Pandemic

Not only was her forehead unblemished but now her cheeks and lips had filled with natural color. Maguchi had imbued the photo with another quality that Haldane couldn't put his finger on, which invigorated the woman's face to the point where it looked as if she had actually posed for the camera. She was not pretty, but she had a pleasant young face. It was full of hope and promise, not the face of the indiscriminate killer she turned out to be.

"You're a genius, Jake!" Tremblay said and then took the photo and tucked it back in the envelope with the others.

Maguchi grabbed a CD off his desk and passed it to Tremblay. "The electronic copies are on this."

"What are you going to do with them?" Gwen pointed at the envelope.

"Circulate them." Tremblay shrugged. "TV, newspapers, Internet… everywhere I can."

"Then everyone will know that somebody is intentionally spreading this thing," Savard said.

"Don't they deserve to?" Tremblay stiffened. "Besides, how else will we track down her identity and find her killer." She shook the envelope in her hand. "This photo is the key."

Haldane nodded. "Sergeant Tremblay is right, Gwen. The wider the circulation the better. This is what they didn't count on. It could lead us to the source."

Savard nodded.

Tremblay passed Savard and Haldane each a card. "I will catch up with you later, but if you have any questions or concerns, I am always reachable by cell phone."

Maguchi reached for his glass of water. He took another big swallow and choked on it, which sent him into a long coughing fit. "Sorry, I have a bit of a drinking problem." He gasped a laugh at his own tired joke once he finally had caught his breath.

Maguchi led Savard and Haldane to the dissecting suites. They stopped in front of a series of doors. One door had a large plastic biohazard sign hanging from the double doors. Maguchi pointed at it and then indicated the table beside it with gowns, masks, plastic face shields, and gloves. "No doubt the virus is long dead, but we can't afford to take chances," he said as he slipped on his gown and adjusted his face mask.

Once garbed, Maguchi thrust open the double doors and walked into the room with the others in tow. Aside from a sink, garbage can, and dissecting tray the only other furnishing in the white tiled room was the heavy metal gurney in the center.

Naked, the woman from the photos lay on her back with eyes fixed on the ceiling. Short and slightly overweight, she had olive colored skin and thick pubic hair consistent with her presumed Semitic origins. Her long hair fell back on the gurney, exposing the edges of the cut at the base of her hairline made by the skull saw in order to extract her brain. She had a deep Y-shaped incision that started above her breasts and then ran down between them and along the midline past her belly button. The skin folded together at the edges of the incision, threatening to peel back any moment like an unzipped jacket in the wind.

More than the surgically induced mutilation, her tender age disturbed Haldane. He doubted she was far past her teens or old enough to appreciate the repercussions of her ruinous and self-destructive killing spree. What a goddamn waste! he thought.

Standing at the head of the table, Maguchi grabbed a blunt metal probe from the dissecting tray. He brought it up to the bullet hole above the cadaver's left eyebrow. "If you look close, you can see the black stippling around the entry wound."

Haldane leaned forward and saw the speckles, which looked like fleas caught scurrying from the wound.

"Powder residue," Maguchi said. "Means the gun was fired from no more than two feet away from the girl's head." He put his gloved hand behind her head and lifted it off the table. Then he stuck the probe through the hole in her forehead and directed it toward the exit wound so that the probe was sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle from the skin. "See the angle of the bullet entry?"

"Somebody was standing above her?" Savard suggested.

"Exactly." Maguchi nodded. "Unless the killer was standing on a chair, she was kneeling when she was shot."

"Praying?"

Maguchi chuckled. "Can't tell that from an autopsy, but I do know that she must have known what was coming."

Maguchi pulled out the probe and dropped it back on the tray. "Now, let's have a look at her chest." He pivoted and tripped, falling against the side of the gurney.

Haldane reached over and steadied his arm. "You okay?"