“Lois is typing them now.”

“Anything on Patrick Ewell?” Ewell was the man who paid cash for a box of condoms at the Super Value Grocery.

“I ran a background.” Paper rattles. “Ewell, Patrick Henry. Thirty-six years old. Lives on Parkersburg Road with his wife, Marsha, and two teenage kids. No record. No arrests. Not even a frickin’ speeding ticket.” The pitch of T.J.’s voice changes. “Get this, Chief. He works at the slaughterhouse.”

It’s a tenuous connection, but I’m just desperate enough to follow up. “Find out what he does there. And find out if he was at the Brass Rail on Saturday.”

“You got it.”

I’d rather talk to Ewell myself, but I need to get the second victim identified first. “See if there’s a connection between Ewell and Amanda Horner.”

“Okay.”

I consider everything we know about Ewell. “Why would a married man with two grown kids buy a box of condoms?”

“Uh, birth control?”

“You’d think for a couple married that long, they’d have a better method.”

T.J. clears his throat. That a man of twenty-four years is embarrassed by such talk fills me with hope that the world is not as bleak as it feels at the moment. “Thanks, T.J.”

“Don’t mention it, Chief.”

I feel slightly more human as I pull into the parking lot of Pomerene Hospital. I double-park near the entrance. Sleet patters my head and shoulders as I jog toward the revolving doors. The redhead at the information desk eyes me with a little too much interest as I pass. I send her a passable smile, but she turns her attention back to her computer.

The hospital basement is hushed and not as well lit as the upper floors. My boots thud dully against tile as I pass the yellow and black biohazard sign. I push through the set of swinging doors and see Doc Coblentz in his office, sitting at his desk. “Doc?”

“Ah, Chief Burkholder. I’ve been expecting you.” Wearing a white lab coat and navy slacks, he rises and crosses to me. “Any ID on the victim yet?”

“We’re checking missing persons reports.” I take a deep breath, trying to prepare for what comes next. “Do you have a prelim?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve got her cleaned up. I did the initial exam. If you’d like to take a look.”

That’s the last thing I want to do, but I need to identify this young woman. Somewhere out there, loved ones are worried. She may have children. People whose lives will be irrevocably changed by her death.

I go directly to the alcove. Hanging up my coat, I quickly don a gown and booties. The doc is waiting for me when I emerge. “The cuts on her abdomen do appear to be the Roman numeral XXII.”

“Postmortem?”

“Antemortem.” He starts toward the second set of swinging doors, and we enter the gray tiled room I’ve come to despise.

Three stainless steel gurneys are shoved against the far wall. A fourth gleams beneath a huge overhead light. I see the outline of the body beneath a blue sheet and brace.