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way.
    The killer’s.

17
     
SAN MATEO, SAN FRANCISCO
     
    Jade and Amber are playing Swingball on the lawn when Mitzi pulls up. They’re belting the roped ball at each other and splitting their sides laughing as it lashes back around the centre pole and they swipe at nothing.
    ‘I’ll play the winner,’ shouts their mom, as she carries a bunch of flowers from her car towards the back door of her sister’s house.
    ‘It’ll be me,’ boasts Jade.
    ‘No way,’ Amber adds a Williams-sisters grunt to her backhand return.
    Mitzi finds Ruth in the kitchen chopping vegetables. Red, yellow and green peppers cover a butcher-block island. ‘Hi honey, I’m home!’ she jokes.
    The look on her sister’s face confirms her suspicions that this is going to be a tense meeting. ‘I brought you some flowers. Lilies – of some kind. I don’t know which, but they’re pretty.’ She offers the bunch of purple, pink and cream trumpets.
    ‘They’re Longiflorum and Aurelian hybrids. Thanks.’ Ruth opens a cupboard door, brings out a vase with a wide fluted neck and fills it three-quarters with water. ‘You were out early this morning.’
    ‘Yeah. First day at work had my head spinning.’ Mitzi takes a beat then plunges into the big request. ‘They want me to go to Washington to help on a murder. Would you mind looking after Jade and Amber for a couple days, till I get back?’
    Ruth looks around for scissors. ‘When do they want you to go?’
    ‘Kinda now. Late flight tonight, gets me there at stupid o’clock in the morning.’
    She finds the scissors in the dishwater, cuts the flower stems at a slant and drops them into the vase. ‘I saw you.’
    ‘Saw me where?’
    ‘Last night, with Jack. I saw you both.’
    Mitzi turns cop and goes on the front foot. ‘
And
?’
    ‘Huh, is that all you can say?
An
d
?’
    ‘
An
d
’s a reasonable question —’
    ‘It’s not a question; it’s a conjunction.’ She slams the scissors down on the marbled worktop. ‘I saw Jack pawing you.’
    Mitzi waves a dismissive hand. ‘He was drunk, Ruth. Men paw when they’re drunk. They paw anything. Shit, if you’d had a dog and it had been up on the back porch instead of me, he’d have most likely pawed the hound instead.’
    ‘I didn’t just
see
you – I heard you as well.’
    ‘Good. Then, you heard exactly what I said to him. I told him he was drunk and should behave. That was it. Nothing happened and I went to bed.’
    ‘Nothing? You threw him at the wall.’
    ‘Yeah, well, he’ll live.’ She moves towards her sister. ‘Don’t make too much out of this. Man plus drink equals something stupid. Every time.’
    Ruth is in a bad place, doubts circle her marriage like buzzards over road kill. ‘I heard him say how he’d always liked you.’ Her voice slips towards a sob. ‘Liked you more than me and —’
    ‘Jeez, Ruthy, give this up!’ Mitzi holds her by the shoulders. ‘When guys are juiced, they say all kinds of shit. You know that. It’s a lesson learned on prom night and remembered every time you walk in a bar or club. Right?’
    She nods. ‘Still, it’s best you go. I’ll look after the girls while you’re away, but when you come back, I don’t want you staying here. I want you out, Mitzi. I’ll pay for a motel – anything – but I don’t want you under my roof again, not anywhere near my husband.’

18
     
ROCK CREEK TRAIL, MARYLAND
     
    Soil falls in clumps from the corpse as the ME’s team lift it out of the shallow grave and rest it respectfully on a thick plastic sheet.
    Irish squints to get his first full look at the vic. He has dark hair and is well-built. He’s dressed in a blue linen jacket, faded denims, a white T-shirt with the word DIESEL across the chest and ankle-length suede boots. His skin has been paled by death – dried out, cracked and creased by mud and earth.
    Cherrie Archer, the examiner who worked Amir Goldman’s case, uses a soft brush to clear insects from dead eyes. She