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sexless pubis. When the incision was complete, he curled his fingers inside the slit. The body opened with the sound of shredding cloth.
    “Only suicides leave hesitation marks,” he admonished the doctor.
    Darius loosened his tie and inhaled the scent stored there. The racket was deafening. The refrigerator motors whirred in harmony like a robot section of an orchestra. Warm air rushed in through the loading dock as another gurney was brought inside. Darius recognized the attendant from Shemiran as Baghai waved him to the only vacant slab and said, “This one goes to the head of the class.”
    Baghai tore away the sheet with the flair of a magician whipping a tablecloth from under a setting for twelve. All color was drained from the girl’s face, leaving the bland residue of pain. Her limbs had begun to stiffen; the attendant had to force her arms against her sides to remove the chador. Underneath, a scoop-neck dress clung to her like silk snakeskin.
    “Islam’s critics,” Baghai said, “would have us condemned as practitioners of pagan cruelties. Before you, though, is evidence of how far we lead in equality of the sexes. In Europe and the Americas women dress provocatively to win the admiring eye of a man. But the chador prevents women from being regarded as mere sex objects. As a result, they are free to wear what pleases them close to their heart.”
    “For her,” Darius said, “the chador was a disguise, not a political statement.”
    Baghai fumbled with the zipper. “The dress is fetching, but the girl is not. She must have expected that its glamour would wear off on her.”
    A lace bustier prodded the girl’s small breasts into thin sensuality. Patterned stockings completed the transformation.
    “Make an extra set of pictures,” Darius said. “The Komiteh will have a good laugh.”
    “Conclude nothing from what you see. You would be amazed at how many modest women dress like her under the chador. Some sew their own frilly garments.”
    “I doubt she’s Iranian. Not from Teheran, anyway.”
    “Teheranis have the same fantasies as women everywhere.”
    “But a different expression,” Darius said. “She seems too compliant, too accepting of death. Like an Arab.”
    “It could be she is a foreigner. Saudis in particular are obsessed with seductive lingerie: Not having had to live under the tyranny of a Westernized shah, they’ve never known a time they were not liberated by the veil.” His dry cackle trailed off into coughing. “I speak from professional experience only.”
    Baghai searched the lace for a zipper. “Cut her out,” he told the attendant.
    Darius blocked the scissors. He snapped open a panel at the crotch, and the attendant eased the girl out of the bustier.
    “I see you’ve had experience of a hands-on nature,” Baghai said.
    Darius inspected the label, then folded the garment as though the girl would be slipping into it again when she was done on the slab.
    “We will start now,” Baghai said.
    “First let me have the bullet. Try not to scratch it.”
    Baghai’s arthritic fingers moved deftly as he trimmed the ragged skin around the mastoid bone. “We should be done in an hour. Get some fresh air. I’ll send for you when we have compiled the preliminary report. Only a word of warning: don’t eat before you return.”
    He tweezed the slug, let it fall into Darius’s palm. “Small caliber. A twenty-five, at most.”
    Darius sealed the bullet in an evidence envelope. “I’ve had my fill of fresh air.
    “Very well, then, we will begin with the external examination. If it agrees with you, stay for the cutting.”
    Baghai lowered the light. “Deceased is an unidentified female,” he began in his dry voice, “approximately eighteen to twenty-five years of age. The body is generally well developed and well nourished. Weight …”
    “Fifty kilograms,” the attendant said.
    “Height …” Baghai referred to a ruler etched into the slab. “One point six