The kitchen was neat, countertops wiped down, clutter confined to appliances lined up in a row against the checkered tile backsplash, but not too neat—dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, while the drying rack held clean dishes still waiting to be returned to appropriate cupboards. An old diner’s clock with a fork and spoon serving as the hands was mounted cheerfully above the stove, while pale yellow curtains patterned with brighter yellow sunny-side up eggs adorned the tops of the windows. Old, but homey. Clearly, someone had made an effort.

D.D. spotted a red checkered dish towel hanging up on a hook and leaned forward to give it an experimental sniff. Miller looked at her funny, but she just shrugged.

Early in her career, she’d worked a domestic abuse case—the Daleys, that was their name—where the domineering husband, Pat, had forced his wife, Joyce, to scrub the house with military precision every single day. D.D. still remembered the overwhelming scent of ammonia that had made her eyes water as she went from room to room, until, of course, she came to the back room and the scent of ammonia was replaced with the cloying scent of drying blood. Apparently, good old Joyce hadn’t made the bed properly that morning. So Pat had punched her in the kidneys. Joyce had started peeing blood and, deciding that she was dying, she’d retrieved the shotgun from the back of her husband’s truck, and ensured that he joined her in the hereafter.

Joyce had survived the damage to her kidneys. The husband, Pat, who lost most of his face to the shotgun blast, hadn’t.

So far, the kitchen struck D.D. as an average kitchen. No manic compulsions—or orders—to clean and sterilize. Just a place where a mother had served dinner, with mac-n-cheese-encrusted dishes still awaiting attendance in the sink.

D.D. turned her attention to the black leather purse perched on the kitchen counter. Miller silently handed her a pair of latex gloves. She nodded her thanks, and started sifting through the purse’s contents.

She started with Sandra Jones’s cell phone. The husband had no expectation of privacy on his wife’s cell, so they were in the clear to study the phone to their heart’s content. She reviewed text messages and the phone log. Only one phone number jumped out at her, and that was labeled HOME. A mom calling in to check on her daughter, no doubt. Second most often called number was labeled JASON’S CELL, a wife calling in to check on her husband, D.D. would assume.