"LET'S LOWER THE OTHER LEG," I SAID.

Miller took the knee. I took the ankle. Together we unlocked and straightened the limb.

The belly was a chasm of putrefied jelly, emitting a stench that could have emptied whole villages.

Breathing through my mouth, I circled the table.

The glob was the same greasy white as the woman's flesh, but covered with silky brown wisps.

I checked the woman's thighs. Brown wisps spiderwebbed her flesh.

Threads? Hair?

I poked the glob. It felt somewhat firm, but slough-prone, like overripe fruit.

Or flesh.

Sudden insight.

Using a fingertip, I scraped up and examined several wisps.

Fur.

As Miller watched, I dug into the glob and extricated one scrawny limb. Then another.

Miller's eyes widened. Wordlessly, she found the hind legs, and, together, we uncurled the small creature. Hairless, bloated, and marinated in decompositional runoff, its species was unrecognizable.

"Fido, Felix, or Flopsy?" Miller asked.

"It's not a rabbit. The face is flat and the fore and hind limbs are equal in length." I probed the nether regions and extracted a long, thin tail. "Let's check the teeth."

While I held the head, Miller pried the jaws.

"It's a cat," I said.

I pictured Birdie. I looked at this woman, dumped in a barrel with her pet like so much garbage.

I fought the urge to slam my fist into the stainless steel. I closed my eyes.

Focus, Brennan. You will further the investigation only if you focus.

"Let's find out who she is," I said.

Miller wheeled the gurney up the ramp and into the hospital. I followed and we ascended to an autopsy room. First off, I checked the fingers to see if we could recover any prints or print fragments. Not a chance.

Miller rang a tech to request X-rays. While the body was gone we both filled out forms. Neither of us spoke.

When the X-rays arrived Miller popped them onto wall-mounted light boxes. While she and the tech transferred the woman's body to an autopsy table, I moved along the row, examining gray and white images of her insides.

The brain and organs were mush. The eyes would yield no vitreous fluid. This case would be strictly skeletal. My baby.

I focused on the bones. I saw no obvious fractures or anomalies. No surgical implants, pins, or plates. No foreign objects. No bullets. No metallic trace.

No teeth or dentures.

"We won't be needing Bernie Grimes," I said. "She's edentulous."

"Senior citizen?" Miller asked.

"Middle-aged, not geriatric," I said, distracted by what I was seeing on the last two films.

Miller came up beside me.

"Gold star for diligence, Kyle," she threw over one shoulder to the tech who had shot the X-rays. "Good angles on the kitty."

"I wasn't sure—"

I cut Kyle off. "Look at this." I pointed to a white spot the size and shape of a small rice kernel, dead center below the cat's neck.

"That an artifact?" Miller asked.

I shook my head. "It shows up on both plates."

Double-checking the feline X-rays, I got a scalpel, returned to the gurney, and made an incision. Thirty seconds of probing produced a tiny cylinder. I held it on my palm for Miller and the diligent Kyle.

"I know you're going to tell me what that is," Miller said.

"Pet ID chip, properly known as a transponder."

Miller looked at me as though I'd said it was a snakebot designed to maneuver through space.

"The device consists of a miniaturized coil and memory circuit encased in biocompatible glass. It's implanted using a hypodermic syringe, just under the skin, between the shoulder blades."

"By controllers of the Matrix?"

"By veterinarians. The procedure takes less than a minute. My cat has one and he hasn't a clue."

"How's it work?" Miller sounded skeptical.

"The chip's memory circuit contains a unique preprogrammed identification number, which can be read by a scanner. The scanner sends a low-power radio signal to the coil, which sends a copy of the ID number back to the scanner. The number can be checked against a central databank, where the pet's ownership records are kept."

"So if Fluffy takes a powder, Fluffy's owner gets her back."

"If Fluffy is lucky enough to get bagged and scanned."

"Isn't that an irony. Easier to trace a cat than a human being. What's the shelf life?"

"Theoretically, the chip can function up to seventy-five years."

"Who's got these gizmos?" Dawning comprehension.

