THE WHISPER OF A LONG PLASTIC ZIPPER, and I glance at Marino as he stands up from a crouched position. The body is a black cocoon on the floor, and Marino, Rusty and Harold yank off their dirty gloves and drop them into the red biohazard bag.

They pull on fresh gloves. When they lift the body it is limp. Rigor mortis was fully developed and has passed, leaving her flaccid. That usually takes a minimum of eight hours, depending on other factors that include the environmental temperature, which is extremely hot, and the state of dress and body size, which are naked and slender with good musculature.

Chanel Gilbert is about five foot seven, maybe 130 pounds, and I suspect she was athletic and fit. She has tan lines from wearing a bathing suit but is pale from the waist down, her belly, hips and legs spared from exposure to the sun. Wearing a wet suit could leave a similar tan pattern, and I’m reminded of what Benton and I always do between scuba dives. We take off our dive socks and pull down our wet suits, tying the neoprene arms around our waists. Our faces, shoulders, chests, arms and the tops of our feet get sun exposure but not much else.

“Do we know if Chanel Gilbert was into sports?” I ask Marino, startled as it dawns on me that she and Carrie Grethen resemble each other physically. “She has well-developed shoulders and arms, and her legs look strong. Are we sure who this is?” I glance at him. “Has anybody talked to her neighbors?”

“What the hell?” He frowns at me as if I just said the world is flat. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking she’s not visually identifiable and we need to be careful.”

“You mean because she’s bloated and rotting with her face smashed in?”

“We should be sure we know who she is. We shouldn’t assume it’s the woman who lived in this house.” I’m not going to mention that the dead woman on the floor could pass for Carrie Grethen’s twin.

I think of my recent sighting of Carrie when she shot me in Florida, comparing that face with the photograph on Chanel’s driver’s license. The two women look eerily similar, and if I dared to suggest this I’ll sound obsessed and irrational. Marino would want to know why the thought has occurred to me now, and I can’t tell him I’m watching Carrie on my phone. Marino can’t know that. No one can. I’m not sure what the legal implications might be but I’m worried the video is a trap.

“What makes you suspect she isn’t the lady who lived here?” It’s Harold who asks as he squats by his scene case, packing it up.

My answer is a question. “Do we have any reason to think she might have been a scuba diver?”