She went over to the bench to crouch in front of the victim's torso. She had seen only one other headless body before today: that of a biker who had been caught in the middle of a nightmarish three-car smashup while she had been a patrol officer.

A victim of decapitation looked more horrific and unnatural than a corpse in any other condition, but Sam knew few modern murderers chose to cut off their victim's head. It was a near-impossible wound to inflict, for one thing, and one of the messiest ways to kill someone. Unless the murderer had a specific motive involving that kind of mutilation, it was simply less time- consuming to strangle, shoot, or stab the victim.

Harry stepped to the side, blocking the view of Sam from the gate. "You're clear," he said in a low voice.

She took a deep breath, and laid her scarred hand on top of the victim's arm.

I'm sorry, Sam silently apologized to the dead man as she kept the scar that crossed her palm from coming into contact with the blood for a moment. If there were any other way I could do this, I would.

She pressed her hand into the victim's blood.

Her "thing" had no official name that she knew of, but since the time that Sam had figured out what was happening to her she had thought of it as blood-reading. It wasn't some sort of mystical ability; she didn't have to close her eyes or mutter incantations. If the victim had been dead too long or she didn't concentrate, it wouldn't even work.

She cleared her mind and focused on the heat spreading over her palm. If she thought anything, it was, Show me what happened.

The effect was a little like watching a movie that had been chopped up and spliced back together wrong-a movie that no one could see but Sam. There was no screen inside her head, only flashes of light and color that made brief, disjointed pictures with no sound; glimpses of life through the victim's eyes. Sometimes if there were strong odors, she would pick those up as well.

The gleam of a long, broad blade, like the swords actors used in pirate movies. Two statues that seemed to bounce. Another statue. A short, smug-looking man standing in the shadows. The taint of stagnant water. The sword again, held, slashing down.

The blade cutting into a thick wrist.

"Hurry up, kid," she heard Harry say as if from a distance.

The sword kept returning to her mind. She had never encountered such a strong image; it was as if the old blade had meant everything to the victim in his. last minutes of life.

Sam ignored the wasplike burn of the blood on her skin and the growing stench of stagnant water as she read further.

Traffic. A crowded parking lot. Unlocking the door to an SUV. The scent of drying seaweed, salt, and suntan lotion. The beachfront. A sidewalk filled with people waiting for admittance to a building. Women's perfume, men's cologne. Neon-lit signs flickering on.

Although touching the blood of the dead gave her only images and scents without sound or much coherence, Sam found herself thinking, Tell me. Tell me who did this to you.

She didn't have much time; not only because they wouldn't be left alone long with the body, but because she could read the blood of a victim for only two or three hours after death. If she waited any longer than that, nothing would happen.Darkness. Tight buttocks under a short black skirt. Little red eyes in the darkness. The sharp odor of hard liquor. A men's room. A measuring tape. Body odor mixed with the smells of pine cleaner over urine and feces. A clipboard with a form on it.

An elevator door closing. A tall, broad-shouldered man with silvered fair hair stepping into the elevator. Night-blooming jasmine- The images vanished as something pulled her hand away from the victim's arm.

"Sam." Harry hauled her to her feet and held her until she was steady. "Sorry, but the photographer's here."

She couldn't speak of what she had seen in front of the other officers and technicians processing the scene, so she gestured toward the water. "Down there." She glanced down at her sore, scarred hand. It was always a little uncomfortable after she read a victim. This time, however, touching the blood had burned so much she expected to see smoke rolling off her scar.

Harry looked worried as they walked toward the yacht. "You okay, kid?" He offered her a paper napkin from the folded stash he kept in his jacket. "You're soaked."

Whatever the weather conditions, reading blood also made Sam perspire badly. Her clothes were sticking to her, and she felt a small but steady stream of sweat pouring down the center of her back. Sam used the napkin to blot her hot, wet face and soaked it; Harry had to give her another before she could dry her face.

