“That’s weird too,” he says about the delicate whitish linear burns I find on the right shoulder and posterior base of the neck. “More of the same thing she’s got on her stiff right wrist, and they’re on the same side of her body. But if they’re burns, they don’t look anything like the one here.” He indicates the angry red wound caused by the pendant.

I explain that when burns look leathery and white it usually indicates full thickness or third degree. I suspect that these whitish linear marks are from direct contact with whatever may have electrocuted her.

“Such as wires.” I give him a hypothetical. “Except they would have to be very fine, almost hairlike.”

“What wires?” Marino looks around nervously as if they might be close enough to get him.

“I have no idea—assuming that’s what we’re dealing with,” as I notice she has something in the interior pocket of her blue running shorts. “The other burn is from the gold pendant making contact with this same electrical source. That’s my guess.”

Digging my fingers under the waistband, I find the small interior pocket and the hard flat shape inside it. I pull out a black plastic fob that appears to have a serial number on it.

“Bingo. Maybe it’s the key to where she lives,” Marino says as I drop the fob in an evidence bag I hand to him.

I get up and look around at the trees, the lamp, the trail of exploded glass. I try to come up with what could have been long and linear like fine wires that she might have come in contact with as she rode her bicycle out here. I think of her pedaling through the shadows, through the stifling heat, perhaps getting anxious and weary as it got later and darker.

Then suddenly something sears her bare right shoulder, the back of her neck, scorching her between her shoulder blades. It must have been excruciatingly painful and terrifying as she frantically grabbed at whatever it was, burning and shocking her right hand. It must have felt as if she were being attacked by an invisible swam of hornets, and that might be the last thing she was conscious of as her bike went down and she was thrown clear.

Such a scenario could explain the linear burns, and it could account for her asymmetrical rigor. A powerful electrical current striking a gold pendant and passing through her body would have heated up moisture, turning it to steam, and that could have blown off and damaged her shoes and clothing. Heat could have broken the gold chain we recovered, and I check her neck again, looking for any sign the chain burned her before it broke free.