“I guess you didn’t foam it first,” Scarpetta says.

“I’ve heard about that,” Turkington says. “We need to start doing it. My theory is, if Mrs. Dooley’s got her story right, something went on in the house after she left.”

“We’ll foam it before it’s wrapped up and transported,” Scarpetta says, “so we can stabilize the broken glass.”

“Help yourself.” He walks off toward the living room, where an investigator takes photographs of the clutter on the coffee table and another lifts up cushions from the couch.

Scarpetta and Lucy open their black cases. They put on shoe covers and gloves, and a woman in range pants and a polo shirt with FORENSICS in bold letters on the back walks out of the living room. She’s probably in her forties, with brown eyes and short, dark hair. She’s petite, and it’s difficult for Scarpetta to imagine that a woman so short and slight would want to go into law enforcement.

“You must be Becky,” Scarpetta says, and she introduces herself and Lucy.

Becky indicates the window leaning against the wall and says, “The lower-right pane of glass. Tommy must have explained.” She means Turkington, and she points a gloved finger. “A glass cutter was used, then the pane was glued back. The reason I noticed?” She’s proud of herself. “Sand stuck in the glue. See?”

They look. They can see it.

“So it appears when Mrs. Dooley came in looking for the owner,” Becky tells them, “the glass certainly could have been out of the window and on the ground. I find it credible she did what she said. Got the hell out of here, and then the killer straightened up after himself.”

Lucy inserts two pressurized containers into a holster that is attached to a mixing gun.

“Creepy to think about,” Becky says. “The poor lady was probably in here when he was. She said she felt like somebody was watching her. This that glue spray? I’ve heard of it. Holds the broken glass in place. What’s it made out of?”

“Mostly polyurethane and compressed gas,” Scarpetta says. “You taken photographs? Dusted for prints? Swabbed for DNA?”

Lucy photographs the window anyway, with and without a scale.

“Photos, swabs. No prints. We’ll see about DNA, but I’d be shocked, as clean as it is,” Becky says. “He obviously cleaned the window, the entire window. I don’t know how it got broke. Looks like a big bird flew into it. Like a pelican or a buzzard.”

Scarpetta begins making notes, documenting areas of damaged glass and measuring them.

Lucy tapes the edges of the window frame and asks, “Which side do you think?”

“I’m thinking this was broken from the inside,” Scarpetta says. “Can we turn this? We need to spray the other side.”