She looked back at the grotto of statues. "He was running. That's why they were bouncing."

"What was bouncing?"

"The statues-I mean, the victim. I think he was running away from something just before he died. The killer used a sword."

Jasmine suddenly filled her head, and her legs suddenly shook so badly that her knees almost buckled.

"Easy now." Harry was right beside her, and slipped an arm around her waist. "Breathe. You're turning five shades of purple."

She breathed in. Even the reek of the Intracoastal's polluted waters was better than drowning in the delicate, flowery scent.

"Why didn't I go into the military?"

Harry gave her shoulder an endearingly awkward pat. "You'd have just ended up getting your head chopped off by terrorists in Iraq."

"Would I." She turned around and stared hard at the statues, recalling the image of the sword wedged between them, and then the sword amputating the victim's hand. "Montgomery ran into the sword that decapitated him-could someone have chased him into it?"

Her partner laughed out loud. "No one's going to cut off their own head to get away from someone."

"Maybe he didn't see it until the last second." Sam knew how ridiculous it sounded, but it was the only thing that made sense of the images. "All I know is what I got from him. There was something else. I think the victim chopped off his own hand first.

With the same sword."

"Now you're talking plain crazy," her partner told her. "No sane person amputates his own paw."

"I only know what I saw happen through his eyes." Sam tried to remember what the face of the man standing by the pool had looked like, but all she got was the outline of his body-shorter than her, a bit heavier than Harry. "He was on the beachfront today before he came here, too. I saw the inside of that nightclub where we went to question the owner about the Caprell case."

"Confusion, Fusion, whatever it was?" Harry appeared skeptical. "You sure you're not mixing up two different murders here?" She nodded. "Whoever this man was, he definitely saw Lucan No-last-name through his own eyes before he came here." That Lena Caprell had been sexually involved with the same man might simply be a coincidence, but her killer had also posed her body sitting up on a bench.

"That Lucan guy was a bit weird, but he didn't strike me as the type to chop up anyone," Harry said. "Look at the way he was dressed. He'd have hired someone to do it."

"We need a motive." She met the doubt in her partner's eyes. "I need you to believe what I saw."

Her partner nodded slowly. "We've used this thing of yours to close too many cases for me to doubt you." He glanced back at the technician who was photographing the remains. "Let's see if we can ID the vic and do the notification. We'll have the uniforms look around for this sword you saw while we go check out the vic's background."

Sam looked toward the water. "Then we have another talk with Lucan."

Sam and Harry left the crime scene after the victim had been tentatively identified as J. R. Montgomery, the owner of Montgomery Construction in Fort Lauderdale. Their first stop was to notify Montgomery's next of kin, which his secretary identified as his mother, Nancy.

Harry called in their next destination to Dispatch as Sam drove. "I hate it when it's the mothers. The old ones always look like it's going to kill them."

"Better she hears it from us than the vultures," Sam said, glancing up at a circling news helicopter.

J. R. Montgomery's mother's home was in an older section of Fort Lauderdale, a neighborhood populated mainly by retirees who preferred to avoid the condo commandos on the beach and live out their golden years in single-family homes.

Nancy Montgomery turned out to be a small gnome of a woman with a blazing halo of dyed red hair. She answered the inside door three seconds after Sam rang the doorbell. She kept the outer screen door locked and peered at them through it with classic old-lady suspicion. "Who are you two? What do you want?"

"I'm Detective Quinn, ma'am, and this is my partner, Detective Brown." Harry held out his open ID so she could see it, and Sam did the same. "We need to speak to you about your son, J.R."

"He's not here, and as soon as he gets here he'll be too busy to talk to anyone." She jabbed a finger toward Harry. "You want to do something for the community? Arrest Mr. Baker next door and take away his no-good dogs."

Harry frowned. "Why would we want to do that, ma'am?"

