This was worse than Asia.

No matter how brutal it got, war was impersonal, human chess pieces moving around the board, you fired at shadows, strafed huts you pretended were empty, lived every day hoping you wouldn't be the pawn that flipped. Reduce someone to The Enemy, and you could blow off his legs or slice open his belly or napalm his kids without knowing his name. As bad as war got, there was always the chance for making nice sometime in the future- look at Germany and the rest of Europe. To his father, an Omaha Beach alumnus, buddying up to the krauts was an abomination. Dad curled his lip every time he saw a "hippie-faggot in one of those Hitler beetle-cars." But Milo knew enough history to understand that peace was as inevitable as war and that as unlikely as it seemed, one day Americans might be vacationing in Hanoi.

War wounds had a chance of healing because they weren't personal. Not that the memory of guts slipping through his hands would fade, but maybe, somewhere off in the future…

But this. This was nothing but personal. Reduction of human form to meat and juice and refuse. Creating the antiperson.

He took a deep breath and buttoned his jacket and managed another look at the corpse. How old could she be, seventeen, eighteen? The hands, about the only parts of her not bloody, were smooth, pale, free of blemish. Long, tapering fingers, pink-polished nails. From what he could tell- and it was hard to tell anything because of the damage- she'd had delicate features, might've been pretty.

No blood on the hands. No defense wounds…

The girl was frozen in time, a heap of ruin. Aborted- like a shiny little wristwatch, stomped on, the crystal shattered.

Manipulated after death, too. The killer spreading her legs, tenting them, pointing the feet at a slight outward angle.

Leaving her out in the open, horrible statuary.

Overkill, the assistant coroner had pronounced, as if you needed a medical degree for that.

Schwinn had told Milo to count wounds, but the task wasn't that simple. The slashes and cuts were straightforward, but did he count the ligature burns around both wrists and ankles as wounds? And what about the deep, angry red trench around her neck? Schwinn had gone off to get his Instamatic- always a shutterbug- and Milo didn't want to ask him- loathed coming across uncertain, the rookie he was.

He decided to include the ligatures in a separate column, continued making hash marks. Reviewed his count of the knife wounds. Both premortem and after death, the coroner was guessing. One, two, three, four… he confirmed fifty-six, began his tally of the cigarette burns.

Inflammation around the singed circles said the burns had been inflicted before death.

Very little spent blood at the scene. She'd been killed somewhere else, left here.

But lots of dried blood atop the head, forming a blackening cap that kept attracting the flies.

The finishing touch: scalping her. Should that be counted as one giant wound, or did he need to peer under the blood, see how many times the killer had hacked away the skin?

A cloud of night gnats circled above the body, and Milo scatted it away, noted "removal of cranial skin," as a separate item. Drawing the body and topping it with the cap, his lousy rendering making the blood look like a beanie, so inadequately offensive. He frowned, closed his pad, stepped back. Studied the body from a new perspective. Fought back yet another wave of nausea.

The old black guy who'd found her had heaved his cookies. From the moment Milo had seen the girl, he'd struggled not to do the same. Tightening his bowels and his gut, trying to come up with a mantra that would do the trick.

You're no virgin, you've seen worse.

Thinking of the worst: melon-sized holes in chests, hearts bursting- that kid, that Indian kid from New Mexico – Bradley Two Wolves- who'd stepped on a mine and lost everything below the navel but was still talking as Milo pretended to do something for him. Looking up at Milo with soft brown eyes- alive eyes, dear God- talking calmly, having a goddamn conversation with nothing left and everything leaking out. That was worse, right? Having to talk back to the upper half of Bradley Two Wolves, chitchatting about Bradley's pretty little girlfriend in Galisteo, Bradley's dreams- once he got back to the States, he was gonna marry Tina, get a job with Tina's dad putting up adobe fences, have a bunch of kids. Kids. With nothing below the- Milo smiled down at Bradley and Bradley smiled back and died.

That had been worse. And back then Milo had managed to keep his cool, keep the conversation going. Cleaning up afterward, loading half-of-Bradley in a body bag that was much too roomy. Writing out Bradley's death tag for the flight surgeon to sign. For the next few weeks, Milo had smoked a lot of dope, sniffed some heroin, done an R and R in Bangkok, where he tried some opium. He'd even hazarded an attempt at a skinny Bangkok whore. That hadn't gone so great, but bottom line: He'd maintained.

You can handle this, stupid.

Breathe slowly, don't give Schwinn something else to lecture about-

Schwinn was back now, clicking away with his Instamatic. The LAPD photographer had spotted the little black plastic box, caressed his Nikon, smirked. Schwinn was oblivious to the contempt, in his own little world, crouching on all sides of the body. Getting close to the body, closer than Milo had hazarded, not even bothering to shoo the gnats swarming his white hair.

"So what do you think, boy-o?"

"About…?" said Milo.

Click click click. "The bad guy- what's your gut telling you about him?"

"Maniac."

"Think so?" Schwinn said, almost absently. "Howling-lunatic-drooling-crazyman?" He moved away from Milo, kneeled right next to the flayed skull. Close enough to kiss the mangled flesh. Smiled. "Look at this- just bone and a few blood vessels, sliced at the back… a few tears, some serrations… real sharp blade." Click click. "A maniac… some shout-at-the-moon Apache warrior? You, naughty squaw, me scalpum?"

Milo battled another abdominal heave.

Schwinn got to his feet, dangled the camera from its little black string, fiddled with his tie. His Oakie hatchet face bore a satisfied look. Cool as ice. How often had he seen this? How often did this kind of thing come up in Homicide? The first seven- even Kyle Rodriguez, had been tolerable compared to this…

Schwinn pointed at the girl's propped-up legs. "See the way he posed her? He's talking to us, boy-o. Talking through her, putting words in her mouth. What's he want her to say, boy-o?"

Milo shook his head.

Schwinn sighed. "He wants her to say, 'Fuck me.' To the whole world- 'C'mon over, whole damn world, and fuck me silly, anyone wants to do anything to me, they can cause I got no power.' He's using her like… a puppet- you know how kids move puppets around, get puppets to say things they're too scared to say for themselves? This guy's like that, only he likes big puppets."

"He's scared?" said Milo doubtfully.

"What the fuck do you think?" said Schwinn. "We're talking about a coward, can't talk to women, get laid in any normal way. Which isn't to say he's a wimpy type. He could be macho. He's sure nervy enough, taking the time for that." Backward glance at the legs. "Posing her right out in the open, risking being seen. I mean, think about it: You had your fun with the body, needed to get rid of the body, you're carrying it around in your car, want to dump it, where would you go?"

"Somewhere remote."

"Yeah, 'cause you're not a nervy killer, to you it would just be dumping. Not our boy. On the one hand, he's smart. Doing it right by the freeway, once he's finished, he can get back on, no one's conspicuous on the 101. He does it after dark, checks to make sure no one's watching, pulls over, arranges her, then zoom zoom zoom. It's a decent plan. It could work nice, especially this late, rush hour's over. But taking the time to stop is still a risk, just to play puppet. So this wasn't about dumping. This was showing off- having his cake and eating it twice. He ain't stupid or crazy."