“I’m thinking maybe it might be important. He never really explained it all to me, but it had something to do with a traffic accident he witnessed. A young woman died. He was torn up about it.”

I surprised myself by remembering. “She was an orthodontist,” I said.

The winds had quieted. Strange.

Mary said, “Yes.”

Mary had to get back to the demands of the triplets, and the clock said it was almost time to get Grace home for some lunch and a nap. But something Mary had said convinced me to risk squeezing one more errand into our outing. I didn’t even try to explain to Grace exactly what business was conducted at the office of the Boulder County coroner; all I told her was that Daddy had another short meeting.

Years before, during my brief stint as a coroner’s investigator, my supervisor was a good man named Scott Truscott. I’d always liked Scott and had felt that once I wasn’t working for him he’d grown fond of me, too. Grace and I tracked him down at his desk in the Justice Center on Canyon Boulevard. I introduced him to Grace and he and I spent a moment catching up before he asked, “So what’s up?”

“I’m hoping I can help you a little with the Hannah Grant thing.”

“Yeah?” He seemed interested, but just the slightest bit skeptical. “I’d love to get that one out of the ‘undetermined’ column.”

The words he used-genteelly chosen without overt reference to death or murder-told me that he was happy to edit his part of the conversation for Grace’s tender ears.

He added, “Why me and not the detectives handling the case?”

I could’ve finessed my answer, but with Scott it wasn’t necessary. “I have issues with Jaris Slocum.”

“Gotcha.” Scott wasn’t surprised, obviously.

“Will you answer some questions for me, too?” I asked.

“Depends what they are.”

That was fair. I said, “Hannah was a diabetic. Type 1. We both know that. How was her blood sugar when, you know?”

“Blood doesn’t actually tell us anything about sugar level during a post; natural autolysis renders the numbers meaningless. But because we knew she was insulin dependent, the coroner checked the vitreous fluid.”

“From her eye?” I asked, a shiver shooting up my spine. I didn’t know what autolysis was, natural or otherwise, but feared that asking would either tug Scott down a blind alley, or leave my daughter with nightmares.

“It’s the only way to get a reliable post mortem sugar. I don’t have it memorized, but she was within normal limits.” His hand reached for his computer mouse. “You want me to check for the exact number, I can pull the labs.”

“It’s okay. Did the detectives recover a syringe that night?”

“You mean with insulin in it? No. They found fresh supplies in the kitchen. Nothing already prepared for injection though, and nothing recently used.”

“Did you hear anything about an open roll of LifeSavers in her coat pocket?”

His shoulders dropped, and he frowned. “No, nobody mentioned LifeSavers to me. It wasn’t in any of the reports.”

“It was there; I saw it. The package was open, the wrapper was curly-cueing out of her pocket.”

Scott appeared perplexed. “She must have thought her sugar was low. Considering her normal levels, though, that’s odd.”

“It is odd. Did you collect her… that night?” I skipped a word intentionally. The omitted word could have been “body” or “remains.”

He filled in the blank and said that he had. One of the tasks of coroner’s investigators is to visit death scenes to begin collecting data, and to prepare bodies for transport to the morgue.

I said, “Her shirttail was tucked up under the front of her bra when I found her.”

“When I got there, too. Same.”

“Ever run across that before at a death scene?”

“Never,” he said.

“A good friend of hers just told me that Hannah did that when she was preparing to do an insulin injection in her abdomen. To get her shirt up out of the way.”

Scott crossed his arms and sat back. “I didn’t consider that, but I should have. Slocum was already thinking homicide when I arrived.” He made a sound with his tongue and the roof of his mouth. “You’ll make a statement about the LifeSavers?”

“Of course; I bet the crime-scene photos will show that wrapper.”

“I’ll take a look. Will her friend give a statement about the shirt tail?”

“Can’t see why not. Why would a diabetic be eating sugar one minute and preparing to take insulin the next?”

“It makes no sense to me. That’s one of the things I’m going to have to think about.”

We said good-bye. I bundled Grace back up. On the way out to the car she asked, “What are LifeSavers?”

We stopped at a convenience store on the way home and I bought her a roll. I guessed she was a Butter Rum kid.

It turned out that I guessed right.

When we finally weaved across the valley Viv was almost done cooking up a pot of macaroni and cheese. As the three of us were finishing lunch, Virginia Danna, the Realtor whom I’d tricked into showing me the interior of Doyle’s house, phoned me on my cell.

After reintroducing herself she proceeded without any further niceties, her tone full of conspiracy. “The rules have changed. They always seem to in situations like this, don’t they? With Mr. Chandler dead, buyers are going to come out of the hills looking for a fire sale. Act fast and you might be able to get that house for a…”

Song? What house?

I walked out of the kitchen. “Mr. Chandler is dead?” I said.

“Yes! Can you believe it? This world! Sometimes…” She sighed. “A detective called me today to find out when I’d last spoken with him. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he told me Mr. Chandler was dead, maybe even murdered. Who knows what happened to him? The poor man! Murdered? It gives me gooseflesh, right up my thighs. Now, I will admit that I’m not privy to the estate situation in this particular circumstance, but sometimes people-heirs-at times like this are truly eager to settle things after a… especially after a… So if I could persuade you to make…”

An offer?

She went on. “Even a lowball offer would be…”

Acceptable? Delectable?

I asked, “Ms. Danna, who exactly is Mr. Chandler?”

“What? The owner of the house I showed you on Twelfth. The one with the water features and that yummy media center downstairs? I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

“Doyle?”

“Yes, Doyle Chandler.”

“He’s dead?”

She was growing impatient with me. “Mm-hmmm,” was all she said in reply to my last question. Then she waited while I caught up.

“What detective phoned you?” I asked. I was thinking Sam.

“I don’t recall exactly. Mr. Chandler’s body was found up near Allenspark. Maybe it was an Allenspark detective.”

Allenspark is a small town in the mountains about thirty minutes from Boulder by car, not far from the eastern boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park. When not swollen with summer tourists, Allenspark’s population typically hovered-guessing-somewhere around two hundred people. The village was as likely to have its own homicide detective as it was to have its own traffic helicopter. Any investigator involved in a homicide inquiry in Allenspark would be part of the County Sheriff’s department, on loan from a bigger city, like Boulder, or someone assigned from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

Rather than argue the point, I said, “I’ll talk it over with my wife and get back to you. The house is still a little small for us.”

“One word: cantilever. My mobile number is on the card I gave you. Call any time. When news gets out about this… situation, there will be other offers, certainly by close of business tomorrow. You can count on it. There have been four showings of that property this week alone and I don’t have to tell you how slow the beginning of January usually is. And that screen in the basement? Remember? Of course you do. I checked. It’s a Stewart Filmscreen. I told you, the best. Think hard-a house like that, a location like that, circumstances like…”