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O’Hara, his head down, shoulders slumped, and with his hands stuffed in his overcoat pockets, didn’t speak. His face showed a mix of intense concentration and a certain sadness. He motioned with a nod for Matt to follow him to the house.

Just shy of the concrete steps, O’Hara stepped around a yellow-stained melted spot in the snow on the sidewalk.

“That’s mine,” he said, his voice a monotone.

Payne looked at it.

Mickey threw up.

And, judging by the direction of his shoe prints, after he’d left the house.

He’s seen a lot over the years. Not much bothers him.

But it can and does happen to all of us.

He followed O’Hara up the three concrete steps—and immediately saw bloody tracks across the worn paint of the wooden porch. They had an aggressive waffle pattern, suggesting they had been made by heavy boots, for either work or hiking, and they led out from the front door. He could see that the wooden front door was open about three inches, with no evidence of any forced entry.

O’Hara, stepping carefully around the bloody prints, stopped at the door.

He looked back at Payne.

“This is how I found it.”

There was a glass pane in the upper third of the door. A beige lace curtain, knocked from its mount, hung at a crooked angle. As Payne stepped closer, he got a larger view of the interior beyond the lace.

“Jesus,” Payne said softly.

He felt his stomach knot, and understood how O’Hara had succumbed to the nausea.

“Yeah. Jesus.”

Payne looked at O’Hara.

“You went in, Mick?”

O’Hara nodded.

“I know it’s a crime scene,” he said. “But, yeah, the second I saw Emily there I had to. The door was unlocked. When I got closer to her, it was clear she had been long . . . gone . . . and then I turned and saw Tim’s body. They both already had livor mortis—that is, from whatever blood they had left.”

Payne knew, courtesy of Doc Mitchell’s impromptu lectures during postmortem examinations, that when blood stopped circulating in the human body, gravity took over. The blood settled, and the skin color changed. Even through the window, he could see the distinct pooling pattern on her body, the lower flesh much darker than the light purple of the upper skin. He further knew that rigor mortis, the stiffening of the muscles, occurred about three hours after death, and took place before the heavy pooling.

Payne

pulled out his cellular phone.

O’Hara put up his hand, palm out. Payne raised his eyebrows at the gesture for him to stop, and said, “What?”

“Before you call in the medical examiner, I want to ask a favor, Matty.”

Payne met his eyes.

“Sure, Mick. Name it.”

“You work this case personally. Own it.”

Payne slowly nodded. “Okay. Sure. Want to tell me why? I know he worked for you, but . . .”

O’Hara narrowed his eyes, said, “Because you get it,” then motioned with his head for Matt to follow.