"Yeah," Butters said with a shudder. "It was already stripped and laid out. Bad stuff, Harry. He had thirty or forty stab wounds in his upper thorax. Someone carved his face up, too. His nose, ears, eyelids, and lips were in a sandwich Baggie next to his head." He took a deep breath. "Someone had sliced off the quadriceps on both legs. They were missing. And he'd been eviscerated."

I frowned. "How?"

"A big X-shaped cut across his abdomen. Then they peeled him open like a Chinese take-out box. He was missing his stomach and most of his intestines. There might have been other organs gone, too."

"Ick," I said.

"Extremely."

"Could you see anything else?"

"No. Even if I'd wanted to, there wasn't time for more than a quick look." He walked over to a rolling stand of medical instruments. "Why would someone do that to him? What possible purpose could it have served?"

"Maybe some kind of ritual," I said. "You've seen that before."

Butters nodded. He went through the motions of pulling on an apron, mask, gloves, cap—the works. "I still don't get it. You know?"

I did know. Butters didn't have it in him to comprehend the kind of violence, hatred, and bloodlust that had fallen upon the late Bartlesby. That kind of utter disregard for the sanctity of life simply didn't exist in his personal world, and it left him at a total loss when confronted with it face-to-face.

"Or," I said, a thought occurring to me, "it might have been something else. Anthropomancy."

He walked over to one of the freezers and cracked it open. "What's that?"

"An attempt to divine the future or gain information by reading human entrails."

Butters turned to me slowly, his face sickened. "You're kidding."

I shook my head. "It's possible."

"Does it work?" he asked.

"It's extremely powerful and dangerous magic," I answered. "Anyone who does it has to kill someone and gets an immediate death sentence if the Council learns of it. If it didn't work, no one would bother."

Butters's mouth hardened into a firm line. "That's… really wrong." He frowned over the sentence and then nodded. "Wrong."

"I agree."

He turned back to the freezer, checked a toe tag, and then hauled a rolling exam table over to it. "This might take me a little while," he said. "An hour and a half, maybe more."

"You want a hand with that?" I asked. I hoped he didn't.

Butters, bless him, shook his head. He walked over to his desk and flicked on his CD player. Polka music filled the room. "I'd really rather do this alone."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Just listen for a girlie scream," he said. "Can you wait for me up front?"