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result of shock as deliberate falsehoods.
    In the dead woman’s office, Osey was lifting prints. Susan didn’t have to worry whether he’d miss anything. He always dusted everything that could take prints and many that could not. To Osey, collecting prints was right up there with singing in the church choir for having a good time. The voice of her former boss in San Francisco sounded in her head. You will never lose a case by collecting and preserving too much evidence. You can lose—badly—by making a premature decision that a certain article or mark is unimportant or unworthy of your attention.
    She wanted every article and every mark noted and examined; she wanted no mistakes, nothing overlooked, no foul-ups that could allow the bastard to get away with it.
    â€œWhere’s Parkhurst?” she asked.
    â€œOut scouting the garage.”
    Across the hall, she stood in the doorway of an examining room and looked around. From the crumpled paper drape on the table, this was obviously where Dr. Barrington had taken Jen. The doctor must have left the room, walked toward her office, and been shot. Why had she left? Someone called to her? She heard something? And Jen? Did she hear the shot and run out?
    Just past Dorothy’s office, the hallway turned right and led to an outside door.
    The shooter, standing at the right-angle turn, could have fired twice and been out that door in three or four seconds.
    The door opened to a parking garage, small, with space available for about ten cars, empty except for the white Buick near the door. Dorothy Barrington’s, most likely.
    Ben Parkhurst, a compact man with a hard face and dark hair, stood at the far end of the garage, fingertips in the back pockets of his jeans. He’d been off today too, until the phone call rousted him, and he’d come in with a lightweight sports jacket thrown on over a blue knit shirt. He was talking with another man, but when he noticed her he gave a nod, and both men walked over to her.
    â€œThis is Murray Kreps,” he said, and introduced her to the slight man with thinning gray hair, wearing tan pants and a brightly flowered shirt.
    â€œMa’am.” Murray nodded at her. “Terrible thing. What’s this world coming to? Drug addicts all over the place. Nobody safe anywheres. That what it was? Some addict thinking a doctor’s office is a good place to find drugs?”
    â€œMurray takes care of maintenance for the building,” Parkhurst said.
    â€œWas Dr. Barrington a good person to work for?” she asked.
    â€œDr. Dorothy, you mean? They’re all Barringtons. Except for that Wakeley fellow. Pretty good bunch. Dr. Dorothy was the head of things.” He nodded firmly. “You might say she was good to work for. Long as things went smooth. Fair. Can’t say better than that, can you? Could get all riled if anything went wrong.”
    â€œHow long have you worked here?”
    He wrinkled his forehead. “Must be going on for fourteen years now.”
    â€œAny trouble lately?”
    â€œTrouble?”
    â€œViolent patients,” Parkhurst said. “People hiding in the building after hours. Break-ins.”
    â€œJust the one time.”
    â€œWhat happened?” she asked when he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
    â€œIntruder, I guess you’d call it. Would have been last week.” Murray scratched his scalp through his sparse gray hair. “Maybe the week before. Working late, she was. Dr. Dorothy. Did that sometimes. Door was still unlocked. That one right there.” He nodded toward the garage entrance.
    â€œWho was it?”
    â€œCan’t say I got a look at him.”
    â€œIt was a man?”
    â€œWell, now you ask, I’m not right sure of that. She was just finishing up, getting ready to leave, and there was this somebody coming along the hallway. She shouted at him. I was way off on the other side of the building, and I came