Sam Purdy was sitting on the hood of my Land Cruiser when I finally made my way down to the hospital parking lot.

He didn’t seem to expend a single calorie of energy as he eyed my long approach across the mostly empty lot. I said, “Hey, Sam.”

“I was hoping you would come down pretty soon. I was about to page you. How is she?”

“Hard to say, she’s still not talking. These latest developments don’t help the situation, I’m afraid. She seems even more entrenched than before.”

“Is Brenda up there with her?”

“Not yet. Wait, look, there she is now.” Across the parking lot, Brenda Strait was walking deliberately, with long strides, toward the hospital entrance, her hands in the pockets of a long gabardine trench coat. Her head was down.

“I didn’t want to run into her in Merritt’s room; that’s why I’m down here. It would be too goofy for the kid, I think, given the water that’s already passed under the bridge in this nutty family.”

“Yeah, I understand. Maybe it’s best for now. Merritt actually seemed incredulous when I told her that her mom had called you for help.”

“The kid is sharp. Maitlin’s on the case, right? That’s okay with her?”

“Who knows what’s okay with her? But he’s definitely on the case. He’s working already, putting things in place. He’s good, Sam.”

“I know he is. That’s why we called him.”

“Merritt’s going to be arrested, Sam? That’s for sure?”

He stared at me, not even comfortable with the words I was speaking. His voice suddenly rusty, he said, “Let’s get in the car.”

I unlocked the doors and we climbed in.

“Merritt’s…up shit creek. The gun in her bathroom is registered to Dead Ed. It’s missing two rounds. Everybody is assuming the blood on her clothes is Dead Ed’s blood. You can’t know this,” he paused to be certain I understood, “but we collected, oh, I don’t know, about a dozen good latents from Ed’s house that we haven’t been able to match to anyone. If any of those belong to Merritt, well, I don’t have to paint you a picture.”

“When will it all be clear?”

“The forensic team will get some of it packaged overnight. The prints and advanced blood work will take longer. Since Merritt doesn’t drive yet, I don’t think they will have any file print comparisons for her. While they dot all the i’s, someone will watch her hospital room. Is there a cop there yet?”

“No, not yet. Will there be?”

“Soon, I think. She’s in a relatively secure place. She’s not a flight risk. But she’s a kid, and that’s always a wild card. We can keep an eye on her as long as she’s in the hospital, so there’s no real hurry. The profile on this will be stratospheric, given the fallout from the JonBenet case, given who Dead Ed was, given that Brenda’s a celebrity, and given that Chaney is so sick and so damn cute. Everyone in the department is going to make damn sure the process looks perfectly deliberate and thoughtful. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the DA signs off on the evidence sometime tomorrow, with some fanfare. Then, if I’m reading things right, Merritt will be booked.”

“God, Sam, I’m sorry for what everyone is going through. There’s enough tragedy here for ten families for an entire lifetime.”

“And it’s only starting. The worst news could be yet to come for both of these kids. And now I have to go home and tell Sherry.”

I glanced over. He was opening and closing his right fist. “You want to tell me about that part? About what happened with Sherry and Brenda?”

“No, not now. Some other time.”

I didn’t press. “Who’s investigating this-Merritt’s situation? In the department?”

“The Dead Ed team. It’s part of that case. Maybe it’s the whole Dead Ed case.”

“Whew,” I said. “That means Malloy?” Scott Malloy was the detective who, the previous autumn, had arrested my wife for attempted murder and directed a search of my house. I had a lot of feelings about him, not all of them enthusiastic.

“I know you’re not crazy about him, but I’m glad it’s Malloy, Alan. It could be worse. He’ll work it up fair. He’s still trying to make amends for what happened with Lauren. And he has kids. I think that will help. It should be somebody who has kids.”

“What about motive, Sam? Does anyone have a clue why Merritt would do this?”

“You know, nobody’s there yet, as far as I know. That will come last. At first, I wondered about burglary. Sometimes these adolescent girls get into goofy stuff, especially when they’re together. But I checked their house real carefully for signs of stashed valuables. I didn’t find anything. Maybe she has a partner in crime who has all the stuff stashed. If that’s the case, it’ll surface. Scum always does.”

I asked, “Have you talked to Brenda to get names of Merritt’s friends?”

“Yeah, already did that.” He readjusted the ventilation vents, which weren’t blowing any air.

I said, “I’m going to see one of them tomorrow. A girlfriend named Madison.”

“Is this part of therapy? Or can you tell me what you find out?”

“I think I can tell you what I find out.”

“Good. What’s this button do?” He pointed at the dashboard.

“Rear speakers.”

“My car doesn’t have any. Merritt’s been under a lot of pressure lately. The whole family has. You know that. Doesn’t excuse anything, but still.”

I said, “Yeah, I know, still. Did Brenda call John while you were at the house?”

“She said she did. She went into the bedroom to do it, though. I didn’t hear anything.”

“I have to talk with him some more. It looks like I may have to go to Denver to do it.”

“John’s all right.”

I said, “What about the suicide note we found on that little computer? What about that?”

“What about it?”

“If Dead Ed killed himself, there’s no crime. Merritt’s clean.”

“Alan, use your head. There are two gunshots in the victim, not one. No weapon was found on the scene. There’s enough evidence-even for an L.A. jury-in my niece’s bedroom. The note is easy enough to fake.”

“I didn’t memorize it, Sam. But it seemed authentic enough to me. I mean, a fifteen-year-old faking that?”

“Maybe, why not? She’s bright.”

“Were her prints on the computer?”

“We don’t have good comps, remember.”

“Were anyone’s prints but his on the computer?”

He didn’t answer me, but his eyes said, “No.”

“Wouldn’t her prints be on the keyboard? If all those other prints you guys collected were hers, wouldn’t hers be on the keyboard, too?”

He placed the pad of a thumb under each of his nostrils and forced air into his nose, clearing his ears. “I know. I know,” he said. “It’s screwy. I told you that from the beginning. It’s goofy.”

“Sam, anything else seem not right to you tonight? I mean, did anything strike you as particularly odd?”

“Other than finding my niece’s clothes covered with somebody else’s blood and a gun in her bathroom? No, nothing else seemed odd at all.”

“Brenda didn’t seem strange?”

“Come on, Alan. Everything involving this family and Brenda and Sherry is strange.”

“Sam, would there have been any reason for Brenda to know Ed Robilio?”

“I’m the last one to ask. I don’t know who they know in town. Sherry has never even seen the inside of her sister’s house. But given Brenda’s line of work, she could know just about anybody, couldn’t she?”

“I guess.”

“Where are these questions coming from? You know something I should know?”

“I’m not sure where I’m coming from. When I first saw the gun in the bathroom tonight, I immediately thought about picking you up for the Rangers game yesterday and going into that house and seeing…the dead doctor. I ran off at the mouth a little about that with Brenda-” I could tell he was about to reprimand me. “Don’t, Sam. And I told her that there was an unsolved shooting that had just been discovered in town and told her who the victim was, and I got the impression, when I said that his name was Edward Robilio, that she knew him.”