“There can’t be much more you need to examine,” Braden Senior continued. “Besides, both the McShanes and my son and I probably will lawyer you to death if you persist. Now I’m no judge, but in a court of law you’ll be hard-pressed not to accord both families the closure of putting her in a grave.”

Again, Mark knew he was right.

“So for our Kelly’s sake, why not now?” Braden Senior pressed.

Mark looked over at him. “Can you people agree on arrangements so that Dan and I don’t have to decide between you? Neither of us is a Solomon, you know.”

He got no immediate response, except Chaz walked over to rejoin his father.

Mark forged on. “Mrs. McShane, you mentioned a funeral, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“What if you agreed to hold the funeral, which Chaz and his father may attend, and let the Bradens hold a memorial service a couple of weeks later, which you and your husband may attend?”

Samantha appeared to be taken aback, but to his right he could see that both the Bradens were smiling, albeit reluctantly.

“I think you are a Solomon after all, young man,” Braden Senior said. “A real peacemaker. Well done.”

Braden was complimenting him. Dan looked relieved, and the McShanes appeared to accept his compromise. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that even Chaz nodded slightly. Why, since he had put this potential fracas to rest, did he have such a bitter taste in his mouth?

4:00 P.M.

Mark started his run as usual, going down to the foot of his driveway and turning left. After this afternoon’s business, he figured it would take at least an hour on the road to work off the tension.

The air was cool, the light gray, and leaden clouds promised snow. He’d worn gloves and a hooded track suit, but initially he still felt cold. He also carried a small flashlight in his pocket since it would be dark before he finished.

By the first hundred paces, he started to feel the flush of his endorphins. Within fifteen minutes, his runner’s high kicked in like a shot of morphine, first vanquishing the pain of protesting muscles, then wiping the Bradens and McShanes off his radar. His world became the sound of his breathing, the thudding of his heart, and the soft slap of his running shoes on asphalt. When the first few flakes began to float down around him and fall on his cheeks, he even welcomed their sting against his skin as they melted, the sensation invigorating him. It was a mindless state, and he reveled in it.

Thirty minutes later, well along the uphill part of his trek, he trotted by a gated muddy road that led into a thickly forested property. Off to one side a rusted plaque pompously announced THE BRADEN FOUNDATION CLINIC.

At least they hadn’t hung a scarlet A in front of the place.

He had passed this place a hundred times, never giving it a thought. But now, the crumpled clipping about the place that his father had kept popped to mind, and on a whim, he slowed, walked over to where a wire fence abutted against the post at the right of the entrance. Ignoring a faded NO TRESPASSING sign, he climbed to the other side. The rickety barrier swayed under him, suggesting the whole thing might soon collapse, maintenance obviously no longer a priority.

He started along the center hump between two little-used ruts, resuming the same jogging pace as before. The falling snow disappeared as soon as it hit the bare earth, and in the brittle undergrowth of wild grasses that lined a shallow ditch on either side it collected around the roots like frizzy bits of fluff before melting. The sight made him feel slightly forlorn, not an unusual emotion at this time of year; he preferred it when everything finally turned white and Christmassy. Lately, though, as the change of season drove away the summer crowd and emptied the countryside, instead of enjoying the drop in his workload, he sometimes felt left behind. The sensation, when it occurred, puzzled him. He had nowhere else he wanted to live or work. No matter. Whatever it was that disquieted him, he figured it couldn’t be what he’d seen happen to Dan and others. He just wasn’t the type to get bushed.

Deeper into the woods the russet foliage of ancient giant oaks intertwined to form a thatched arch high above his head and cast a further layer of shadow over the thickening dusk, forcing him to watch his step.

In the far distance he heard the “Boom! Boom! Boom!” of rifle shots.

“God, I hate hunting season,” he said out loud. He’d not worn the prescribed orange vest or gaudy cap, so he began to whistle at full volume between breaths, figuring that making a lot of noise was his best protection against being mistaken for a deer. Every November he and Dan hauled out some poor Joe who had a stray bullet or crossbow arrow in him. He medevacked the living by helicopter to the nearest trauma center, usually Albany; but sometimes, when patient volume at local facilities made them too busy, he had to ride with the victim, fighting to keep him stable all the way to New York City and his old alma mater, NYCH. The dead they body-bagged and sent to Blair’s.

He rounded a bend and stepped out of the shadows into a clearing the size of a baseball field. At its center stood the lifeless hulk of the building. Made of stone and four stories tall, it had the dimensions of a medium-sized apartment block and had most of its windows punched out. Not even falling snow in twilight could soften the dreariness.

He hadn’t been here since sneaking in with friends when they were kids. They’d deemed it “haunted” back then and prowled the dark corridors as a rite of passage. Even a few of the broken panes were their doing. The rest had been target practice for the crowd that roamed the woods at this time each year.

Might as well take a look, he thought, not that he expected the reason for his father’s interest in the place to jump out at him. But as coroner he’d learned the value of visiting a site. Every place had a feel to it, and sometimes the physical layout of a building spoke to him. It didn’t necessarily give answers, but often begged specific questions – Who was here? And why? What were they doing? How did their presence relate to the death under investigation? And in forensics, like medicine, the first step in solving a problem was asking the right question.

He started across the open space, pushing through the bare branches of bushes and saplings that were waist high. These soon gave way to a field of spindly grass up to his knees. Dormant like everything else and beige in color, it appeared to have once been a lawn that had long since gone to seed. Several medium-sized trees dotted the area.

He mounted a half dozen stone steps and stood in front of a massive wooden door suitable for a cathedral. He gave the ornate handle a jerk. Locked solid, just as it always had been. No matter, he thought, walking over to the broken window he and his pals had used. Verifying that the frame was still free of glass bits, he hoisted himself up on the sill and crawled through.

A familiar musty smell of mold, dust, and dead mice filled his nostrils, sharp as memory. It was much darker in here, and he fished the flashlight from his pocket. Passing the beam around the room, he found his bearings as quickly as if he’d been here yesterday. He and his buddies hadn’t known then the exact nature of what once went on inside, only that it used to be a kind of hospital where women without money came to have their babies. Eyeing the wooden counters and ceiling-high shelves that he’d scrambled up and over while playing tag, he now figured this must have been the reception area. He stepped through its only doorway, and the wooden floorboards creaked loudly, as they’d done two decades ago. Staring down the dark passageway that ran the length of the building, he felt a familiar, yet old anxiety reassert itself. Then it had been part of a game, titillatingly effervescent, the sort of thrill he experienced in a horror movie or at the summer carnival’s House of Terror, not the foreboding he sensed now. His beam of light didn’t help any, making the faded wood along the barren corridor only seem more ghostly.