“Me, too,” Becky agrees. “Seems like you’d get that fixed to keep the rain and bugs out. Or at least pick up the broken glass. Especially since she kept the dog in there. I’m wondering if maybe she struggled with him. Tried to run for the door to get away. Night before last, she set off her alarm. Don’t know if you knew that. This was a fairly regular occurrence, because she’d get so drunk and forget the alarm was on and open the slider, which instantly set it off. Then she couldn’t remember her password when the service called her. So we’d get dispatched.”

“No record of her alarm going off since then?” Scarpetta says. “Have you had a chance to get the history from the alarm company? For example, when did it go off last? When was it armed and disarmed last?”

“The false alarm I mentioned is the last time it went off.”

Scarpetta says, “When the police responded, do they remember seeing her white Cadillac?”

Becky says no. The officers don’t remember the car being there. But it could have been in the garage. She adds, “It appears she set the alarm about the time it got dark on Monday, and then it was unset later on at nine or so, then reset it. Then unset it again at four-fourteen the next morning. Meaning yesterday.”

“And not reset after that?” Scarpetta says.

“It wasn’t. This is just my opinion, but when people are drinking and drugging, they don’t keep normal hours. Sleep during the day on and off. Get up at strange hours. So maybe she unset the alarm at four-fourteen to take the dog out, maybe to smoke, and the guy was watching her, maybe had been watching her for a while. Stalking her, I’m saying. For all we know, he may already have cut out the glass and was just waiting back here in the dark. There’s bamboo and bushes along this side of the house and no neighbors home, so even with the floodlights on, he could hide back here and no one was going to see him. It’s weird about the dog. Where is he?”

“I’ve got someone checking on that,” Scarpetta says.

“Maybe he can talk and solve the case.” Joking.

“We need to find him. You never know what might solve a case.”

“If he ran off, someone would have found him,” Becky says. “It’s not like you see basset hounds every day, and people notice loose dogs around here. The other thing is, if Mrs. Dooley was telling the truth, then he must have stayed with Mrs. Webster for a while, maybe kept her alive for hours. The alarm was unset at four-fourteen yesterday, and Mrs. Dooley found the blood and everything around lunchtime—about eight hours later, and he was probably still inside the house.”