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    His fingertips were gnawed off—lizards. Abdul had the vic’s shirt open. Maybe a dozen wounds, all festering, overflowing with maggots. Abdul was bagging some maggot samples, cleaning out the rest. Lagartan flies were nastier than flies from any other planet. They would drop eggs from the air. Living or dead, an open wound would get infested in less than five minutes. Abdul would use the maggots to nail down the time of attack—very accurate.
    The corpse’s throat was cut deep and wide. His face was already cleaned and had yellow gel laid on thick—the gel would kill flies and eggs. The mutilations were still visible under the gel mask. The stiff’s teeth and gums were showing—lips gone, cheeks gone. The rest of his face was pocked and chewed upon—lizards again.
    I looked up to find Josephs and Kim watching my
temporary
partner. She was focused on Abdul’s ME work. Her face was pale…very pale, but holding together.
    Yuan Kim was looking stupid-satisfied now, imagining how he was going to spend the five g’s.
    Josephs decided to push things. “The killer must’ve used a knife on the face. He trimmed away the lips and cheeks real careful. Notice there’s no cuts on the gums. My father was a butcher. I used to watch him work. He would trim the fat off beef the same way. Grab a hold of the fat and pull. Run a knife along nice and slow. Sometimes the fat would slip through his fingers. He’d have to grab on tight.”
    Maggie Orzo turned green; Kim turned red, ticked to the nth. Josephs’s father was never a butcher. Maggie closed her eyes and breathed deep, concentrating hard. She opened her eyes and eyeballed the gore with determination. Color startedto return to her cheeks. She was a strong woman. Josephs saw her pull herself together and stormed off. Kim was beaming, five thou richer.
    Abdul finished cleaning out the maggots and started applying gel to the body wounds.
    I leaned in close; the blood stench just about knocked me over. “Stab wounds.”
    The old coroner stopped and wiped his face off with a rag. The top of his bald head was still speckled with perspiration. Some drops broke loose and ran down his face, reminding me of a windshield the second after the wipers sweep it dry. “I count fourteen to the torso. Three slash wounds to the throat. Killer grabbed him from behind, dragged the blade across the throat right, left, right. Nobody would have heard a thing.”
    “Makes the killer right-handed?”
    “That’s right, blade in the right hand…pull to the right, push left, then pull right again. Like a saw. Here’s the first incision. Notice how the skin is torn here, not sliced. The blade was dull.” He pulled the edges of the wound open. “See the windpipe, there? Barely scratched on the first swipe. The second and third slices cut deeper. It was a long blade, maybe thirty centimeters. Our vic must’ve been dead inside a minute or two. Then the killer stabbed him repeatedly and cut up his face.”
    Maggie Orzo asked, “Can you determine what kind of knife was used?”
    “I can’t tell you for sure, but when I get him to the morgue, I’ll be able to measure the wounds precisely and compare them against every kind of knife I can find. There are no burns, so he didn’t use a lase-blade. My guess is a plain ol’ butcher knife.”
    Josephs returned with a bowl of soup from the stand down the street. We all turned to look at him. He was up to something. It was way too hot for soup.
    Kim looked stupid-suspicious. “What you got there?”
    “Menudo.”
    Oh shit. Here we go.
    Josephs stood over the body and started to dig in, sweat dripping off his nose into the bowl. Maggie the rook seemed wobbly.
    Josephs carried on, acting superfriendly. “Where are my manners? Anybody want some? You have to like tripe. Some people don’t like it. It’s stomach, you know. I love it. Let me see if I can find some.” He fished with his spoon. “Ah, there’s a big chunk. Anybody want it? No?