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sick, but I knew it was something else entirely once I saw the look on his face.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Look at the tattoo on his chest.”
    Just above the victim’s heart was a tattoo of an eagle. It held an assault rifle in one talon, a lightning bolt in the other, and a large knife pierced the center. The detail was incredible and I could recite everything about it without looking at it. I was intimately familiar with that tattoo. Jack had one just like it, only his was located above his right hip.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “He was a SWAT brother,” Jack said. “Or maybe a wannabe, but he’s got marks of combat on him—looks like a knife wound on the arm and a bullet hole down low on his side—so I’m thinking he’s probably legit. We all have the tattoo. It’s a rite of passage.”
    “One of your squad from DC? Is the tattoo specific to which unit you’re in or are they all the same?”
    “They’re all the same, so he could be from anywhere. But since he washed up on our shore , he’s more than likely out of one of the surrounding offices. If he’s a cop his prints will be easy to tag.”
    “Then I’ll get started. This is going to take a while if you’ve got something else you want to do.”
    “I’ll see it through.”
    I finished removing the victim’s clothes and bagged them carefully to send off to Richmond and the lab techs we used there. Just in case there was blood belonging to someone other than the victim.
    The tissue on the victim’s fingers wasn’t stable, and if I wasn’t careful I’d tear the skin and wouldn’t get a viable print. The easiest way to do it was to remove the finger entirely and then remove the skin. It was quick—if gruesome—work to remove the finger and the skin, and I laid the epidermis on the table.
    I used a superglue solution to spray on the skin to keep it from tearing and then I carefully wrapped it over my glove, on the tip of my index finger. The black powder used at crime scenes was more delicate than the ink normally used when fingerprinted at the station, so Jack dusted the finger and I gently pressed it to the card he’d placed on the table. It was slow work, but when I lifted my hand and saw the perfect print I knew we’d gotten what we needed.
    I wiped my brow with the back of my arm, and when I stood up straight my back ached from where I’d been hunched over. I looked at the clock and saw we’d been at it for almost three hours. It was shy of noon and my stomach rumbled, reminding me I’d had nothing more than a cup of coffee all day.
    “That’s all I can do for now until I get the go ahead to start on an autopsy.”
    “Then l et’s get this to Colburn so he can look for matches through the computer. If the victim’s a cop he’ll be much easier to find. And while we’re out we can grab some lunch at Martha’s.”
    Martha’s Diner was the only sit down restaurant in Bloody Mary. The hamburgers were good and greasy, the coffee questionable, and the pie out of this world. “Oh, good. It’s been a couple of days since I’ve been stared at and gossiped about. I was starting to miss it.”
    “I’m sensing sarcasm in your tone.”
    I stuck out my tongue at Jack and pushed the body into the walk-in freezer. “You’re asking for it. You know Martha is going to ask you all sorts of questions about our relationship, and then you’ll tell her we’re engaged. And then she’s going to want to know why I’m not wearing an engagement ring. Then she’s going to assume it’s because you’re still on the market and she’ll try to fix you up with her niece’s granddaughter’s first cousin.”
    “I’m pretty sure I followed your entire train of thought,” Jack said wryly. “It must be love.”
    I stripped off my gloves, tossing them in the trash, and rolled my eyes.
    “Besides,” he said. “I have your engagement ring in the safe. If you’d like we can get it from the house before we go eat lunch so we can avoid Martha’s