Once the victim was loaded into the van, Gainer handed Lena a receipt for the girl’s corpse. The name of the victim was listed as “Jane Doe No. 99.” Gainer included the date, time, and address, but nothing else to distinguish her identity. Lena was surprised by the high number, but didn’t say anything. Like the murder rate, the number of unidentified victims would reset to zero with the new year. Still, the slate would never be clean.

“You’re in luck,” Gainer said. “I just spoke with Madina. He’s changed his schedule. His plane lands at noon in Burbank. You’re in tomorrow afternoon despite the backup.”

She had been hoping for this. She wanted Art Madina to perform the autopsy, but knew that he was attending a medical conference in New Haven. Because the victim had been dismembered, she was counting on the pathologist’s expertise.

“Did you bring him up to speed?”

Gainer nodded. “I told him that we left her the way we found her. That what’s left of her is still inside the bag.”

Gainer’s voice trailed off. He had been on the job as a coroner’s investigator for at least a decade. Lena figured that in those ten years he had seen all there was to ever see. Yet, she sensed something in his voice as he spoke about Jane Doe No. 99 tonight. Something different in his eyes. Something she respected and admired in the man.

“We have to start at the beginning,” she said.

“Madina knows that she’s a Jane Doe. You’re in good hands. It’s all set.”

“Thanks, Ed. And thanks for hanging in this long.”

“No problem. You know that, Lena. What happened to Sweeney and Banks?”

“They took off with the kid. We’re opening the streets and shutting down.”

They shook hands, then she watched him climb into the van and drive off with the corpse. As she turned back to the alley, she shivered in the cold night air and reached inside her jacket for the chief’s itinerary. This was the first time in the past six hours that she had thought about the chief or his adjutant. For six hours she had been working for the victim, free of the weight of department politics. She unfolded the paper and moved beneath a street light.