Dr. Praetorius appeared to be sitting upright behind his desk.

His murderer had skillfully tied the doctor's body to his chair with fishing lines until it finally looked as if the surgeon was in conversation with a patient.

Then, the perpetrator removed the plastic skeleton from its mount, which had been placed in a corner of the surgery. He had draped it directly opposite the dead man on a patient's chair and also attached it with fishing lines. Only then had the murderer proceeded to attach first the heart, then the liver, and finally the stomach of Dr. William Praestorius to the anatomically correct position in the skeleton.

He had previously disemboweled his victim in the adjacent operating room and then dressed him in his doctor's coat. As a horrific finale, the perpetrator had also scalped Praestorius so that he could then put the doctor's scalp and hair on the skeleton like a wig.

The doctor's little finger on his left hand had also been severed, but it was nowhere to be found in the surgery. The unreal sight of the corpse sitting opposite a skeleton with its intestines inside was as horrifyingly feral as it was fascinating.

xxx

The tranquillity in the familiar-looking garden estate had disappeared. The BPD cops had cordoned off the entire area, the forensics team was busy securing evidence in the house and on the property, and the questioning of the residents was in full swing.

"And you just got in the car with this guy and went with him? Without having any idea who he was or what he wanted?" Nikki O'Laighin asked her mother with a deep frown, sitting with her on a wooden bench in front of the small fountain in the garden of the brick house.

"Precisely because of that," Elizabeth emphasized. "The situation had an allure that I couldn't resist. And frankly, I don't want to know what plan B he would have had if I hadn't gotten in." She noticed a frog sitting in the pool of water in the fountain.

"And you have no idea who this Ishmael is?" Nikki pressed. "He must have told you something about himself. With his hairstyle and his clothes, what the hell do I know? You always see everything."

Elizabeth was conspicuously quiet and introverted.

The captain's self-confident demeanor combined with her outstanding powers of deduction often made her seem unapproachable, not infrequently even condescending, now showed Nikki a side of herself that she had rarely seen before. "I can describe him to you in detail. Everything he said, did or didn't do,"

Elizabeth held out to her daughter as the frog puffed out his cheeks. "You'll get a sketch, which will be better than a picture. But beyond that, he was like a blank sheet to me. He can get a mid-priced suit anywhere, with no special brands and nothing rare. His shoes are mass-produced from China, and any second-year apprentice could do his hairstyle. He doesn't have to go to an expensive barbershop for that."

"And the license plate?"

"Already checked. The license plates were stolen; what else? The car wasn't his own anyway."

"No?"

Elizabeth waved it off. "The wing mirrors weren't exactly at his viewing height, and the back of his seat was too steep. He didn't relax at the wheel because he wasn't familiar with the car. Nevertheless, he didn't come across as a chauffeur; he had charisma and presence." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I can't wait to interrogate him."

"What do you mean? Was Ishmael the one who did this in there?" Nikki now wanted to know.

"You'd think so," the captain replied. "Although he didn't smell of blood and his hands were unharmed. He should have gotten a few scrapes from that mess. But if he was careful or had gloves on, he could have managed it without injury."

"How old was the man?"

"His skin, teeth, hair, and expression indicate he isin hismid-thirties. That would have made him a bit young at the time, but not too young."

"Back then?" Nikki was amazed and looked at her mother unblinkingly.

Elizabeth nodded slowly. While trying to decide how to explain to her daughter what she had just implied, the frog jumped down from the fountain and hopped off through the garden towards the nearby lake. "That murder in there --" Elizabeth began hesitantly, but the call of one of the forensics technicians interrupted her.

"Can you come in here?" the two investigators heard from the house. "Dr. Ross has an initial assessment!"

Without finishing her sentence, Elizabeth stood up and walked purposefully towards the house.

Nikki followed her mother.

xxx

"A neat piece of work," Dr. Maggie Ross, the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, stated as she examined the body of William Praetorius from all sides.

"How long do you think it took the perpetrator to do this?" Nikki asked with a frown.

