He decided to include the ligatures in a separate column, continued making hash marks. Reviewed his count of the knife wounds. Both premortem and after death, the coroner was guessing. One, two, three, four . . . he confirmed fifty-six, began his tally of the cigarette burns.

Inflammation around the singed circles said the burns had been inflicted before death.

Very little spent blood at the scene. She’d been killed somewhere else, left here.

But lots of dried blood atop the head, forming a blackening cap that kept attracting the flies.

The finishing touch: scalping her. Should that be counted as one giant wound, or did he need to peer under the blood, see how many times the killer had hacked away the skin?

A cloud of night gnats circled above the body, and Milo scatted it away, noted “removal of cranial skin,” as a separate item. Drawing the body and topping it with the cap, his lousy rendering making the blood look like a beanie, so inadequately offensive. He frowned, closed his pad, stepped back. Studied the body from a new perspective. Fought back yet another wave of nausea.

The old black guy who’d found her had heaved his cookies. From the moment Milo had seen the girl, he’d struggled not to do the same. Tightening his bowels and his gut, trying to come up with a mantra that would do the trick.

You’re no virgin, you’ve seen worse.

Thinking of the worst: melon-sized holes in chests, hearts bursting—that kid, that Indian kid from New Mexico—Bradley Two Wolves—who’d stepped on a mine and lost everything below the navel but was still talking as Milo pretended to do something for him. Looking up at Milo with soft brown eyes—alive eyes, dear God—talking calmly, having a goddamn conversation with nothing left and everything leaking out. That was worse, right? Having to talk back to the upper half of Bradley Two Wolves, chitchatting about Bradley’s pretty little girlfriend in Galisteo, Bradley’s dreams—once he got back to the States, he was gonna marry Tina, get a job with Tina’s dad putting up adobe fences, have a bunch of kids. Kids. With nothing below the—Milo smiled down at Bradley and Bradley smiled back and died.

That had been worse. And back then Milo had managed to keep his cool, keep the conversation going. Cleaning up afterward, loading half-of-Bradley in a body bag that was much too roomy. Writing out Bradley’s death tag for the flight surgeon to sign. For the next few weeks, Milo had smoked a lot of dope, sniffed some heroin, done an R and R in Bangkok, where he tried some opium. He’d even hazarded an attempt at a skinny Bangkok whore. That hadn’t gone so great, but bottom line: He’d maintained.

You can handle this, stupid.

Breathe slowly, don’t give Schwinn something else to lecture about—