Elizabeth opened the door to the conference room, followed by Nick. Trevor Williams was sitting at the table, pale as a sheet, with a cup of coffee. You could see by his eyes that he had suffered a mild concussion. On his forehead, he wore a thick Band-Aid that Maggie had put on him in a makeshift fashion.

"Mr. Williams, I'm Detective Nick Simms. This is my partner, Detective Elizabeth Rizzoli," Nick said with a frown as he sat down at the large table, straightening his tie. "She's a pathophysiology expert."

Elizabeth smiled stoutly and extended her hand to the man, which he took briefly. His hand was damp and cold. Adrenaline and fear caused the blood to be drawn from his extremities.

Nick frowned a little. "Shall we get right to it?"

Williams nodded, pale.

Elizabeth nodded as well with a stout smile. "Can I ask them a question from the beginning?"

Williams nodded again. So far, he hadn't said a word.

"Why didn't you come to us as soon as you received this package? You know, the sooner --"

"I --," Williams began. His voice sounded croaky. "I ... hid the box first. I had to process it myself first. And then --" He tried to drink from his coffee but spilled almost the entire contents of the cup; after that, he frantically wiped around on the table with a paper napkin. "Then I wasn't going to tell Lily ... My wife, not to tell her. But I had to tell her, didn't I? I did have to tell her what happened to her. What happened to our Lisa? Our little Lisa! Is she still alive? And what kind of life is that... without... Without a nose!" He grabbed his nose, leaned forward, fixed Nick, and tears ran down his cheeks.

Nick cleared his throat and looked at the other man with furrowed brows. "I must ask you this, but are you sure it was your daughter's nose?"

"Yes!" sobbed Williams after a brief pause, rising to a desperate wail. "We were there, after all. We picked out the piercing with her. She would get it pierced in Milan when we were on vacation there together. That was two years ago. But we said, 'No, you do it in Boston!' And then we went to this tattoo studio. Lisa was so excited. And we were too. Although we don't like piercings, you can take them out later, unlike these damn tattoos and --" He broke off mid-sentence and stared dully ahead for a while. Then he looked pleadingly first at Elizabeth and then at Nick. "Is she still alive?" he asked. "Tell me, is she alive?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and looked at the man long and hard. "We don't know that, Mr. Williams. But you can be sure we will do everything we can to catch the person who did this to your daughter."

"That is ... you don't know who did this? Who ... Who did ... this?" He looked at Elizabeth with such absolute helplessness that the detective was almost in tears herself. "It could be that he still has my daughter? That he might ... Kill her?"

Elizabeth clenched her teeth momentarily and licked her lips, choosing a softer tone. "We'll try everything," she said. But she was thinking of something else. Unlikely, she was still alive. Maybe this amputation was post-mortem, too. She could die from the consequences even if he didn't kill her. She could bleed to death. Get an infection if she doesn't get medical attention. We need to see the incision margins. But if, as with the feet, there are no vital signs, it was post-mortem anyway. And then she's ...

"Did you notice anyone in the stairwell?" Nick tried to pick up the thread.

Williams shivered and crushed the empty paper cup.

Elizabeth filled new coffee into a mug and discreetly placed it next to Williams.

Williams shook his head. "No. There was just ... the voice. That voice on the cell phone! My daughter's cell phone. She usually uses the device to call me, the one I bought with her. On the device, I heard the voice of this ... Monster!" He banged his head on the table.

Nick frowned deeply. "Shall we take a short break, Mr. Williams?"

Williams didn't raise his head. But he managed something like a nod.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and followed her brother-in-law to the other side of the conference room door.

Elizabeth looked at the broken man. "What else is there?"

Nick gritted his teeth and lowered his voice. "The box with the nose is in the lab. Fingerprints are on it, and it is currently being matched. Labeled, but the box wasn't, so there's no graphological handwriting sample possible. Nor franked, so once again, there is no postmark."

Elizabeth took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "The next thing we need to do is match the DNA from the nose with any of Lisa Williams' belongings. Then we'll know if it's her nose."

"Is already in the works. We should know if there's a positive match by tomorrow at the latest. Maybe sooner. Also, we'll match the DNA of the nose with the damn feet." Nick looked at his cell phone. A text had come in during the interview. "... The nose is already on an autopsy table." The corners of his mouth drooped. "Not that I expected anything different."

Elizabeth gave him a long, waiting look. "What?" She leaned forward. "The DNA?"

"Not that." He showed her the phone with the text. "Here. The wound edges on the nose are not underbled. Suppose the DNA is the same as the feet. The body must have been dead for a while. The nose and nasal septum normally have a lot of blood flow, as anyone who's had a nosebleed knows. And he only cut off the front part of the nose. He knew his stuff and knew it would be difficult with the bony rest at the back. But still in such a way that you can see the nostrils with the piercing."

