Female laughter. “Hi, Lieutenant. I’ve got the autopsy report on your victim without a face. There was some alcohol in her system but nothing incapacitating, maybe a drink or two. No narcotics or prescription medication. Death by gunshot, no stunner there. My guess is the bullet entered before the shotgun pellets because we got a nice clean track through the brain and if she’d been blasted with shot initially it would’ve been like shooting the bullet into soup. No evidence of sexual assault, she’s never had a baby, but there was some substantial endometriosis, which could be genetic, or the result of scarring due to an STD. There’s also some fibrosed tissue in and around her rectum, so at some point she probably engaged in anal sex fairly regularly. Other than that, her organs were healthy.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“That’s the science part, Milo,” said Jernigan. “Now here’s the gut-feeling part: The wound pattern still bothers me but I can’t say it’s based on anything other than a little cognitive twinge. Assuming she got hit with the .45 first and the impact knocked her off her feet, there should’ve been more shotgun damage. She’d be prone, dead or close to it, and totally vulnerable to an overhead blast. But the pellets didn’t overlap with the bullet wound as much as I’d expect. In fact, the most severe sprinkling of shot is almost totally in line with the bullet along the vertical axis. Almost as if your two bad guys fired simultaneously.”

“Firing squad,” he said.

“That’s the image I got. But a skillful squad, the two of them standing side by side, coordinating perfectly. The shotgun damage was far from tight. The pellets pierced her sinuses as well as the lower part of her frontal lobes. But used up close, a .410 could’ve taken her entire head off. And there’s no way I can see, short of standing on a ladder, that the shotgunner could’ve hit her straight-on once she was down.”

“Precision murder team,” said Milo. “Maybe at the next Olympics.”

“It’s creepy, right? Almost a ritualistic quality to it.”

“Like she was being punished.”

“I suppose,” said Jernigan. “You know what it’s usually like with sick stuff. We get up-close strangulation, a knife ballet. This is harder to characterize. There’s that calculated execution thing going on but possibly also something darker—something Delaware might be able to help you with.”

“Funny you should mention him.”

I said, “Alex here.”

“Oh, hi,” she said. “So what do you think?”

“It fits perfectly with our current best guess for motive: money as well as revenge.”

“Great minds,” she said. “When you learn more, keep me in the loop because this one’s got me curious.”

Milo said, “Love your optimism, Doc.”