The women and children stood in the street between rows of cramped stucco houses, everyone in shorts and sandals, maybe seven or eight of them altogether. Ford pickups and an occasional boat were parked in their driveways. The neighborhood was similar to Padilla's, only Padilla was closer to town where the valley was green, not out here where the hills flattened into something like desert. Out here, landscaping was lava rock, blue gravel, and dead grass.

Padilla pulled over and got out as Bigelow made the call. He hated getting out of the car. Even at twilight, it was a hundred and five.

"Okay, what do we have? Who called?"

A heavyset woman with thin legs and wide feet stepped past two teenaged girls.

"That would be me, Katherine Torres. She's on the floor. I think it's her, but I couldn't tell."

They had been dispatched to a 911, the Torres woman screaming her neighbor was dead with blood everywhere. Dispatch put out the call and now here they were, Padilla and Bigelow, uniformed patrol officers with the Temecula Police Department. Katherine Torres' hand waved as if a nervous life possessed it.

"All I saw were feet, but I think it's Maria. I called through the screen 'cause I knew they were home, so I looked in. The feet are all wet-and the legs-and I don't know it looks like blood."

Bigelow joined them as Padilla eyed the house. The sun was almost behind the mountains and most of the houses were showing lights. The house in question was dark. Katherine Torres could have seen anything - a towel someone dropped on the way from the shower, a spilled Dr Pepper, or feet wet with blood.

Padilla said, "They got a dog?"

"No, no dog."

"How many people live here?"

One of the teenaged girls said, "Four, the parents and two children. They're really nice. I sit for the little girl."

Bigelow, so anxious to get to the house that he shifted from foot to foot like a kid having to pee, said, "Anyone hear any shouting, fighting, anything like that?"

No one had heard anything like that or anything else.

Padilla told the women to wait in the street, then he and Bigelow approached the house. The ground crunched under their boots. Large black ants crossed the earth in an irregular line, come out in the deepening twilight. The copper sky had purpled in the west as the darkness chased the sun. The house was quiet. The air was still in the way it can only be still when it floats in the emptiness of the desert.

Padilla reached the front door and knocked hard three times.

"Police officer. Frank Padilla with the police. Anyone home?"

Padilla leaned close to the screen, trying to peer inside, but it was too dark to see anything.

"Police. I'm going to open the door."