'He didn't torture her,' Brinkley said.

The number of stab wounds counts, you know that. Newlin shouldn't get a lighter charge than the average joe.'

Brinkley didn't say anything. Everybody knew who the average joe was.

'Why you stickin' up for this scum, Brinkley? He's a coldblooded wife-killer. Took a butcher knife to a defenseless woman, a drunk who couldn't even fight back.'

'I'm not stickin' up for him,' Brinkley said. 'I think he's a liar.'

Hamburg yawned. I'll let you experts fight this out. I'm going home to bed. I'll open her up tomorrow at noon.' He picked up his bag and trundled off, trailing an assistant. Davis said his good-byes and left with him, and Brinkley wasn't unhappy to see him go.

'Move, people,' he said brusquely, and the remaining techs scattered. One tech looked back resentfully, and Kovich caught her cold eye.

'What my partner means is, "Thanks, everybody, you did a great job. Now good night, happy trails, and y'all come back now, ya hear?"'

The tech laughed, which satisfied Kovich, but Brinkley didn't bother to make nice. He lowered himself to one knee beside what used to be Honor Newlin. She lay on her back with her head tilted into the stupid chalk, her refined features lovely even in death. Her dark blond hair made a silky pillow for her head, and her arms had flopped palms up, slashed with defensive wounds. Blood from the gashes had dripped into the lines of her hand, dribbled between the crevices of her fingers, and pooled in her palms, so that in death she cupped her own blood.

He examined the wounds, a cluster of soggy gashes that rent her white silk blouse. Hamburg had said that most of the bleeding was internal, and Brinkley could see that. He slid his pen from his pocket, leaned over, and pressed open the side of a wound, ignoring the smells of blood, cigarettes, and alcohol that wreathed the corpse. He estimated that the cuts looked of average depth, about four to six inches. It told him the doer was strong, but not too strong, and the angle of attack looked slanted, so the doer was taller than Mrs Newlin. Around six feet tall, maybe? He thought of the silt on the coffee table. Would Newlin put his feet up on a coffee table? Maybe after a few drinks? Surely not during the fight scene he'd described, though.

'Jeez, can you believe this guy?' Kovich said, from the other side of the body. 'Nice house, pretty lady, lots of bucks. So he goes and whacks the wife.'

Brinkley ignored him and scanned the body, which showed no other injuries. He judged it to weigh about 125 pounds, at five-six or so. With the blouse she wore black pants of some stretchy material and they outlined the slim shape of her legs, ending above the ankle. Her shins narrowed to a small anklebone, and she had on pink shoes. He looked twice at her shoes. They had no backs, a low heel, and a tiny strap in the front, but the strap of the right shoe was torn and the shoe lay just off the foot. 'Shoe's broke,' he said, making a sketch, and Kovich nodded.

'Probably ripped it when she fell backwards, like when she was being stabbed.'

'You'd think it would just fall off. The shoe has no back. Stupid shoes.'

'Sexy, though. They do it for me. You know what else

so

I like? I go for those big shoes. What do they call them? Platforms. The ones they wear in porno. I like the white ones with the high heel. Or the red. I love the red.'

'You're a highbrow guy, Kovich.'

'Damn straight.' Kovich knelt closer to the floor and braced himself on his hand. With his butt in the air and his broad nose grazing the rug, he looked like a big dog at play. 'You're about to thank me, Mick.'

'Why?'

'Look.' Kovich pointed beyond the body, on Brinkley's side. In the path of the tech's vacuum cleaner glinted something tiny and gold. It was wedged in the thick wool of the patterned rug, which was why Brinkley hadn't seen it from his angle. Kovich waved off the tech with the vacuum and both detectives leaned closer.

'Wacky-lookin' thing,' Brinkley said. A gold twinkle sat embedded in the swirling Persian paisley. It looked like a tiny piece of jewelry. He looked closer but wouldn't move it until it was photographed. 'What is it?'

'An earring back. My kid, Kelley, loses them all the time.'

'What's an earring back?'

'It's for pierced ears. It holds the earring on. Don't Sheree have pierced ears?'

'No.' Brinkley didn't say more. Someday he'd tell Kovich that he and Sheree had separated. Meantime, he looked at Honor Newlin's head at the same time as Kovich. She still had her earrings on; a single, large pearl on each lobe. He leaned over on his hand, peered behind her ear, and squinted. The left earring back was still on. 'This one's fine. You check the other.'

On his side, Kovich tilted his head like a mechanic under a chassis. 'Okay here, too.'

'So they're not hers.'

'Wrong, skinny.' Kovich righted himself. The body lay between them like a broken line. 'They could be hers, just not to these earrings.'

'Fair enough.'

'See? You're not the only dick in the room.'

'Just the biggest.'

Kovich laughed and stood up, as did Brinkley, hoisting his slacks up with a thumb and giving the body one last going-over. It stuck in his craw that the techs had grabbed the knife. Couldn't leave the murder weapon in place. Had to get it tested stat. That was the problem with a goddamn box job. Everybody rushed around like a chicken and things got messed up. In the most important cases, they should be going the slowest, not the fastest. He looked away in frustration.

At the end of the dining room table sat the two place settings, untouched. It was fancy china, white with a slim black border, and in front of each plate stood wine glasses and water goblets of cut crystal. Brinkley hailed one of the crime techs with a print kit. There should be a Scotch glass, two of them,' he said.

There were two, Detective. They're already bagged. Rick there' – she waved toward a red-haired young man – 'he's got the Polaroids.'

Terrific.' Brinkley wanted to scream. He strode to the redhaired tech, got the photos, and examined them one by one. Shots of the body, from every gruesome angle. Where were the glasses?

There. A crystal tumbler lay on its side next to the body, with liquor spilling out like a dark snake. Three separate views. Another Polaroid of a matching tumbler shattered on the parquet floor. Five photos of it. Brinkley glanced automatically at the floor. It had been swept up. 'Goddamn it!' he finally exploded.

'What'sa matter?' Kovich asked, appearing at his side.

They fucking collected the broken glass! I wanted to see where it fell!'

'You got the pictures, and they'll test everything. You know that. We'll get the reports.'

They couldn'ta waited?' Brinkley flipped through the

Polaroids, seething. The focus was fuzzy. He couldn't tell squat from the photos. 'We're gonna miss shit!'

'Nothing to miss, Mick.' Kovich spread his bulky arms, gesturing at the dining room as expansively as if he owned it. 'We got the doer. What's to miss?'

'When does Newlin throw up?'

'Who cares?'

'Me! Bad guys don't throw up after.'

'Calm down, bro. This ain't your typical bad guy, I'll give you that. Okay, I'll give you that. You're right, but listen and stop bitching. This is how I think it went down.' Kovich punched up his aviators at the bridge. 'What we got is a guy, a regular guy, a regular rich guy who lost it. A lawyer who saw a move and took it without thinking. He's not a punk, so he tosses ' em after. Or like he said, when he sees he ain't gonna get away with it. He's not upset he did it, he's upset he's goin' down for it. Like you said, he's a lawyer.'

Brinkley considered it. 'So you don't think he's the type either.'

'Not the normal type doer, I know.' Kovich stood closer. 'But whether he's the type or not, you know that don't mean shit, Mick. Newlin did it, all right. Just 'cause he's sorry later, or it freaks him out, or turns his stomach, or it's the one time in his life he breaks the law, he don't even jaywalk before he knifes the wife, don't mean he's innocent. I like him, Mick. I really do. He's our boy and everything here jives with it.'