“Exactly. Anyway, the ME noted that the bones lacked any sort of wear and tear common to manual labor or extreme sports, but he did have numerous fractures in the phalanges of both hands, as well as his left radius. A deviated septum too.” Doyle touched his index finger to the half-molded shape of a broken nose he was constructing. The tip of one tissue marker stuck out from among the clay. “An old break, but a pretty bad one. It’d be an obvious facial feature. You can’t help but notice that particular detail aligns with the mask.”

Larkin pulled out his cell, opened the email app, and found the autopsy report from last night. He quickly scrolled through the attachment while asking, “Anything on the bones that would indicate cause of death?”

“Cervical fracture.”

Larkin looked up. “He died from a broken neck?”

Doyle nodded. “Extreme force from behind with a blunt object. Your pitch has risen twice, by the way.”

“Unfortunately that happens when I’m interested.”

“I’m honored.”

Larkin ignored that comment and studied his phone again. “The nonfatal fractures were only a few years old, so we can likely rule out childhood abuse. They could be run-of-the-mill, although….”

“Intimate Partner Violence predominately affects females,” Doyle began. “And I can’t say how much the CDC has studied this among LGBT people, but I’ve worked with enough victims of violence to know the visual differences between random and domestic assault. There’s been papers written about an abuser’s tendency to avoid areas like the spine or neck until late stages, which can and has resulted in death.”

“You think John Doe was LGBT.”

“Not necessarily. Over ninety percent of men who report being victims of IPV say they’ve only had female partners. But that does leave a small percentage who have male partners, and in comparison, nearly ninety percent of men who report rape had a male perpetrator. I’m just saying, with male victims, it can be a bit trickier to narrow down assailant likelihood.”

Doyle was doing it again: exhibiting that lazy physical posture—he’d fall off the stool if he wasn’t careful—while his pyrite eyes sparkled like every stone had been overturned and what was found underneath was a deep pool of intelligence, that sunshine skittering across its surface.

“I’m going to read the ME’s report in full before I hypothesize further.”

Doyle pointed to the empty seat at the drafting table. “Make yourself at home.”

Larkin collected his breakfast and sat on the other side of the office. He sipped coffee and read a sentence or two at a time on his phone, but found himself, more often than not, watching Doyle resume work on the bust. He’d put those earbuds on again, and while he didn’t sing along outright, Doyle’s deep voice created an almost subaudible hum that seemed to vibrate the very air around them.