“And yet we know someone else had to be present. Someone who finished the amputation Wrobleski started, then pocketed his cell phone and wallet. Assuming we believe Harmony LaFab’s story.”

“She’s the liar!” Several voices, all at once.

“She was already in the room!”

“Maybe there was even more money. She gave you guys the duffel bag with a thousand dollars cash, but Wrobleski entered with ten grand. She kept the rest.”

“Like that theory,” D.D. assured the speaker, “and in the coming days, we’ll track down the exact amount of Wrobleski’s cash withdrawal, just to be sure.

“For the record, however, I believe Harmony. In your books, when you write about detectives having hunches, that part is exactly right. I’ve never met an experienced homicide detective who didn’t have some kind of nose for this job. We definitely go by our gut. Then we back up and prove it, because trust me when I say prosecutors aren’t nearly so open-minded about these things. In this case, I believed Harmony’s story. She was just plain too fragile to have been our killer.

“But here’s the deal, the question we haven’t gotten around to asking yet, and surely the question you should all be considering: Harmony is a prostitute. The motel is a seedy rent-by-the-hour joint in the proverbial bad section of town. Then we got the drug dealer–slash–night manager. Now look at our victim. Steven Wrobleski. Successful business consultant, thousand-dollar suit, gorgeous home out in the burbs.

“How did that victim make it to this establishment? How did he even hear of such a place?”

“Internet.” First response. “In those chat rooms discussing where to cut off limbs.”

“Good guess. But no. Phil read them. Chatter was all about process and, if anything, assumed you were hacking off the offending body part in the comfort of your own house. So why come to a skanky motel? Frankly, it risked infection.”

“Drugs,” man in front spoke up quietly. “Wrobleski needed narcotics. Can’t buy those at the same place as hacksaws and hammers.”

D.D. nodded. “Exactly. The final ingredient for this venture was painkillers—and the boards were explicit there was no way the person would be able to withstand the pain of the dry ice without them. So Wrobleski, our successful, high-functioning consultant, needed illegal drugs.”

She stared at her audience. Stared and stared and stared. One minute to the end of class. Thirty seconds. Fifteen.

Hand in the back, exactly what she’d been waiting for.

“The wife,” a young girl called out. “She worked with addicts, right? A counselor? She would know where to get illegal drugs. Wrobleski asked his wife to help with the drugs. She sent him to the motel.”

“Ding, ding, ding, give the woman a prize. What else?”

Buzzer sounded. But no one in the room moved.

“Female operator!” Now they were getting it, the room buzzing with energy. Exactly how D.D. and her squad mates felt with a case that finally came together.

“Wrobleski hadn’t reached nine-one-one,” someone called out excitedly. “He’d called home!”