The apartment had not only been the scene of a struggle but it had been ransacked. No staging, at least to Decker’s eye. The killer appeared to be looking for something. No one turned up Latham’s phone, laptop, or tablet. There weren’t any Tiffany panels hiding in a closet or under the bed. But a careful probe did turn up a hidden ring of unmarked keys. Decker was allowed to make a copy at a local locksmith: maybe it contained the key to Angeline’s apartment thus providing a link between the two cases. He returned the originals to Summer Village detectives. Decker asked them if he could come back in a day or two and search for storage bins in the area. The lead detective equivocated, saying they’d be in touch. Good enough because he was way too tired and pressed for time to check today. He had to get back to Greenbury and Angeline’s parents.

Summer Village would be stuck doing the notification for Latham. Although the body was mutilated, the face was still recognizable as the image that McAdams had pulled up on the Internet. That was in marked contrast to Angeline where time, heat, and gases had distorted everything, meaning that she was probably murdered first.

Decker’s stomach was long past empty. His head was pounding and he knew if he didn’t get more than caffeine into his system he’d pass out. “I need to eat something.”

“You can eat after witnessing that . . . horror?”

“Survival, Tyler. Before we hit the road, I need to fill the tank and get some calories.” He drove about a mile, neither of them speaking, until they reached a gas station with a Stop-N-Go. “You get the gas, I’ll get food. Do you want anything?”

“I suppose I should eat. Whatever you get is fine. I don’t even have the energy to be disagreeable.”

Decker went inside the minimart and picked up a pack of six onion bagels, a tub of cream cheese, two cartons of orange juice, two bags of honey peanuts, two energy bars, and two giant coffees. They ate in the parking lot, making the most minimal of conversation. Ten minutes later, with a semifull belly, Decker put the key in the ignition and crawled through the streets until he hit the highway.

McAdams spoke first. “Are you sure you don’t mind driving?”

“No, I’m awake. Thanks for asking. You can sleep, Harvard. You’ve earned it.”

But McAdams continued to stare out the windshield. The sun grew stronger as it made its descent in the winter sky. “That was . . . intense.”

“Gruesome even for someone experienced. Not part of your job description when you signed up in Greenbury?”

“Whoda thunk?” McAdams sipped coffee from a thermos. “Not that I was staring at the corpse. Au contraire, I was watching the pros . . . trying to hold down my stomach and learn a few pointers at the same time.”