Bowie nodded. "Which brings up the break-in of Caskie Royal's office late last night. Some coincidence, huh? Well, it turns out Royal showed up while the thief was there. The commotion alerted the guard, and he was the one who called the cops, not Royal. I wonder if Royal would have called at all since he wasn't alone. His production manager, Carla Alvarez, was with him. To work, he told me. The guard, when I spoke to him, didn't say a word about it, stayed stone-faced. I haven't spoken yet to Alvarez, but I've seen a picture. I'd guess they were there to visit his sofa.

"Royal was insistent when I spoke to him this morning that nothing was missing, and that he has no idea who it was. He claims his arrival must have thwarted the thief from taking anything."

"I wonder who broke into his office," Sherlock said. "Was it Helmut? Did Caskie Royal figure it out and confront him? Kill him? And then he didn't have time to bury Helmut, so he just dumped him behind the building?"

"Admittedly I've met Caskie Royal only briefly, but to be honest here, I really can't see him obliterating anyone's face, much less chopping off fingers."

"Jingle Bells" played at full volume. Bowie reached into his jacket pocket, came out empty. Dr. Franks pointed to the cell phone that sat atop the cabinet across the room. Bowie grabbed up his cell, frowned at the name of the caller. "Excuse me, I've got to take this," he said, and walked out of the room.

Dr. Franks said, "I know, 'Jingle Bells' is four months early. The thing is, Bowie can never seem to return his cell phone to the right place, like in his pocket. When anyone hears a Christmas carol, they know it's his cell, and can point him to it." She beamed at them as if to say, Isn't he about the cleverest person you've ever met?

Sherlock said, "I gather you work a lot with him?"

"Oh, yes, Bowie makes sure I do all the autopsies under federal jurisdiction in Connecticut."

She pulled the sheet over Mr. Helmut Blauvelt's destroyed face, then stripped off her gloves. "This is a mess. Since you two are here, I realize it isn't even a down-home mess, but a big honking international mess. If I find anything else that could help, Agents, I'll contact Bowie."

"Or us," Sherlock said, and gave her a sunny smile and each of their cards.

When they stepped into the long dim hospital hallway, Sherlock said, "She wishes he were her son. The maternal pride nearly bursts right out of her."

Savich nodded. "Before we left Washington, I spoke to another couple of agents who know Bowie. They both agreed Bowie's building himself a reputation as a real ass-kicker. When he was appointed SAC of the New Haven field office last year, there was a lot of grumbling about bringing in an outsider-an agent from L.A.-rather than promoting from within, complaints of nepotism, which could, as a matter of fact, have a grain of truth, given his family's connection to Valenti, but his record in L.A. was sterling and his record here in New Haven is, to date, quite good."

Sherlock said, "He's not happy we're here, but he's sucking it up, so that says something about him. At the same time, he looks at you like he's sizing you up for combat, Dillon."

"I might oblige him when this is over. Christmas carols," he added, shaking his head. "It seems like he thinks outside the envelope. Bottom line, it's likely he can help us."

Bowie laid his cell phone on a desktop beside him when he finished the call, then frowned, slipped it back into his jacket pocket, and waved them over. "That was Agent Ivan Izbursky from my office. He says the German agent, Andreas Kesselring, is indeed arriving tomorrow. It's confirmed." He paused, looked down at his boots, then back up at both of them. "Look, I know the brass in Washington think I'm too inexperienced to deal with this, but-"

Savich interrupted him smoothly. "What's important is we find out what happened to Helmut Blauvelt. So we put all our respective brains together and we catch ourselves a murderer. Personally, I can't wait to find out why this guy Helmut was sent over here. The three of us will figure it out, and that will tell us why he was killed. And then, Bowie, all of us have more experience."

Bowie let it drop, he had no choice. "I was thinking we could have dinner at Chez Pierre tonight, enjoy the food and speak to the staff who were there last night. I got us a reservation for nine, the earliest available. That okay with you guys?"

"When you made the reservations, did you ask who Blauvelt dined with last night?" Sherlock said. "Seems to me that person could very well be his killer."