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slightest detail. In a career that often involved micromillimeters and particulates of evidence, he was well suited for his job.
    Rodriguez pointed at Logan’s shoes, aghast. “Slipcovers. Why won’t you ever put them on?”
    “Sorry, Henry, I don’t carry them around with me in the car. Anything useful?”
    Rodriguez shook his head, annoyed. “Always something useful. Just have to find it. This place is loaded with fingerprints. Whether they belong to any of the killers, I don’t know.”
    “Killers? As in more than one?”
    “I’d say two. Outside the door you’ll find two different shoe prints in the garden soil. From the depth of the prints, I’d say they took off running down the back steps and jumped. Two distinct imprints; one looks to be a tennis shoe, I’d guess a size eight. The other is a boot. Bigger. Size twelve. Given the imprint, that person was heavier. ”
    “Could one of them be the victim’s?”
    “I doubt it. They’re fresh.” Rodriguez pointed in the direction of the victim. “He has no mud on his shoes, and he’s wearing loafers, a ten and a half. But we’ll cast the impressions and compare them with other shoes we find in the house.”
    “What else do you know about him?”
    “Not my area, Logan.”
    “Humor me. Nooch says you told her a neighbor called it in.”
    “Apparently, the guy was a law professor at Seattle U. The neighbor knocked on his door this morning to get coffee. When he didn’t answer, she figured he’d forgotten. She got down the block and saw his car and thought that maybe he was in the shower or something. So she came back and knocked louder. When he still didn’t answer, she thought it odd and went to get a key he gave her.”
    “Key? She a girlfriend?”
    “Not unless it’s a
Harold and Maude
type thing,” Rodriguez said.
    “A what?”
    “
Harold and Maude—
you know, the movie. It’s a cult classic. A twenty-year-old kid falls for an eighty-year-old woman.”
    “I think I’ll pass. I just ate.”
    “Whatever. Apparently, the victim and the neighbor exchanged keys in case one got locked out—a neighbor thing. She said she opened the door, stepped inside calling his name, and saw his legs on the floor. She thought maybe he’d fainted until she got close enough to see the blood.” Rodriguez paused, considering the body. “Heard they’ve reached the guy’s sister.”
    Logan sighed. “I don’t envy her.”

8
    D ANA GRIPPED THE edge of the desk, holding on.
    “His neighbor found him. She called the police.”
    “No,” she said. “I talked to him yesterday.” Her body started to shake. “I did. We were going to have lunch. I had to cancel—”
    “—Dana. Dana?”
    “Yesterday. I talked to him last night.” Her legs gave way. She collapsed into the chair, dropping the telephone to the floor.
    “Dana? Dana, are you there? Dana?”
    A hollow ringing echoed in her ears. Her office swirled about her, unfamiliar. The walls collapsed inward, shrinking like a visual effect, sucking the air from the room. She couldn’t breathe. She felt the floor vibrate, and with that came a harsh reality. The door to her office burst open. Crocket stepped in, berating her. “Do you think we can get on with the meeting? This is reflecting very poorly on the entire business…”
    She looked at the phone dangling by its cord.
    James is dead.
    Crocket’s needling voice jabbed at her, and she hated him more at that moment than she ever had. She hated him because Marvin Crocket represented reality. This was not a nightmare. She would not awake. This was real. The pain gripping her chest exploded from her like a shock wave from the center of a blast. In a burst of fury she shot from the chair, flipping the desk as if it were a balsa-wood fake. Clutter and computer equipment slid off its face, crashing to the floor with a resounding thud.
    H OURS AFTER SHE had rushed from her office in a daze of grief and a fog of disbelief and despair, Dana sat staring at