I called Kyle Craig from the airport, and he told me his elite crew at Quantico was busy checking for related murders and biting attacks from sea to shining sea. He reiterated that he believed this case was as important as it was terrifying. I wondered what else he knew. He usually knew more than he told.

"You're up early, Kyle, and you're busy. This case has caught your full attention. Why is that?"

"Of course it has. It's totally unique. I haven't seen anything remotely like it. Inspector Jamilla Hughes will meet your flight if she can. It's her case and she's supposed to be competent. She's one of two women in Homicide in San Francisco, so she probably is fairly good."

On the plane trip from D.C. I read and reread the faxes I'd gotten that morning about the horrific murders in Golden Gate Park. Inspector Hughes's preliminary crime-scene notes were precise and detailed, but most of all, gut-wrenching.

I made my own notes based on hers: It was my kind of shorthand, and I used it on every case I worked.

Male and female victims found dead at 3:20 A.M. in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Why there? Visit park if possible.

Victims hung by feet from oak tree. Why hung? To drain the bodies? Why drain the bodies? Rite of purification? Spiritual cleansing?

Bodies naked and covered in blood. Why naked? Erotic? Sex crimes? Or just brutal? Exposing the victims to the world for some reason?

Male's legs, arms, chest severely gouged— victim appears to have been bitten repeatedly. Male actually died from bites!!!

Female bitten— but not as severely. Also cut with sharp object. Died from massive blood loss, class IV: Female lost over 40% of her blood.

Small red dots at the site of bindings to the ankles with which victims were hung. Called petechiae by the M.E.

Teeth marks on male appear to be those of large animal. Is that even remotely possible? What animal would attack a jogger in a big-city park? Seems far-fetched to say the least.

White substance on male victim's legs and stomach. Could be semen. What game were the killers playing? Sado-erotic?

I remembered the related case in Washington. How could I forget it?

A sixteen-year-old runaway girl from Orlando, Florida, had been found dead and severely mutilated in a hotel room downtown. Her name was Patricia Dawn Cameron. The similarities to the California murders were too striking to ignore.

The girl in D.C. had suffered savage bites all over her body. She had been hung by her feet from a hotel room lighting fixture.

Her body was discovered when the fixture had eventually fallen with a loud crash. Patricia Cameron had died of blood loss, another class IV. She had lost nearly 70 percent of her blood supply.

The first question was an obvious one.

Why did somebody want all that blood?

I was still thinking about the strange, terrible bites and all that blood as I walked off the plane and into crowded San Francisco International Airport. I looked around for Inspector Jamilla Hughes. Rumor had it that she was an attractive black woman.

I noted that a businessman near the gate was reading the Examiner. I could see the bold headline on the front page: HORROR IN GOLDEN GATE PARK, TWO MURDERED.

I didn't see anyone waiting, so I began to look for signs directing me to public transportation. I only had a carry-on bag; I had promised to be home by Saturday for Damon's concert. I had my marching orders, and I planned to keep all my promises from now on. Cross my heart.

A woman walked up to me as I started away from the gate. "Excuse me, are you Detective Cross?"

I had noticed her just before she spoke to me. She was wearing jeans and a black leather car coat over a powder blue T-shirt. Then I spotted the telltale holster under her coat. She was probably in her mid-thirties, nice looking, down-to-earth, pleasant for a homicide detective, who often come on a little gruff.

"Inspector Hughes?" I asked.

"Jamilla." She extended her hand and smiled as I took it. Nice smile too. "It's good to meet you, Detective. Ordinarily I'd resist any idea that originated with the FBI, but your reputation precedes you. Also, the murder in D.C. was awfully similar, wasn't it? So — welcome to San Francisco."

"Good to be here." I returned the smile and shook her hand. Her grip was strong but not overly so. "I was just thinking about the murder in D.C.," I told her. "Your crime-scene notes brought it all back to me. We never got anywhere with the murder of Patricia Cameron. You can add that to the file on my so-called reputation, the one that preceded me."

Jamilla Hughes smiled again. Sincere. Nothing overdone about it; nothing overdone about her either. She didn't particularly look like a homicide detective, and that was probably good. She seemed a little too normal to be a cop.

"Well, we'd better hurry. I've contacted a veterinary dental specialist, and he's meeting us at the city morgue. He's a good friend of the medical examiner. How's that for showing you the sights of San Francisco?"

I shook my head and grinned. "Actually, it's exactly what I came out here to see. I think I read about it in one of the tour books. When you're in San Francisco, don't pass up a chance to see the morgue."

"It's not in the tour books," Jamilla said, "but it should be. It's a whole lot more interesting than any trolley car ride."

Less than fifty minutes later, Jamilla Hughes and I were inside the morgue at San Francisco's famed Hall of Justice. We had joined the chief medical examiner, Walter Lee, and the dental expert, Dr. Pang.

Dr. Allen Pang took his time examining both bodies before he said anything to us. He had already studied photographs of the bite areas that had been taken at the crime scene. He was a small man, completely bald, with very thick black-rimmed glasses. At one point during his examination, I noticed Inspector Hughes give a wink to the M.E. I think they found Dr. Pang just a little strange. So did I, but he was very thorough, and obviously serious about the job he had taken on.

"Okay, okay. I'm ready to talk about the nature of the bites now." He finally turned to us as he made this pronouncement. "I understand you're making casts of the bite marks, Walter?"

"Yes, we lifted the marks with fingerprint powder. The casts should be ready in a day or two. We swabbed to gather saliva, of course."

"Well, good. That's the right approach, I think. I'm ready to state my piece, my educated guess."

"That's excellent, Allen," Lee said in a soft, very dignified voice. He wore a white coat with the nickname Dragon stitched on one pocket. He was a tall man, probably six-two, and weighed at least two fifty. He carried himself with confidence. "Dr. Pang is a friend I have used before," Lee told me. "He's a veterinary dental expert from the Animal Medical Center in Berkeley. Allen is one of the best in the world, and we're lucky to get him on this case."

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Pang," Inspector Hughes said. "This is terrific of you to help."

"Thank you." I joined in with the hallelujah chorus of gratitude.

"It's perfectly all right," he said. "I'm not exactly sure where to start, other than to say that these two homicides are most interesting to me. The male was severely bitten, and I'm relatively sure the attacker was, well, it was a tiger. The bites on the female were inflicted by two humans. It's as if the humans and the large cat were running together. Like they were a pack. Extraordinary. And bizarre, to say the least."