“Maybe a werewolf.”

“Hey, that’s good!” Eyes popping, he scribbled that down. “That’ll make a swell headline… ‘Werewolf Murderer Butchers Beauty’!”

“Mention me at the Pulitzer dinner.” Tentatively, I stepped closer; thinking like a detective gave me distance, and kept the nausea in check. “Can you see that vertebrae? Lower part of her.”

“What about it?”

“No bone granules. It’s a clean cut-not sawed… severed.”

“Heller, look at this…”

“Get back, Fowley! You’re too close.”

He was waving away the flies. “Aren’t those… bristles? God, they’re embedded right in her skin. Like off a wire brush!”

“You may be right, and that would make sense. There’s no way she was killed here. This isn’t a murder scene-it’s a dump site. She was bisected, drained of blood, scrubbed clean, and carted and dumped here, off the main drag, probably before dawn.”

I looked at the gray sky, wondering if it would keep its threat of rain and wash this lot clean of evidence. There was no rumble of thunder and this was, after all, California; it had been three weeks since it last rained. Still, maybe I needed to keep playing photographer…

Slowly I scanned the vacant lot and its scant scattering of refuse; then my eyes fixed on a discarded cement sack, its limp gray cloth draped in the grass a few feet from the girl’s head. Going over to it, but trying to keep my distance and not further pollute the scene, I saw on the cheap gray material a few droplets of what might have been dried, watery blood.

“This may have been used to haul one half of her,” I said, and pointed out the possible blood drops to Fowley. “Not inside the sack, more like using it as a sling.”

“Brother,” Fowley said, snugging his porkpie back down, “she musta been drained damn near dry.”

I took a flash picture, retrieved the spent bulb.

Returning to the sidewalk, I said, “There’s a few drops here, too…” I recorded that with the Speed Graphic, then kept looking. “Hey! This might be a piece of luck…”