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And then Elliot proceeded to do what we’d always done, which was dump them both in a giant bowl, because we’re monsters who like to adulterate our chip flavors.

I reached in and grabbed a handful. “You know this shit is terrible for us, right?”

He shrugged, snagging a chip. “I’m a shifter and you’re an underfed elf. We can take it.”

I snorted and ate a Dorito. “I think we can still get scurvy.”

“I’ll eat an orange tomorrow.”

I was about to make another smartass comment when the doorbell rang.

“Sounds like your detective is here.”

He hadn’t so much as blinked, so I knew he’d heard the car.

“You just like to watch me jump. That’s why you didn’t say something earlier.”

Elliot smirked. “What can I say? You elves are twitchy.”

I flipped him off as I headed down the hallway to answer the door.

Smith was standing on the other side, staring down at one of the uncovered beds.

“Did you want a dead rosebush?” I asked him.

“That what he was working on when they hit him?” he asked, not bothering to say hello. And Ward says I’m a fucking downer.

“One of them, yes.”

“Did anybody do anything to them?”

“The dead roses?”

“The beds. Or the roses, I guess.”

“Not that I know of,” I replied honestly.

He nodded, then stepped off the front stoop to crouch next to the one nearest the path leading up to the front door, staring down into the dirt and mulch. Then he pulled a pencil—unsharpened—out of his coat pocket to poke at something. “You got your phone on you?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“It has a better camera than mine. Come take a picture of this.”

I walked up behind him, bending down to try to get a glimpse of whatever he was poking at.

“Sonofabitch,” I breathed.

Just in front of the pencil’s eraser was another tiny white button, the same semi-opalescent white as the one from the office. “This looks an awful lot like your button.”

“He lostbothof them?” That seemed a bit much to me.

“Sure. He’s got to pick up the body, throw it over a shoulder. So he’d be a big guy. Crane wasn’tthattall at five-ten, but it takes some bulk to throw around an unconscious man. His collar’s sticking up out of his shirt, and it pulls out the button.”

“And the other button?” I asked, impressed by the scenario Smith had just outlined, even though I knew it was hypothetical.

“Maneuvering a body into hanging position? Especially if he starts waking up, there’s going to be lots of opportunities to hit the other one. And if it’s an old shirt, the threads are already frayed… easy enough to lose both of them.” He looked up at me. “And then you don’t notice because you’d seeonemissing button, but when it’s two, it’s still symmetrical.”

“So you’re going to run around checking people’s shirt collars?”