A couple of the younger detectives had drawn the short straws to come in on the holiday. They sat three cubicles down watching the Rose Bowl on an iPad. There was no boss present to worry about busting their a.s.ses-which was why Kovac didn't hesitate to reach into his bottom desk drawer for the bottle of Glenmorangie he had stashed there. He poured a couple of glugs into a black coffee mug with white printing: HOMICIDE: IT'S WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST.

The liquor went down like molten gold, smooth and warm, to pool in his belly and begin unraveling his frayed nerves from the inside out. Only in relaxing did he realize the degree of tension his body had been holding on to. He felt like a coiled spring, slowly relaxing. He took what felt like his first deep breath in three hours and exhaled slowly as his gaze wandered the work s.p.a.ce he shared with Liska.

The small gray cubby was chock-full of books and binders and messy file folders. Post-it notes were stuck to every surface-reminders to call for lab results, to contact witnesses, to check with prosecutors for court schedules. Cop cartoons that had been printed off the Internet were taped to cabinet doors and pinned to the walls.

He and Liska had been trading gag gifts for years. Her favorite from him-the pen with the fake eyeball on top-stuck up prominently from the coffee mug bristling with pens beside her phone. His personal favorite-a very realistic-looking rubber severed human finger-was reaching into the nose hole of human skull that looked down on him from a shelf above his computer.

These were the comforts of his home away from home. Stuff that meant nothing to anyone but him. Stuff that connected him to no one in any meaningful way. Liska had pictures of her kids around her computer area. Kovac had an anonymous human skull with a rubber finger in its nose.

He checked his phone messages more to escape his own melancholy than anything else. He had a dozen messages, a couple from other cops working the Doc Holiday cases in other states, most from esteemed members of the press wanting to know more about the dead zombie. f.u.c.king newsies.

Like most cops, he hated the media. Their usefulness was far outstripped by their ability to annoy, to misinform, to f.u.c.k up, and to do outright damage to a case. Their stock-in-trade was human tragedy, the more grotesque, the better. A young woman with no name dying was of no interest to them. Murder her, and they would p.r.i.c.k up their ears. Chuck her from a moving vehicle, and they would come running. Call her a zombie, and they would wet themselves getting there.

Their interest in the case would run equal to the life of the shock factor. For that reason he supposed he should have been grateful his victim had been disfigured by having some sick f.u.c.k pour acid in her face while she was still breathing. That would hold the public's interest longer than a mere stabbing or shooting.

"Aloha! Welcome to paradise!"

Tippen had dressed in baggy khaki shorts and a loud Hawaiian shirt, black socks, and sandals. His bony knees looked as big as doork.n.o.bs on his skinny, hairy white legs. He sauntered toward the cubicle wearing Ray-Bans, an umbrella drink in hand.

"You look like a f.u.c.king cartoon," Kovac said.

"Absurdity is the humor of the superior mind," Tippen returned without rancor.

"Yeah, well, you've got that covered. The socks are an especially nice touch. What are you doing here?" Kovac asked. "Are the strip clubs closed for the holiday?"

Tippen leaned a shoulder against the cubicle wall and shoved the sungla.s.ses on top of his head. "You're not the only one without a life, you know. I came in and commandeered a conference room. I thought maybe if we pretend we have a task force on this, the boss will just go along. We'll act like it's been going on for weeks. He'll be too embarra.s.sed to call us on it."

"A pretend task force," Kovac said. "I like it. Do we get to spend pretend money on it?"

"And get imaginary overtime pay too."

"Is there another kind?"

"Not in this economy."

"Ah, well, what the h.e.l.l would we do with money anyway?" Kovac asked. "Buy s.h.i.t we don't have time to use 'cause we're always on the job on account of the city can't afford to hire enough cops?"

He poured more Scotch into his coffee mug and cast the pink umbrella in Tippen's drink a dubious look as they walked toward the conference room. "What the h.e.l.l are you drinking?"

"A mai tai. In keeping with our tropical surroundings."

"That's a chick's drink."

"Don't ask, don't tell."

"If I'm gonna get fired for drinking on the job, I'm going down drinking a man's drink," Kovac said, raising his mug.

"Belching and farting all the way."

"d.a.m.n straight."

"You're a man's man, my friend. A credit to our gender. I'm proud to know you. How did the autopsy go?"

Kovac took another sip of the Scotch as he took a seat at the table where Tippen had deposited several cardboard file boxes full of paperwork generated by the Doc Holiday murders. The room was small and windowless and as hot as a freaking sauna.

"Not so well for the victim," he said, rolling up his shirtsleeves. "Turns out, she's dead."

"Of what?"

"Undecided. Moller wants more time to go over the results and get the labs back. We know she probably didn't die from the stab wounds. She was still alive-technically, at least-when her killer poured acid on her face."

"Charming." Tippen perched a hip on the tabletop, settling in. "So Tinks is right? She could have been alive when she came out of that trunk?"

"Not likely. If the knife didn't kill her, she could have died from inhaling the acid. There was lung damage. Can't breathe if your lungs have melted."

"Can't live if half your brain is knocked out of your skull by a Hummer either."

