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for Schroder and for every drunk cop here. In a sober condition, any of them would know being here was a mistake, but that’s the problem with drunk people—they make bad decisions. Sober, everybody knows they shouldn’t drink and drive, but when you’re drunkit never seems such a bad idea. That’s what landed me in jail last year.
    The retirement community is full of units that are almost small houses but not quite, the roofs all black, the walls painted the same color as Bambi. The creative imagination behind the whole complex could have been shaped by Lego. There are millions of flowers everywhere just the way old people like them, only the flowers are in their final days before the cold weather robs them of life. There’s a connection between plants and the elderly—as soon as you turn sixty it must be compulsory to like roses and rhododendrons. The only thing I can see to stop burglars breaking in on a daily basis is the fact there isn’t much to steal except record collections and memories and clothes swinging in and out of fashion.
    “Sir?” one of the officers asks, walking over to me. He’s young looking and nervous and this may or may not be his first crime scene, but it’s definitely one he wishes he wasn’t here for. “You look to be about the only detective here who’s not half-wasted.”
    I don’t even have to think about it. I start nodding. “Tell me what we’ve got,” I tell him.
    I follow him to a unit where two other officers are standing outside. There’s a front porch and a swing chair and the whole thing is soaking wet. On a nice day maybe the old folks sit out here and sip lemonade and talk about the war, talk about how far Christchurch has slipped, talk about the good ol’ days. The officers are talking to a guy in his eighties who looks pale, who has probably sat on this porch countless times in the sun but what he discovered half an hour ago drained the tan right out of him. A second guy, this one thirty years younger, has to keep wiping at the rain dripping from his fringe. He’s shorter and rounder and doesn’t need a name badge to tell me he’s in some administration role here at the home, probably the manager. He’s seen dead bodies before—you don’t get to work in thiskind of place without witnessing your fair share of death—but no doubt what’s behind door number one is death of a different variety, death of the sort that requires crime scene tape and latex gloves and people looking for clues. Death like that often comes with the need for a mop and bucket. Best anybody can hope for is it comes with answers.
    I follow the officer and duck under the tape and step onto the porch, the wooden decking slightly soft under my feet. Schroder calls out to me but I don’t wait. I can hear all the detectives talking back by the cabs, all of them trying to figure out just who should be working, their voices becoming louder as they talk over each other deciding who should stay and who should go, Schroder having the final say over all of them.
    “This is exactly how we found it,” the officer tells me. He keeps wiping at the back of his neck at an itch that won’t leave. “Doors were closed. TV and lights were on.”
    “You touch anything?”
    “Just the door handle,” he says. “But the guy who found the body probably touched a whole lot more.”
    “Somebody needs to get a cordon set up,” I tell him. “Nothing coming in from the street, and get some manpower into the fields out there to make sure nobody comes that way either, but tell them to be careful—for all we know the killer may have gone that way and left something behind. Biggest problem right now is the media. If they come here and see that,” I say, nodding toward the rowdy mob by the vans as another cab pulls up, “the unemployment rate in this city is going to rise tonight.”
    “Yes sir.”
    I step inside. The house is small enough that it doesn’t mess around with having a foyer or hallway