“According to Eve, her husband claimed that for as long as he had memory, he was convinced his right leg wasn’t his own. When he was a little kid, he thought it might be robotic. Then, for a bit, he worried it was some kind of alien transplant. But he hated it. Wished it to be gone, to such a degree he would only take pictures from the waist up. Even on their wedding day. Because if his leg was in the photo, then it wasn’t a picture of him.

“She worried about him, of course, urged him to seek help. As a counselor who specializes in substance abuse, she did some outreach and found him a therapist. For a while, that appeared to be working. He didn’t talk about the leg as much, seemed more upbeat. For the record, he was a great husband, successful, smart, considerate. He didn’t drink. He didn’t do drugs. He just had this one thing: He hated his own leg.

“And tonight, when he didn’t answer his phone, and hour turned into hour without him returning home, it had come to her: why he no longer talked about the leg so much. Not because his condition didn’t still bother him, but because he’d finally decided to do something about it.”

“Suicide high,” someone in the room murmured.

D.D. nodded her head. “People with a history of depression often appear happiest right before they commit suicide. Not because their depression has passed, but because they’ve finally chosen a course of action.

“With Eve’s permission, Phil took a look at the computer in Steven’s home office. And sure enough, he found in the browser history a chat room devoted to sufferers of BIID. Topics included self-amputation, the recommended method being to tie off the body part with a tourniquet, then submerge it in dry ice. And yeah, it’ll take some massive painkillers to see it through, but if you can keep the limb in the dry ice long enough, you can damage it to the point a surgeon will have no choice but to remove it for you. Because reputable doctors won’t remove a healthy limb, even if you claim it doesn’t belong to you.”

“So the DG killed himself?” someone called out. “Because of a psychological disorder?”

D.D. regarded the room. “What do you think? Did the DG kill himself?”

“Where’s his wallet, where’s his phone?” a woman to her right asked immediately.

“Exactly, where is his wallet, where is his phone? Because we’ve already searched Harmony LaFab’s place. She had his duffel bag and his cash. But no wallet, no phone. And what about her claims of him reaching nine-one-one? Because Eve agrees with Harmony. Sufferers of BIID don’t want to die. They just want to get rid of the offending body part. So what exactly went down in that motel room?

“Which is why Phil and I left the victim’s wife and returned to the night manager.”

• • •

“All right.” D.D. polished off her coffee, set it aside. She glanced at the clock on the rear wall. Fifteen minutes left, which was about right. “Know how I mentioned a big part of a detective’s job is crime scene management? Screw up working the scene, screw up the investigation? Now, welcome to the second half of the job, except this part is more art, less science. Suspect interrogation. This is where a good detective truly earns her paycheck.