Maggie looked up for a second. "Well, the skull is pretty badly injured. You can see the fracture because it's been exposed by the scalping," the redhead replied, pointing to the skinned back of the dead man's head, which had an unmistakable fracture. "It looks like he was hit with a heavy object. I suspect Praestorius died of a brain hemorrhage caused by the head trauma. That would also explain why there are no recognizable defensive wounds. At least, it must have been quick and painless for him. The operating room is next door. The stretcher is completely smeared with blood; that's probably where the perpetrator opened the body. With a Y-cut."

The ME had completed the first post-mortem examination at the scene. Maggie had also unbuttoned Dr. Praetorius' white coat and discovered that the doctor's body had been dissected using the same cutting technique used for autopsies of corpses. "The perpetrator had to fold the skin to the side, exposing the greater omentum. The large mesh serves to suspend the organs in the abdominal cavity. He could cut it away relatively easily; it didn't take him long. On the other hand, the heart must have taken him a little longer. The trace technicians found a side cutter next door, which he probably used to cut through the ribs. He then had to break them away, cut open the pericardium, cut off the blood vessels, and then he was able to remove the heart. The liver was quicker as he didn't have to go through bone. He pulled it out from behind the ribs and cut the vessels. He got the gallbladder out at the same time. After that, he probably needed a bit more time for the stomach." Maggie showed the location of the organ on her own body. "The stomach is here, next to the liver in the left area of the upper abdominal cavity. It has to be separated from the suspensory ligaments. Then, the perpetrator had to cut through the esophagus, which borders the stomach at the top, and the duodenum, which connects it to the intestines at the bottom. He then got the little finger off quickly, which only took a few seconds. Then, he had to wash the victim and the organs so that we would find the dead body nice and clean. Hang the intestines in the skeleton with a fishing line, cut around the hair with a scalpel, pull off the scalp, clothe the corpse again, hoist it onto the chair, and tie it up. That's a rough estimate, but I reckon he could have done it in an hour. Judging by the state of rigor mortis, I suspect that death occurred in the morning hours, but of course, you'll have to wait for the autopsy. As you know, it's more difficult to determine the time of death on exsanguinated corpses because there are no lividity marks."

Nikki blinked a few times and tried not to show any emotion. Finally, she turned to her captain. "If Ishmael has cleaned up and changed after his butchering, that could easily fit in."

Elizabeth didn't immediately respond to Nikki's hypothesis. Instead, she looked at the crime scene attentively, almost absently.

The surgery was minimally furnished, if only for reasons of hygiene. Behind the doctor's conference table stood a high shelf with glass doors through which numerous medicines and treatment tools could be seen.

The windows were covered with slightly yellowed curtains; the floor was covered with easy-to-clean PVC, and apart from two patient chairs, there was also a couch in the bright room. It was only after a few seconds that Elizabeth finally broke her silence.

But not raise questions or speculate about the facts of the case. On the contrary, the captain seemed completely serene and confident when she finally explained her reasoning. "The perpetrator has created a scene that tells us something about his motive. A doctor is treating himself. But what is that supposed to tell us? It's not about organ donation, even though that would be obvious. Nor is it about revenge for a botched operation in which a relative of the perpetrator died. All the patients in his database either have an alibi, haveno motives, or couldn't have done this. We won't find a single real lead, and the investigation will fizzle out after months of frustrating work. The case will become a cold case."

Suddenly, there was silence in the room; everyone's eyes were focused solely on Elizabeth. The photographer had temporarily stopped taking pictures of the crime scene, and the other investigation team members had also stopped what they were doing.

Of course, Elizabeth was known for her often surprising findings. Nevertheless, none of those present could explain what observation might have led her to this unexpectedly pessimistic prognosis. "You might as well stop working now," the captain added before she looked at Nikki deeply in the eye, took another deep breath, and finally said what she already knew when she opened the door to Dr. Praetorius' practice. "We are dealing here with an exact copy of a crime I investigated almost sixteen years ago."

Now, it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

Elizabeth added, only after seemingly endless seconds, "It was the only crime I could never solve."