We’re midway to the loading dock when I remember Evelyn Steinkruger’s comment about Mary smelling like cigarette smoke, and I turn back toward Barbereaux. “Do you smoke?” I ask.

“Naw.” He grins. “Those things’ll kill you.”

Back in the Tahoe, Tomasetti puts the vehicle in gear and pulls out of the parking lot.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think he looks like the fuckin’ UPS guy.”

That makes me laugh. My melancholic mood lifts just a little. It feels good, I realize, and I’m glad Tomasetti is here. “Where to?” I ask.

“Crime scene. I want to see the place before it gets dark.”

Ten minutes later, we arrive at the Plank farm. Tomasetti pulls up behind the buggy and shuts down the engine. “Pretty place,” he says. “Quiet.”

“Isolated, too.”

“Closest neighbor is what? About a mile away?”

I nod. “The Zooks. They didn’t hear anything.”

I get out and start toward the door. I’m in the process of unlocking it when Tomasetti steps onto the porch.

“CSU’s all done?” he asks.

“Finished up late last night.”

“Any idea who you chased into the cornfield?”

I shake my head. “Rain washed away any tire tread or footprints.”

“You think it was the killer?”

I consider that for a moment. “I don’t know. Why would he come back when my Explorer was parked in plain sight?”

“Unless you were his target.”

“I don’t think so. He was pretty quick to run. This guy was like a jackrabbit. It was as if he was shocked to see me.”

“Teenagers? The morbidly curious?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

We’re standing in the kitchen. Around us, the house is so hushed I can hear the wind whispering around the eaves. The occasional creak of one-hundred-year-old wood. It has the empty feel of a vacant house now. Traces of the people who had once lived here are fading, and it strikes me that I don’t want them to be forgotten.

“Bad scene.” Tomasetti glances toward the living room where three pools of blood are marked with markers, then looks up at me. “CSU get anything useful?”

I give him the rundown of everything we’ve gathered so far. “We’re waiting to hear from the lab on latents, footwear imprints, hair, fibers and DNA.”

“I’ll make some calls, see if I can light a fire.”

“I appreciate that.”

I cross to the window above the sink, look out at the field beyond. I should be thinking about the case, but even that is dwarfed by my keen awareness of Tomasetti.

“Kate.”

I turn to see him standing a scant yard away, staring at me with those intense eyes. “Is this how it’s going to be? We talk about the case? Make small talk?”