Part of my brain was working on autopilot. From force of habit I clasped my hands behind my back—standard procedure at a crime scene, so you don’t inadvertently touch and disturb evidence—and let her lead me around the smear of blood on the floor and toward the body. I mentally braced myself as I turned the corner and the rest of Mama G came into view. She lay face down, arms extended as if she’d still been trying to crawl when she died. Her hands and the outside of her forearms were covered with defensive wounds and her neck had been slashed open from the side. Her white hair was stained with blood, and more wounds marked her back. From the angle and depth of the cuts, I could tell that the fragger who had done this had sliced at her from above and behind—had cut her while she was down and trying feebly to escape. It looked as though the killer had held back, inflicting wounds to cause pain, rather than to kill, until the final blow to the neck. It had been a slow, painful death.