Sure, Elizabeth thought. The parents should recognize the nose, after all. And the easiest way to do that was through the nose piercing. "So no vital signs?"

"No. The nose was --"

Elizabeth finished the sentence, "... removed post mortem." She pinched her lips together briefly before continuing, also lowering her voice. "That means Lisa Williams is dead."

Nick looked at her long and urgently. "So, no all-out manhunt and search for the girl?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and pressed her lips together for a second. "Let's wait for the DNA match. Also, I'd like to talk to Cuevas first. In any case, we need to ask about Lisa Williams' environment. And talk to the mother. If the DNA match doesn't blow up in our faces, we have the identity of a victim. We don't have that with the feet unless they belong to the same body." Her cell phone rang. It was Cuevas' number. Speak of the devil, she thought. She answered the call. It was, indeed, Eli Cuevas.

"Two murders, one killer," Cuevas said.

Elizabeth looked at Nick and arched a brow. "Why?" she asked, wondering how Cuevas had reached that conclusion so quickly. "Were you able to match the DNA of Lisa Williams?"

"Uh --," Cuevas replied at length, and Elizabeth could figuratively see the young man looking helpfully at Dr. Maggie Ross, causing her to roll her eyes. "Not from her yet. But the ones on both extremities."

"What do you mean?"

"We have DNA from a third person. That DNA is to be found on both the nose and the feet."

"Ah-ha," she said slowly, looking at her partner with a meaningful nod. "We, then!"

Nick grunted and lowered his chin to his chest.

xxx

Nick, Katherine, and Elizabeth had gathered together in Maggie's office, closing the door behind them so they could talk to the redhead privately.

Maggie wore a comfortable T-shirt and jeans, though she wore her lab coat over them, indicating that she wasn't here to see if everything was running smoothly in her department.

Elizabeth took a long, stern look at her wife and took a deep breath. "We have the same DNA on the nose and the foot?"

Maggie sat down behind her desk and nodded with pursed lips. "Right. Both limbs, feet, and nose were severed post-mortem with a sharp, serrated knife."

Katherine nodded slowly. "We have no bite marks?"

Maggie shook her head slowly. "No, my people would have recognized that. They were cut."

Katherine pressed her lips together. "That makes it less archaic," she muttered. She took a deep breath. "On the other hand, it's not uncommon for deranged killers to get high on amputations and cuts. Think of Kolya, the man-eater from Russia. He collected the oozing blood from his victims. He wanted to see their souls slip away."

Maggie placed her fingertips on the autopsy report and looked at the psychiatrist with a furrowed brow. "Here, though, the cuts were post-mortem."

Katherine wiggled her head. "When those body parts, feet, and nose, were cut off, yes. But we don't know if he didn't cut off other parts before that. And that was when she was alive."

Elizabeth made a face.

Katherine shook her head thoughtfully. "Then again, maybe he didn't. It may not be about the cut, but the body parts may have meaning."

"Cut feet could mean someone can't run away," Maggie replied.

Elizabeth looked at the two female doctors. "What about the nose?"

"I can't smell you?" Nick shrugged his shoulders.

Katherine gave her husband a long look. "Not wrong at all. After all, the sense of smell is our oldest sense. It was essential for survival so we wouldn't eat and die from rotten food. And the nose is also responsible for taste. Because the tongue only knows sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. All other tastes only come about with the help of the sense of smell. People who lose their sense of smell due to a traumatic brain injury lose weight quickly because they no longer enjoy eating."

Elizabeth frowned a little. "So, some kind of primal sense?"

Katherine nodded slowly. "Yes. The brain regions responsible for processing smells go immediately into the reptilian brain."

"The oldest part of our brain," Maggie added. "And that makes the sense of smell kind of creepy, too."

Katherine slowly sat down on the small couch and licked her lips. "In Silence of the Lambs, it's no coincidence that Hannibal Lecter's sense of smell, in particular, is extremely well developed."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Well, sure. Somehow we had to get back to Silence of the Lambs --" She looked at her wife long and wearily. "Let's get to the most important question, Mags: is the DNA found on both body parts known in any way?"

Maggie put her fingers to her lips as she propped her elbows on her desk and exhaled slowly. "No. They're not on file anywhere. But if there's a file at the FBI, that would mean it's a federal killer."

"Who so far is only known to have struck in Boston," Katherine replied.

"If it's a serial killer," Elizabeth said slowly, closing her eyes.

