Collier kept grinning. ‘We’re just having fun, Officer.’ He winked at her. ‘But you should know I got kicked out of Girl Scouts for eating some Brownies.’

Ng guffawed, and Faith rolled her eyes as she walked away.

‘Red,’ Will told the detectives. ‘Everybody calls her Red. She’s a crime scene tech, but she gets in the way a lot, so keep an eye on her.’

Collier asked, ‘She seeing anybody?’

Will shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Not a bit.’ Collier spoke with the extreme certainty of a man who had never been rejected by a woman. He gave Will a cocky salute. ‘Thanks for the four-one-one, bro.’

Will forced his fists to unclench as he walked toward Amanda. Faith was heading into the building, probably to get out of the heat. The red-haired woman was signing herself into the crime scene at the front gate. She saw Will and smiled, and he smiled back, because her name wasn’t Red, it was Sara Linton, and she wasn’t a crime scene tech, she was the medical examiner, and it was none of Collier’s and Ng’s God damm business what matched where because three hours ago she had been underneath Will in bed whispering so many filthy things into his ear that he had momentarily lost the ability to swallow.

Amanda didn’t look up from her BlackBerry when Will approached. He stood in front of her, waiting, because that’s what she usually made him do. He was intimately familiar with the top of her head, the spiral at the crown that spun her salt-and-pepper hair into a helmet.

Finally she said, ‘You’re late, Agent Trent.’

‘Yes, ma’am. It won’t happen again.’

She narrowed her eyes, dubious of the apology. ‘That odor in the air is the smell of shit hitting the fan. I’ve already been on the phone with the mayor, the governor and two district attorneys who refuse to come out here because they don’t want the news cameras capturing them anywhere near another case involving Marcus Rippy.’ She looked down at her phone again. The BlackBerry was her mobile command post, sending and receiving updates from her vast network of contacts, only some of them official.

She said, ‘There are three more satellite trucks on their way here, one of them national. I’ve got over thirty emails from reporters asking for statements. Rippy’s lawyers have already called to say they’ll be handling all questions and any indication that we’re unfairly targeting Rippy could lead to a harassment lawsuit. They won’t even meet with me until tomorrow morning. Too busy, they say.’

‘Same as before.’ Will had been granted exactly one sit-down with Marcus Rippy, during which time the man had remained almost completely silent. Faith was right. One of the more galling things about people with money was that they really knew their constitutional rights.

He asked Amanda, ‘Are we officially in charge or is APD?’

‘Do you think I would be standing here if I wasn’t officially in charge?’

Will glanced back at Collier and Ng. ‘Does Captain Chin Cleft know that?’

‘You think he’s cute?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say—’

Amanda was already walking toward the building. Will had to trot to catch up with her. She had the quick gait of a Shetland pony.

They both signed in with the uniformed officer in charge of access to the crime scene. Instead of going inside, Amanda made Will stand just out of reach of the shade so that the sun would turn his skull into a kiln.

She said, ‘I knew Harding’s father when I was a rookie. Senior was a beat cop who spent his money on whores and the dog track. Died of an aneurysm back in eighty-five. Left his son his gambling habit. Dale took a medical retirement that ran out two years ago. He cashed out his pension earlier this year.’

‘Why was he on medical leave?’

‘HIPAA,’ she said, referring to the law that, among other things, barred cops from making doctors tell them intimate details about their patients. ‘I’m working some back channels to get the information, but this isn’t good, Will. Harding was a bad cop, but he’s a dead cop, and his body is lying inside a building owned by a man we very publicly could not put away for rape.’

‘Do we know if Harding has any connection to Rippy?’

‘If only I had a detective who could figure that out.’ She turned on her heel and walked into the building. The electricity was still off. The interior was dank and cavernous, the dark tinted windows giving the space a ghostly cast. They both slipped on shoe protectors. Suddenly the generators roared to life. Xenon lights popped on, illuminating every square inch of the building. Will felt his retinas flinch in protest.

There was a cacophony of clicks as Maglites were turned off and stored. Will’s eyes adjusted to find exactly what he expected to find: trash, condoms and needles, an empty shopping cart, lawn chairs, soiled mattresses—for some reason, there were always soiled mattresses—and too many spent beer cans and broken liquor bottles to count. The walls were covered with multi-colored graffiti that went up at least as high as a person’s arm could reach with a can of spray paint. Will recognized some gang tags—Suernos, Bloods, Crips—but for the most part there were bubbled names with hearts, peace flags and a couple of gigantic, well-endowed unicorns with rainbow eyes. Typical raver art. The great thing about ecstasy was that it made you really happy until it stopped your heart from beating.

Ng’s description of the layout was fairly accurate. The building had an upstairs atrium that opened to the bottom floor like in a shopping mall. A temporary wooden railing ringed the balcony, but there were gaps where a less careful person might get into trouble. The main floor was huge, multi-tiered, with concrete half-walls designating private seating areas and a large open space for dancing. What was probably meant to be the bar arced around the back of the building. Two grand, curved staircases reached to the second floor, which was at least forty feet up. The concrete stairs hugging the walls gave the impression of a cobra’s fangs about to bite down on the dance floor.

An older woman wearing a yellow hard hat approached Amanda. She had another hard hat in her hand, which she gave to Amanda, who in turn gave it to Will, who in turn set it on the floor.

The woman offered no preamble. ‘Found in the parking lot: an empty clear plastic bag with a paper label insert. Said bag contained at one time a tan canvas tarp, missing from the scene. The tarp is Handy brand, three-feet-seven by five-feet-seven, widely available.’ She paused her tired drone to take a breath. ‘Also found: a slightly used roll of black duct tape, outer plastic wrap not yet located. Weather report indicates a deluge, this vicinity, thirty-six hours previous. The paper label on the tarp bag and the edges of the tape do not show exposure to said weather event.’

Amanda said, ‘Well, I suppose we have a window at least, sometime over the weekend.’

‘Canvas tarp,’ Will repeated. ‘That’s what painters use.’

‘Correct,’ the woman said. ‘No paint or painter’s tools have been located inside or outside the building.’ She continued, ‘The stairs: both sets are part of the scene and still being processed. Found so far: items from a woman’s purse, what looks like tissue. The guts kind, not Kleenex.’ She pointed to a scissor lift. ‘You’ll need to use that to go up. We’ve put out a call for an operator. He’s twenty-five minutes out.’