"Vets. Animal shelters. SPCAs. They're pretty common."

"So the dumb sonovabitch may have left the proverbial smoking gun."

I nodded. "As least as to an ID of the victim."

Miller produced a ziplock and I deposited the capsule. She turned to Kyle.

"Find me a vet who can scan this thing."

While Kyle disappeared in search of a phone, Miller and I resumed our examination of the body.

"Think she's white?" Miller asked, looking at what remained of the face.

"The cranial X-rays suggest Caucasoid skull and facial architecture."

"What's telling you middle-aged?"

"Moderate arthritis. Bony spicules where the ribs attach to the breastbone. Think you can harvest the pubic symphyses?"

"With guidance." Miller went in search of a striker saw.

I centered a rubber headrest behind the woman's neck. Her face provided scant clue to her appearance in life. The eyelids were gone, the orbits filled with the same waxy material that clung to her bones. No lashes, brows, or head hair remained.

Miller returned. While I snapped photos, she removed the pubic symphyses, then took them to find a soaking container. I was shooting a facial close-up when something caught my attention. Setting the camera aside, I leaned in.

A groove circled the woman's neck, penetrating a quarter inch into the crumbly flesh. The groove was narrow, less than half the width of my little finger.

Postmortem? An impression created by contact with something in the barrel? Damage due to marine scavengers?

Grabbing a magnifying lens, I ran a finger over the furrow. The edges were clean and well defined. No way the indentation had been caused by nibbling creatures.

I heard a door open, close, then footsteps. Miller said something. I didn't look up. I was following the furrow's path, checking its orientation. Checking the flesh above and below.

The groove was horizontal, with an irregular enlargement on the left side of the neck. Abrasions nicked the surrounding tissue.

"What's so intriguing?"

I handed Miller the glass. She studied the groove. Then, "This what I think it is?"

"Horizontal furrow. Defensive fingernail scrapes."

"Ligature strangulation?"

I nodded.

"What kind of ligature?"

"Smooth, round cross section, small diameter. Maybe a wire of some kind."

The grooved flesh jogged loose a memory. Cruikshank dangling from an oak in the Francis Marion National Forest.

Miller must have had the same thought. "What about hanging?"

"With hanging, the furrow rises to a suspension point. This one's horizontal all the way around."

I studied the woman lying in a puddle on stainless steel. The usual signs of asphyxia had been obliterated by decomposition and saponification. There were no petechia from increased venous pressure. No indicators of cyanosis. No tissue hemorrhage. No trachea, no esophagus, no muscle to section. Nothing that would allow a pathologist to definitively conclude that death had been caused by strangulation.

"When the bones are stripped I'll examine the larynx, especially the hyoid and thyroid cartilages. But, given what I see, I'm reasonably certain."

My brain flashed another snapshot image. The Dewees bones. Tiny nicks. When the woman's flesh was removed I'd also take a hard look at her vertebrae and ribs.

Miller changed the subject. "Kyle found a vet who can scan your capsule."

"Where?"

"Block and a half from here. Dr. Dinh." Miller stuck a yellow Post-it to one of the glass-fronted cabinets above the counter. "Says he'll be in his office until five thirty. Then he's off for the long weekend."

I'd totally forgotten. Monday was Memorial Day. The clock said four thirty. I had to hurry.

Crossing to the counter, I removed the pubic bones from the bowl in which Miller had placed them to soak. The cartilage detached easily, allowing me to see that both symphyseal faces were smooth, with some depression relative to their rims.

Miller watched expectantly.

"Yep. Just north or south of forty." I pulled off my gloves and lowered my mask. "Gotta catch Dinh before he heads out. When will the skeleton be fully cleaned?"

"Monday morning."

"I hate to ask you to work on a holiday weekend," I said.

Miller laughed. "Sweetie, I've got nothing planned but a Home Depot jaunt."

"You're a saint."

"Patron of spackle and Spic and Span. In the meantime, what do I tell Gullet?"

"Tell him she's a middle-aged white woman who was strangled and stuffed in a barrel with her cat."

