My niece did not look up as she hit more keys, her face intense. Ring had her in his sights, staring as if he wanted to eat her flesh.

'What computer situation?' he asked, as his eyes continued to devour her.

'We'll get to that,' Wesley said, and briskly moved on. 'Let me summarize, then we'll move on to specifics. The victimology in this most recent landfill case is so different from the previous four - or nine, if we include Ireland - as for me to conclude that we are dealing with a different killer. Dr Scarpetta is going to review her medical findings which I think will make it abundantly clear that this M.O. is profoundly atypical.'

He went on, and we spent until midday going over my reports, diagrams and photographs. I was asked many questions, mostly by Grigg, who wanted very much to understand every facet and nuance of the serial dismemberments so he could better discern that the one in his jurisdiction was unlike the rest.

'What's the difference between someone cutting through joints and cutting through the bones?' he asked me.

'Cutting through joints is more difficult,' I said. 'It requires knowledge of anatomy, perhaps some previous experience.'

'Like if someone was a butcher or maybe worked in a meat-packing plant.'

'Yes,' I replied.

'Well, I guess that sure would fit with a meat saw,' he added.

'Yes. Which is very different from an autopsy saw.'

'Exactly how?' It was Ring who spoke.

'A meat saw is a hand saw designed to cut meat, gristle, bone,' I went on, looking around at everyone. 'Usually about fourteen inches long with a very thin blade, ten chisel-type teeth per inch. It's push action, requiring some degree of strength on the part of the user. The autopsy saw, in contrast, won't cut through tissue, which must first be reflected back with something like a knife.'

'Which was what was used in this case,' Wesley said to me.

'There are cuts to bone that fit the class characteristics of a knife. An autopsy saw,' I went on to explain, 'was designed to work only on hard surfaces by using a reciprocating action that is basically push-pull, going in only a little bit at a time. I know everyone here is familiar with it, but I've got photos.'

Opening an envelope, I pulled out eight-by-tens of the saw marks the killer had left on the bone ends I had carried to Memphis. I slid one to each person.

'As you can see,' I went on, 'the saw pattern here is multidirectional with a high polish.'

'Now let me get this straight,' said Grigg. 'This is the exact same saw you use in the morgue.'

'No. Not exactly the same,' I said. 'I generally use a larger sectioning blade than was used here.'

'But this is from a medical sort of saw.' He held up the photograph.

' Correct.'

'Where would your average person get something like that?'

'Doctor's office, hospital, morgue, medical supply company,' I replied. 'Any number of places. The sale of them is not restricted.'

'So he could have ordered it without being in the medical profession.'

'Easily,' I said.

Ring said, 'Or he could have stolen it. He could have decided to do something different this time to throw us off.'

Lucy was looking at him, and I had seen the expression in her eyes before. She thought Ring was a fool.

'If we're dealing with the same killer,' she said, 'then why is he suddenly sending files through the Internet when he's never done that before, either?'

'Good point.' Frankel nodded.

'What files?' Ring said to her.

'We're getting to that.' Wesley restored order. 'We've got an M.O. that's different. We've got a tool that's different.'

'We suspect she has a head injury,' I said, sliding autopsy diagrams and the e-mail photos around the table, 'because of blood in her airway. This may or may not be different from the other cases, since we don't know their causes of death. However, radiologic and anthropologic findings indicate that this victim is profoundly older than the others. We also recovered fibers indicating she was covered in something consistent with a drop cloth when she was dismembered, again, inconsistent with the other cases.'

I explained in more detail about the fibers and paint, all the while vividly aware of

Ring watching my niece and taking notes.

'So she was probably cut up in someone's workshop or garage,' Grigg said.

'I don't know,' I answered. 'And as you've seen from the photos sent to me through e- mail, we can only know that she's in a room with putty-colored walls, and a table.'

'Let me again point out that Keith Pleasants has an area behind his house that he uses for a workshop,' Ring reminded us. 'It has a big workbench in it and the walls are unpainted wood.' He looked at me. 'Which could pass for putty-colored.'

'Seems like it would be awfully hard to get rid of all the blood,' Grigg dubiously mused.

'A drop cloth with a rubber backing might explain the absence of blood,' Ring said.

'That's the whole point. So nothing leaks through.' Everyone looked at me to see what I would say.

'It would have been very unusual not to get things bloody in a case like this,' I replied.

'Especially since she still had a blood pressure when she was decapitated. If nothing else, I would expect blood in wood grain, in cracks of the table.'

'We could try some chemical testing for that.' Ring was a forensic scientist now. 'Like luminol. Any blood at all, it's going to react to it and glow in the dark.'

'The problem with luminol is it's destructive,' I replied. 'And we're going to want to do DNA, to see if we can get a match. So we certainly don't want to ruin what little blood we might find.'

'It's not like we got probable cause to go in Pleasants' workshop and start any kind of testing anyway.' Grigg's stare across the table at Ring was confrontational.

'I think we do.' He stared back at him.

'Not unless they changed the rules on me.' Grigg spoke slowly.

Wesley was watching all this, evaluating everyone and every word the way he always did. He had his opinion, and more than likely it was right. But he remained silent as the arguing went on.

'I thought…' Lucy tried to speak.

'A very viable possibility is that this is a copycat,' Ring said.

'Oh, I think it is,' said Grigg. 'I just don't buy your theory about Pleasants.'

'Let me finish.' Lucy's penetrating gaze scanned the faces of the men. 'I thought I would give you a briefing on how the two files were sent via America Online to Dr Scarpetta's e-mail address.'

It always sounded odd when she called me by my professional name.

'I know I'm curious.' Ring had his chin propped on a hand now, studying her.

'First, you would need a scanner,' she went on. 'That's not hard. Something with color capabilities and decent resolution, as low as seventy-two dots per inch. But this looks like higher resolution to me, maybe three hundred dpi. We could be talking about something as simple as a hand-held scanner for three hundred and ninety-nine dollars, to a thirty-five-millimeter slide scanner that can run into the thousands…'

'And what kind of computer would you hook this up to,' Ring said.

'I was getting to that.' Lucy was tired of being interrupted by him. 'System requirements: Minimum of eight megs RAM, a color monitor, software like FotoTouch or ScanMan, a modem. Could be a Macintosh, a Performa 6116CD or even something older. The point is, scanning files into your computer and sending them through the Internet is very accessible to your average person, which is why telecommunications crimes are keeping us so busy these days.'

'Like that big child pornography, pedophile case you all just cracked,' Grigg said.

'Yes, photos sent as files through the World Wide Web, where children can talk to strangers again,' she said. 'What's interesting in the situation at hand, is scanning black and white is no big deal. But when you move into color, that's getting sophisticated. Also the edges and borders in the photos sent to Dr Scarpetta are relatively sharp, not much background noise.'