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Maggie was surprised to realize that her stomach was somewhat queasy

A man had been viciously ood SOB, reat," she said "A nice night out We’ll forget all about "

"Dead people!" Angie announced

Maggie arched a brow, hesitating "Right We’ll forget all about dead people" Pierre LePont had been at his job well over twenty years Though Sean knew raveyard hu them He’d never seen Pierre munch his lunch while a stiff lay on a nearby table; the manto those orked with hi state in itself In life, Anthony Beale ht have threatened and bullied, and defied dust and dirt in his Armani suit Now, his body was naked and pasty white and his head lay in a separate stainless-steel receptacle on a gurney by the autopsy table

No ue had a smell Antiseptic death, but death all the sa around the corpse, studying the pasty flesh It was da, worse than the skin on soed out of the Mississippi after days in the water

"Not much blood," Pierre said, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the corpse Beale had already been autopsied, and sewn back up He was ready to go back in the drawers He looked somewhat like a replica of Frankenstein’s ether the Y cut done on his chest for the autopsy

"So he was killed elsewhere and ?"

"I’ he had daot any color"

"All right, so he was decapitated Blood would have gushed out of the arteriesunless he was killed before he was decapitated andhell, blood just doesn’t disappear"

"I believe the blow to the throat at the tiht maybe he’d died from a heart attack and then been decapitated, but that wasn’t the case Not enough trauma to the heart"

"Still, Pierre, he must have been killed elsewhere Actually, he hter ani up and drained of his blood, then dued

"What does that ravated

"That’s a possible scenario"

Sean threw up his hands

Pierre stubbornly tightened his crossed arain," he told Sean, indicating a sheet-covered corpse on a gurney a few feet away "Jane Doe, decapitated, left on top of a toans laid out around her No blood No dah his hair "It looks like we’ve got so on So for blood"

"Doing a daot for me from the corpse?"

"Not th"

"Would it have to be a male?"

"Sean, that’s a politically incorrect question these days"

"Oh, come on, Pierre--"

"A ine that th would be uarantees these days"

"So the killer is probably a left-handed ht That’s not a hell of a lot to go on"

"Sorry," Pierre told hiht have et a match-up with soo on the DNA," Sean said wearily

"Yes, well "

Sean took a step toward the corpse, shuddering as he looked at the neck--and the severed point where the head should lie He hesitated, feeling his stomach lurch as he leaned closer to the dead man’s throat

"What’s this?"

"What?"

"That puncture point there"

Pierre caht next to the point where the head had been severed was a single, slight indentation that ht have been a puncture wound

"You knowdamn, I hate to admit it I’m not quite sure"