“I went up to Merced.” Her gaze kept going back to one of the photos from the kitchen and she didn’t know why. She gave it a closer look. “That’s why I’m late. I just came back.”

“You mean, after you did all this,” Duncan waved his hand at the board, “you got in a car and drove to Merced.”

“I took a shower and changed my clothes first,” she said, but her attention was on the photo. It showed the blood spatter on the cupboards and the boxes of food on the counter.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

“I got a little nap.” Eve took a bite of her granola bar, then regarded the empty caramel-colored wrapper in her hand. It was a Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bar. Her gaze shifted across the squad room to the big box that the bar came from, then to the identical blood-spattered box in the photo of Tanya’s kitchen. Aha, that was it. They both ate the same granola bars. So what?

Biddle groaned but took his seat again. Garvey leaned against the wall and sighed. Duncan shook his head. Eve looked at the three men, and their judgmental expressions annoyed her.

“What?” Eve said. “I’ve got a job to do and I’m doing it.”

“It isn’t laziness or a lack of commitment if you eat, sleep, and occasionally take a crap while you’re working a case,” Duncan said. “In fact, I do my best thinking on the toilet.”

“Is that why you’re in there for hours?” Biddle said.

“I got one word for you,” Garvey said to Duncan. “Metamucil.”

“That’s like offering kryptonite to Superman,” Duncan said. “I’d never solve a case.”

The three men shared a laugh, bonding over her overzealousness, and she let it go because it seemed to dissipate the lingering tension from her speech.

“Cleve thinks Jared is our guy,” she said.

“So do I,” Duncan said.

“I don’t see it,” Eve said, her attention shifting back to the damn granola box. It wasn’t unusual that Tanya and the detectives bought the same box of granola bars. They were sold in bulk at Costco on an end-cap pallet. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the area had the same box in their pantry. So why was it bugging her?

“Here’s why I think it’s Jared,” Duncan said and tapped his finger on one of the crime scene photos of the bathroom. “When there’s no sign of a break-in, and there’s this kind of bloodshed, the killer is usually someone who had an intimate relationship with the victim and has a lot of rage.”

She studied the bathroom photo, paying particular attention to the gallon jugs of Clorox and Simple Green on the sink and the Lysol bottle on the floor.

“That’s certainly what we’ve got here,” Biddle said. “This guy is sleeping on the couch in his own fucking house. She might as well have cut off his balls and worn them as a broach. So yeah, Jared looks real good for this. We should be focusing our attention on breaking his way-too-good alibi.”