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excitement.
    When they had photographed everything up to the back door, Cardinal went in, followed by Delorme and the coroner.
    “The heat’s off,” Cardinal said. “Owners would turn it down, not off—first big freeze, the pipes are going to burst.”
    The dead, two of them, were seated at the dining room table, on opposite sides, fixed in the moonlight as if in conversation. Cardinal felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. He turned on the lights and moved closer to the bodies, looking at one then the other. One male, one female, both hideously foreshortened, both dressed in beautiful fur coats, one sable, one mink.
    “First thing,” Cardinal said, “we have a holdback.” He pointed to the knife handle sticking out of the dead man’s back. “Let’s keep the knife to ourselves for the moment.”
    Various grunts of agreement from around the room. Collingwood took a few shots close up. Arsenault had remained outside to continue recording exterior evidence.
    Cardinal checked the man’s pockets for ID, Delorme checked the woman’s. Nothing.
    “Nobody’s pockets are that empty,” Cardinal said. “No keys, no change, no receipts.” He knelt to pull leather gloves from all four of the victims’ hands. The skin had the same hue as that of a frozen turkey. He didn’t want to look above the shoulder line on either of them, where their faces should have been. “Who are they?” Cardinal asked of the room at large. “Anybody know?”
    “Ruth and Joseph Schumacher.” It was Neil Dunbar who spoke. He was coming in through the kitchen, plump in his paper hood and coveralls. “I looked them up in the reverse directory before I hopped in the car. They’ve owned the place for twenty years.”
    “That doesn’t mean it’s them,” Cardinal said. Dunbar was new on the CID squad, young, and what their detective sergeant liked to call self-motivated.
    Cardinal moved toward a country pine buffet with framed photographsall over it. There was a picture of a couple standing in front of the house in summer.
    “The woman in the picture is wearing a simple wedding band, same with the man. These two,” Cardinal said, pointing at the four dead hands, “are a little more flashy, wouldn’t you say?”
    Dunbar moved forward and peered at the hands. “That doesn’t mean it’s
not
them.”
    “Also, her skin. This person is a lot younger than the woman in the picture.” He pointed at their feet. “The man’s wearing shoes. Why isn’t she?”
    “Took ’em off at the front door,” Delorme said. “Expensive pair of leather boots for her, galoshes for him. I’d say these are not the people who broke in the back door.”
    “What do you think his wingtips cost? Three hundred? More? Not a cop, obviously.”
    The coroner, Dr. Beasley, was done in ten minutes. He scribbled on a form, tore off the top sheet and handed it to Cardinal. “Preliminary finding of foul play. You’re going to need everything Toronto has to offer.”
    “That’s it?”
    “All I can give you on time of death is more than eight hours, less than forty-eight. You’re going to have to get ’em on the table in Toronto to narrow it down. The knife in the back was post-mortem, as was the trauma to the neck.”
    “That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen a coroner leave,” Delorme said when he was gone.
    “Guess he didn’t like the atmosphere,” Cardinal said.
    Delorme turned her attention to bullets, perhaps unconsciously keeping her back to the two dehumanized shapes. There was a slug embedded in the wall behind the male, another under the sideboard. She made out marker cards for Ident to photograph.
    Collingwood was examining the corpses, going over the fur coats with the concentration of an ape grooming his mate. Cardinal was contemplating the table, trying to make sense of the set-up. Three shot glasses. A bottle of Stolichnaya.
    “Judging by the position of the bullets,” Delorme said, “it looks like they were shot by someone sitting