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have our temperamental flare-ups. We're human beings, too. But we're also professional men and we observe the normal courtesies. When we have a disagreement we talk it over. Sometimes voices are raised. What we don't do is try and settle things with fists. Another thing we don't do is get pieces of bodies mixed around. When someone's been dismembered, and I don't care whether it's limbs or heads, we tag the pieces and keep them together, and the photos always back us up."
    "There was never any question of a mix-up. Hart was very clear to me on that."
    "Fine. I just want to make sure you know where I stand. I don't want this to reach a point where some baby prosecutor or some simpering defense attorney starts claiming we made the switch down here."
    "I don't think that's going to happen."
    "I predict, absolutely, that it will."
    "The photos would certainly dispute such a claim."
    "Exactly."
    Well, then , Janek was tempted to ask, who gives a good goddamn?
    He restrained himself. No point in being argumentative. Dr. Heyman , satisfied that he had conveyed his position, turned him over to David Yoshiro, the deputy examiner who had performed the autopsies.
    Yoshiro was a short, serious, formal young Japanese-American who wore black-frame glasses and seemed dwarfed in his starched white coat. He spoke neutrally, methodically, in a deep resonant voice.
    "Ireland was stabbed through her shower curtain once in the back and an even dozen times in a cluster pattern across her chest. I found pieces of the curtain in the wounds. She was then carried or dragged to her bed, unrolled, turned over and decapitated as if by an executioner—a single powerful blow straight across the back of the neck. Later the killer or executioner made an effort to affix the Beard head to the place where the Ireland head had been. He cut both of them in the same place, so the pieces fitted together fairly well."
    Really, thought Janek , this is an atrocious case. Absolutely nauseating. "What about Miss Beard?"
    "I count eleven wounds, also in the chest. These were deep plunges, grouped closely around the heart. The extra thrusts were not necessary. Clinically speaking both women were killed almost at once. Beard was stabbed through a sheet, decapitated from the back the same as Ireland, then turned over so that Ireland's head could be pushed onto her neck. I have the impression that the heads were transported in plastic bags. Carefully, too, because the hair wasn't bloodied much. No finger marks anywhere. The killer was very careful. I suspect he handled the heads through the plastic, pulling the bags off slowly once he had them mounted the way he liked."
    Plastic bags. It was Wednesday—if the bags had been dropped into a street barrel, the evidence had long since been ground up in a cartage truck.
    "How close in time?"
    "Certainly within a couple hours. I'd say that Ireland was murdered first. I can't swear to that, but there are signs."
    "Weapons?"
    "Two. The stabbing weapon, a sharp-pointed hunting or kitchen knife, and the decapitation instrument, a long-bladed knife, very sharp, very heavy, very fine. The work was precise—single blows. The executioner did not hesitate. It is not that easy to decapitate. You can hack and hack. But in this case it was accomplished with a single stroke." Yoshiro made a gesture as if bringing down from over his head a sword gripped in both his hands.
    "Could this have been done with a sword?"
    "Conjecture. Even if you brought me such a weapon I might not be able to say for sure. It was a very clean cut. No kind of weapon signature. Of course, if I had a sword with blood and tissue on it, then I could link it to these women. But I already checked on that, and I suspect you are not going to find it uncleaned ."
    "What do you mean you checked?" Yoshiro's formality was starting to get on Janek's nerves.
    "I thoroughly examined both sets of wounds. No tissue cells or blood from one in the wounds of the other. I would