We got onto the elevator. It was quiet.

Connor said, “A homicide every twenty minutes. A rape every seven minutes. A child murdered every four hours. No other country tolerates these levels of violence.”

The doors opened. Compared to the emergency room, the basement corridors of the county morgue were positively tranquil. There was a strong odor of formaldehyde. We went to the desk, where the thin, angular deaner, Harry Landon, was bent over some papers, eating a ham sandwich. He didn’t look up. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey, Harry.”

“What you here for? Austin prep?”

“Yeah.”

“They started about half an hour ago. Guess there’s a big rush on her, huh?”

“How’s that?”

“The chief called Dr. Tim out of bed and told him to do it pronto. Pissed him off pretty good. You know how particular Dr. Tim is.” The deaner smiled. “And they called in a lot of lab people, too. Who ever heard of pushing a full workup in the middle of the night? I mean, you know what this is going to cost in overtime?”

I said, “And what about Graham?”

“He’s around here someplace. He had some Japanese guy chasing after him. Dogging him like a shadow. Then every half hour, the Japanese asks me can he use the phone, and he makes a call. Speaks Japanese a while. Then he goes back to bothering Graham. He says he wants to see the autopsy, if you can believe that. Keeps pushing, pushing. But anyway, the Japanese makes his last call about ten minutes ago, and suddenly a big change comes over him. I was here at the desk. I saw it on his face. He goes mojo mojo like he can’t believe his ears. And then he runs out of here. I mean it: runs.”

“And where’s the autopsy?”

“Room two.”

“Thanks, Harry.”

“Close the door.”

“Hi; Tim,” I said, as we came into the autopsy room. Tim Yoshimura, known to everyone as Dr. Tim, was leaning over the stainless-steel table. Even though it was one-forty in the morning, he was as usual immaculate. Everything was in place. His hair was neatly combed. His tie was perfectly knotted. The pens were lined up in the pocket of his starched lab coat.

“Did you hear me?”

“I’m closing it, Tim.” The door had a pneumatic self-closing mechanism, but apparently that wasn’t fast enough for Dr. Tim.

“It’s only because I don’t want that Japanese individual looking in.”

“He’s gone, Tim.”

“Oh, is he? But he may be back. He’s been unbelievably persistent and irritating. The Japanese can be a real pain in the ass.”

I said, “Sounds funny coming from you, Tim.”

“Oh, I’m not Japanese,” he said seriously. “I’m Japanese-American, which means in their eyes I’m gaijin. If I go to Japan, they treat me like any other foreigner. It doesn’t matter how I look, I was born in Torrance—and that’s the end of it.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Who’s that with you? Not John Connor? Haven’t seen you in ages, John.”

“Hi, Tim.” Connor and I approached the table. I could see the dissection was already well advanced, that the Y-shaped incision had been made, and the first organs removed and placed neatly on stainless steel trays.

“Now maybe somebody can tell me, what is the big deal about this case?” Tim said. “Graham is so pissed off he won’t say anything. He went next door to the lab to see the first of the results. But I still want to know why I got called out of bed to do this one. Mark’s on duty, but he is apparently not senior enough to do it. And of course the M.E. is out of town at a conference in San Francisco. Now that he has that new girlfriend he is always out of town. So I get called. I can’t remember the last time I got called out of bed.”

“You can’t?” I said. Dr. Tim was precise in all ways, including his memory.

“The last time was January three years ago. But that was to cover. Most of the staff was out with the flu, and the cases were backing up. Finally one night we ran out of lockers. They had these bodies lying around on the floor in bags. Stacked up in piles. Something had to be done. The smell was terrible. But no, I can’t remember being called out just because a case was politically tense. Like this one.”

Connor said, “We’re not sure why it is tense, either.”

“Maybe you better find out. Because there’s a lot of pressure here. The M.E. calls me from San Francisco, and he keeps saying, ‘Do it now, do it tonight, and get it done.’ I say, ‘Okay, Bill.’ Then he says, ‘Listen, Tim. Do this one right. Go slow, take lots of pictures and lots of notes. Document your ass off. Shoot with two cameras. Because I got a feeling that anybody who has anything to do with this case could get into deep shit.’ So. It’s natural to wonder what the big deal is.”

Connor said, “What time was that call to you?”

“About ten-thirty, eleven.”

“The M.E. say who called him?”

“No. But it’s usually only one of two people: the chief of police or the mayor.”

Tim looked at the liver, pulling apart the lobes, then placed it on a steel tray. The assistant was taking flash pictures of each organ and then setting it aside.

“So? What’ve you found?”

“Frankly, the most interesting findings so far are external,” Dr. Tim said. “She had heavy makeup on her neck, to cover a pattern of multiple contusions. Bruises of different ages. Without a spectroscopic curve for the hemoglobin breakdown products at the bruise sites, I’d still say these bruises are of variable age, up to two weeks old. Perhaps older. Consistent with a pattern of repeated, chronic cervical trauma. I don’t think there’s any question: we’re looking at a case of sexual asphyxia.”

“She’s a gasper?”

“Yeah. She is.”

Kelly thought so. For once Kelly was right.

“It’s more common in men, but it is certainly reported in women. The syndrome is the individual is sexually aroused only by the hypoxia of near-strangulation. These individuals ask their sexual partners to strangle them, or put a plastic bag over their head. When they’re alone, they sometimes tie a cord around their neck, and hang themselves while they masturbate. Since the effect requires that they are strangled almost to the point of passing out, it’s easy to make a mistake and go too far. They do, all the time.”

“And in this case?”

Tim shrugged. “Well. She has physical findings consistent with a sexual asphyxia syndrome of long standing. And she has ejaculate in her vagina and abrasions on her external vaginal labia, consistent with a forced sexual episode on the same night of her death.”

Connor said, “You’re sure the vaginal abrasions occurred before death?”

“Oh, yes. They are definitely antemortem injuries. There’s no question she had forced sex sometime before she died.”

“Are you saying she was raped?”

“No. I wouldn’t go that far. As you see, the abrasions are not severe, and there are no associated injuries to other parts of her body. In fact, there are no signs of physical struggle at all. So I would consider the findings consistent with premature vaginal entry with insufficient lubrication of the external labia.”

I said, “You’re saying she wasn’t wet.”

Tim looked pained. “Well. In crude layman’s terms.”

“How long before death did these abrasions occur?”

“It could be as much as an hour or two. It wasn’t near the actual time of death. You can tell that from the extravasation and swelling of the affected areas. If death occurs soon after the injury, blood flow stops, and therefore the swelling is limited or absent. In this case, as you see, swelling is quite pronounced.”

“And the sperm?”

“Samples have gone to the lab. Along with all her usual fluids.” He shrugged. “Have to wait and see. Now, are you two going to fill me in? Because it looks to me like this little girl was going to get in trouble, sooner or later. I mean, she’s cute, but she’s screwed up. So… what is the big deal? Why am I out of bed in the middle of the night to do a careful, documented post on some little gasper?”