“Great,” he says.

The attorney Bear sends is slick. Kateri has seen his type before, in Syracuse. He’s not exceptionally good-looking, but his dress is outstanding. An expensive, precisely tailored suit. Immaculate shoes. A heavy watch that Kateri cannot make out the brand of. His hair is dark and well cut, combed off his forehead. He’s fit. In fact, his body is perfect, like the only thing he does, other than work, is work out. He might be a machine, Kateri thinks. Or a robot. Or most likely, a sociopath.

He’s a different kind of fit than Hurt. She knows that Joel runs, hikes. She imagines him kayaking with a slightly younger version of himself. His body is lean and well used. She wants to think that’s what gives him joy. But she detects something hollow and lonely in Joel Hurt. Somehow, the wind blows through him.

“David Brewer,” the lawyer says, and shakes her hand. He has dark eyes without smiling.

He is either a freak about cutting his nails, or he gets manicures.

Kateri begins to feel, as she often does in the presence of highly professional men, like she’s the help instead of the lead investigator. Like she should be getting his coffee. Or minding his children.

It’s the morning Hurt is off. She notices that Brewer looks around for another detective.

She hands him the Jenkins file, which he opens and appears to fall right into. Kateri’s handwritten notes. The crime scene photos.

“Excellent,” Brewer says, and leaves the file open on a photograph of the burned bones, the delicate curve of spine, the butterfly pelvis. “This is all you have?” he says.

“Nothing else has surfaced,” Kateri says. “I think it’s all that survived the fire.”

She can see his wheels turning as he looks at the bones.

“DNA match?” he says.

“Not to Shannon,” Kateri says. “I can put you in touch with the medical examiner. The blood found on the murder weapon matches what was in the house.”

“Does the blood match?”

“Not Shannon,” she says again.

He straightens up, like his job just got easier.

“His prints are all over the weapon.”

Brewer looks at the photo of the bones. “How do you know that’s the weapon?” he asks.

“It was with the bones.”

“Hmm,” he says, dissatisfied. He slaps the folder closed and looks first at Kateri’s chest before meeting her eye. “I’ll see my client now,” he says.

She can’t do it. It’s a small team. She could walk down the hall, make small talk, usher him into the interrogation room. Make eye contact with Shannon to make sure he’s okay with all of this. But she steps out of her office and motions to Dawn, the fiftyish mother who works for them as a receptionist.

“Dawn?” she says. “Would you escort Mr. Brewer down to Interrogation B, please? And have a guard fetch Mr. Jenkins?”

“It’s a pleasure,” Brewer says. It’s then that he smiles.

“No problem,” Kateri says. She folds her arms and retreats to her office.