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and me both.”
    â€œLike I said, we’ll know more after the autopsy. I’ll contact you with the toxicology results and with anything else the evidence points us toward. We’re gonna keep the wooden planking intact until we get her back to the lab. Who knows? Maybe he slipped up, and we’ll find a print on one of the boards or on one of the nails.” Hobbs turned his back on Driscoll and began to walk away. Stopping in midstride, he turned and faced the Lieutenant. “Oh, yeah. There’s one other thing. Your vic was fond of jewelry.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    Plainclothes detective Ramon Ramirez approached Driscoll. He had a haggard look about him, and walked with a limp. He was the 100 th Precinct’s homicide detective who caught the squeal when it was called in earlier in the day.
    â€œGood morning, Lieutenant,” said Ramirez, who had met Driscoll only once. “I guess I’ll be handing this one over to you.”
    â€œYou catch the call?”
    â€œSix-thirty-five in the A.M . A woman called 911 from a cell phone. The emergency operator got a no-hit on the number she was calling from. The caller remained anonymous, as well. She reported finding part of a dead body under the boardwalk at Beach Sixty-seventh Street and hung up. That was it. Part of a dead body. Nothing more. The precinct dispatched a patrol car and me. When I got here, a cluster of crazed gulls were ripping apart what looked like a woman’s tit. I swear to God. A woman’s tit! When I approached them, one of the suckers flew off with it. Well, what was left of it. By that time, it was the size of a tennis ball. A tennis ball with a nipple. The strangest thing you’ve ever seen. The rest of the gulls, dozens of them, were shrieking and flying wildly in and out from under the boardwalk. I called Emergency Services. They dispatched a team of officers to clear out the birds.” He gazed over Driscoll’s shoulder at the gulls. “Tough motherfuckers, those birds. Anyway, I went under the boardwalk. You can stand a little hunched over for eight feet or so, but after that you need to crouch down. I’m tellin’ ya, you’ve got one hell of a dead body under there. I called in Forensics right away. Larry Pearsol and company were here in fifteen minutes. And now you’re here.”
    â€œAnd now I’m here,” said Driscoll as he eyed the desolate surroundings.
    â€œI’ll tell ya Lieutenant, I don’t envy your job. I know this is victim number two. That means the heat’s gonna be on real quick.”
    â€œYou’ve got that right. You know, I think it’s time for me to take that walk under the boards. It looks like everyone’s been there but me.”
    Driscoll headed for the cavernous hollow directly below the boardwalk, where he was greeted by two uniformed officers. “Sir, you may want to use these,” one of them said, offering Driscoll a jar of Vick’s VapoRub and a flashlight.
    Driscoll applied a dab of the ointment under each nostril and slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, then crept his way under the wooden expanse. Despite the Vick’s, the stench of rancid flesh made him gag. He decided to inhale through his mouth.
    Ten feet in, he found what the birds were feasting on. The mutilated remains of a human body had been nailed to the boardwalk’s planking. Muscles oozed greenish brine, hosting feeding maggots. Flesh glistened, effervescent under the flashlight’s beam. Something metallic caught Driscoll’s eye. A gold ring. It pierced the center of a piece of hanging flesh. That must have been her hand, he thought. But that can’t be. The killer absconded with the hands.
    â€œSon of a bitch,” Driscoll groaned. It was her clitoris, pierced by a gold ring. Why did the killer leave it there, exposing it the way he did? Was it by accident? An act of negligence committed by a