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legs,” Treborn said. He motioned forthem to follow him to the next table. Once there, he pulled aside a covering sheet. No less shocking than the torso were the severed arms and legs. “See the two purple bands on the arms?” He pointed to the wrist and upper arm; the skin within the bands looked jagged and ripped as if someone had taken coarse sandpaper and shredded the skin down to the muscle and tendon. “Here we have them on the thigh, calf, and ankle. These abrasions are where the killer tied the victim down with restraints. It’s the most solid evidence that this victim was strapped down and tortured.” He pointed to the Y incision in the torso. “Plus, look at those cuts. They’re jagged, like the victim had struggled. Then there’s the fluid in the lungs, around the heart. The throat is swollen with lacerations from screaming. Rigor mortis set in very quickly, judging from the tension in his muscles. Especially around the jaw.”
    Mason scanned the skin of the torso, arms, and legs. “Aside from the obvious, I don’t see any other outward signs of torture,” he said.
    “I didn’t find any,” Treborn said. “No lacerations, puncture wounds, or burns.”
    Mason had a sickening feeling he knew the answer to his next question. “Then how was he tortured?”
    Treborn pulled the sheet up to cover the limbs. “My guess, he was cut open while he was still alive and without anesthesia.”
    They all turned slowly to look at the silently screaming corpse.
    Treborn continued, “He was sliced open, his ribs cut from his sternum with heavy shears, then extended out with retractors. The same procedure you’d perform for an autopsy, but on a living man. His intestines were surgically removed. The killer left the heart and lungs intact so as not to kill him, though I venture to guess the victim was half-dead, unconscious, or out of his mind by that time. The arms and legs were removed, each one with surgical precision. That’s how he finally died. Exsanguination—he was allowed to bleed out. The killer fixed the cloth mesh to prevent the rest of the organs from falling out, so he could hang the torso by the head to drain the rest of the blood. He did that carefully, but there is a slight abrasion on the victim’s neck.”
    “Any clues to his identity?” Wolski asked.
    “He was uncircumcised, so we can rule out Jewish or Muslim, and since a higher percentage of American males tend to be circumcised, the odds are he was European. He was at least middle class, from the dental work. Plus he had an appendectomy. He wasn’t a laborer, by the condition of his hands, though he has some pronounced arthritis in his lower back and hips. Also, he does show the onset of malnutrition.”
    Mason cursed under his breath.
    “That’s good, isn’t it?” Wolski said. “That he’s not American? I for one am glad this crazy fucker’s not hunting Americans.”
    Mason shook his head. “It also means that Colonel Walton is going to put this case on the low-priority pile.” He turned to Treborn. “So, with the malnutrition he’s probably a middle- or upper-class German who wasn’t a combat soldier or laborer.”
    “Or a displaced person or ex–concentration camp inmate, though then he would have shown signs of long-term malnutrition or abuse. And you can’t rule out other Europeans. There were plenty of experts in various fields brought in from Nazi-occupied France, Holland, Belgium, Sweden . . .”
    “We can dangle that idea in front of the colonel to keep him from burying this case,” Wolski said.
    “Regarding your suspect,” Treborn said, “I can tell you that he knows human anatomy and surgical and autopsy techniques. He is not your man off the street. You might be looking at a doctor, nurse—anyone with specific medical expertise. I’ll write up a full report and send it to Colonel Walton tomorrow. I sent samples to the toxicology lab in Frankfurt, but I doubt there will be anything relevant to your