She slid her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and frowned. “Yeah, but this… this is beyond anything we’ve seen so far.”

“From this killer, at least,” Quentin muttered.

Miranda nodded. “Maybe it’s simply a case of escalation, the usual he-gets-worse-as-he-gets-better-at-it, but… I’m not seeing a purpose for what was done here. Whether he was dead at the beginning is still arguable, but this man was most definitely dead a long time before his killer was finished with him, and that hasn’t been the case with the other victims we’ve linked together. If this was torture, why keep going after the vic was dead?”

“For the fun of it?”

“Christ, I hope not.”

“You and me both. Am I the only one having a very bad feeling about this one?”

“I wish you were. But I think we’ve all picked up on something unnatural here and at the other dump sites. For one thing, I have no idea what means this killer used to strip the body literally to the bone.”

Quentin glanced toward the remains. “I didn’t spot any obvious tool marks on the bones. Or claw or tooth marks, for that matter. You?”

“No. Or any visible signs that chemicals were used, though forensics will tell us that for certain.”

“We ship the body—or what’s left of it—to the state medical examiner?”

“We do. Duncan already okayed it; he’s been very frank about the state of technology in this area.”

“As in the fact that there is no technology? I mean, we’ve been to some pretty out-of-the-way places, but this is what I’d call seriously remote. How many people you figure the town of Serenade can boast? A few hundred at best?”

“Nearly three thousand, if you count those living outside the town limits but still using Serenade as their mailing address.” She saw Quentin’s brows go up again and explained, “I checked when we were flying in.”