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I jerkedone of those sounds that has no translation in huer side was the bloated face of Lyda Case, eyes bulging, tongue as fat and round and dark as a parakeet’s, protruding slightly beyond puffy darkened lips A scarf gaily printed with a surfing motif was nearly buried in the swollen flesh of her neck I pulled the cover back over the windshield and went straight to my phone where I dialed 911 and re-ported the body My voice sounded low and eht of Lyda’s face still danced in the air, a vision of death, wed to the smell of putrescence The dispatcher assured me someone was on the way

I went back out to the street I sat on the curb to wait for the cops, guarding Lyda’s body like some old loyal pooch I don’t think fouraround the corner I got up and uard

The two uniforrew and Gutierrez, male and female I knew they’d seen worse than Lyda Case… what beat cop hasn’t?… but there was so repellent about the spectacle of this death It looked like she’d been positioned so as to e was for ance, an escalation of the terms between this killer and me I hadn’t taken Olive’s death personally I’d felt the loss, but I didn’t believe I’d been targeted in any way My presence there when the bomb went off was purely circumstantial This was differ-ent This was aimed at me Soeet her here

The next two hours were filled with police routine, co procedures, as fored to someone else Lieutenant Do-lan appeared I answered questions The car turned out to be another rental, Hertz this ti, as nearly as I could remem-ber No, I’d never seen it before No, I hadn’t seen any strangers in the area Yes, I kneho she was, but she hadn’t been in touch No, I had no idea when or why she’d come to town except that she’d told Terry Kohler she had infore so he knew she hadn’t showed up She was probably already dead by then, her flesh beginning to bake in the toaster oven of the locked car

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the medical examiner do his preli open, the neighborhood perfumed by the stink of the corpse By that ti the cri from porches all up and down the street Some were still in work clothes Many held handkerchiefs to their faces, filtering the s directly with the body wore protective erprint technicians were go-ing over every inch of the dark-blue car hite pow-der and brushes Door handles, s, dash, steering wheel, steering column, plastic seat covers Since the rental car was probably cleaned up between uses, there was a good chance that any prints lifted would be signifi-cant Easy to one into er by phone

Lyda was zipped into a body bag The gases that had collected under her skin ained fifty pounds, and for a ot up abruptly and went inside I poured ed it down like water Officer Pettigrew finished his conversation and hung up the phone

"I’ in to take a shower if no one objects" I didn’t wait for an answer I grabbed a plastic garbage bag from the kitchen, closedevery article of clothing, includingI tied it shut and set it outside the bathroom door I showered I shampooed my hair When I was done, I wrappedmy face in the es Lyda’s features see with the scent of shampoo and soap Never had o recoiled, incapable of conte or insulting to a soul as the suggestion that a day ion with cohborhood had cleared again Several prints, including a partial palm, had been lifted from the car, which had then been towed to the ier had appeared on the scene and the finger-print technician had taken a set of his prints, as well as ators would dust and vacuuin the painstaking business of analyz-ing trace evidence