“Meaning?”

“Toxins do that. Toxins produced by microorganisms.” I looked up at him. “As I’ve mentioned, she was sick.”

Marino was walking around, looking at the torso from different angles. “Do you have any idea with what?”

“Based on secretions in her lungs, I know she had bronchitis. At the moment, I don’t know what else, except her liver’s in pretty grim shape.”

“From drinking,” Wesley said.

“Yellowish, nodular. Yes,” I said. “And I would say that at one time she smoked.”

“She’s skin and bones,” Marino said.

“She wasn’t eating,” I said. “Her stomach is tubular, empty and clean.” I showed them.

Wesley moved to a nearby desk and pulled out a chair. He stared off in thought as I yanked a cord down from an overhead reel and plugged in the Stryker saw. Marino, who liked this part of the procedure the least, stepped back from the table. No one spoke as I sawed off the ends of arms and legs, a bony dust drifting on the air, the electric whir louder than a dentist’s drill. I placed each section into a labeled carton, and said what I thought.

“I don’t think we’re dealing with the same killer this time.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Marino said. “But we got two big things in common. A torso, and it was dumped in central Virginia.”

“He’s had a varied victimology all along,” said Wesley, wearing his surgical mask loose around his neck. “One black, two whites, all female, and one black male. The five in Dublin were mixed, as well. But again, all were young.”

“So would you now expect him to choose an old woman?” I asked him.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t. But these people aren’t an exact science, Kay. This is somebody who does whatever the hell he feels like whenever he feels like it.”

“The dismemberment isn’t the same, it’s not through the joints,” I reminded them. “And I think she was clothed or wrapped in something.”

“This one may have bothered him more,” Wesley said, taking the mask off altogether and dropping it on top of the desk. “His urge to kill again may have been overwhelming, and she may have been easy.” He looked at the torso. “So he strikes, but his M.O. shifts because the victimology has suddenly shifted, and he doesn’t really like it. He leaves her at least partially dressed or covered because raping and killing an old woman aren’t what turn him on. And he cuts off her head first so he doesn’t have to look at her.”

“You see any sign of rape?” Marino asked me.

“You rarely do,” I said. “I’m about to finish up here. She’ll go in the freezer like the other ones in the hope we eventually get an identification. I’ve got muscle tissue and marrow for DNA, hoping that we’ll eventually have a missing person to compare it with.”

I was discouraged, and it showed. Wesley collected his coat from the back of a door, leaving a small puddle on the floor.