"He never chains them up when he goes out, and they dig their way out of his yard every time he does. Just look what they did to my trash yesterday." Nancy gestured to the side of the yard, where two garbage cans lay on their sides. Their contents appeared strewn from one end of the yard to the other. "Littering and vandalism and trespassing are against the law, aren't they?

And what about keeping pets on leashes? Well?"

"Ma'am." Sam smelled a strong odor of cats and used litter boxes, but was careful to keep her expression neutral. "We need to speak to you about your son in private. May we come in?"

"I suppose." She fumbled to release two inner locks. "Watch out for my babies. I don't want any of them getting out. Mr.

Baker's dogs will eat them."

It was good advice, and not just for the cats. The inside of Nancy Montgomery's house was so dark that Sam nearly tripped over what she thought was a furry footstool on the way into the living room.The footstool got up, shook itself, and waddled off.

The old lady shooed three more fat Persian cats from a small sofa, then picked up one of them and went to sit with it in an overstuffed armchair. Another four cats sauntered into the room to sniff at Sam and Harry.

Sam reached down to scratch behind the ears of a thin but friendly tabby. Loose cat hair in every color imaginable had been shed on the furniture, upholstery, and rugs. It had been so long since Nancy had vacuumed that tufts of the hair had gathered around the baseboards like dust bunnies, and clumped around the bottom legs of the furnishings. There was also a faint but definite odor of decay, as if something had died somewhere but not been found.

"He's gotten himself arrested, hasn't he?" Nancy was demanding of her partner. "What was it? Speeding? Drinking?"

Harry leaned forward with his hands folded. "No, ma'am. Your son J.R. was killed last night in Fort Lauderdale. We're very sorry for your loss."

"Killed?" The old woman looked puzzled. "No, you're mistaken. My son is Jason Ralph Montgomery. You must have him mixed up with someone else."

"We found this on the body, ma'am." Sam took the evidence bag with J.R.'s license in it and handed it to her. "You will need to make a formal identification down at the morgue, but we know it was your son."

"I don't know about this." Nancy stared at the license. "It could be fake. You could be lying to me." Her hands started trembling. "How did he die?"

Harry exchanged a glance with Sam before he said, "We believe he was murdered, ma'am."

"Murdered?" Nancy's voice rose sharply. "By whom? How?"

"We're still trying to determine the circumstances involved, Mrs. Montgomery." Sam took out her PDA. "Do you know of anyone who might want to harm your son? Someone at work, perhaps?"

"No." Nancy looked indignant. "Everyone liked Jason. He was a hard worker, like his father. He was a good son to me." She turned to Harry. "Was he robbed? Did they shoot him? Have you caught them?"

"No, ma'am. It was very quick." Harry kept his voice gentle and sympathetic. "Did J.R. say he was going to meet someone at a club last night? Maybe get together with a friend for a drink?"

Something changed in the old lady's face, and she sat up a little straighten "My son didn't have time for drinking or going to clubs. Jason was coming here to clean up the garbage Mr. Baker's dogs dragged all over my lawn. I thought about calling the police when he didn't show up, but how was I to know he'd been murdered? What are you trying to say? That this was somehow my fault?"

Like most bereaved parents, Sam thought, she was reacting out of the initial shock. She'd already turned her son into a complete angel; now she would view every question as an attack on her. Which was understandable, but wouldn't help them.

"Not at all, ma'am." Sam pocketed her PDA and looked around. "Did J.R. live with you?"

"He had an apartment, but he spent most of his weekends here in his old room." Nancy waved toward the back of the house.

"But what am I going to do about the garbage? Who's going to clean it up now that he's dead? Mr. Baker won't. He'll just laugh at me." Her face crumpled and she began to cry.

