“Just show us the body, Sergeant,” Sanchez said.

McAfee said nothing, but led them to a mechanics’ bay at the very rear of the building. It shot off from the main space, and was concealed from view. They rounded the corner, and Sanchez heard Stone suck in his breath.

Murphy’s body was there. At least, she assumed it was Murphy’s body. It was difficult to tell given the amount of damage. It looked more to her like two hundred pounds of ground beef covered in torn clothing than what she remembered of Vinny Murphy. It didn’t appear that any spot on the body had escaped violence.

“Holy shit,” Stone whispered softly.

“Nothing holy about it,” Sanchez said. “An impressive piece of work, though.” She moved slowly toward the body, being careful not to disturb the scene. “Are the pictures done?” she asked.

“All done,” McAfee replied. “The whole lovely scene has been recorded for posterity.”

“Crime scene?”

“They’ve done all they can do until the body is moved out. Prints, scrapings, the works. They’ll do it all again once we’ve cleared out, but they think the place is pretty clean.” He tossed her a box of latex gloves. “He’s all yours.”

She took two gloves out of the box and passed it to Stone, who did the same. They both pulled the gloves on and advanced toward the body.

“Jesus,” Stone said as he looked at the area that had once been Vince Murphy’s face. “What did they use?” Sanchez said nothing.

“Not sure,” McAfee said after a moment. “Could have been chains. There were a bunch of them hanging over in the corner, and it looked like there could’ve been blood on them. The crime scene boys bagged ’em and we’ll know soon enough. Doc should also be able to get us a read on any patterns to the abrasion, which may tell us something.”

Stone moved slowly around the corpse. Sanchez watched him out of the corner of her eye. She was annoyed at the distraction of having him there, but said nothing. He was her partner, after all, at least for the moment, and there was no way to prevent his participation. As long as he was careful to stay out of her way, she could live with it. “Shit, they even got the bottoms of his feet,” Stone said.