The body was in a clump of vegetation behind the gallery. Deborah was talking to someone who looked like a student, and Vince Masuoka was squatting beside the left leg of the body and poking carefully with a ballpoint pen at something on the ankle. The body could not be seen from the road, but even so you could not really say it had been hidden. It had obviously been roasted like the others, and it was laid out just like the first two, in a stiff formal position, with the head replaced by a ceramic bull's head. And once again, as I looked at it I waited by reflex for some reaction from within. But I heard nothing except the gentle tropical wind blowing through my brain. I was still alone.

As I stood in huffish thought, Deborah came roaring over to me at full volume. "Took you long enough," she snarled. "Where have you been?"

"Macramé class," I said. "It's just like the others?"
"Looks like it," she said. "What about it, Masuoka?"
"I think we got a break this time," Vince said.
"About fucking time," Deborah said.

"There's an ankle bracelet," Vince said. "It's made of platinum, so it didn't melt off." He looked up at Deborah and gave her his terribly phony smile. "It says Tammy on it." Deborah frowned and looked over to the side door of the gallery. A tall man in a seersucker jacket and bow tie stood there with one of the cops, looking anxiously at Deborah. "Who's that guy?" she asked Vince.

"Professor Keller," he told her. "Art history teacher. He found the body." Still frowning, Deborah stood up and beckoned the uniformed cop to bring the professor over. "Professor…?" Deborah said.

"Keller. Gus Keller," the professor said. He was a good-looking man in his sixties with what looked like a dueling scar on his left cheek. He didn't appear to be about to faint at the sight of the body. "So you found the body here," Deb said. "That's right," he said. "I was coming over to check on a new exhibit-Mesopotamian art, actually, which is interesting-and I saw it here in the shrubbery." He frowned. "About an hour ago, I guess."

Deborah nodded as if she already knew all that, even the Mesopotamian part, which was a standard cop trick designed to make people eager to add new details, especially if they might be a little bit guilty. It didn't appear to work on Keller. He simply stood and waited for another question, and Deborah stood and tried to think of one. I am justly proud of my hard-earned artificial social skills, and I didn't want the silence to turn awkward, so I cleared my throat, and Keller looked at me.

"What can you tell us about the ceramic head?" I asked him. "From the artistic point of view." Deborah glared at me, but she may have been jealous that I thought of the question instead of her.