WHEN I RETURNED home from Susie’s, the sun was still hanging above the horizon, splashing orange light on the hood of a squad car parked right outside my apartment.

  I bent to the open car window, said, “Hey there. Something wrong?”

  “You got a couple of minutes?”

  I said, “Sure,” and my partner opened the car door, unfolded his long legs, and walked over to my front steps, where he sat down. I joined him. I didn’t like the look on Rich’s face as he opened a pack of cigarettes and offered me one.

  I shook my head no, then said, “You don’t smoke.”

  “Old habit making a brief return visit.”

  I’d kicked tobacco once or twice myself, and now I felt the pull of the many-splendored ritual as the match sparked, the tip of the cigarette glowed, and Rich released a long exhalation into the dusky air.

  “Kelly Malone is calling me every day so I can tell her that we’ve got nothing. Had to tell her about the Meachams.”

  I murmured sympathetically.

  “She says she can’t sleep, thinking how her parents died. She’s crying all the time.”

  Rich coughed on the smoke and waved his hand to tell me that he couldn’t talk anymore. I understood how helpless he felt. The Malones&rsqu............