“Has his wife, Carolyn, been around?” Lou asked, realizing that in the craziness of the hours just past, he had lost track of some of his own civility.

“She was in the family room a little while ago,” Sara said. “Should I check?”

“No,” Lou said. “I know her. I’ll go.”

“Out the sliding doors and down the hallway to the left.”

Head down, consumed by heavy sadness at the senseless deaths of so many, Lou stepped through the unit doors.

The husky detective was still at his post. “So, Doc, how’s it going in there?”

“It’s not,” Lou said.

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

The cop nodded. “Whether it’s cops’ bullets at the scene or a shiv in the back in the slammer from one of the other inmates, these things almost always seem to end this way. Well, there go the answers.”

“I suppose,” Lou replied, wondering how easy it would be for him to let matters drop.

The cop was right. There was still a boatload of unanswered questions, starting with the meaning of the words no witnesses.

Lou opened the lounge door. The modest room, furnished in vinyl, with dog-eared magazines scattered about, was deserted. His eyes went first to a television set mounted catty-corner, high up on the far wall. The volume was turned off, though Lou could easily read the CNN news flash graphic from across the room.

BREAKING NEWS: SUSPECTED MASS MURDERER IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

“Not anymore,” Lou murmured, wondering if the grim outcome would have been any different had the local neurosurgeon not gone probing blindly for a bullet in or near the area of the brain dealing with cardiac rhythmicity.

He averted his gaze from the broadcast just as the door to the family room opened and Carolyn Meacham entered. She was slight woman with carefully trimmed gray hair and more makeup than Lou felt she needed. It was surprising that there were no family or friends with her, but perhaps some were on the way. Her makeup did nothing to disguise her pain. Without a word, she raced across to Lou and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest.

She was a spirited woman—a New Yorker, Lou thought he remembered, with a hard edge. He had liked her from the very beginning. In all the time he had dealt with her and Meacham, he had never once seen her cry. Now, her tears flowed liberally. It was impossible to imagine what she must have been experiencing since receiving the news. Her three children were all in their teens.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked before pulling away.

Lou nodded. “Just a couple of minutes ago. I came out here from D.C. to see if I could help, but there was really nothing I could do.”

“He was fine when he left home, Lou. He’s been going to meetings and staying sober, and this morning when he left for the office, he was fine.”

“Where are your kids?”

“At my sister Rosalee’s in Chantilly. When the news broke, I had her pick them up at school and take them to her place to keep them away from reporters.”