I was not a reporter, star or otherwise. I was, and for that matter am, Nathan Heller, at that time president of the A-1 Detective Agency of Chicago, which is to say a private detective. And since a good deal of my business, over the years, had been divorce work, yes, I knew how to use a friggin’ Speed Graphic.

But I didn’t feel like shooting grim pinup photos of a nude, dead, once-beautiful woman, and declined, graciously.

“Fuck you, Fowley,” I said. “Take your own ghoulish goddamn pictures.”

Whirling, Fowley-who looked like a pleasant bulldog, only right now his expression wasn’t all that pleasant-said, “You want to keep me happy, don’t you, gumshoe? Or don’t you and your partner still want that free publicity?”

“No need to get shitty about it.”

“Maybe you cheap bastards would rather hire a p.r. agent than get the Examiner ’s goodwill, for fucking free.”

I unlocked the trunk and fetched the camera. Fowley was normally an amiable joe, but he had just caught front-page fever: the bisected body in this vacant lot had all the earmarks of a headline story… a beautiful woman, butchered by some maniac. Sex and murder-ideal breakfast reading.

The morning was almost cold under a gun-metal sky, the breeze bristling the weeds into tickling the two halves of the girl, who-unlike the rest of the scattered refuse, rusty cans, disintegrating cardboard, broken bottles-had been carefully arranged, as if by an artist; buzzing flies circled this lurid masterpiece, critics having a closer look.

Her arms were above her head, as if someone had poked a gun at her and demanded money; her legs were spread wide, as if in carnal invitation. But there was nothing inviting about this young woman, not anymore. Her raven hair a tangle of damp curls, she had been cleaved at the waist, the two sections crudely aligned, the top half of her angling somewhat into the lot while her left foot pointed to the nearby sidewalk. Her lily-white flesh had a waxy look, and appeared strangely clean, despite slashes to her face and to either well-formed breast, and to one shapely thigh; a nasty vertical gash extended from her navel to her wispy pubic thatch.