“Even if I could afford it, I’d never want to live way out here away from all the action.”

“You’d go crazy out here.”

Naturally, Lind lived in a gated community, and naturally, they had to fight with the rent-a-cop in the gatehouse to let them in.

“Just open the gate, Barney Fife, before I file a complaint with your supervisor,” Sam said.

“Who the hell is Barney Fife?” the young man asked, baffled.

“Just open the goddamned gate. We’re investigating a murder, and you’re getting in our way.”

“If I get in trouble for this—”

“You got two seconds or your little wooden arm is going to become my new hood ornament.”

Giving her a filthy glare, the guy flipped a switch that raised the arm.

Freddie hit the gas and left a little dust in their wake.

“Well done,” Sam said. “I’m so sick and tired of the goddamned gatekeepers.”

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” he said with less conviction than usual, although Sam would’ve been more worried if he hadn’t said it at all.

“My apologies.”

“You could at least attempt a measure of sincerity when you apologize.”

“What? Now I’m apologizing wrong too? I can’t catch a break with you. I swear.”

The friendly bickering was much more in keeping with their usual routine than his stony silence had been.

Rick Lind’s house was yet another monstrosity made of sandstone with creamy white trim and a sleek black sports car in the driveway.

“Don’t get too close to that thing,” Sam said as Freddie pulled in next to the fancy car. “I bet the department’s insurance wouldn’t be adequate to cover even a scratch on whatever that is.”

“I believe it’s the latest Porsche.”

“Hmm. How can you tell?”

“The decal on the back,” he said, pointing as they got out of her boxy domestic car, which looked dumpy next to the glossy black thing.

“My poor car is suffering from an inferiority complex,” Sam said. At the front door, she pushed the doorbell and listened to the chimes echo through the house. “Just like Christian Patterson’s place. Remember that?”

“I remember him answering the door in his bathrobe during some midday nookie with his wife.”

“I wonder if they’re taking advantage of the once-a-month conjugals now that he’s locked up.”

Freddie snickered. “You would wonder that.”

Sam pushed the doorbell again and again the obnoxious bells did their thing. “Imagine being asleep when that thing goes off. It must be like an air-raid siren during the war. Oh good, here comes someone.”

The door swung open to reveal a stick figure of a woman with chestnut brown hair that curled at her shoulders as if she’d just stepped out of a salon. She was immaculately dressed in a tailored pink oxford shirt, formfitting jeans and leather boots.

“May I help you?”