“Of course not,” Taylor said, trying to keep her annoyance in check because of who was asking. “I didn’t want to get too detailed. But if you really want to know, we found a couple of fingers on the ground and matched the prints. It was him.”

“What about his face?” Murph asked. “Did you try facial recognition on it?”

“We found footage from the surveillance cameras on the roof. They show a man going down the rope. We got a clear shot as he descended. The software called it a ninety-eight percent match for Thurman. It would be even higher but all our images of him are old.”

“Did you run it on the dead man?” Murph asked, nodding in the direction of the body parts.

“We tried but it wouldn’t give a result. There wasn’t much face left to recognize,” Taylor said, then added to Jessie “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sensitive with me. I don’t care about him,” Jessie assured her, increasingly certain that was true. “But I need to see. Maybe I’ll be able to identify a feature the system couldn’t.”

“Ms. Hunt,” Taylor said hesitantly. “I’m serious when I say there aren’t many features left to identify.”

Jessie stared at her coldly for several seconds before responding.

“When he tied me to a chair, strapped my head in place so it couldn’t move, and cut into my flesh, I had no choice but to study his features for long stretches. If there’s anything left of him, I’ll recognize it.”

Taylor lowered her head, unable to make eye contact. Then she led Jessie her over to the sheet that covered what appeared to be a head and not much more. She pulled back the sheet to reveal a pulpy mass that was barely discernible as human.

The CSU investigator had been right. There wasn’t enough face left to identify what remained as her father. Only the short hair, crushed Adam’s apple, and five o’clock shadow smeared in blood offered evidence that it was male.

“Sorry, Taylor,” Jessie muttered. “I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s okay. I get it. Sometimes you just have to see for yourself to be sure.”

“How long before the DNA analysis will be in? I want final confirmation on this as soon as possible.”

“We’re testing the blood now and we’ll have preliminary data in a couple of hours,” Taylor said. “As you can imagine, there’s a rush on this, so we should have a final report by this time tomorrow.”

“Can you please ask your supervisor to text me when both versions are done?”

“Of course.”

A raindrop landed on Jessie’s forearm and she looked up. The moon was no longer visible as a mass of low-hanging clouds hovered overhead.

“Better finish processing the scene quickly,” she noted. “It looks like we’re going to have more than just sprinkles in a few minutes.”

“On it,” Taylor said.

Jessie turned to Murph, who looked skeptical.

“Still don’t buy it?” she asked.