Leo said. “Somebody dies, the coroner’s office gets the body, and somebody strips it for parts before they release it for burial. Right?” “Wrong—somebody strips it before it gets to the coroner’s office.” Nick raised his head to get the waitress’s attention. It wasn’t difficult; she had been periodically glancing over at the man with the funny glasses for the last half-hour. Nick pointed to his coffee cup. “Remember I told you about the guy in the cooler and the wound on his back, just below the ribs? It was tack-sutured shut. That’s not a wound, Leo, it’s an incision—and I found two maggots in that incision. That means it was made out of doors, and it was made sometime before dark—because blowfly activity tends to stop at night. The time of death was around dusk the night before the body was discovered; that means the incision was actually made at the time of death.” “Made by whom?” “I don’t know.” “Made why?” “I think it was made to remove the kidney.”
