“We’ll need some information from you,” Detective Mumford said. “And if you can handle it, a positive ID would also be helpful. That’s going to be tough, though. As I said, they’ve been dead for a while. So there’s some decomposition.”

Corrine threw her purse strap over her shoulder and grabbed the car keys off the counter.

“How long have they been dead?” she said. Her voice cracked as she asked the question.

“The M.E. will have to make a final determination on time of death,” the detective said. “I’d say they’d been there for a day or two, maybe even several. The air-conditioning is turned up to the max, so it’s hard to tell.”

The idea that Esther and Timmy and Suzy had been lying there dead for days was utterly unthinkable! Yes, there had been problems in the marriage. With an arrogant jerk like Jonathan Southard, that was a given. And yes, Esther had talked to Corrine about divorcing him. That was something she and Esther had discussed in the hotel room at Disneyland late at night when the kids were safely asleep. What kind of animal would kill his family instead of giving his wife a divorce?

No, Corrine thought, correcting herself. Jonathan Southard isn’t good enough to be called an animal. That was unfair to Major.

“I’m on my way,” Corrine said. “I’m driving up from San Diego. I don’t know how long it will take at this time of night.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Lapin, but under the circumstances, are you certain you should make that trip by yourself?” Detective Mumford asked. “It might be a good idea to have someone else come along to do the driving.”

“No,” Corrine said. “It’s the middle of the night. I’m not going to wake up someone else. I’ll be fine.”

And Corrine Lapin was fine-fine but furious. As she drove, she thought about calling their parents. They were on a Baltic cruise right then. She could probably reach them on a ship-to- shore call, but she couldn’t remember how many hours ahead they were. Besides, she didn’t want to throw them into turmoil until she knew for sure, until there had been a positive identification. There would be time enough then to call them then to deliver the devastating news.

Corrine drove like a bat out of hell in almost zero traffic and with no enforcement. She arrived at Esther’s house at five o’clock in the morning to find a collection of police vehicles and medical examiner vans still blocking the street. The porch light was on, and lights shone in every window.

Corrine bounded out of her car and started forward at a run as two attendants wheeled a loaded gurney-a gurney with an adult-size body bag-down the sidewalk toward a waiting van. Half a block from the house a uniformed police officer barred the way.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, holding up his hand. “You can’t come any closer. Police business.”

“I’ve got to get through,” she said frantically. “That’s my sister’s house. Call Detective Mumford. She knows I’m coming. I’m here to do the ID.”

The cop spoke into a police radio as another attendant carrying a small wrapped bundle emerged from the house. Moments later a woman walked out the front door and strode purposefully across the front yard.

“Ms. Lapin?”

Corrine nodded.

“We should probably wait until the bodies have been taken back to the morgue.”

“No. I need to do it now so I can contact my parents. They’re on a cruise. I need to know for sure before I try calling them.”

Detective Mumford shook her head. “All right. Wait here.”

Corrine waited. The detective walked over to the van. The attendants had loaded the gurney into the van and closed the door. After conferring with them for a few moments, Mumford returned.

“All right,” she said. “But you need to be prepared. This won’t be easy.”

“I’ll be okay,” Corrine insisted.

But she wasn’t okay. The gurney was removed from the van. As soon as the attendant zipped open the body bag, a cloud of putrid air exploded into the night. Covering her mouth and nose, Corrine approached the gurney. The face she saw was swollen and rotting, but she knew it was Esther’s. There was no doubt about that.

Nodding hopelessly, Corrine turned away and then was desperately sick, heaving into the expanse of front-yard grass Esther had planted and loved so much. While her back was turned, she heard rather than saw the bag be zippered shut. Moments after that, the door to the van closed as well. The engine started.

As the van lumbered down the street, Detective Mumford returned. She placed a comforting hand on Corrine’s shoulder. With the other hand she gave the woman a bottle of water.

“Thank you,” she said. “I know how difficult that was. We’ll need to ID the children, too, but we’ll do that later. ”

Corrine nodded and said nothing.

“The whole house is considered a crime scene, so you can’t stay here,” the detective continued. “We’ll have people here processing the scene for the rest of the night and on into the morning. You should probably get some rest. My niece Kimberly works nights at the Westlake Village Inn. Do you know where that is?”

Corrine nodded numbly.

“Go there,” Detective Mumford said. “I called Kim and told her you might be coming. She has a room reserved in your name, and she’ll give you a good deal on it. Tomorrow morning, or rather, later on this morning, one of our investigators will come by to interview you and to do the remaining IDs. It may be me or it may be someone else, but right now, you need to take care of yourself.”

“I’ll have to let my parents know how soon we can plan on scheduling a funeral.”

“The timing of all that will be up to the M.E.’s office,” Detective Mumford said. “They’ll have to perform the autopsies. That takes time. In the meantime we need to concentrate our efforts on locating Mr. Southard. Does he have relatives in the area, someone to whom he could go for assistance?”

Corrine shook her head. “Not that I know of. His parents are divorced and remarried. His mother lives somewhere in Arizona,” Corrine said. “From what Esther told me, he hates her guts. I don’t think he’d go to her for help even if he was dying.”

“And his father?”

“His name is Hank,” Corrine said. “Hank Southard. He lives in Ohio somewhere. I met him once, at the wedding, but that’s all I know about him.”

Detective Mumford was taking notes as Corrine spoke.

“Would you say there was trouble in your sister’s marriage?”

“I know there was,” Corrine said. “She was planning on leaving him.”

There was more Corrine could have said. She knew for a fact that Esther wasn’t blameless. She loved to spend money-had always spent money. She had also hinted to Corrine about having a “friend” on the side, but that was no excuse for murder. So rather than going into any of that, Corrine spared her dead sister’s reputation and made it all out to be Jonathan’s problem and Jonathan’s fault.

“Her husband lost his job months ago,” Corrine said. “According to Esther, they were about to lose the house. Jonathan had made plans to take money out of his 401(k). She had to sign so he could access it.”

“How much money?” Alex Mumford asked.

“I don’t know the exact amount. He was a middle manager for Thousand Oaks Federal before it merged with two of the big banks. He worked for them for the better part of fifteen years.”

“What about the timing on the payout?” Detective Mumford asked. “Any idea when it was due?”

“Soon, I think,” Corrine told her. “But Esther never mentioned to me if it came or not.”

“Go get some rest,” Detective Mumford advised. “When I know more, I’ll be in touch.”

Once Corrine was gone, Alex Mumford picked up the phone. Getting a court order to examine bank and telephone records at that hour on a Sunday morning wasn’t an easy sell, but she had been a homicide cop long enough that she knew who to call.

At that stage of the investigation, Jonathan Southard most likely should have been named as nothing more than a person of interest. But as far as Detective Mumford was concerned, there was very little doubt.