The closer she got to the room, the more she could see and hear of what was going on – the blink of a coroner investigator’s camera flash, voices, the occasional, subdued hum of laughter – and, on the air, there was a smell too: fetid, decayed. She checked the courtyard for any dumpsters, wondering if the smell might have been exacerbated by torn trash bags, by spoiled food rotting in one-hundred-degree heat, but it was more out of hope than expectation. She knew exactly what the stench was, and she knew why it was so bad. She’d joined Sheriff’s Homicide in 1978, had spent every day of the seven years since turning up to murders, and when she finally arrived at the open door of Room 17, the smell hit her as hard as it always did.

The room was small and tired, everything bleached by age, the drywall punctured. Bed sheets were lying in a pile on the floor and on the nightstand was a bottle of bourbon and an open bag of potato chips. Some of the chips were on the floor, crushed into the carpet, next to a soda can and a pile of clothes. The clothes looked male: Jo could see some boxer briefs and a big pair of white sneakers.