“Ah, the new baby,” Annie said. “Have fun doing the burp, Pete.”

Decker laughed and stood. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I’ll bag and label evidence,” Marge said. “Meet you in the squad room. We can play postmortem there.”

“Got it.”

Decker opened the door to the lab for Hennon, both of them walking down the empty basement corridor, footsteps reverberating against the tile. At this time of the evening, the upstairs was still busy, but the lab personnel had gone home. They took the elevator up to the first floor, Decker steering Annie clear of the activity in the lobby by going through the back entrance adjacent to Booking. The evening was balmy, set under a charcoal canopy spangled with stars. It was the kind of night that invited a romantic stroll with arms wrapped around one another’s waists. Decker wished he were home with Rina.

He and Annie ambled through the parking lot in silence, both of them enjoying the air. Annie got out the keys to her four-by-four but hesitated before unlocking the door.

“What kind of postmortem are you talking about?”

Decker smiled. “She means we’re going to swap our daily interviews.”

“You don’t interrogate your suspects together?”

“No, generally we do our interviews separately.”

“How come they always work in twosomes on TV?”

“They don’t have the budgetary constraints we do.”

“And they couldn’t do good cop, bad cop with only one person.”

“There you go.”

“Do you and Marge have a good cop, bad cop routine?”

“Mostly it’s just cop.” Decker held out his hand. “Thanks again for your help.”

Annie took it and squeezed. “Pleasure is mine, big guy.”

“Have fun with your wastrel.”

“Thanks.” Annie unlocked the car. “With a little bit of luck, I’ll learn to be dissolute.”

When Decker returned to the detectives’ squad room, Marge had checked the X rays into the evidence room and was filling out paperwork at her desk. During daylight hours, the place looked anything but high tech. But with all the activity going on, there wasn’t much time or space to take in visuals. In the dim loneliness of night, the squad room was downright depressing. The summer stuffiness certainly didn’t bring any excess cheer, the hot air an unwelcome guest that refused to depart despite open windows and fans.

Marge said, “I made a pot of fresh decaf. You can pour.”

“Usual?”

“Two teaspoons of sugar instead of one tonight. I’m living dangerously.”

Decker smiled and filled Marge’s seashell mug with java, lacing it with whitener and sugar. He poured a black cup for himself, took the two mugs over to Marge’s desk, and pulled up a seat.