The desk drawers are also half-open and in disarray, as if someone had rifled through them. But a laptop sits on the desk, seemingly untouched. “He was looking for something,” I say. Chase turns around from the far end of the room, where packing boxes are neatly stacked. “But left the computer.”

“Not a robbery then,” Chase says.

I shake my head. “He was looking for something specific.” I draw a deep breath, turn to Chase. “Tell the team to take the filing cabinet to the lab.” It’ll be easier to sort through it there.

“Will do.”

I check the floor for shoe prints, but don’t find any. The perp must’ve been very careful not to step in the blood. I head outside, shade my eyes from the sun, and examine the snowy path. There are lots of shoe prints and footprints. Susan said the wife ran out this morning in her bare feet, but there are other prints, layered over each other and melting together. The snow is also churned up from the driveway to the office door. Chase is leaning against the side of the building and looks a little green. The smell in the garage was starting to get ripe.

He joins me, and we walk back across the yard.

“Sorry,” he says.

“For what?”

“I never got used to it. The smell of blood. As a patrol officer, I always did my job, then stepped away as quickly as I could.”

“No biggie. For some people, it never becomes routine.”

We walk through the open kitchen door. Simmons stands by the sink, and he waves to flag me down. He and I confer, and he hands me his report, notes from his interview with Mrs. Bradley. Chase and I will head out to talk to her as soon as we’re done here. But first I want to walk through the living room one more time. It’s here that the Bradleys and their guests would have gathered. Laughed, talked, but maybe everything wasn’t so friendly.

The mantel is covered with pictures and a couple of wineglasses. The largest photo is of the Bradleys, I assume, decked out in their wedding finery. They’re a handsome couple. He was dark-haired with a nice, confident smile. She’s fine-featured, long red hair in an updo topped with a tiara.

I grab my notebook out of my satchel and flip to a new page. I quickly sketch my impressions of the scene, empty wine and beer glasses. Too many? I’ll have to see the guest list, talk to the Mrs. Were people drinking too much? Was there something sinister simmering beneath the good cheer? Or was the house a happy cocoon with a murderer lurking in the garage, a beast waiting for his prey?

“Rita?” Chase calls.

“Yeah. Just a minute.” I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Ma was a strict Catholic, but she believed in “feelings.” Intuition, most people would call it. Not sure I buy into that, but I don’t discount it either. I’ve trusted my gut over the course of my career, and it doesn’t usually let me down, but I don’t feel anything at the moment, only the sadness of the situation. A life lost, loved ones forever changed. I blow out a breath and glance out the window. Susan is standing in the backyard, directing her team as they load Dr. Bradley onto a stretcher and wheel him away.