THE ME’S OFFICE is in a building connected to the Hall of Justice by a breezeway out the back door of the lobby. Claire was already working in the chilly gray heart of the autopsy suite when I got there at 9:30 that morning. She said, “Hey, darlin’,” barely looking up as she drew her scalpel from Patty Malone’s sternum to her pelvic bone. The dead woman’s hands were clenched and her legless body was carbonized.

  “She hardly looks like a person,” I said.

  “Bodies burn like candles, you know,” Claire said. “They become part of the fuel.” She clamped back the burned tissue.

  “Did the blood tests come back from the lab?”

  “About ten minutes ago. Mrs. Malone had had a couple of drinks. Mr. Malone had antihistamine in his blood. That could have made him sleepy.”

  “And what about carbon monoxide?” I was asking as Chuck Hanni came through reception and back to where we stood over the table.

  “I picked up the Malones’ dental records, Claire,” he said. “I’ll put them in your office.”

  Claire nodded, said, “I was about to tell Lindsay that the Malones lived long enough to get a carbon monoxide in the high seventies. The total body X-rays are negative for projectiles or obvious broken bones. But I did find something you’re going to ............