Robbins waved a gloved finger at her. “Aha. That’s where it gets interesting. Stage six is biological death.”

“What’s the difference between clinical and biological death?” Susan asked.

“About four minutes,” Robbins said. “That’s how long you have to start CPR and defibrillation before your brain gets all mushy and there’s no going back.”

He cranked a lever on the morgue cooler drawer he’d been leaning on, and slid Stephanie Towner’s corpse out on a conveyor tray.

As corpses go, she looked better than she had at the park that morning. Her hair was wet and combed back from her face; her flesh was clean of mud and debris. But she was still a disturbing sight. Her face, neck, and upper chest were blotchy with the telltale dusky bruising of lividity. She looked like she’d been punched around. But looks could be deceiving. Bodies floated facedown, the head lower than the rest of the body. What looked like bruising was most likely just where her blood had settled once her heart had stopped pumping. A slight trace of pink foam circled her nostrils. A brutal Y-incision, sealed with industrial-looking staples, marked where Robbins had opened her chest up for autopsy.

Archie checked in on Susan. She was staring at the corpse’s thighs. The flesh was pimply. Goose-skin, Archie had heard coroners call it. That was fine. As long as she wasn’t fixed on the face. As long as you didn’t look at the face, you could pretend that what you were looking at wasn’t human.

Archie knew she tried to seem tough. But the rattling skull in her hands told a different story.

“Here’s the thing,” Robbins continued. “Most people, once they’re unconscious, their larynx relaxes and their lungs fill with water. Your vic? No water in her stomach. No hemorrhages in the middle ears. No water in her lungs. This can happen. Some people keep that seal. Drowning is tricky when it comes to cause of death. But it got me thinking, and I took a real close look at her. And I found this.”

He gestured to the woman like a waiter presenting the catch of the day. Then gently folded open her fingers to expose her palm. Her finger pads were blanched and wrinkled, like she’d been in the tub too long.

Archie and Susan both leaned forward from opposite sides of the conveyor tray, nearly bumping heads. Robbins indicated a tiny brown spot near the center of the palm. It looked like someone had marked her with the tip of a brown felt-tipped pen.

This was Robbins’s big evidence? “What is it?” Archie asked.

“A freckle?” Susan guessed.

“It’s a puncture wound,” Robbins said.

Susan didn’t seem convinced. “It looks like a freckle.”