Diaz said, "Jesus Christ, Cole, don't think about it. Where is he, Dino?"

We followed him into a long narrow room where the air was cold. A rash of goose bumps sprouted over me, but not from the chill. Racks on the walls were stacked from the floor to the ceiling like bunks in a submarine, with each rack holding two bodies. The bodies were wrapped with murky plastic, but not so murky that you couldn't see nude bodies within. Feet poked through gaps in the plastic, some with tags wired to the big toe. I tried not to look, but bodies filled the wall.

Beckett said, "This is nothing. We have three rooms like this."

"Are all these people waiting to be autopsied?"

"Oh, no. Most of the bodies you see here are waiting to be claimed by their next of kin, or identified."

"You get many you can't identify?"

"We bag around three hundred John Does a year, but we put a name to most of them. Doesn't matter where they come from, either. We've had illegals from Mexico, Central America, even China, and we've run'm down. We'll name your guy, too."

Several pairs of feet were so translucent I could see a dim smudge of bones within the flesh. Beckett explained that some of the bodies had been on the racks so long the fluids had drained from the tissue; they had been waiting for years.

Beckett brought us past the racks to a gurney at the far end of the room.

"Okay, here we go. You'll need gloves if you want to touch something."

We gloved up, then Beckett peeled open the plastic. John Doe #05-1642 was naked, with a brown paper bag between his knees and a case file clipped to the gurney. The bag contained his bloodied clothes, which would be placed in a drying room before they were examined. Beckett removed the bag, then stood back.

Diaz said, "Jesus, Pardy was right. This guy thought he was the Illustrated Man."

Beckett grunted at the body like it was a lab specimen.

"Weird, huh? I've never seen one like this, the way he did it. All the tats are upside down."

Crucifixes of differing sizes and designs dotted his forearms and thighs and belly, all of them upside down. The tattoos were upside down because they were self-inflicted. They would have been right-side up as he looked at them when he pushed ink into his skin. Some of the crosses were brittle thin lines, but others were blocky structures with shading and shadows. Weeping Jesuses and upside-down words were spread between the crosses: PAIN, MERCY, GOD, FORGIVE ME. They looked like they had been drawn by a child. I felt queasy. These marks were not religious; he had desecrated himself.

When I glanced at Diaz, she was watching me again. I felt a bubble of irritation.

"What is it? You think I look like him?"