“Tell me about the corpse. COD?”

“You determine the cause of death?” she called to chubby Earl.

“Strangled,” the tech said.

But Sachs noticed right away there were no petechial hemorrhages on the inner surface of the eyelids. No damage to the tongue either. Most strangulation victims bite their tongue at some point during the attack.

“I don’t think so.”

Earl cast another glance at Jim and snorted. “Sure, he was. Lookit that red line on his neck. We call that a ligature mark, honey. You know, we can’t keep him here forever. They start going ripe, days like this. Now, that’s a smell you haven’t lived till you smelled.”

Sachs frowned. “He wasn’t strangled.”

They double-teamed her. “Hon—Officer, that’s a ligature mark,” Jim, the trooper, said. “I seen hundreds of ’em.”

“No, no,” she said. “The perp just ripped a chain off him.”

Rhyme broke in. “That’s probably it, Sachs. First thing you do when you’re ID-proofing a corpse, get rid of the jewelry. It was probably a Saint Christopher, maybe inscribed. Who’s there with you?”

“A pair of cretins,” she said.

“Oh. Well, what is the COD?”

After a brief search she found the wound. “Ice pick or narrow-bladed knife in the back of the skull.”

The medic’s round form eased into the doorway. “We woulda found that,” he said defensively. “I mean, we were in such an all-fire hurry to get here, thanks to you folks.”

Rhyme said to Sachs, “Describe him.”

“He’s overweight, big gut. Lotta flab.”

“Tan or sunburn?”

“On his arms and torso only. Not legs. He’s got untrimmed toenails and a cheap earring—steel posts, not gold. His briefs are Sears and they’ve got holes in them.”

“Okay, he’s looking blue collar,” Rhyme said. “Workman, deliveryman. We’re closing in. Check his throat.”

“What?”

“For his wallet or papers. If you want to keep a corpse anonymous for a few hours you shove his IDs down his throat. It doesn’t get spotted till the autopsy.”

A chortle of laughter from outside.

Which Sachs ended quickly when she grabbed the man’s jaws, pulled wide, and started reaching inside.

“Jesus,” Earl muttered. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing there, Rhyme.”

“You better cut. The throat. Go deeper.”

Sachs had bridled at some of Rhyme’s more macabre requests in the past. But today she glanced at the grinning boys behind her and lifted her illegal but cherished switchblade from her jeans pocket, clicked it open.

Took the grins off both faces.

“Say, honey, what’re you doing?”

“Little surgery. Gotta look inside.” Like she did this every day.

“I mean, I can’t deliver no corpse to the coroner cut up by some New York City cop.”

“Then you do it.”

She offered him the handle of the knife.

“Aw, she’s shitting us, Jim.”

She lifted an eyebrow and slipped the knife into the man’s Adam’s apple like a fisherman gutting a trout.

“Oh, Jesus, Jim, lookit what she’s doing. Stop her.”

“I’m outa here, Earl. I didn’t see that.” The trooper walked off.