Chapter 38

MONDAY AFTERNOON, DAVID and a visibly excited Janet came to see me. “You’re not going to believe this, Captain,” she said.

“Try me.”

“After David and I compared notes on his murder and the ones we’ve been working on, I did some research, and I hit pay dirt.”

I gave her a “come on” motion with my fingers.

“At first, I searched for murder victims who’d been known to perform in drag,” she said, “but I struck out.”

“There was another aspect of our murder that was even more interesting,” David said, “if you can call it that.”

“What?” I said.

“The autopsy shows that our boy had suffered some genital mutilation,” he said. “Specifically, the medical examiner thinks that someone took a hammer or something similar and smashed the victim’s testicles. In addition, he’d been extensively tortured.”

“Tortured how?”

“Mostly cigar burns all over his body,” he said, “including one on the head of his penis.”

“Cigar burns?” I said, wincing at the thought. “Are they sure?”