Harry rose and gave Sam a nod before going to the old lady's side to offer what comforting words he could. Sam took the opportunity to check out J.R.'s room, which she found at the end of the hallway.The room might have belonged to Montgomery when he was a boy, but it had not been made into a shrine to his childhood. His mother must have bought the decor straight from a television shopping channel, Sam thought, eyeing the big, painfully bright floral patterns of the drapes, coverlet, and throw rugs. The only thing that didn't match was the wallpaper border around the ceiling, which was of cartoon cats chasing yarn balls and one another. On the nightstand was a copy of Reader's Digest, and inside the closet Sam found two pairs of worn sneakers, a couple pairs of old jeans, and some paint-spattered T-shirts.

The real cats in the room-seven of them-were sleeping atop the coverlet on the twin bed.

Harry poked his head in. "She's gone to take a pill and lie down. Find anything besides more cats?"

"Not much. We'll probably do better at his apartment." Still Sam checked each drawer, under the mattress, and in the shoes before gazing around. "No photos, no personal effects. A couple of desiccated hairballs."

"I'll look in the bathroom." Harry disappeared and returned a few moments later. "A toilet, a sink, a roll of Charmin, and three cat boxes overflowing with shit."

Sam felt an unwilling, wretched pang of sympathy for the old woman as she watched five new felines slink into the room to have a look at them. "He probably cleaned them out for her."

Harry rubbed his jaw. "How many animals you think she has?"

"More than Animal Control would want to hear about." Sam smelled the scent of rotten meat again. "I think there might be some dead ones."

"I'll radio Health and Welfare and see who covers this sort of thing." Harry stepped over a pregnant cat having a hissing match with a large silver torn. "You want to hit his apartment?"

"I'd rather have Forensics go in before us. They can dust for prints first." Sam checked her watch. "You need to go home and get some sleep?"

"After seeing that body? I won't sleep for a couple of days," her partner assured her.

Neither would Sam. She had an overwhelming need to see Lucan again, and watch his eyes while she told him about the second murder. "Then let's go grab some dinner, stop by Montgomery's business, and then we'll go to the nightclub."

Chapter 11.

Lucan dreamed of the last day he had spent in Rome with his tresora.

The floor of the small corner bedchamber Lucan occupied in his night sojourn had become an enormous sundial of sorts; from the gaps in the window shutters thin golden shafts inched steadily across the room. Sitting in the darkest corner allowed him the only comfort to be had while watching them; even so protected, his eyes yet itched. Having memorized the positions of shadow and light on the boards during the weeks he had spent in this room, he could tell that the time was close to four in the afternoon.

Tea, anyone?

Lucan's tresora, Leigh, was the sole occupant of the bed on the other side of the room. He had woken at dawn to begin another day of coughing. The spasms had been gradually growing worse, and now he brought up blood with each one: clotted dark expulsions punctuated by sporadic briefer flows of arterial dilution. Morning was always the worst time, yet today there had been no sign of them subsiding, as they always had before.

One aspect of Lucan's loathsome existence was that the death he inflicted was quick and clean. Disease, by comparison, took its time and enjoyed itself. Leigh had been mostly dead for more than a month now.

How long can this posthumous existence of his last?

Lucan wished he could feel some pity or guilt. For days now Leigh could no longer hold pen in hand, or take comfort reading from any of the books Frances had brought for him. He could never be left alone, for he could not rise from the bed unassisted.

The ulcerated condition of his throat was such that his weak voice would never carry beyond the walls.

Yet when Leigh was not occupied with the business of dying, he stared at Lucan with open hatred.

Lucan tried to hear the splashing sounds of Bernini's Barcaccia fountain bubbling in the piazza below. Often it had played nursemaid and lulled Leigh to sleep during the bleak winter months when he had still been healthy enough to rail about the unfairness of it all. Now it had become a symbol of all Leigh would never know. No more would he sit on the marble shelf to admire the cascades that poured from the forever submerging boat, or compose sonnets to the crystalline purity of their falling.

No more would he dip a cupped hand in its sparkling basin and lift the water to his lips, and drink as much as he chose.