"True enough," Kovac said. "Or she could have died of shock. Or she could have died from ingesting the acid-it burned the h.e.l.l out of her esophagus. Or maybe she had her head bashed in with a hammer like Doc Holiday did to how many of his victims? And we'll never know for sure because she was then run over by a Hummer, which busted her skull like a rotten melon.

"At this point, I don't even care what killed her," he said. "All I want to know right now is who she is. If we can't get an ID, where the h.e.l.l do we go with the investigation? We can want to believe Doc Holiday killed her, but what do we know? Jack nothing, that's what.

"Could be she had a rotten boyfriend," he said. "Could be she had a rotten father. Could be she p.i.s.sed off a dealer or a pimp. Could be everyone in this girl's life hated her and had a reason to want her dead. Could be anything. We need a starting place. If we don't know who she is, we can't know why she's a victim."

"No word on the prints?" Tippen asked.

"Nada. She's got about seven teeth left in her head, and Moller pulled a couple of loose ones out of her airway. We might be able to get a match if we can get dental records to compare to," he said. "She had a bunch of body piercings. Five in each ear, a nose ring, a belly ring. A couple others. All the jewelry is missing."

"Doc Holiday took the jewelry from the others."

"But he didn't pour acid on them," Kovac said.

"Maybe he's trying something new, broadening his torture horizons."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But the knife is wrong too. Too small. Seventeen stab wounds and none of them significant enough to kill her. What's that about?"

"What a great terror factor," Tippen said. "He gets to look in their eyes every time he sinks the knife in, over and over and over. All the better if it doesn't kill the victim."

Kovac wasn't convinced. "These tigers don't change that many stripes in one go. Maybe he changes the knife. Or maybe he adds the acid. But both?"

Tippen raised his hands in frustration. "He's ambitious. He's bored. He's got time on his hands. He saw it on Dexter. I don't know. Do you want the bad guy not to be Doc Holiday?"

"It doesn't matter what I want," Kovac said. "I want world peace. I want not to have acid reflux after eating pizza. n.o.body gives a s.h.i.t what I want. I want the truth. I want to know who this girl is and who killed her."

"And if we press the theory Doc Holiday killed her, then maybe we get our task force, and maybe we get to investigate our other two cases in something other than our spare time, of which we have none," Tippen pointed out. "And maybe we get the media to show some renewed attention in those other cases, and maybe something shakes loose for one of them, if not for all of them."

Kovac sighed and rubbed a hand across his jaw. He needed a shave. "I've got no problem with that part of it. It's the media part I hate."

"The media is the key. If we chum the water for them with our zombie girl, they'll create the public pressure we need with the bra.s.s," Tippen said. "We need these cases in the public eye. If people think there's a monster running around the metro area, they'll want action. Nothing captures the public imagination quite like a serial killer."

"You think we should yell 'fire' in a theater?"

Tippen made a face. "No one is going to start a stampede. It's not like Doc Holiday is breaking into homes and dragging young women from their beds," he said. "The threat is a couple of steps removed from most people's comfort zone. But the idea of a killer stalking innocent coeds and young mothers along the roadways still strikes a significant amount of fear. All we need is a good dose of vocal public outrage."

Kovac considered the argument and sighed. "I'm not against it."

The downside would be the glaring spotlight that kind of publicity would bring to the investigation itself. They had a victim with no face and no name. They had their work cut out for them. To run that investigation under a media microscope would not be a pleasant thing. He could already hear the questions: Why haven't you caught him yet? What did you discover today? Why haven't you identified the victim? Every moron who had ever watched an episode of CSI thought they were a f.u.c.king expert in forensic sciences and criminal investigation.

But he also knew the media would lose interest quickly if no answers were forthcoming, and by then he would have gotten what he needed.

"All we need is that initial excitement," Tippen said, reading his mind. "It's not our fault if their headlines dry up."

"That's true."

"Was there any sign of s.e.xual a.s.sault?"

"Nothing obvious. No s.e.m.e.n present."

"That fits. There was no s.e.m.e.n with the others."

"A lot fits," Kovac conceded. "But the others were obvious s.e.xual a.s.saults, this one . . . I don't know."

He sat back in his chair and looked at the wall where Tippen had put up the photographs and sketches of the supposed victims of Doc Holiday-the three dumped in the Twin Cities, and five others whose bodies had been discovered in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. If they decided Zombie Doe had enough in common with the other cases, she would be the ninth victim. She was already their ninth Jane Doe of the year. She was the ninth girl on two counts.

"She has a tattoo," he said. "Some Chinese gibberish on her shoulder. Tinks took a picture."

"That's something. We can hit the tattoo parlors tomorrow."

"And hope that she's from here. If she's one of Doc's, Christ only knows where she came from."

They both heaved a sigh over that prospect and took a pull on their drinks.

"She had skin and blood under her fingernails," Kovac said.

"Enough for a DNA profile?" Tippen asked. "That would be a h.e.l.l of a break."

"Yeah. Why would we get that lucky? The guy hasn't put a foot wrong in eight murders. Why would he be so careless with this one?"

