“It works out to the same thing. If the two of them went clubbing together, I bet I can tell you who got all the male attention and who was the consolation prize.”

“That there was Jenny’s wedding, but. She mightn’t be that done up normally.”

“I’ll bet you anything she is. There’s more makeup in that drawer than Fiona’s used in her lifetime, and just about every piece of clothing here is worth more than Fiona’s whole outfit put together—and she knew it: remember that comment about Jenny’s expensive gear? Jenny’s a looker, Fiona’s not; simple as that. And while we’re on male attention, think about this: Fiona got very, very protective about Patrick. She said the three of them go way back; I’d like to know a little more about the history there. I’ve seen stranger love triangles in my time.”

Richie nodded, still examining the photo. “Fiona’s only small. You think she could’ve taken out a big fella like Patrick?”

“With a sharp blade, and the element of surprise? Yeah, I think she probably could have. I’m not saying she’s top of the list, but we can’t cross her off it quite yet.”

Fiona moved another notch or two up the list when we got back to searching. Tucked away at the bottom of Patrick’s wardrobe, behind the shoe rack, was the jackpot: a stocky gray filing box. Out of sight—it didn’t go with the decor—but not out of mind: they had kept three years’ worth of just about everything, all filed away in perfect order. I could have kissed the box. If I had to pick just one angle on a victim’s life, give me financials any day. People wrap their e-mails and their friendships and even their diaries in multiple layers of bullshit, but their credit-card statements never lie.

All this stuff would be coming back to headquarters so we could get a lot better acquainted, but I wanted an overview straightaway. We sat on the bed—Richie hesitated for a second, like he might contaminate it, or maybe vice versa—and spread out paper.

The big documents came first: four birth certs, four passports, marriage cert. They had a life insurance policy, up-to-date, that paid off the mortgage if either of them died. There had been another policy, two hundred grand on Patrick and a hundred on Jenny, but that had lapsed over the summer. Their will left everything to each other; if they both died, everything including custody of the kids went to Fiona. There are plenty of people out there who would love a few hundred grand and a new house, and who would love it even more if it didn’t come with a couple of kids attached.

And then we hit the financials, and Fiona Rafferty plummeted so far down the list I could barely see her. The Spains had kept things simple, everything into and out of one joint account, which was a bonus for us. And just like we had expected, they were flat broke. Patrick’s old job had given him a nice little lump of redundancy money, but since then the only cash coming in had been the dole. And they had kept spending. February, March, April, the money had kept coming out of the account at the same rate as ever. May, they had started cutting back. By August, the whole family had been living on less than I do.