“Days old. Possibly weeks,” I reply. “Again it depends on where it’s been since it was removed from someone’s head.”

“Postmortem? Because I sure as hell hope so. But knowing her? That wouldn’t be as much fun.”

Ernie has examined tool marks and other evidence we believe were left by Carrie Grethen during the commission of her various violent acts that in the past year include at least six homicides. He knows what she’s capable of. He doesn’t doubt her existence. He doesn’t find it convenient or politically advantageous to blame Lucy for her crimes. He has no compulsion to engage Carrie in a battle that is ours to lose, and I worry that’s exactly what has happened. What she’s set in motion may be too far gone to remedy.

Non fare i patti con il diavolo. Non stuzzicare il can che dorme.

“At this moment I can’t promise it occurred postmortem,” I tell Ernie.

Don’t make a contract with the devil. Don’t tease a sleeping dog, my father used to say.

“The victim could still be alive,” I explain. “A partial scalping isn’t necessarily a fatal injury.”

“So she’s gotten rid of someone else or is going to,” Ernie replies.

“This isn’t about a need to eliminate people as a matter of convenience or expediency.” I feel hatred stir in my deep dark place. “It never is with her even if she shoots the person from a mile away. It’s about power and control. It’s about what feeds her insatiable compulsions that inevitably cause profound pain and annihilation to anyone in her path.”

“I sure as hell hope she’s not torturing someone she’s holding captive somewhere,” Ernie then says.

Given the opportunity Carrie is fond of removing flesh. If she’s in the mood she doesn’t wait for her victim to die before she goes to work with a sharp blade or in one case I know of a well-honed chisel. It all depends on who and what strikes her fancy, and she can be impulsive. Benton says she can be whimsical, a word far kinder than I would apply to the likes of her. But he’s right about her ability to turn on a dime, as I’ve heard it defined.

If Carrie has a fatal flaw it’s her emotionality. She can’t stop until she’s over the cliff. Based on her history, that can take years before she vanishes again or we mistakenly assume she’s dead.

“When I can look at the tissue microscopically,” I tell Ernie, “I should be able to say whether there was a vital response. I should be able to say with certainty whether the injury is postmortem or not.”

“Any idea who she might have targeted?”

“Whoever it is she’s taunting us with it,” I reply and on and off I’ve been thinking about the boy.