“Sheriff Cardenas said he’d look into Ansell’s background. I ran a basic search last night, got no hits on that name. The Dale Brights I found were a fourteen-year-old girl who plays field hockey at a prep school in Florida, a sixty-year-old female insurance agent in Ohio, and a Nebraska churchman and farmer who wrote a book about wheat and died in 1876.”

“My bet’s on the girl… okay, let’s make sure we’ve buttoned down everything—”

He stopped midsentence.

The retriever sat down.

Stayed.

The head showed first.

Kat Shonsky had been buried three feet deep, stripped of her clothing, stretched out on her back with her legs slightly parted. Her skin was greenish gray, marbled, slipping loose from its skeletal underpinning. White-blond hair served as a nest for worms. Where putrefaction hadn’t taken over, black hyphens were evident.

Probable stab wounds. I stopped counting at twenty-three.

In the grave was a purple silk scarf, placed diagonally across the abdomen and upper thighs. Removing it revealed Katrina Shonsky’s driver’s license. Wedged between her labia.

“There’s a statement for you,” said Diana Ponce, the C.I. kneeling above the body.

Milo said, “Look what I did.”

“And I want the whole world to know it.”

Ponce bagged the license and called for a large envelope for the scarf. While she waited, she inspected Katrina Shonsky’s neck. No obvious ligature marks but there wasn’t much neck left and the final say would be the coroner’s.

Placing the scarf back on the body, she cupped the remains of the head gently in one hand and probed with the other. “There’s bone breakage at the back, Milo. Want to feel it?”

Milo got down next to her, and she guided his gloved hand.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Like cracked eggshell.”

“Someone bopped her good,” said Ponce. “Maybe to knock her out before he cut her?” She looked up at the twin houses. “This close to private property, you’d want to keep things quiet.”

Milo stood. “You should be a detective, Diana.”

She grinned. “According to the tube, I already am.”

The envelope arrived. Setting the head down with reverence, Ponce removed the scarf and unfurled it. Diaphonous thing; it waved in the breeze.

“Louis Vuitton label.”

Milo said, “I thought they did luggage.”

“They do everything, Lieutenant.” Ponce admired the silk. The breeze blew harder and a few granules of dirt slid off the garment and spattered the body. Ponce handed the scarf off and used tweezers to recover them.

Milo said, “Costs a fortune but it was left here.”

Perfect opening for one of those jokes cops and techs sometimes tell to buffer the horror.

This time, no one did.

Crypt attendants wrapped the body in plastic and took it away. Moments later Diana Ponce left and the criminalists got to work.

Milo said, “Time to get over to Monica Hedges. You can meet me there if you want.”

“Sure.”