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“The first one was like this?” Conklin asked

“Nope Meth lab explosion,” Hanni said “Victim was blown out of the house and into the back of her pickup truck” He shook his head “Now this is exactly like the Malone fire”

We followed Hanni into as once the Meachained the space as it once was — the cathedral ceiling, the massive fireplace, and the ilt and carbon-streaked ether in three inches of black water, flat on their stoilistic attitude, the result of tendons tightening as their bodies burned

“If there were ligatures on the victi down beside the bodies “No point in dusting for prints Maybe toht of dayAnyway,” Hanni went on, “I found this on the kitchen counter” He handed a book to Conklin I read the title: A History of Yachting “Got a signature in there for you, Rich It’s in Latin”

Conklin cracked open the book to the title page and read out loud “Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas”

“What’s it mean?” Hanni asked him

Conklin tried to hunch it out, saying, “So, bad is love? I don’t know What the hell My tenthgrade Latin is exhausted”

“Aren’t we all?” Claire said, stepping into the roo behind her “What have we got here?”

She walked to the bodies, rolled the smaller of the two, and a rush of air came from the victim’s mouth Paaahhhhhh

“Look here,” Claire said to Chuck, showing him a liquor bottle that had been partially hidden by the victim’s body

Hanni picked it up with a gloved hand

“Maybe we’ll get some prints after all,” he said

Conklin and I left Claire and Hanni with the bodies of the victims and went outside The first officer pointed out an attractive woe of the lawn

“That’s the woman who called it in Her name is Debra Kurtz,” the cop told me “She lives directly across the street”

Kurtz was in her late forties, five four or so, a tad too thin, ear Mascaraed tear tracks marked her cheeks I introduced myself and Conklin, asked Kurtz if she’d known the deceased