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TV trays that served as end tables, the dirty laundry overflowing from a plastic milk crate in the corner, the kitchen cupboard littered with dishes and crumpled fast-food bags.
    Then there was Dirk himself . Chewing his fritter with his mouth open. Slouching in his frayed T-shirt and jeans that been washed in hot, hot water too many times and had shrunk to at least three inches above his bare ankles. He was in desperate need of a pedicure... even if it was done with gardening shears.
    She loved Dirk. He was a dear, sweet, gruff, teddy bear of a guy who had been her closest friend for years now.
    But she didn’t want to see it all.
    “You’re just too much man for little ol ’ me,” she said with an exaggerated Southern lilt and a down-in-Dixie grin that deepened her dimples. “If I were to take you on, you’d spoil me for all the other men to come.”
    He nodded his head solemnly, continuing to chew. “That’s true,” he said. “I would. Good point.”
    As she joined him on the sofa with two clean mugs full fresh coffee in hand, she decided to jump right in her Proverbial, verbal mud puddle with both feet. No matter how much sugar and caffeine he had careening through his bloodstream, he wasn’t going to be overjoyed with her news.
    Dirk loved investigating a case. But once he had filed it away, he hated nothing more than to have to resurrect it.
    He spared her the awkward gambit. “So, why did you show up here at this ungodly hour to bribe me with donuts ?“
    “Bribe you?” Her blue eyes widened, black lashes fluttered, dimples deepened. “Now why... after all the favors I’ve done for you ... some very recently... would I have to bribe you with donuts, just to get you to do me one small favor ?”
    He choked down the mouthful of pastry he was chewing and took a loud slurp of coffee. “Oh, man... let me get out my hip boots. It’s piling up deep in here.”
    “Just one itty-bitty favor ?”
    “How itty? How bitty?”
    “Okay, it’s a biggy . I want you to reopen Kat Valentina’s investigation.”
    He stared at her, glazed sugar trembling on his chin. “Now, why the hell would I do that?”
    “Because last night I found this shoved under my door.” She handed him the note. After he had read it, she shoved the envelope full of money into his hand.
    “Damn,” he muttered, doing a swift count. “And you get to actually keep this?”
    “I guess so, if I can figure out how she was murdered and by whom.”
    He sat for a long time, fingering the bills and studying the note. Savannah could almost hear those mental cogs turning. Dirk might be a slob, but when it came to criminal investigation, the guy was no slouch.
    “All right,” he said. “I’ll talk to Dr. Liu, see if there’s anything we missed. Captain Bloss ain’t gonna be happy about it, though. He thought the whole thing was wrapped up nice and neat.”
    Savannah gave him a saccharine grin. “Now, that’s too bad. Because we both know how much that dear man means to me.”
    Like a true friend, Dirk’s eyes glimmered with hatred for the man who had ousted Savannah from the force. “Yeah, I know how much love you have for him,” he said. “You’d be happy to see him with an apple in his mouth, roasting on a spit.
    Savannah grinned at the fantasy. The apple was a nice touch; sometimes, Dirk had a real way with words. She had always thought of Bloss as a guy with porcine qualities. “Sounds good to me. But only if I can turn and baste him.”

    Savannah looked into Tammy’s eyes, with their long, fluttering Bambi lashes, and thought sadly that the young woman seemed to have lost some of her innocence in the past thirty-six hours. And if she followed Savannah into that autopsy suite, she was going to lose even more.
    They stood outside in the morgue hallway with its calm— to the point of depressing—blue-gray walls and gray-blue carpeting. Assorted abstract paintings completed the placid surroundings, studies of blue on gray and