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hat revealed a missing hair plug near the part and a professionally repaired neck split. P.J. sighed and noted both flaws in writing.
    Next came a geranium-lipped, cinnamon high-color AG wearing Disc Date. A rhinestone button on the fuchsia skirt was missing, but the white lace blouse was still crisp and vibrant. She had pinpricks near her ankles, but because the floor-length skirt covered them, she wouldn’t need to be redressed.
    The white plastic helmet on Miss Astronaut popped off to reveal a silver-ash blond, high-color, side-part AG with a tan skin tone. Her flag, space suit, and boots were mint-colored. P.J. elected not to remove her outfit to see her legs. Instead, she gently bent them to hear the requisite three clicks.
    A beautiful, pale blond, low-color side-part wearing Poodle Parade had all her accessories—tote bag, trophy, and dog show award—baggied and tied to her wrist with an olive ribbon.
    “Darling, are you a side-part too?” P.J. already knew she was, but was reveling in the fact she had picked up more than a few of these harder to find AG Barbies.
    “Let me see your eyes,” she said.
    P.J. removed the doll’s sunglasses to view her perfectly painted blue irises. A faint rub on one eyelid required documentation, even though it was barely discernible.
    “You know I really don’t need to be wearing a scarf when I’m wearing a hair band,” Miss Poodle Parade complained, her British accent stronger with her umbrage.
    P.J. removed the pink scarf.
    “I can fix that for you, darling,” she said, untying the baggie from her wrist and opening it. She flattened the scarf, which had been knotted beneath the doll’s chin, and slipped it inside the Ziploc. The turquoise hair band clashed with the olive sheath and diamond-patterned knit coat, but P.J. could always redress her another time.
    “Much better,” Miss Poodle Parade said, sounding as chipper as Mary Poppins.
    P.J. laid her back down after inspecting her legs.
    “Are you talking to yourself?”
    The voice seemed to come from nowhere.
    It took P.J. a moment to register that it was not part of her reverie.
    She looked up and saw a carrot-topped man in a red and white football jersey staring at her through the chain-link of the gated stall.

9
    The crime scene in Oswego, New York, had been broken down into two locations: the Grace vehicle parked at SUNY Oswego and the Grace home, mere blocks away.
    When police arrived and cordoned off the parking lot, the only two cars present were the remains of the Graces’ white Saturn and, ten spaces away, a putty-colored Mitsubishi Diamante that had been dinged, dented, and marred by flying debris. Beyond the perimeter, administrative personnel and students stood in the snow, most without coats, hats, and boots, trying to piece together what had taken place.
    After photos had been taken, emergency personnel arrived and extricated Mike from the driver’s side of the Saturn. Since the passenger door had flown off and hit the stop sign on the corner, it was easier to remove Gayle.
    “That’s Mike and Gayle!” a woman shouted from beyond the perimeter. Through the shattered car window, the woman saw fragments of the dark blue pinstripe suit and crimson and dark blue tie he had worn that day, now charred to his skin. The diamond tack he stuck in his tie had been blasted off and was now embedded in the crumpled and fragmented car hood.
    Mike’s ear and cheekbone were partially intact, but graying dark hair hung like a washrag from his skull. Gayle’s face was entirely gone, but fragments of the pale yellow, high-collared blouse and white bra she’d worn that day were stuck to her shoulder blades. Some of her blond-streaked hair was stuck to the headrest, and a gold button earring she’d been wearing blinked in the harsh sunlight, yards away.
    The thick, wet snowfall had slowed as the police formed a perimeter, but gathering evidence was still difficult.
    Martin Phillips was concentrating on