===OO=OOO=OO===

Dr. Dinh shared a pink stucco strip mall with an electronics shop, a cell phone vendor, an insurance office, a dollar store, and a video rental outlet. Yellow lettering on the window identified the Animals Love Care Veterinary Clinic.

My exhausted mind started playing games. Animals love care? Loving care for animals? Love and care? Priced separately? Package deals upon request?

I really needed a bubble bath and dinner.

Luck was with me. On my second drive-through an SUV backed out of one of the dozen slots. I pulled in.

As I entered the clinic, a woman brushed past with a rat-size Chihuahua cradled in one arm. The rat kicked into, what? Yapping? Even yapping doesn't adequately capture the shrillness.

Dinh's waiting room was an extravagant eight by ten. Straight ahead was a faux-bamboo-fronted counter with a circa '83 PC on top. No one was working it.

Beyond the counter were two closed doors, each with a Lucite holder appropriate for depositing charts. Muffled voices floated from behind one door. A waiting file suggested a presence behind the other.

Painted wooden chairs lined the wall to one side of the counter. An old man occupied the farthest on the right. An old beagle slouched against his leg.

A woman occupied the farthest chair on the left, a turquoise pet carrier on the linoleum by her feet. Through the carrier's door I could see something with beady black eyes and whiskers. A ferret?

My watch said five fifteen. Things were looking bad for Dinh's five thirty exit.

Gramps and the beagle visually tracked me to a middle chair. The woman continued thumbing her BlackBerry. The ferret-thing retreated into shadow.

Taking up a cat magazine, I settled back.

I was two pages into an article on thwarting feline blanket sucking when a woman exited room one accompanied by twins and a golden retriever. Moments later a small man with a shiny brown head emerged through the same door. He wore silver-rimmed glasses and a blue lab coat labeled Dinh.

Dinh invited ferret woman to enter the space vacated by Mom and the boys.

I stood.

Dinh approached and asked if I was the one with the chip. I began to explain. Hand-flapping me quiet, he held out a palm. I gave him the ziplock, and he disappeared into examining room two.

I sat, wondering how long I'd be cooling my heels.

It went like this.

Five fifty-six. Woman and poodle exit room two.

Six oh four. Gramps and beagle enter room two.

Six twenty-two. Ferret woman exits room one.

Six forty-five. Gramps exits room two, sans beagle.

At 7:05, Dinh reappears and hands me a piece of paper. On it were written two names: "Cleopatra" and "Isabella Cameron Halsey." I assumed the former was the late feline, the latter its late owner. Below the names was a King Street address.

I thanked Dinh. Coolly. I'd long since passed the threshold for niceness. My request had probably taken the man five minutes. He could have done it first and sent me on my way. Instead he'd made me wait two hours.

Minutes later I was jammed up in traffic near the Old City Market. I'd been so irritated with Dinh I'd cut down the Peninsula, not up toward the bridge.

I made a turn. Another. The streets were narrow and clogged with tourists. I wanted to be home, not creeping along behind a horse-drawn carriage. I was annoyed with my own stupidity. I was tired, grubby, and wanted to cry.

I passed a gray stone church with a towering steeple. St. Philip's. OK. I was on Church Street. I had my bearings. Despite Old Dobbin, I was making progress.

The buggy slowed. Over the hum of my AC I heard the driver's muffled voice, presumably concocting stories about landmarks. My stomach growled. I added hungry to my list of complaints.

Finger-drumming the wheel, I looked out the passenger-side window. Tommy Condon's Irish Pub. Patrons dining on the porch. They looked happy. Clean.

My gaze drifted to Tommy's lot. Fell on a Jeep.

My fingers froze.

I checked the plate. My heart kicked in extra beats. I had to get out of the car.

My eyes darted from curb to curb. Not a chance of finding a spot on Church. Where was the entrance to Tommy's lot?

Dobbin was clopping along at the speed of mud. There was nothing I could do but follow.

Finally, I rounded the corner. One street up, I found a gap and jammed the car in.

Slamming the door, I broke into a run.