"Because that's what happens," Tippen said. "That's what always trips these guys up. They get c.o.c.ky. They get careless. They think we're too stupid to solve a case, so they get sloppy. They make mistakes."

"He can't manage to kill his vic with a too-short knife and a gallon of acid," Kovac said. "She falls out of his car on the road. She's got his DNA under her fingernails. That's a lot of mistakes for a guy who's gotten away with eight murders."

"And if we say Zombie Doe is his ninth girl, we get our task force," Tippen said, pressing the issue. "We have to leak something, get the ball rolling."

The department had an official press person, but official press releases went through official channels, their content scrutinized and sanitized and overa.n.a.lyzed by people who had little to do with the actual investigation-especially when it came to high-profile cases. A leak, on the other hand, would be exactly what they wanted it to be, just the right piece of information to hit just the right nerve. The department would be forced to respond to a public now paying attention and demanding answers.

"Who's your best contact?"

"You know I don't play favorites," Kovac said. "I hate all of them equally."

"It should be a woman," Tippen said. "Outrage increases exponentially with the degree of personal threat. Angry women make a lot of noise. I happen to know an angry woman."

Kovac raised an eyebrow. "Just one?

"Very funny. I happen to know the perfect young angry woman to connect us to more angry young women. I'll make a phone call."

"I can't wait," he said with a decided lack of enthusiasm. "Why do I feel like I'm going to live to regret this?"

"Because you're a fatalist," Tippen said, digging his cell phone out of the breast pocket of his aloha shirt. "Which isn't a bad thing. You can't be disappointed if your expectations are low. But in this case I say don't look a gift horse in the mouth, my friend."

Kovac tossed back the last of his Scotch, grimacing not at the liquor but at his distaste for dealing with reporters.

"Here's what I know about horses," he said. "They bite."

8.

Liska groaned aloud at the sight of the black Jeep parked in front of her house. Speed. As much as she had wanted to dump her frustration and anxiety regarding Kyle all over her ex, she had wanted to do it over the airwaves and be able to turn the phone off afterward. Neat and clean-at least in the moment. She didn't have the energy to do it in person. She was exhausted, operating on three hours of sleep in the last thirty-three. The last thing she wanted to add to this s.h.i.t day was a mental sparring match with her ex-husband.

She told herself she should have been glad he had shown up-for the boys' sake. No matter how many times he let them down, he was still their dad, and they loved him. It was important for them to have their father's presence in their lives, even if it was sporadic. But there was always an emotional price to pay after the fact-for the boys and for her.

The television was blaring a football bowl game in the living room as Nikki let herself in. The house was warm and smelled of chili simmering in the Crock-Pot. She wanted to feel the tension melt away, but that wasn't going to happen.

She peeled off the layers of outerwear and wedged her coat in among the boys' things in the tiny hall closet, then ducked into the powder room, disheartened to see she hadn't turned into a Swedish bikini model in the last three minutes. It p.i.s.sed her off that it mattered to her. She didn't want to care what Speed thought when he looked at her, but she couldn't seem to shake that particular vanity.

Unfortunately, she looked exactly how she felt: older than she wanted to be, worn, tired and jaded by life and by having just watched the autopsy of a young woman whose gruesome death had earned her the nickname Zombie Doe. Moller had estimated the dead girl to be between fourteen and eighteen-roughly the same age as Nikki's own children.

She splashed cold water on her face and rubbed some color into her cheeks with the towel, then finger-combed her hair and muttered, "f.u.c.k it," under her breath.

In the living room Speed and R.J. were playing Nerf football as the television crowd cheered. Speed, ball cap backward on his head, grunted out a play, ran backward in his stocking feet, and fired the bright green football with a rocket arm. R.J. bolted across the width of the room, hurdled an ottoman, and crashed onto the sofa, then leapt up with the ball in hand. Father and son hooted and hollered and did a victory dance that knocked over a lamp.

Nikki said nothing. She would already be considered the bad guy by default in this scenario. No need to dig the hole any deeper over a lamp.

Neither Speed nor R.J. had noticed her yet. She watched them with an old familiar pang of envy in her chest. Hallmark couldn't have conjured up a more adorable father-son picture: the matching football jerseys, the matching backward caps, the matching bad-boy grins as they grabbed hold of each other and wrestled each other to the floor.

R.J. had always been a mini-Speed. Looking at them side by side was like looking at some kind of crazy time-warp photo. At thirteen, R.J.'s body was only just beginning its metamorphosis from boy to adolescent. He was still on the small side. His shoulders were just starting to widen. The baby fat was beginning to melt from his once-cherubic cheeks. Beside him was the grown man he would become: broad shouldered, flat bellied, square jawed, handsome.

These days Speed was sporting a laser-sharp trimmed mustache and goatee that emphasized the angles of his face and gave him a certain sinister edge. Time and life had etched lines beside his too-blue eyes, but instead of aging him, instead of making him look tired-as those same lines did to her-they only served to give him a s.e.xy ruggedness. She hated him for that.

"Uh-oh," Speed said, looking up. "We're busted, sport!"

"Nice to see you too, Speed," she said. "I thought you'd left the country. You haven't been answering your phone."

"Lost it," he said, getting to his feet.