But I got out of the car with the two of them and we walked through the chill air to the door. Found our way back to the shabby office. The same doctor was at the desk. Still in a white coat. Still looking tired. He waved us in and we sat down. I took one of the stools. I didn't want to sit next to the fax machine again. The doctor looked at all of us in turn. We looked back at him.
"What have you got for us?" Finlay said.
The tired man at the desk prepared to answer. Like preparing for a lecture. He picked up three files from his left and dropped them on his blotter. Opened the top one. Pulled out the second one and opened that, too.
"Morrison," he said. "Mr. and Mrs."
He glanced around the three of us again. Finlay nodded to him.
"Tortured and killed," the pathologist said. "The sequence is pretty clear. The woman was restrained. Two men, I'd say, one on each arm, gripping and twisting. Heavy bruising on the forearms and the upper arms, some ligament damage from twisting the arms up her back. Obviously the bruising continued to develop from the time she was first seized until the time she died. The bruising stops developing when the circulation stops, you understand?"
We nodded. We understood.
"I'd put it at about ten minutes," he said. "Ten minutes, beginning to end. So the woman was being held. The man was being nailed to the wall. I'd guess both were naked by then. They were in nightwear before the attack, right?"
"Robes," Finlay said. "They were having breakfast."
"OK, the robes came off early on," the doctor said. "The man was nailed to the wall, technically to the floor also, through the feet. His genital area was attacked. The scrotum was severed. Postmortem evidence suggests that the woman was persuaded to swallow the amputated testicles."
The office was silent. Silent as a tomb. Roscoe looked at me. Stared at me for a while. Then she looked back at the doctor.
"I found them in her stomach," the doctor said.
Roscoe was as white as the guy's coat. I thought she was going to pitch forward off her stool. She closed her eyes and hung on. She was hearing about what somebody had planned for us last night.
"And?" Finlay said.
"The woman was mutilated," the doctor said. "Breasts severed, genital area attacked, throat cut. Then the man's throat was cut. That was the last wound inflicted. You could see the arterial spray from his neck overlaying all the other bloodstains in the room."
There was dead silence in the room. Lasted quite a while.
"Weapons?" I asked.
The guy at the desk swiveled his tired gaze toward me.
"Something sharp, obviously," he said. A slight grin. "Straight, maybe five inches long."
"A razor?" I said.
"No," he said. "Certainly something as sharp as a razor, but rigid, not folding, and double-edged."
"Why?" I said.
"There's evidence it was used back and forth," the guy said. He swished his hand back and forth in a tiny arc. "Like this. On the woman's breasts. Cutting both ways. Like filleting a salmon."
I nodded. Roscoe and Finlay were silent.
"What about the other guy?" I said. "Stoller?"
The pathologist pushed the two Morrison files to one side and opened up the third. Glanced through it and looked across at me. The third file was thicker than the first two.
"His name was Stoller?" he said. "We've got him down as John Doe."
Roscoe looked up.
"We sent you a fax," she said. "Yesterday morning. We traced his prints."
The pathologist rooted around on the messy desk. Found a curled-up fax. Read it and nodded. Crossed out "John Doe" on the folder and wrote in "Sherman Stoller." Gave us his little grin again.
"I've had him since Sunday," he said. "Been able to do a more thorough job, you know? A bit chewed up by the rats, but not pulped like the first guy, and altogether a lot less mess than the Morrisons."
"So what can you tell us?" I said.
"We've talked about the bullets, right?" he said. "Nothing more to add about the exact cause of death."
"So what else do you know?" I asked him.
The file was too thick for just the shooting and running and bleeding to death bits. This guy clearly had more to tell us. I saw him put his fingers on the pages and press lightly. Like he was trying to get vibrations or read the file in Braille.
"He was a truck driver," he said.
"He was?" I said.
"I think so," the guy said. Sounded confident.
Finlay looked up. He was interested. He loved the process of deduction. It fascinated him. Like when I'd scored with those long shots about Harvard, his divorce, quitting smoking.
"Go on," he said.
"OK, briefly," the pathologist said. "I found certain persuasive factors. A sedentary job, because his musculature was slack, his posture poor, flabby buttocks. Slightly rough hands, a fair bit of old diesel fuel ingrained in the skin. Also traces of old diesel fuel on the soles of his shoes. Internally, a poor diet, high in fat, plus a bit too much hydrogen sulfide in the blood gases and the tissues. This guy spent his life on the road, sniffing other people's catalytic converters. I make him a truck driver, because of the diesel fuel."
Finlay nodded. I nodded. Stoller had come in with no ID, no history, nothing but his watch. This guy was pretty good. He watched us nod our approval. Looked pleased. Looked like he had more to say.
"But he's been out of work for a while," he said.
"Why?" Finlay asked him.