Maggie looked at the three investigators in turn. "And if these are his only murders. So far, it's just these two deaths that we know about."

Elizabeth looked at the redhead punitively. "I think we're through here for now. Do you have any more questions, Maggie?"

Maggie pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. "No, we're good. Feet and nose here are why and dry in the evidence room."

Katherine furrowed her brows and looked at the ME "Dry?"

"In formalin," replied, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Maggie seemed about to take her leave when one of her staff came into her office without knocking and handed her a file with short words. "Just a minute," she said, and the investigators looked at her in surprise. She opened the file and read it for a moment. "The DNA match through is. The nose is Lisa Williams'. It's her DNA."

Elizabeth frowned deeply. "So?"

Maggie took a deep breath and handed the lab report to the detective. "The feet, on the other hand, are not hers." She puffed. "So we have body parts from two women."

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. "Thanks, Mags. "I was afraid of that."

Maggie took a deep breath and leaned back in her desk chair, leaving further conversation to the investigators.

Elizabeth looked at her sister and Nick. "I see three things we should be doing right now. Not only interrogate the parents but also the environment of Lisa Williams. Her boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers, family friends, etc."

Nick nodded slowly. "It's already in the works. Got a patrol car out right away, and we should be on our way then, too."

Elizabeth took a deep breath and frowned a little. "I'll talk to the mother. And Nick, you try to get some more out of the father. If that's possible in his current state." She glanced at her sister. "Have you heard anything about Bonnie's ranch?"

Katherine took a deep breath as well. "I spoke with Claire earlier. Our junkie continues to be in a coma."

Elizabeth nodded slowly. "It couldn't have been the junkie alone," she muttered. "I can feel that. The question is who is behind it --"

" ... and whether it's the same person."

"Exactly. And what the motive is, anyway!"

Elizabeth looked broodingly into space, frowning deeply. "Nick, listen: Trevor Williams found his daughter's panties and cell phone in that envelope, right? And that's what he was called with, too?"

Nick crossed his arms in front of his chest and nodded slowly. "Right."

"He didn't record the call, of course?"

He raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath. "I don't think you'd think of something like that. But I'm happy to ask him."

"And the call was anonymous?"

"Yes."

"Probably with a burner phone. Could we trace the call anyway?"

"More likely no."

"Can we still find out where the burner caller was calling from?"

Nick gritted his teeth. "Possibly, if he didn't turn off all tracking services, which I wouldn't put past this guy."

Elizabeth ran her hand through her hair, "Damn. He's sending parents the body parts of daughters. What's the motive in that?"

Katherine stared ahead with pursed lips. "There's been something like this before. But not here, in the United States."

"But," her sister growled.

"In Japan. Tsutomu Miyazaki, I think his name was."

"And he did something like this, too?"

Katherine paused for a moment, pulling the corners of her mouth down. "As far as I know, he killed young girls, burned some of the body parts, and brought the ashes of the dead to their parents."

Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment. "Sick world. But he delivered the daughters' body parts himself ?"

Nick's expression darkened. "Maybe our killer did, too.

"Not unless it's two different killers. One's at Bonnie's ranch and doesn't qualify as a repeat offender because he's in a coma."

"Fine, but think about the brains on the soles of his boots. The guy was involved in some murder either way."

Katherine thought hard with furrowed brows. "Tsutomu delivered it all himself. But Nick's right: the brain residue on the junkie's boots suggests that maybe they both killed as a team and then one did the delivery."

Maggie leaned back in her chair. "A killer and a delivery man?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "You could put it a little more reverently. But yes. Since junkie number one is in a coma and box number two was delivered yesterday, there must be two junkies in any case --"

"And maybe a mastermind?" the redhead mused.

Elizabeth's eyebrows drew together, and she looked closely at her wife. "If this is a killer, and if he is indeed using the junkies as messengers, surely he must have known when the junkies were at the parents' house to call their daughter's cell phone at that time."

Maggie tilted her head a little. "Then the mastermind must have been watching him."

Katherine's eyes widened. "The junkie who caused the accident was on foot, right?"

Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Then perhaps his employer was nearby when we saw the accident?"

"And possibly," the psychiatrist added, "he may have kidnapped another girl from the area, killed her, and cut off her feet? The parents should have received the shipment by now, but the accident interrupted the transport."

"... And the killer couldn't deliver any more feet because the feet are with us," Nick growled.

Elizabeth looked at her brother-in-law with wide eyes. "Then let's get something else going! All parents who live in the area of the accident and have not seen their daughter for a few days are to contact us immediately. We need to get this out to the media today!"

Nick nodded in agreement.

Elizabeth looked at the other two women. "That's all for now."