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the razor back in the glove box and proceeded to the boardwalk at Beach Sixty-seventh Street in Rockaway where, he feared, victim number two had been found. As he crossed the Marine Parkway Bridge, thoughts tumbled inside his head. It was the same MO as the McCabe woman, and the victim’s head, hands, and feet were missing. That particular aspect of the first crime had been held back from the news media, so it ruled out a copycat killing. These two atrocities were the work of one man. New York had a serial killer on the loose. Driscoll was certain of it. And he knew it was his job to find him before he struck again.
    Arriving at the boardwalk, he got out of the Chevy and walked briskly toward the wooden staircase that led to the beach. He made his way toward the area cordoned off by yellow-and-black crime-scene tape. A small crowd of onlookers had clustered around the site.
    â€œWhat have we got?” Driscoll asked Medical Examiner Larry Pearsol.
    â€œYour boy thinks he’s an artist. He filleted this one and nailed her remains to the underside of the boardwalk.” Pearsol pointed to the hollow where two uniformed officers from the 100 th Precinct stood sentry. “It took a small battalion of policemen in riot gear to roust the goddamn gulls out from under there. They were feeding on the rotting corpse.”
    â€œTime of death?”
    â€œI’ll know more when I get her up on the slab. I’m guessing she’s been under there for at least seventy-two hours.”
    Driscoll glared at the flock of gulls that had perched themselves on the sand some twenty feet away.
    â€œOh! And Lieutenant, there’s a slight twist to this one. Crime Scene says she was killed here.”
    â€œThey finished processing the site?”
    â€œThat they are. Here comes Hobbs now.”
    Driscoll took a ninety-degree turn and was greeted by Walter Hobbs, the Commanding Officer of the Crime Scene Investigating Unit.
    â€œGood morning, Lieutenant.”
    â€œTalk to me, Walt. Tell me you found something.”
    â€œWell, we know he killed her here. That much is for sure. The blood tells us that. The sand is saturated with it, there’s blood spatter everywhere, and there’s no trail of it in or out. He boned her. Just like the woman in the park. Even left the driver’s license. Monique Beauford. She was nineteen. Your boy’s got a knack for carving, John, and just like the first victim, he took the head, hands, and feet. What he does with them is anybody’s guess. He left us with what remains of the torso and the upper and lower extremities. A good portion of the body was pecked away by the gulls.
    â€œHe used three-inch flooring nails to fasten her to the boards. Nothing particularly uncommon about the nails. You can get them at any Home Depot. Judging from the indentures surrounding each nail, we figure he used a ball-peen hammer or something close to it. Blowfly maggots feeding off the flesh mean she’s been in there for at least three days. Any tracks your guy left, he was quick to cover. Sand is terrible for footprint casting anyway. We found what may be trace evidence. Some fibers. Cotton, I’d guess. Probably clothing. Let’s hope we catch a break and they lead us somewhere. The lab boys will tell us if he left any of his DNA on her. We found no trace of semen.
    â€œNow blood. That’s a whole other ball game. With all that slicin’ and dicin’ he may have nicked himself in the process. We’ll be looking for any blood that wasn’t the victim’s. We’ll also run her blood through toxicology. She was probably drugged like the McCabe woman. It’s not likely she walked under the boardwalk willingly. It’s hard to tell if she put up a fight, considering the condition of the body. Larry’ll search for any defensive wounds during the autopsy. I sure would like to know what he’s doing with the head, hands, and feet.”
    â€œYou