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following. He winced at the sight of too many cooks spoiling the broth. There were at least a dozen people in an eight-hundred-square foot space, astronomically increasing the odds of crime scene pollution. He did a quick reconnoiter with Nancy on his heels, and amazingly no one stopped them or even questioned their presence. Front room. Old-lady furniture and bric-a-brac. Twenty-year-old TV. He took a pen from his pocket and used it to part the curtains to peer through each window, a procedure he repeated in every room. Kitchen. Spic-and-span. No dishes in the sink. Bathroom, also tidy, smelling of foot powder. Bedroom. Too crowded with chattering personnel to see much except for plump dead legs, gray and mottled, beside an unmade bed, one foot half inside a slipper.
    Will bellowed, "Who's in charge here?"
    Sudden silence until, "Who's asking?" A balding detective with a big gut and a tight suit separated himself from the scrum and appeared at the bedroom door.
    "FBI," Will said. "I'm Special Agent Piper." Nancy looked hurt she wasn't introduced.
    "Detective Chapman, Forty-fifth Precinct." He extended a large warm hand, the weight of a brick. He smelled of onions.
    "Detective, what do you say we clear this place out so we can have a nice quiet inspection of the crime scene?"
    "My guys are almost done, then it's all yours."
    "Let's do it now, okay? Half your men aren't wearing gloves. No one's got booties on. You're making a mess here, Detective."
    "Nobody's touching nothing," Chapman said defensively. He noticed Nancy taking notes and asked nervously, "Who's she, your secretary?"
    "Special Agent Lipinski," she said, waving her notebook at him sweetly. "Could I get your first name, Detective Chapman?"
    Will suppressed a smile.
    Chapman wasn't inclined to get territorial with the feds. He'd rant and rave, waste his time and wind up on the losing end of the proposition. Life was too short. "All right, everybody!" he announced. "We got the FBI here and they want everyone out, so pack up and let them do their thing."
    "Have them leave the postcard," Will said.
    Chapman reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a white card inside a Ziploc bag. "I got it right here."
    When the room was clear, they inspected the body with the detective. It was getting toasty in there and the first whiffs of decay were in the air. For a gunshot victim, there was surprisingly little blood, a few clots on her matted gray hair, a streak down her left cheek where an arterial gush from her ear had formed a tributary that tracked down her neck and dripped onto moss-green carpet. She was on her back, a foot from the floral flounce of her unmade bed, dressed in a pink cotton nightdress she had probably worn a thousand times. Her eyes, already bone dry, were open and staring. Will had seen innumerable bodies, many of them brutalized beyond recognition of their humanity. This lady looked pretty good, a nice Puerto Rican grandma whom you'd think could be revived with a good shoulder shake. He checked out Nancy to gauge her reaction to the presence of death.
    She was taking notes.
    Chapman started in, "So the way I figure it--"
    Will put up his hand, stopping him in mid-sentence. "Special Agent Lipinski, why don't you tell us what happened here?"
    Her face flushed, making her cheeks appear fuller. The flush extended to her throat and disappeared under the neckline of her white blouse. She swallowed and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. She began slowly then picked up the tempo as she assembled her thoughts. "Well, the killer was probably here before, not necessarily inside the apartment but around the building. The security grate on one of the kitchen windows was pried loose. I'd have to take a closer look at it but I'll bet the window frame is rotted. Still, even hiding in the side alley, he wouldn't have gambled on doing the job all in one night, not if he wanted to make sure he hit the date on the postcard. He came back last night, went into