"No traces of explosives detected in the scene exam or signs of burning or trauma on the pieces recovered so far," Conan reports immediately. "And we won't know if it's the murder weapon until the lab tests are done, but our victim was definitely dismembered with something approximating a large knife."

"It seems a small distinction -- but the chances that the victim was dismembered after death is high. A struggling victim would make it harder to produce the clean cuts we saw -- that cloth?"