T. Parker: Black Water

"Rectal temp ninety-seven degrees, Sergeant Rayborn," said the deputy coroner.

"Then she's been dead for less than an hour."

"Maybe longer, if her BT ran high."

A CSI Merci had never worked with handed her two small clear evidence bags. Each contained an empty cartridge case-a nine millimeter by the look of them. One was labeled "1" and the other "2," The CSI stared at the bags as he gave them over. The writing on the cartridge bottoms confirmed her guess: S amp;W 9mm.

"I marked the floor tile with circled black numbers, and arrows to show the direction of the openings. Had to get them out of there before they got kicked around and lost. Both were to her right. One in the corner and one next to her knee. I've got a sketch with the relate positions and time. I made sure the video guys got close-ups."

Rayborn glanced at the glass shower door to see if the casings, ejected by an automatic pistol, could have bounced off and left a pit or nick. But the lights glared off the glass and she could see no marks at all. Just the faint outline of herself: square shoulders, strong body, an almost pretty face.

The CSI had placed a small wad of toilet paper in the mouth of each bag to keep it open, keep the moisture from building up and maybe wrecking a print.

"What's your name?"

"Don Leitzel."

"I'm Merci Rayborn. Thank you and good work."

She looked at the dresser in the Wildcraft bedroom, noting the sapphire earrings in a still-open box.

They stood in the rock room. Scores of stones, most of them dark in color, all of them elegant in some way that Merci Rayborn couldn't describe. Some small as golf balls, others a couple of feet long. Many of them rested in form-fitting stands. Some of the stands were wood. Others were plaster or clay, some even brushed steel.

"What are these things for?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Zamorra.

"They look Japanese," said Merci. "Maybe Bob would know."

"I'll get him."

She waited in the quiet room. Her gaze went from a rock that looked like a mountain with rivers running down it, to a rock that looked like an island with coves, to a rock that looked like nothing at all. Collections bothered Rayborn because she'd once interviewed a man who kept a collection of hollow, decorated birds' eggs. In a nearby apartment, he kept a collection of hollow, decorated human beings. But as she considered the rock that looked like nothing she thought it was the most graceful nothing she'd ever seen.

Bob Fukiyama and Zamorra stood on either side of her.

"Suiseki," said the assistant pathologist. "Viewing stones."

"What do you do with them?" asked Merci.

"You view them. Appreciate. Meditate."

"Then what?"

"Sergeant?"

"Then what do you do?"

"I think that's all."

Rayborn looked incredulously at the assistant pathologist. She had never meditated. Thought about things, sure, like a tough case she was working, but everyone did that. Appreciated, yes, occasionally. She appreciated her son and looked at him a lot, but Tim Jr. wasn't a rock.

"Collecting and displaying suiseki is an ancient Japanese pastime, Fukiyama said. "My grandfather collected stones. There are societies, shows and displays. Some suiseki can be very valuable. Some look like islands. Some look like mountains with snow and streams. Some are more abstract. People in crowded cities keep the stones in their homes, ponder the shapes and what they suggest. The stones take them away from the city and into nature."

"Do they have any left?" she asked absently. She was staring at one that looked like a water buffalo, curled up with its head on its flank, resting.

"Left, Sergeant?" asked Fukiyama.

"In Japan, Bob. If it's an ancient hobby and a small island, have they found all the good ones?"

"I don't think so, Sergeant. And they're collected all over the world."

"I like the buffalo."

Fukiyama stepped forward and looked at it. "You know, that's really good stone," he said. "If I remember right, water buffaloes are an entire category in themselves. Hard to find. Grandfather's was good one, but not as good or as big as that. Or as jadelike."

"See?" Zamorra asked her. "You understand suiseki, you just don know you do."

"I know a good rock when I see one," she said, still looking at the buffalo stone.

The men laughed quietly but Rayborn didn't. She could still smell Gwen Wildcraft's blood every time she took a breath. Across the hall was a music room. Merci looked at the keyboards and speakers and mixing board, then at the twisting river of cables, jacks, plugs and cords running beneath them.

There were two CD towers full of discs. Merci looked to see who the artists were, but didn't recognize them.

"How old was she?"

"Twenty-six," said Zamorra. "Yesterday was her birthday."

Merci figured that a musically inclined person ten years her junior would listen to an entirely different kind of music than she did.

"What about Archie?"

"Thirty."

On the walls were bright oil paintings of beaches and hills. They looked like the work of one artist and Merci checked the bottom right corners on three of them: GK. She made a note to confirm Gwen's maiden name.

There were several photographs of Archie and Gwen. Archie had a strong neck, a broad, genial face and big dimples. Straight short hair. Good teeth. Gwen's face was compact and beautifully proportioned beneath a high forehead. Strong eyes. Intelligent and sexual. Eight of the photographs were professional portraits with brass date plates at the bottoms of the frames, going back to 1994. The '94 portrait was from their wedding.

Merci looked at the dates and the photographs and watched the Wildcrafts age over eight years. First they looked like a couple on the high school homecoming court. Last they looked like a couple you'd see in a celebrity magazine. In between, six years of gradually evolving handsomeness and beauty.

Dead in her bathroom on the night of her birthday. Shot in the head in his own backyard.

One of us.

Merci stood behind the synthesizer looking down at the keys and controls, then over at the knobs and slide controls of the mixer. She noted the microphone, which was on a stand beside the keyboard. The black paint on the mesh had been worn away by Gwen Wildcraft's lips, and the metal was touched by a red substance that Merci realized was lipstick.

"I'm firing up this tape deck," said Zamorra.

The speakers crackled and Merci watched him turn down the volume. A tentative four-chord intro, then another one, tighter, like the player was figuring it out as she played. The woman's voice was high pitched and clear. Not strong, but breathy and light:

We went out and got it all

Gold and diamonds wall to wall

And I got you and you got me

We 're who everybody wants to be

Turn it up loud turn it up high

Do what you have to

But don't say goodbye

Don't even joke about saying goodbye

Rayborn pulled out her blue notebook and wrote,

Dep. 2 30 a $40K base/Wife 26 paints and plays/house a mil plus/pool, furn pricey/CK$.

Zamorra clicked off the music mid-chord.

Merci stood in the terrible silence for a moment, then turned as green uniform full of muscles came into the room. "The wit's waiting outside," it said. "One hundred and fifty-five steps from where he hear the shots to the front door of this house."

"Good work, Dobbs."

It was a large-caliber handgun," said the witness.

His name was William Jones and he was sixty-eight years old, a retired schoolteacher. Merci thought he looked like Dean Martin, and acted like him too, but the drunk part wasn't an act. She could smell it on his breath. He was wearing brown plaid shorts, a blue plaid shirt and a pair of Ugg boots. His legs were luminescent white and skinny. It was now 7:34 A.M. and they were standing on the street opposite the Wildcraft driveway. Some neighbors had congregated outside the tape.