"That's a bunch of bullshit!" Marino hurled rude words in her face.

"Captain, you stay out of this," Bray fired back at him.

"You're the one who needs to stay out of it," he raised his voice.

"Deputy Chief Bray," I said, "the law of Virginia states that the medical examiner shall take charge of the body. The body is my jurisdiction:'

I finished my photographs and met her cold, pale eyes.

"The body is not to be touched, altered or in any way interfered with. Am I clear?" I said again.

I pulled off my gloves and angrily threw them into the red bag.

"You have just cut this lady's heart out evidentially, Deputy Chief Bray."

I closed my scene case and latched it.

"You and the prosecutor are gonna get along real good on this one;" Marino added furiously as he pulled off his gloves, too. "This kind of case is what's called a free lunch:'

He poked a thick finger at the dead woman as if it were Bray who had slaughtered her.

"You just let him get away with it!" he yelled at her. "You and your little power games and big tits! Who'd you fuck to get where you are?"

Bray's face went livid.

"Marino!" I grabbed his arm.

"Let me tell you something."

Marino was out of control, yanking his arm away from me, breathing hard like a wounded bear. `This lady's beat-up face ain't about politics and sound bites, you goddamn-motherfucking-bitch! How'd you like it if it was your sister? Oh hell! What am I saying?" Marino threw his talc-dusted hands up in the air. "You wouldn't know the first fucking thing about caring about anybody!"

"Marino, get the squad in here now," I said.

"Marino's not calling anyone." Bray's tone had the effect of a metal box slamming shut.

"What are you gonna do, fire me?" Marino continued to defy her. "Well, go right ahead. And I'll tell all the reporters from here to fucking Iceland why."

"Firing's too good for you," Bray said. "Better you continue to suffer out of service and without pay. Dear me, this could go on a very, very long time."

She was gone in a flash of red, like a vengeful queen on her way to order armies to march in on us.

"Oh, no!" Marino called after her at the top, of his voice. "You got it all wrong, babe. Guess I forgot to tell you l fucking quit!"

He got on his radio and raised Ham to tell him that the squad needed to get in here as my mind streaked through formulas that weren't computing.

"Guess I showed her, huh, Doe?" Marino said, but I wasn't listening.

The burglar alarm had gone off.at seven-sixteen and now it was barely nine-thirty. Time of death was elusive and full of deceit if one wasn't careful to account for all of the variables, but Kim Luong's body temperature, liver mortis, rigor mortis and the condition of her spilled blood weren't consistent with her being dead only two hours.

"I feel like this room is shrink-wrapping me, Doc:' "She's been dead at least four or five hours," I said.

He wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve, eyes almost glassy. He couldn't stay still and kept nervously patting the pack of cigarettes in his jeans pocket.

"Since one or two in the afternoon? You're kidding me. What's he doing all that time?"

His eyes kept going to the doorway, waiting to see who would fill it next.

"I think he was doing a lot of things to it," I said.

"I guess I just fucked myself pretty good," Marino said.

Shuffling feet and the clacking of a stretcher sound from inside the store. Voices were muffled.

"I don't think she heard your last diplomatic comment;" I answered him. "Might be smart if you leave it that way."

"You think he might have hung out as long as he did because he didn't want to walk out in,broad daylight with blood all over his clothes?"

"I don't think that was the only reason," I said as two paramedics in jumpsuits turned the stretcher sideways to get it through the door.

"There's a lot of blood in here;" I told them. "Go around that way."

"Geez," one of them said.

I took the folded disposable sheets off the stretcher and Marino helped me spread one of them open on the floor.

"You guys lift her a few inches and we're going to scoot this sheet right under her," I instructed. "Good. That's fine."

She was on her back. Gory eyes stared out of shattered orbits. Plasticized paper rustled as I covered her with the other sheet: We lifted her up and zipped her inside a dark red pouch.

"It's getting icy out there," one of the paramedics let us know.

Marino's eyes darted around the store and then out the door into the parking lot where red and blue lights still strobed, but the attention had significantly waned. Reporters had, dashed back to their newsrooms and stations, and only the crime-scene technicians and a uniformed officer remained.

"Yeah, right," Marino muttered. "I'm suspended but you see any other detective here to work this thing? I ought to just let everything go to hell."

We walked back to my car as an old blue Volkswagen Beetle turned into the parking lot. The engine cut so abruptly the clutch popped, and the driver's door flew open and a teenaged girl with pale skin and short dark hair almost fell out, she was in such a hurry. She ran toward the pouched body as the paramedics loaded it into the ambulance. She raced toward them as if she might tackle them.

"Hey!" Marino yelled, going after her.

She reached the back of the ambulance as the tailgate slammed shut. Marino grabbed her.

"Let me see her!" she screamed. "Oh, please let go of me! Lei me see her!"

"Can't do that, ma'am," Marino's voice carried.

The paramedics swung open their doors and jumped in.

"Let me see her!"

"It's gonna be all right."

"No! No! Oh, please, God!" Grief tumbled out of her like a waterfall.

Marino had her from behind, holding tight. The diesel engine rumbled awake and I couldn't hear what else he said to her, but he let go of her as the ambulance drove away. She dropped to her knees. She clamped her hands on both sides of her head and stared up at the icy, overcast night, shrieking and wailing and crying out the slain woman's name.

"KIM! KIM! KIM!"

25

Marino decided to stay with Eggleston and Ham, also known as the Breakfast Boys, while they connected the dots with string at a scene where it wasn't necessary. I went home. Trees and grass were glazed with ice, and I thought all I needed now was б power outage, which was exactly what I got.

When I turned into my neighborhood, every house was dark, and Rita, working security, looked-as if she were holding a sйance in the guardhouse.

"Don't tell me," I said to her.

Candle flames wavered behind glass as she stepped out, pulling her uniform jacket tightly around her.

"Been out since about nine-thirty," she told me, shaking her head. `That's all we ever get in this city is ice."

My neighborhood was in a blackout as if a war were going on, and the sky was too overcast to see even a smudge of the moon. I could barely find my driveway and almost fell going up my front stone steps because of the ice. I clung to the railing and somehow managed to find the right key to unlock the door. My burglar alarm was still armed because it was on a backup battery, but that wouldn't last longer than twelve hours, and outages due to ice had been known to go on for days.

I punched in my code, then reset the alarm. I needed a shower. There was no way in hell I' was going out to my garage to toss my scene clothes in the wash, and the thought of running naked through my pitch-dark house and jumping into a dark shower filled me with horror. Silence was absolute except for the quiet smacking of sleet.

I found every candle I could and began strategically placing them around the house. I located flashlights. I built afire, and the inside of my house was pockets of darkness with shadows pushed back by several small logs with thin fingers of flame. At least the phone was still working, but of course the answering machine was dead.