Nick had gone with Wolfsen to his office to take a closer look at the transaction lists and to follow up on who exactly this particular shipment of body parts had come from. Because it appeared, Wolfsen was also getting his semi-legal loads from different sources.

While the two men were on their way, Elizabeth's cell phone rang again, it had been her wife. The autopsy on the torso from the basement in South End had been completed.

"Do you want to come down and take a look?" asked Maggie.

"Yeah, sure."

A moment later, the detective and Katherine were standing at the autopsy table.

"The man's name is Cody Wilkins," Maggie said. The already battered torso looked even more horrible, even less human, after the autopsy. "From the dental status, we could positively identify our friend here. He has significantly fewer teeth than we obtained on the comparative dental status, but the teeth present show the same dental work. He apparently wasn't big on brushing his teeth."

Elizabeth looked at the file Nick had compiled. "And even though his friend has denied it," she muttered, "he's a member of the black bloc, has a record of multiple incidents, and lives as a welfare recipient in the state he's trying to fight."

"Well, it's characteristic of viruses that they eventually want to kill their host. Parasites are smarter, they let the host live," Katherine said. "But everyone finds their master sometimes, like this one. Apparently, others can wreak havoc with rocks, too."

"Oh, yes," Maggie said expansively. "The autopsy confirmed the initial findings from the scene: severe traumatic brain injury with three deep impression fractures. So the perpetrator struck with the rock at least three times, and in any case, the last blow crushed his skull." On the wall, a large monitor showed 3-D reconstructions of the CT done on the torso before the autopsy. Maggie had sawed open the head, removed and examined the brain, and then sewed it all backup. Seeing the head now, in this condition, closed and clean from the left side, where the laceration and skull fractures were not visible, one could not imagine what a bloody something of brain and bone fragments the man's skull had been before.

"Here," Maggie said, "it's plain to see that fragments of the calvaria, or cranial bone, were forced into the brain by the blows. Fragments of the skull have bored into the cortex. These," she pointed to several places on the body's skull, "are the impression fractures I mentioned earlier. We always find them when a massive blow has been struck with a blunt, crude object, such as a rock or a hammer."

Elizabeth looked at her wife with furrowed brows. "Then the murder weapon, in this case, could have been a hammer?"

The redhead shook her head. "No. With a hammer, we find molded impression fractures; we don't have those here. I'd be happy to show you a picture of such an injury later." She called up the following reconstruction on the monitor, a cross-sectional image of the skull and brain. "As you can see, the top of the head is torn. You can look at the fractures and the brain. Likewise, we have subdural hemorrhage bleeding under the hard meninges. That's this white structure right under the skull bone. And we have subarachnoidal hemorrhages, which is bleeding under the spider tissue skin."

Katherine looked at her sister-in-law and then at her sister. "That's the skin that surrounds the brain," she explained, seeing Elizabeth's questioning look. "It's called arachnoid skin because it looks like a spider web in which the brain is encased. That's where the term 'arachnoid' - spidery - comes from with subarachnoid hemorrhages."

"That's right, Kate," Maggie said with a hint of a smile. "If you've seen the movie Hannibal, you've seen this skin before, it's in the scene where Hannibal Lecter saws open the skull of Clarice Starling's evil superior, Paul Krendler, removes parts of the brain and then fries them in a pan. However, the brain skull was not enough. The perpetrator beat the poor guy so brutally that the base of the skull was fractured multiple times. We also have extensive midface fractures with a shattered nasal bone, zygomatic bones, and fractures of the orbital roofs and orbital floor. The orbital floor, you have to know, separates the eye and the maxillary sinus. In this case," she shined the light into the left eye socket of the body, "causing most of the left eye to slump into the maxillary sinus. We saw that on the CT scan earlier as well."

"Let's go down," Maggie said. "All the organs this vulture didn't take, thank goodness." She pointed to the two purple structures lying on the organ table. "The lungs, for example, have been preserved for us. And from the lungs, we can see that there was massive blood aspiration, inhalation of blood, from the massive blows to the skull and face." She pulled apart one of the lungs. "The flat sections show the classic leopard skin pattern, so dark red spots in the tissue due to the inhalation of blood. See?"

