‘So I am a. suspect.’ He seemed almost flattered.

‘You were out of uniform last night.’

‘I leave the collar home when I work at the neighborhood clinic. I donate my time three nights a week. Mostly bandaging cuts, dispensing aspirins – that kind of thing.’

She looked up from the camera so he would have no trouble reading distrust in her eyes. ‘I want names. Who can vouch for your time – say an hour before the fire?’

‘The nurse who runs the clinic. We were leaving together when we heard the fire engines. Is this – ’

‘When did you talk to Sparrow last?’

‘Sunday, but I didn’t – ’

‘Did she mention any enemies? Somebody out to get her?’

The priest shook his head.

‘No? You don’t know or you won’t say? Want to lawyer up, Father? You have the right to an attorney during – ’

‘That’s enough, Mallory.’ Riker rose from the pew, acting the part of an annoyed superior. ‘Go check out his story.’

She walked down the altar steps, passing her partner as he climbed upward in dead silence. Riker was already departing from the script. There was nothing amiable in his face as he squared off in front of the priest. Mallory stayed to watch.

‘I know you tried to get access to that crime scene,’ said Riker. ‘My witness is no old lady. He’s a big hairy fireman.’

‘Yes, he must be the one who told me Sparrow was dead. Well, she’s Catholic. She was entitled to last rites.’

‘The fireman said you knew her name before the cops identified her. You knew that was her apartment. So you’ve got what – two hundred people in your parish?’

Father Rose wore a slightly pained expression. He understood that this was a test. ‘I recognized her face when – ’

‘So you had a good view of the show, right? Front row – close to the window. Notice anything unusual?’

‘The hair jammed in her mouth?’ The priest was rallying, almost smug. ‘No, too obvious. That made headlines, didn’t it?’ He folded his arms. ‘You must mean the candles. I don’t recall any mention of them in the newspaper.’ Father Rose waved to a nearby alcove that housed a plaster saint and a few small flames burning among tiers of candles. ‘Like those. Yes, I saw them in the water.’ His smile was wider now. ‘But Sparrow’s were red. Mine are white.’

So Father Rose had failed to notice a thousand dead flies spread on the water. At least one crime-scene detail was secure.

The priest was smiling, triumphant.

‘Having fun, Father?’ Riker moved closer, forcing the other man to back step. ‘Sparrow is a friend of mine, and I’m not enjoying this much. So do me a favor and stop grinning at me.’

Father Rose’s head snapped back, as if the detective had sucker-punched him – and he had. Riker backed off a few paces to reward the priest’s more somber attitude. ‘Maybe we have a religious connection. How would you explain all those candles?’

‘Well, they weren’t for ambience.’ And lest Riker take this for humor, the priest hurried the rest of his words. ‘All the lights were on in Sparrow’s apartment before the firemen broke the – ’

‘Why do you light candles?’

‘Ritual.’ The man was not so sure of himself anymore. ‘Burnt offerings. A light in the darkness. Hope?’ This last word waned to a whisper as he watched the detective descend the stairs.

Riker’s back was turned to the priest when he asked, ‘Did you know Sparrow was a prostitute?’

Mallory watched the priest’s stunned reaction. He opened and closed his mouth like an air-drowned fish. And she knew he could tell them nothing more, not even if he violated every secret of the confessional. Sparrow had never confided in him. The two detectives walked down the wide center aisle, then paused at the sound of running footsteps.

The priest called out, ‘Wait!’ He hurried from statue to statue, lighting all the wicks. ‘Just another minute. Please.’ He lit every candle on the altar as well. ‘I’m sorry.’ The priest walked toward Riker. ‘So sorry. Sparrow is a special person to me.’ His face showed deep contrition. ‘She has a good heart – better than most. She’s better than she knows.’

Riker nodded and cracked a smile, raising his opinion of this man who could admire a whore.

‘And I was wrong about the ambience,’ said the priest. ‘Maybe that 15 your angle. Candles make for great theater – even when all the electricity is turned on. Look around you.’

Candles flickered beneath the crucifix. The man on the cross writhed in an illusion of lights. And all along the wall, flames beneath the other figures created animation, action – actors.

‘Thank you, Father.’ And Mallory meant that. His idea was worth consideration, but from a different angle. What if religious candles had the same significance as a jar of dead flies?

CHAPTER 7

Autopsy – autopsia - seeing with one’s eyes.

When Mallory was a child, she had learned her essential Latin from Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope.

A refrigerator and sinks gave the doctor’s dissection room the character of a large kitchen. Long tables were laid with tools for slicing and dicing meat. A small metal platform the size of a butcher block held intestines in a shallow tray, and another body part lay in the bed of a hanging scale. Dr Slope called out the weight, then switched off his recorder. ‘Hello, Kathy.’

‘Mallory,’ she said, correcting him as she always did. She approached the steel table and looked down at the gutted remains of a woman her own age. A wide red cavity ran from the breast bone to a mound of blond pubic hair, and the smell of chlorine mingled with the reek of meat gone bad.

Hoc es corpus. This is the body.

Today she had missed these words that began every autopsy, but now she watched the process in reverse. A few organs had been set aside. The parts that would be buried with Kennedy Harper were being returned to her hollowed-out corpse. Mallory leaned down for a closer examination of small holes in the cadaver’s flesh. ‘What’s this? It looks like a shotgun splatter.’

‘That’s from the maggots exiting the dried-out skin.’ He picked up his magnifying glass and held it on the area above the collar bone. ‘You see? The rims of the holes are turned out.’ One bloody, gloved hand pointed to ravaged skin at the cadaver’s throat. ‘Now this is more interesting. The rope did lots of damage here, but the killer wasn’t responsible for it.’ He watched her face and waited for the student to ask the master, Why not?

If she encouraged him in this old game, it would take forever to glean a few simple facts. The doctor was determined to continue her education, and he was too fond of long lessons. So she waited him out, arms folded, blinking only once before he gave in.

‘The damage was self-inflicted.’ He turned his eyes down to the work of coiling the large intestine. ‘This woman was very cool under pressure.’

That sounded like another contradiction, but she recognized an old logic trap. No, I’m not going to ask.

As Dr Slope finished stitching skin to close the gaping wound, he shifted his tactics, offering Mallory a bizarre piece of candy. ‘You’ll never attend another autopsy like this one.’ And with this hook, he led her over to the steel counter by the refrigerator, where he wadded his bloody surgeon’s gown and tossed it into a barrel with his gloves.

‘I’ve seen a lot of hanging victims, mostly suicides, but nothing like this.’ He sorted through a group of photographs. ‘Normally, I find a ligature mark at the back of the neck where the knot is.’ He selected a picture of the victim’s face, taken when the rope was still caught between her teeth. ‘But this woman was facing the knot. Now I never expect a classic hangman’s noose. It’s usually a slip knot.’

‘I know.’ She kept her sarcasm to one syllable, a subtle reminder that she had been present when the noose was removed. ‘This one was a double knot. Heller already – ’