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guard. Across from them, an ambulance was perched on the courthouse curb, along with the ME’s van and more police cars than Griffin could count. Providence, state, marked, unmarked, even one belonging to Brown University’s campus police. Apparently if you wore a badge, you were now part of this party.
    Griffin shook his head. He pushed his way through the swelling crowd of city gawkers as a young officer in a Providence uniform and slicked-back black hair spotted him from across the street and jogged over to meet him.
    “Sergeant!”
    “Hey, Bentley. Imagine meeting you here.” Bentley played softball with Griffin’s younger brother, Jon. For the record, the state’s team had creamed their corn three years in a row.
    Bentley pulled up in front of Griffin, looking a little jazzed. Griffin didn’t blame him. In all his years, he hadn’t seen anything like this. He kept thinking he’d stepped out of his car into LA. All they needed now was a movie producer hawking film rights on the nearest street corner.
    “I’m first responder,” Bentley said in a rush. “I was across the river on patrol. Heard the rifle crack myself and stepped on the gas. My God, you shoulda seen the press. I thought they were gonna scale the courtyard fence to get more photos. We spent the first five minutes just getting them under control, never mind looking for the shooter.”
    “No kidding?” First responder. Griffin was suitably impressed. “You’ll be the stuff of legends,” he assured the young Providence cop as he headed across the street with Bentley in tow. “So what do we got?”
    “One down, Eddie Como, DOA at the scene. Shot was fired shortly after eight-thirty A . M . as he was unloaded from the ACI van. According to initial reports, it was a rifle shot from the roof. Five, ten minutes later, an explosion came from the RISD parking lot.”
    “Car bomb?”
    “Fire marshal isn’t saying anything yet, but between you and me, five cars are wrecked, so I’m guessing that’s a safe bet.”
    “Fatalities?”
    “Don’t know. Scene’s too hot. I saw what looked like an arm, though, so there’s at least one victim. Plus there’s the, well . . .”
    “Smell,” Griffin filled in for him.
    “Yeah.” Bentley swallowed heavily.
    “Uniforms searching the area?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Stopping anyone with an overcoat?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Any luck?”
    “No, sir.”
    Griffin nodded. “Yeah, your arm probably belongs to a guy who used to be good with a rifle. Didn’t anyone ever tell him there’s no honor among thieves?”
    “Sounds like the Mafia,” Bentley volunteered.
    Griffin shrugged. “What does the Mafia care about the College Hill Rapist? Dunno. One thing at a time. I gotta go here. Keep us posted on the search, okay?”
    Griffin had arrived at the yellow crime-scene tape. Across the street, several of the reporters spotted him and a fresh shout went up.
    “Sergeant, Sergeant—”
    “Hey, Griffin!”
    Griffin ignored them, focusing instead on the state uniform posted outside the yellow tape. Griffin didn’t recognize the female officer, who was now asking his name, rank and badge number for the crime-scene logbook. Of course, in eighteen months, some things were bound to change. He told himself that was all right, though the thought left him feeling uncomfortable. Work was work. Just like riding a bike. He ducked beneath the tape.
    Inside the enclosed courtyard, he saw several things at once. The blue ACI van pulled over to the left, doors still open and the interior emptied out. Three gray-clad state marshals standing to the right, talking to another Major Crimes detective. A strung-out row of blue- and khaki-suited prisoners still shackled together and now seated on the ground. In the middle was a really big pool of blood, topped by what was left of Eddie Como’s body. The guy shackled to the left of Como’s body was covered in blood and brains and sat in stunned silence. The guy to the right was