Elizabeth merely nodded.

"Let's get to the abnormalities or inconsistencies," Maggie continued. "As I noticed at the scene, this body was professionally deboned. The organs," she shone a flashlight into the abdominal cavity, "were severed by the perpetrator using long vessels, as is done when organs are removed for transplant. I'm not a operative case analyst," at this, she looked at Katherine, "but even if the arm and the body belong together, the perpetrator's different procedures are a little too far apart, even for my taste." She glanced at Katherine, who nodded in agreement.

Elizabeth frowned deeply. "And how does that show?"

"On top, he cut through the skin with a serrated blade," Maggie explained, "and cut through the ribs the same way with a knife. Overall, very crude, like Stephen Foreman. So here, the procedure is absolutely identical. Down here," Maggie pointed to the abdominal area, "he neatly and quietly extended the cut from top to bottom with a smooth blade."

"Could cutting out the heart just means more to him?" Elizabeth asked, looking at the two women for a long moment. "After all, this was done while the man was still alive, while the other organs were removed post-mortem. Perhaps the perpetrator went into a blood frenzy."

"One might suspect that," Maggie replied briefly after a brief pause. "If the perpetrator had not, as I said, used two different blades."

"He used two different knives?" asked Katherine with a strained frown.

"Yes. A serrated knife was used on the wound edges of the heart and where he cut this mark into the flesh. We often have this shape on these large hunting knives often called Rambo knives. After all, we have the same cutting patterns on the body of Stephen Foreman."

"And on on the torso?"

"On the torso, he used a fine knife with a smooth, sharp blade. A scalpel, like a surgeon."

Katherine chewed on the inside of her cheek. "But why did he do it differently on Foreman and this man here. What's the point?"

Maggie looked at her and frowned, unconsciously rubbing her somewhat protruding belly. "That's your job to find out. My job was the autopsy. And that's done for today."

Elizabeth and Katherine looked at each other.

"Is it the same perpetrator?" the detective asked.

Katherine shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure."

"But the same modus operandi?"

"With limitations."

With limitations, Elizabeth thought. One time he's a bloodthirsty beast; another time, a precise surgeon? Is it the same perpetrator both times?

"Oh yes," Maggie said, "one more thing. That's it. Medic Research's arm. As I said, the wound edges match one hundred percent. We have one cut on the arm and one on the chest. The same symbol. One of each, this rune. See? The results of the DNA analysis will come tomorrow. I'll have the results but no doubt."

"One body," Katherine muttered with a deep frown, "two knives. Two different modus operandi, and yet only one perpetrator? And above all," she glanced at the body, "why did he kill this Cody Wilkins? If it was our killer, surely he would prefer very different victims. Men who are strong, powerful, and dangerous. The stone thrower doesn't fit the picture at all."

Elizabeth didn't answer. She looked at the shattered head on the side where the wounds were still clearly visible, if one could speak of injuries, not a field of rubble. However, this man had lived - no one deserved to die like this. Face and head smashed beyond recognition, heart cut out alive, organs cut from the body, arms and legs severed ...

Her cell phone rang another time. This time it was Nick.

"Liz," he said excitedly, "the warrant from the judge is in. We got the address of that body broker. You know, the man supplying Wolfsen with body parts on the fly."

"Body brokers, you call them?"

"Says Wolfsen. I was in his office with him for a long time just now. We went over everything. Like I said, the warrant's in. Jane and I are heading out right now to bust this guy. Do you and Kate want to join?"

"Yeah, sure, let's go get this guy." Elizabeth looked at her sister. "Nick and Ma want to bust this body broker, and they want us to come along. You in?"

"Sure." The psychiatrist looked at Maggie. "We're through here, aren't we?"

"You're not through," Maggie said, rubbing belly one more time before pointing at the body, "until you look like that one."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Very funny, Mags. Send us the report. We'll talk on the phone later."

Maggie nodded slowly and smiled as her wife kissed her on the cheek on her way out. But the smile vanished as soon as she looked again at the battered body of Cody Wilkins.