Adult hand level. Gran had spent hours wiping grape jel y, pudding, and little prints from the paint below.

Again, my nerves buzzed with an il -formed sense of apprehension.

Through the swinging door came the sound of cabinets being opened and closed.

Boyd put his forepaws on the couch and sniffed a Kit Kat wrapper. I pul ed him back.

Ryan spoke first.

“I’d say the last decorating order was placed around the time that latrine was dug.”

“But someone tried.” I gestured around the room. “The art. The glass animals. The red-and-blue motif.”

“Nice.” Ryan nodded false appreciation. “Patriotic.”

“The point is, someone cared about the place. Then it went to shit. Why?”

Boyd oozed back to the couch, mouth open, tongue dangling.

“I’m going to take the dog out where he’l be cooler,” I said.

Boyd offered only token objection.

When I returned, Ryan had disappeared.

Stepping gingerly, I crossed the dining room and pushed the swinging door with my elbow.

The kitchen was typical of old farmhouses. Appliances and workspace spread for miles along the right-hand wal , the centerpiece a white porcelain sink below the room’s single window. Kelvinator at the far end. Coldspot at the near end. Formica countertop at waist level. Worn wooden cabinets above and below.

To move from stove to sink or from sink to refrigerator required actual walking. The place was massive compared with my kitchen at the annex.

Two doors opened from the left-hand wal . One onto a pantry. One onto a basement stairway.

A chrome-and-Formica table occupied the middle of the room. Around it were six chrome chairs with red plastic seats.

The table, chairs, and every surface in the room were coated with black fingerprint powder. The granny glasses–wearing tech was shooting close-ups of prints on the refrigerator door.

“Think tank’s upstairs,” she said, without looking up from the camera.

I returned to the dining room and climbed to the second floor.

A quick survey revealed three bedrooms. The remaining footage was given over to the glorious modern WC. Like the first-floor motif, the bathroom fixtures looked circa 1954.

Ryan, Slidel , Rinaldi, and the male CSU tech were in the northeast bedroom. Al four were focused on something on the dresser. Al four looked up when I appeared in the doorway.

Slidel hitched his pants and switched the toothpick to the other corner of his mouth.

“Nice, eh? Kinda Green Acres Gone Trailer Park.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

Slidel swept a hand over the dresser, Vanna White displaying a game show prize.

Entering the room was like walking into a moldy greenhouse. Violets, now brown with age, covered the wal paper, the fabric on an over-stuffed chair, the curtains hanging limp at each window.

A framed picture lay against one baseboard, a cropped magazine shot of a nosegay of violets. The picture’s glass was cracked, its corners off their ninety-degree angle.