Milo read the crime-scene report. "Gunshot wound to the back of the head?"

"If that's what it says."

Folding the sheet back, Milo exposed the face. What was left of it. Deep slashes crisscrossed the flesh, shearing skin, exposing bone and muscle and gristle. What had been the eyes were two oversized raspberries. The hair, thick and light brown where the blood hadn't crusted, fanned out on the steel table. Slender neck. Blood-splashed but undamaged; only the face had been brutalized. The eyes ... the slash wounds created a crimson grid, like a barbecue grilling taken to the extreme. I saw freckles amid the gore, and my stomach lurched.

"Oh, boy," said Lichter, looking sad. "Hadn't looked at it yet."

"Look like a gunshot to you?"

Lichter hurried to a desk in the comer, shuffled through piles of paper, picked up some stapled sheets, and flipped through. "Same thing here ... single wound to the occipital cranium, no bullet recovered yet."

Gloving up, he returned to the gurney, rolled the head carefully, bent, and squinted. "Ah-see."

A distinct ruby hole dotted the back of the skull. Black crust fuzzed the edges and black dots peppered the slender neck.

"Stippling," said Lichter. "I'm just a body mover, but that means an up-close wound, right?" He released the head carefully. Another sad look. "Maybe she got shot first and then they used a knife on her. More like a hatchet or a machete-a thick blade, right? But I better not say more. Only the coroners have opinions."

"Who's the coroner tonight?"

"Dr. Patel. He had to run out, should be back soon with some genuine wisdom."

He began to cover the face, but Milo took hold of the sheet. "Shooting, then slashing. Right on the side of the freeway."

"Don't quote me on anything," said Lichter. "I'm not allowed to speculate."

"Sounds like a good guess. Now all we have to do is find out who she is."

"Oh, we know that," said Lichter. "They pulled prints on her right away. Easy, the fingers were fine. Detective Whit-worth said she came right up on PRTNTRAK-hold on."

He ran back to the desk, retrieved more papers. "She had a record ... drugs, I think.... Yup, here we go. Hedy Lynn Haupt, female Caucasian, twenty-six ... arrested two years ago for P.C. 11351.5-that's possession of cocaine for use or sale, right? I know it by heart, because we get lots of that in here. Got an address on her, too."

Milo covered the distance between them in three strides and took the papers from him.

"Hedy Haupt," I said, leaning down for a look at the face.

Putting my face inches from the ruined flesh. Smelling the copper-sugar of the blood, the sulfur of released gases ... something light, floral-perfume.

The skin that unique green-gray where it wasn't blood-rusty.