LITMIR.BIZ

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locking thumb to thumb; he shook my knuckles. “Of course I remember,” his mouth said as his eyes denied it. “Great seeing you again, Detective.”

      Clair opened the door. Her husband said, “I’ll wait out here, dear.”

      “They won’t bite, you know, Zane.”

      He smiled but didn’t approach the door. I understood his hesitancy—I believe people sense death as precisely as cattle sense lightning forming, an atavistic warning system that’ll be with us until we evolve to creatures of pure reason, slim chance.

      Clair and I stepped into the suite. “Make it fast, Ryder,” she said. “I’ve got a busy day and don’t need distractions.”

      “Yes, Your Majesty,” I replied, drawing a withering glare but no comment. She slid the body from its refrigerated confines, drew the sheet away.

      I studied the odd tableau for several seconds. Without the head I took no sense of being, just of loss. All I noted was the victim’s physical dimensions, wide of shoulder, narrow of hip, well muscled. Death removes some of the tone and definition, but it was obviously a body the owner had put time and effort into.

      Clair watched me with disapproval, then let her eyes wander the body with professional appraisal. She started to draw the sheet back into place, but paused.

      “What the hell?” she said, leaning over the pubic region. “What’s that?”

      “A penis?”

      “No, dammit. Above the pubic hair. Make yourself useful, Ryder, get me some gloves.”

      I ran to yank a wad of latex surgical gloves from a box beside an autopsy table. Clair snapped them on and pressed aside the matted hair.

      “It’s writing,” she mumbled. “So small I can barely read it. ‘Warped a whore,’” she said, squinting at words I couldn’t see. “‘Warped a whore. Whores Warped. A full quart of warped whores. Rats back. Rats back. Rats back. Rats. Rats. Rats. Back. Back. Back.’”

      Clair leaned back and I bobbed forward. There, in precise lavender writing, were two horizontal lines of words, just as Clair had read them.

      Without turning from the body she called, “Dr. Davanelle, come here.”

      I looked to the small utility office in the corner where a petite and pale woman studied a file, so mouse quiet I hadn’t noticed her. She had dark shoulder-length hair and owlish glasses. Her name was Evie or something, a fairly recent hire, and I hadn’t worked any cases she’d handled. She hurried over. I smiled and nodded and she ignored me.

      Clair tapped the victim’s pubic bone. “Since you were kind enough to show up at work today, Doctor—it being a Monday and all—I wanted to point out the writing here on the pubis. Call Chambliss and get him over here with the microphotography gear and have him shoot the inscription. And check the body for any other writing. Got it?”

      “I would have done that in any case, Doct—”

      “What are you waiting for? We’re not voting on it; go.”

      Evie or something retreated to the utility office to summon the photographer. The intercom crackled and I heard the voice of receptionist Vera Braden, the Deep South dipped in honey and fried up with a side of grits.

      “Dr. Pel-tee-a? Bill Ah-nett from the eff-bee-aye on line fo-wer. Says he got the ’nalysis on yoah tissue samples from las’ week.”

      “I’ll take it in my office,” Clair announced to the air and clicked out the side door to her office. I took the opportunity to jump into the rest room a few paces away. I returned a minute later to find Zane Peltier had wandered into the suite. He stood white faced beside the body. His knees looked one shiver shy of buckling and he kept whispering, Jesus.

      “Take it easy there, Mr. Peltier,” I said, moving to his side and putting a steadying hand against his back. “Take a deep breath.”

      “Who is that?” he rasped. “Jesus.”

      “A man named Jerrold Nelson.”

      “Jesus.”

      “Breathe,” I repeated. He breathed.

      “I came to see what was taking Clair so long and, Jesus—where’s the head?”

      “We don’t know that yet.”

      “Who would do such a thing to another person?” He sucked down a couple more fast breaths and his color started returning.

      “I’m—I’m all right now, Detective. Never seen a body without…” He managed a quivering smile. “I wish I’d stayed outside.”

      Zane deep-breathed his way to Clair’s office, looking closer to his true age. In cattier circles it’s mewed that the nuptials of Zane Peltier to the former Clair Swanscott was less marriage than merger, him bringing name and wealth, her weighing in with brains and ambition. Zane’s money was rooted in antebellum Mobile, one of those snowball fortunes that gathered as it rolled. He inherited several enterprises, was on the boards of several others, but labored about fifteen hours a week, I’d heard. Probably very efficient hours.

      Clair stuck her head in the front door of the suite. I saw Zane behind her. He looked ready to leave. Clair cocked an eye toward the utility office.

      “I have a disinterment in Bayou La Batre, then lunch with Bill Arnett. I’ll be back by three forty-five.” Clair turned my way. “This is the way it operates, Ryder. Everyone doing their jobs, working on schedule. Showing up on time.”

      Not a word of it meant for me.

      The door squeezed shut. Clair was off on schedule and Zane, one suspects, was off for a stiff belt. Which left just me and Evie or something—boy and girl alone together in a way-house for the dead. I ambled toward her while detecting on the way: no wedding band. She was filling in lines on a pile of forms.

      “I’m Carson Ryder, Homicide,” I said to the crown of her head. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.”

      She made a few pen scratches before looking up.

      “Ava Davanelle.” She didn’t offer her hand but mine was unavoidable. Her handshake was cool, compulsory, and quickly retrieved.

      “You’re new here, Dr. Davanelle?”

      “If six months seems new to you.” She looked back to her writing.

      “Seems like you’re on the wrong side of Doc Peltier today. You come in late? I was two minutes late for a meeting with her once, and she just about—”

      “Ever see a doctor about that nose problem?”

      “Nose problem?”

      “The way it pokes into other people’s business.”

      I watched her fingertips shake slightly as she wrote; the room was cold.

      “I apologize,” I said. “I’ve worked with Clair, uh, Dr. Peltier, for a year now and always feel like I’m on her wrong side. Like maybe she doesn’t have a right side. But if she didn’t have a right side, how could she have a right hand? And if she didn’t have a right hand, how could…” I heard myself babbling inanely but couldn’t stop, my version of small talk.

      Dr. Davanelle gathered her papers and stood.

      “Nice to have met you, Detective Carson, but I—”

      “Ryder. It’s Carson Ryder.”

      “—have much to do today. Good-bye.”

      I followed her across the room until she turned like I was a smelly dog sniffing at her legs.

      “Something else I can do for you, Detective Carson?”

      “Ryder. Carson Ryder. I’m here to observe the post on the Nelson body, Dr. Davanelle.”

      “Why

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