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contamination. Fingerprint powder covered every surface that could take it, in three unbecoming colors: white, black, and gray. She moved into the living room, where two detectives were working on the phones.
    "Anything?" she asked. They ignored her.
    She looked around. The furniture in the living room was slick, shiny, and new, now messy with fingerprint powder. Here a Chinese influence was evident. Differ-ent-sized antique lacquer boxes were displayed on the tables. Silk brocade pillows with themes of old China were neatly arranged on the chairs and sofas. A green-and-white bamboo-patterned fabric covered the sofas. In the middle of the black lacquer coffee table sat a large bowl filled with real pink peonies. The smell of the peonies was strong enough to cover even the powerful odor of police sweat.
April realized with a start that the flowers had just recently been put there: only a few of the blossoms were fully open. A rack by the sofa looked as if it had been hastily stuffed with magazines. She could see no Asian ones. Heather Rose stocked up on Vogue, Bazaar, House Beautiful, Bon Appetit. They were current and didn't have address stickers. That meant she'd bought them on the stand within the last three weeks. Did brand-new mothers usually care so much about fashion and food? There were no magazines about babies.
"Guess she's not the Good Housekeeping kind of woman," Baum remarked. He'd noticed, too.
April caught sight of a wedding photo in a highly polished silver frame. Though not a classic Chinese beauty, the bride looked stunning in an off-the-shoulder, slim-fitting satin wedding gown with a long train. The groom, standing behind her, was not much taller than she. He was hidden from the waist down by the train on her dress. In the photo their cheeks were touching, and they had dreamy expressions on their faces, as if they were stoned.
April found the first signs of a baby in a room that looked like an office that had been halfheartedly turned into a nursery. A desk with a computer and papers (now gritty with fingerprint powder) sat against one wall, a swiveling leather desk chair in front of it.
Beside it, a bookcase filled with books for adults was covered with more powder. The white crib was placed by the window overlooking the park. The curtains on the window were office tweed; they hadn't been changed for the baby. Maybe she hadn't known it was coming.
The elaborate crib was new and clearly expensive. There was a changing table nearby, but nothing much was on it—an empty box of diapers, a container of baby powder. April opened the diaper pail. A strong odor of a poopy diaper jumped out at her. April felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She was all keyed up, the way she got when there was a homicide and all her emotions and adrenaline were charging up at once. Fear that she'd mess up and ruin her career and thus her whole life, anger at what had been done to the victim, passion for justice, for revenge against the perpetrator; the sight of a crime scene did that to her.
Heather Rose's being a victim didn't go down well with her at all. Chinese were good mothers, were famous for adoring their children except in certain circumstances—like extreme poverty, or if the babies happened to be girls—when they killed them. Paul Popescu, however, wasn't a girl, and the family was rich, not poor. And they weren't in China. And quite possibly the baby was adopted. There was no reason for a woman like Heather Rose to have killed him.
Suddenly April was aware of a small ghost in the room with her. April did not believe in ghosts the way her mother and other old-style Chinese—and even Mike's Mexican mother—did. She knew that ghosts were just an invention to scare people and make them honor their ancestors. All the same, something that felt like a ghost flew by her ear. Then it circled around and flew back, hovering in one place and beating at the air around her head to get her attention. April shivered as the