The lot around the dumpster had been canvassed, but nothing had been found related to the body. Lilly had been hoping to find Dr Sassiwich's clothes, her purse, or anything at all really. But it looked like the dumpster had simply been a convenient place to dispose of the body.
    The construction workers would all need to be interviewed, but preliminary questioning told her nothing new would be found there, either. For insurance reasons, it was common practice to check the dumpsters before the day began. That way, the company couldn't be sued if some bum who decided to spend the night got a bump on the head. Lilly had never considered such a thing. The foreman simply shrugged.
    "You'd be surprised," he had said. "They'll take a shit in one corner of the dumpster, then curl up in the other for the night. If we don't check 'em, we're likely to drop something on their heads."
    It was a reasonable solution to an unreasonable problem. Reflecting on the conversation with the foreman brought a fragment of a spark of an inkling to mind. Lilly wasn't sure what it was, but she knew it was something. She sat in her car, engine running, heat on full blast, as she concentrated on it. After a minute, it came to her.
    "Drop something on their heads," she repeated.
    Looking at the dumpster, she saw the orange chute rising from it, up the four floors of the unfinished building. The foreman had grudgingly cancelled work for the day. The workers hadn't gone through the building yet. The canvass had been cursory, at best, in the building.
    Lilly decided to take another look for herself. Specifically, she wanted to look at the chute. Climbing out of the car, she killed the engine and braced herself against the cold once more. The wind was even more brutal on the second floor of the exposed building.
    Lilly walked from the stairwell to the chute, watching it flutter in the breeze. At the precipice, orange plastic netting stood as the last and only line of defense against falling to the ground below. Lilly put her hand on the cable supporting the net and peered over at the waiting dumpster. It was only a twelve or fifteen foot drop, but the gusting wind felt as though it was tugging at her clothes, trying to pull her out, over the netting. Lilly shivered and backed up a step.
    The chute itself had an opening just above the netting. Semi-rigid flaps covered the opening, intended to keep debris from above from escaping. Lilly examined the flaps and the feeder lip, but didn't see anything but dirt and grime. Pushing the flaps inward, she poked her head into the chute and looked down. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but more dirt and grime was to be expected, and she saw plenty of it. Dark streaks ran the eight feet of the chute below.
    Lilly pulled out of the chute, made her way back to the stairwell, and up to the next floor. The third floor looked a lot like the one below it. The wind seemed ever more vicious the higher she got.
    The opening of the chute here looked nearly identical to the one below. When she pushed the flaps open, she noticed one of them was darker near the bottom. The color was wrong for it to be dirt. It took only a moment for Lilly to make up her mind.
    Lilly let the flaps fall back into place and went to the stairwell. After quickly making her way back down the stairs, she hurried to the forensics vehicle. As the EMTs had done before, two techs sat in the front keeping warm. It took only a minute to explain what she wanted from them, and soon enough they were following her up to the third floor.
    At the chute, she pointed at the flaps. One of the techs pushed them back with a gloved hand. Lilly pointed at the stain. The second tech took a swap from a kit and handed it to the first, who used it to take a sample. The stain was dry, but the techs didn't seem to mind. The second tech took the swab back and placed it into a tube. He added a drop of liquid, waited a few seconds, then added a drop of a different liquid. The swab turned pink almost immediately.
    "Could be blood," he said. "Won't know for sure until it goes through the lab."
    "I know. But if it is, that means she was up here, then dumped through the chute. We need to check this floor for more blood."
    "Unless you saw some obvious pools, that's going to take a while."
    "Then I guess you better get to it. Let me know what you find."
    "You're not going to help?" a tech protested.
    "Are you kidding?" she asked, walking away. "It's cold out here."