boarded up the doors and windows.

Murphy stood and shone his flashlight at the ceiling, amazed that the mirrored disco ball still hung over the grime-covered dance floor.