Salk stared as they reentered the room. Respectfully, Grangeland didn’t.

“Doctor, Special Agent Grangeland, please accept my apology. I’m not used to seeing this sort of thing.”

“It’s an understandable reaction,” Salk said. “This is an exceptionally bad case. Would you like some water?”

“Thank you, no.” When Salk turned toward the body, he mouthed I’m okay to Grangeland.

Her expression held genuine concern, but she didn’t react.

He appreciated her discretion and took a closer look at the body, pointing at several pairs of dark spots between the knife cuts. “Doctor, what are those marks?” He already knew the answer, all too well.

“They’re from a stun gun. Based on the pole spacing and the degree of discoloration, we think it’s from a King Cobra police model. Packs quite a punch, nine hundred thousand volts. The body has twenty-two sets of marks. I put a rush on all the lab work. We should have the results tomorrow afternoon.”

Grangeland handed Dr. Salk a business card. “When the results come back, will you call me right away?”

“Yes, I can have the reports faxed to your field office.”

No one spoke for several seconds.

Dr. Salk broke the silence. “Mr. McBride, have you seen this before?”

“What, a dead body?”

“This exact kind of trauma.”

He locked eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“Your reaction. I just had a feeling you recognized it.”

Harv stepped forward. “We do recognize it. We saw photographs a couple days ago.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest anything. I’m sorry.”

Yeah, Doc, you did. “No harm done,” Nathan said. “I might’ve asked the same thing in your shoes.” He forced a smile. “I probably looked like I saw a ghost.”

“That’s a pretty fair description.”

Distraction time. “Do you ever get used to it? I mean, you know…”

“Working with the dead? I enjoy my work, although truth be told, I’m not as involved with postmortem examinations as I used to be. As the ME, my job involves more administrative work now. I made an exception here. Now that I’ve had a chance to study this case in depth, I’d have to say this man wasn’t a victim of a ritual killing. I believe he was interrogated.”

“Interrogated? You mean for information? Like that?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Although it looks like a serial killer’s signature, the pathology of most serials involves ritual to some degree or another. In this case, for example, the crisscrossing diagonal cuts seem to suggest the pattern has meaning to the killer. Why else would he or she do it? We may never know the significance of the diamond pattern, but I guarantee it would have a significant meaning to a serial killer. With me so far?”

Nathan nodded.