“Is she dead?” McBride asked.

“Look at her, for Christ’s sake,” Dooley replied, “she’s been torn open.” “We’ve got to check for vital signs,” McBride reminded him. Dooley made no more to comply, so McBride squatted down in front of the victim and checked for a pulse at her ravaged neck. There was none. Her skin was still warm beneath his fingers however. A gloss of salvia on her cheek had not yet dried.

Dooley, calling in his report, looked down at the deceased. The worst of her wounds, on the upper torso, were masked by McBride’s crouching body. All he could see was a fall of auburn hair and her legs, one foot shoeless, protruding from her hiding place. They were beautiful legs. He might have whistled after such legs once upon a time.

“She’s a doctor or technician,” McBride said. “She’s wearing a lab coat.” Or she had been. In fact the coat had been ripped open, as had the layers of clothing beneath, and then, as if to complete the exhibition, the skin and muscle beneath that. McBride peered into her chest.

The sternum had been snapped and the heart teased from its seat, as if her killer had wanted to take it as a keepsake and been interrupted in the act. He perused her without squeamishness; he had always prided himself on his strong stomach.

“Are you satisfied she’s dead?”

“Never saw deader.”

“Carnegie’s coming down,” Dooley said, crossing to one of the sinks. Careless of fingerprints, he turned on the tap and splashed a handful of cold water onto his face. When he looked up from his ablutions McBride had left off his t?te-?-t?te with the corpse and was walking down the laboratory toward a bank of machinery.

“What do they do here, for Christ’s sake?” he remarked. “Look at all this stuff.” “Some kind of research facility,” Dooley said.

“What do they research?”