He moved closer to one of the outdoor floodlights, holding the wallet-sized photo beneath the glow. D.D. registered fat red cheeks, narrow little eyes, and a distinctly pointed head.

“She looks just like you,” D.D. assured him.

“Vaginal birth,” he said proudly.

And thanks to those two words, D.D. thought, she would never have sex again. “Annabelle?” she asked, referring to Bobby’s wife.

“Doing great. Breast-feeding like a champ and getting Carina settled onto a nice schedule. Whole family’s great. And you?”

“I’m not breast-feeding like a champ.”

“Someone’s loss,” Bobby told her.

“Why are you at my crime scene?”

“We have an interest.”

“Ah, but I have jurisdiction.”

“Which is why I thought we could walk through it together.”

“Please—you were hoping I wasn’t here yet, and you could wander through at your leisure.”

“From plan A to plan B,” Bobby agreed.

“Tell me about your interest.”

“Marijuana,” he said.

“Dealing?”

“And importing, we believe.”

She frowned, studying him. “You think this is some kind of gangland hit?”

He shrugged. “I was hoping to walk through the scene to see if it feels like some kind of gangland hit.”

“Whole family, you know.”

“That’s what I was told.”

“Lot of bodies for marijuana wars,” D.D. said. “Meth, okay. Heroin, sure. But the dope dealers …”

“Don’t like to get so bonged up, I know.” Inside joke. Cops. They had to have something to laugh about.

“All right,” D.D. conceded. “You can join the party. But I still think this is my scene.”

“Then you still have my apologies.”

D.D. made it all the way into the family room this time. Alex was no longer there, but had left an array of yellow evidence placards in his wake. D.D. held her hand over her nose and breathed shallowly through her mouth. Her gag reflex started to kick in, so she pinched her forearm as hard as she could. The pain overrode the smell. Lucky her.

Beside her, Bobby had gone quiet. He used to be a police sniper, and his ability to retreat, to be both in the moment and outside of the moment, had always appealed to D.D. Now she could feel the coiled tension in him. He was appalled but, like any good cop, focusing his rage.