“Can we get some scrapings of the glue from the eyes and mouth for the FBI lab, please?” he asked Mikado then turned to Dixon. “If they can figure out exactly what kind of adhesive it is, and it turns out to be something unusual, that could be helpful.”

Mikado also collected fingernail clippings in a small paper envelope to be sent on to the LA County lab, in case the victim had managed to scratch her assailant at some point. They might be able to get some skin, get a blood type.

“Did you get any trace evidence?” Vince asked.

Mikado cut him a meaningful look. “The body was clean when it got here.”

Vince shot a look at Dixon.

“The funeral home thought they were doing a good deed, cleaning her up,” Dixon said, clearly knowing they may have lost evidence. Any fibers, hairs, or bodily fluids that may have clung to the body were long gone down a drain.

“No sense crying over what we don’t have,” Vince said. “After all the publicity on the Atlanta child murder trial and how trace evidence nailed Wayne Williams’s ass, the more intelligent criminals have started cleaning up after themselves.”

“Maybe we’ll get something on the vaginal swabs,” Mikado offered.

In fact, the autopsy yielded little in the way of evidence. No bite marks that might be matched with a suspect. No marks from any distinctive type of weapon. Lisa Warwick had been strangled with a ligature of some kind, but it had left no marks save bruising, and no fibers of any kind. Some kind of smooth cloth, Vince figured—a scarf, a necktie, pantyhose. Nothing traceable.

There was predictable deep bruising in the muscles of the neck, but the hyoid bone (a small U-shaped bone situated between the base of the tongue and the larynx) was still intact. To Vince’s mind, this, and the lack of bruising caused by fingers, ruled out manual strangulation.

Mikado was unable to raise an eyelid to reveal the almost-certain presence of petechial hemorrhaging in the conjunctivae of the eye—a sure sign of asphyxia. And all attempts to remove the lids from the eyes only resulted in tearing of the eye itself.

“Just send the whole mess to Washington,” Vince said, imagining the unpleasant surprise of opening a box to find a pair of mangled eyeballs. “They’ll figure out a way to get to the glue.”

Separating the lips was an easier job. Inside Lisa Warwick’s mouth they found she had bitten her tongue to the consistency of ground hamburger.

Mikado looked inside the victim’s ears and swore under his breath. “Her eardrums have been pierced with something. They’re destroyed.”

“The third piece of our trifecta, gentlemen,” Vince said quietly. “See no evil. Speak no evil. Hear no evil.”

Mendez turned gray as the images sank in. He went to a trash can marked NO TRASH. ORGANS ONLY and threw up.