“I’d place time of death at around eleven p.m.,” Dr. Lindsey McNamara, the District’s chief medical examiner, said as she released her long red hair from the high ponytail she’d worn for the autopsy.

“That’s shortly after he got home. The killer might’ve been waiting for him.”

“Dinner consisted of filet mignon, potatoes, mixed greens and what looked like two beers.”

“Drugs?”

“I’m waiting on the tox report.”

“Cause of death?”

“Stab wound to the neck. The jugular was severed. He bled out very quickly.”

“Which came first? The cut to the neck or the privates?”

“The privates.”

Sam winced. “Tough way to go.”

“For a man, probably the toughest.”

“He was alert and aware that someone he knew had dismembered him,” Sam said, more to herself than to Lindsey.

“You’re sure it was someone he knew?”

“Nothing’s definite, but I’m leaning in that direction because there was no struggle and no forced entry.”

“There was also no skin under his nails or any defensive injuries to his hands.”

“He didn’t put up a fight.”

“It happened fast.” Lindsey gestured to O’Connor’s penis floating in some sort of liquid.

Sam fought back an unusual surge of nausea. This stuff didn’t usually bother her, but she had never seen a severed penis before.

“A clean, fast cut,” Lindsey said.

“Which is why the killer was able to get the knife through his neck while he was still sitting up in bed.”

“Right. He would’ve been reacting to the dismemberment. He might’ve even blacked out from the pain.”

“So he never saw the death blow coming.”

“Probably not.”

“Thanks, Doc. Send me your report when it’s ready?”

“You got it,” Lindsey said. “Sam?”

Sam, who had reached for her cell to check for messages, looked over at the other woman.

“I wanted you to know how terrible I felt about what happened with that kid,” Lindsey said, her green eyes soft with compassion. “What the press did to you…well, anyone who knows you knows the truth.”

“Thank you,” Sam said in a hushed tone. “I appreciate that.”

By seven o’clock, Sam was in her office wading through four sets of phone records drawn from the senator’s home, office and two cell phones. Her eyes blurry from the lack of sleep that she blamed on Nick’s kiss and the memories it had resurrected, she searched for patterns and nursed her second diet cola of the day. Most of the calls were to numbers in the District and Virginia, but she noticed several calls per week to Chicago that usually lasted an hour or more. She made a note to check the number.

A few other numbers popped up with enough regularity to warrant a follow up. Sam made a list and turned it over to one of the other detectives who had been assigned to assist her.