‘Yeah, well, those night classes really help.’

Dr Rambachan cocked a brow at him, then smiled again. ‘I think you are joking. Very good.’

And then he was all business, slipping on a pair of latex gloves and crouching next to the body. ‘I’m going to turn this dear lady over now, and I must warn you, it might be difficult to look at. She has been dead for some time, and I’m sure you know that blood pools where gravity takes it…’ – he searched their faces, and added – ‘and uncirculated blood eventually turns black.’

They knew it, and Anant knew they knew it, but even with the warning, Gino recoiled when he saw Rose Kleber’s splotchy, blackened face.

They watched and waited for about a thousand years while Dr Rambachan did the on-site, punctuating the silence with an occasional observation, but there was nothing particularly strange about any of it, except for the fact that someone had gunned down an elderly woman in cold blood, in her own home, while she was watching TV.

Gino, who’d never quite achieved Anant’s or even Magozzi’s level of comfort with corpses, started to fidget. ‘Where’s the cat?’ he finally asked. ‘Jimmy said he got a lot of cat hair. That must mean there’s a cat somewhere.’

Dr Rambachan looked up. ‘I have not seen a cat.’

‘Wonder if the family took it home? What if they forgot?’

Magozzi gave him a wry glance. ‘Gee Gino, I don’t know. It’ll probably starve to death. Better go look for it.’

‘That’s just what I was thinking…’

‘This is curious,’ Dr Rambachan mumbled, stopping Gino in his tracks just as he was about to make his escape.

The doctor pushed back onto his heels and pointed to the inside of Rose Kleber’s arm. ‘Take a look, gentlemen.’

Gino and Magozzi both got closer than either of them wanted to, squinting as they tried to make out the details of a marking that was nearly obliterated by discoloration.

‘It would appear that this lady was also in a concentration camp, just as Mr Morey Gilbert was.’

‘Damn,’ Gino said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.’

‘Detectives?’ One of the crime-scene techs stepped in from the kitchen. ‘Might be just a coincidence, but I thought you’d want to know.’ He held up a small address book with a faded floral cover. ‘She’s got Morey Gilbert’s phone number in here.’

12

Jack Gilbert was sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the nursery parking lot, a cooler full of beer at his feet. Some customers actually took him up on his offer of free Bud, but most gave the man in the pink sunglasses and neon yellow shorts a wide berth.

Marty stormed over for the third time in the past two hours, but now he was dragging a heavy-duty garden hose behind him, brandishing the power-wash attachment like a gun. ‘Come on, Jack. Get up. Time to relocate.’

‘Don’t aim that thing, ’less you mean to use it,’ Jack drawled with a lopsided grin.

‘Don’t tempt me. Jesus, what the hell is the matter with you? You’re scaring the customers.’

Jack peered up at him from behind pink lenses. ‘I’m not scaring anybody. In fact, I’m probably boosting sales by ten percent. I’m telling you, you get somebody buzzed and they buy twice as much. See that fat guy over there, the one with the sweat stains down his back? He came to buy a few basil plants, but after a couple brewskies, I convinced the son of a bitch to buy a whole flat so he could make pesto. Best part is, I don’t think he knows what pesto is.’

‘Just what are you doing here, Jack?’

‘Well, gee, Marty, I don’t know. I always thought relatives were supposed to get together and support each other when they were grieving, but now that I think of it, that was pretty dumb since it sure as hell didn’t work that way the last time somebody in this family got murdered.’

Martin felt as if he’d taken a hammer to the gut. Every sober moment of every single day he saw his wife bleeding to death in his arms; but seeing it and talking about it were two different things.

Jack eyed his expression with bleary interest. ‘Christ, Marty, what do you think? That if we never mention Hannah was murdered she’ll be less dead?’

‘Shut up, Jack.’

‘Oh-h, I get it.’ Jack was gesturing with his can, sloshing beer all over the place. ‘Hannah’s another one of those things this family never talks about, because if you don’t talk about it, it never happened, right? Well fuck that. Fuck all of you, because Hannah happened. Hannah was here, and it’s too goddamned bad you all want to forget about her, because she was the only Gilbert worth a shit.’ He pushed his silly pink sunglasses down his nose and glared defiantly up at Marty. ‘And you’re not the only one who misses her.’

And that was the one thing about Jack you had to remember, Marty thought. He was loud, obnoxious, in-your-face, and possibly the most irritating human being on the planet – but he loved unconditionally, even though few ever loved him back – and Hannah he had loved most of all.

Marty let out a long-suffering sigh. ‘Where’s Becky?’

‘Becky, my wife? You mean the one no one in this family has ever met? Well, I think she’s getting Botox injections in her armpits today. Keeps you from sweating, did you know that?’

‘You know what I mean. Why isn’t she here with you?’

‘You mean like, loving wife supporting grieving husband, that sort of thing? Well, first of all we’re not talking, which precludes her being supportive in any way; and second of all, Lily would probably shoot her if she ever set foot on the property; and third of all, frankly, Becky just doesn’t give a shit.’

‘Oh. Sorry, Jack. I didn’t know it wasn’t working out.’

‘Hell, don’t be sorry, Marty. I got exactly what I wanted from this marriage. So did Becky, for that matter. You should see her new boobs.’ He popped open a new beer and drained half the can.

‘You sure you should be doing that, Jack? I thought you were supposed to be in court this afternoon.’

He shrugged. ‘No big deal. It’s just this stupid bicycle messenger who claims he got whiplash when a UPS truck hit him. Weasel-faced bastard. He sees deep pockets, and suddenly he broke his fucking neck.’

‘So you’re blowing off court? Jesus, Jack, you’re going to get yourself disbarred.’

‘They’re not going to disbar me. They can’t. I’m on grief leave. My father was murdered, for chrissake… man, that is just too bizarre, isn’t it? I mean, the guy was almost eighty-five and I kind of expected him to keel over one of these days, but Jesus. Shot in the head? Who could see that coming? So what do you think, Marty? Got any ideas, any clues? Anything we can work with here?’

‘Just let the cops handle it, Jack.’

‘Well, hell, Marty, you are a cop.’

‘Ex-cop.’

‘Don’t give me that. Once a cop, always a cop. It’s in the blood, or something. I’ll bet that little gumshoe brain of yours is going about a hundred miles an hour trying to figure this out. So who do you think did it?’

‘I haven’t really thought about it.’

‘That is such bullshit.’

‘No, it’s not, Jack. I haven’t thought about it.’

Jack tried focusing on him for a long moment. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you? He was your father-in-law, for chrissake. Aren’t you at least curious?’

Marty took three seconds to examine whatever feelings he had left, and decided no, he wasn’t curious at all. ‘It’s not my job, Jack.’

‘Right you are, Marty. It’s not your job. It’s just your goddamned family, is all.’ He turned away, disgusted. ‘Christ. You’re even more fucked-up than I am.’

‘You want to ease up on the language a little, Jack? There are nice people here.’

Jack snorted. ‘You want to ease up on the holier-than-thou shit a little, Marty? There are smart people here, and they can see right through it… hey, you!’ He waved his beer can at a woman examining flowers at one of the outdoor tables. ‘Yeah, you in the tent dress! You want to stop fondling those pansies? And then come on over here, meet the biggest fuckstick on the planet.’