Kate closed the file with a snap. Was he shot from the front or the back? The back. Bigger hole in front where the bullet exited, as is generally the case. Pretty sure you show that to a forensic pathologist, they‘ll tell you it was caused by a small bullet. Not my area of expertise, but I have seen a few gunshot wounds in my time and that‘s my guess.

And back to Brillo she would go. Something else. She pulled Richard Allen‘s blood workup from her daypack. Can you tell me if this is his blood type? He looked first at the name. But this isn‘t—

Never mind the name. Is it the same?

Yes, but—

I need to know if the blood sample from that file is from Dewayne Gammons. If I have to I can take it to the crime lab, but they‘re pretty backed up and it‘ll take time.

Crime lab? The doc looked startled.

I‘m working a murder investigation, Kate said. I figured since we‘re standing in the middle of a hospital with all the modern conveniences, you could get it done quicker. And I need quicker.

Her face was stern, her manner brisk and no-nonsense, one professional to another. The doc stood up straighter and said, I‘ll take it down to the lab myself. I‘ve got a friend down there, and it‘s a simple test. Have you got a cell number? Kate had found her cell phone along with its charger behind the seat in her pickup the month before. She‘d left it there and remembered to grab it when she was running to catch the plane that morning. She‘d tried it when they‘d landed and was amazed that it still worked. That didn‘t necessarily mean she knew the number. She fumbled it out of her pocket and looked at the keys. Green phone, green phone, ah, there it was. She pushed it, waited for her number to come up, and read it off to the doc, who scribbled it down.

She stopped at the nurse‘s station on her way out. Have you got a piece of paper and a pencil I could use?

She wrote down her telephone number and asked for a piece of tape. The nurse, a pleasant woman in pink scrubs, watched with a bemused expression as she taped the number to the back of the phone.

She went back to the crime lab, endured Brillo‘s invective until he had to pause for breath and she could show him the photograph of the putative bullet wound. It caught his interest, and she left him yelling for ballistics again.

She pointed the Forester downtown.

Not long ago Kurt Pletnikoff had been in the Park poaching bears for their gallbladders. What a difference two years could make. His office was on the seventh floor of a building that catered to the attorneys who practiced their trade at the courthouse two blocks away. The brass sign was small with a plain font. The door was solid and heavy and closed behind her on a discreet hydraulic hinge. Painted gray and furnished in teakwood and maroon leather or a reasonable facsimile thereof, the outer office also sported a receptionist. She was, at a guess, Yupik or Inupiat, short and plump with round cheeks, dark eyes, and thick black hair so shiny it looked oiled, cut short in the very latest style. She was dressed in a singlebreasted dark red suit over a cream silk blouse with discreet cleavage. Around her neck was a thin gold chain with a tiny diamond pendant, which matched the tiny diamond studs in her ears.