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said, “So who found the body?”
    â€œA morning-shift librarian,” Harker said. “Nancy Whistler. She’s in the women’s lav. She won’t come out.”

CHAPTER 16
    THE WOMEN'S REST ROOM smelled of pine-scented disinfectant and White Diamonds perfume. Regular janitorial service was the source of the former, Nancy Whistler of the latter.
    A young, pretty woman who put the lie to the stereotypical image of librarians, she wore a clingy summer dress as yellow as daffodils.
    She bent to one of the sinks and splashed cold water in her face from a running faucet. She drank from cupped hands, swished the water around her mouth, and spat it out.
    â€œI’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she said.
    â€œNo problem,” Carson assured her.
    â€œI’m afraid to leave here. Every time I think I just
can’t
puke again, I do.”
    â€œI love this job,” Michael told Carson.
    â€œThe officers who did a perimeter check tell me there are no signs of forced entry. So you’re sure the front door was locked when you arrived for work?” Carson pressed.
    â€œAbsolutely. Two deadbolts, both engaged.”
    â€œWho else has keys?”
    â€œTen people. Maybe twelve,” said Nancy Whistler. “I can’t think names right now.”
    You could only push a witness so far in the aftermath of her encounter with a bloody corpse. This wasn’t a time to be hard-assed.
    Carson said, “E-mail a list of keyholders to me. Soon.”
    â€œAll right, sure. I understand.” The librarian grimaced as if she might hurl again. Instead she said, “God, he was such a toad, but he didn’t deserve
that.
” Michael’s raised eyebrows drew an explanation from her: “Bobby Allwine. The guard.”
    â€œDefine
toad,
” Michael requested.
    â€œHe was always…looking at me, saying inappropriate things. He had a way of coming on to me that was…just weird.”
    â€œHarassment?”
    â€œNo. Nothing forceful. Just weird. As if he didn’t
get
a lot of things, the way to act.” She shook her head. “And he went to funeral homes for fun.”
    Carson and Michael exchanged a look, and he said, “Well, who doesn’t?”
    â€œViewings at funeral homes,” Whistler clarified. “Memorial services. For people he didn’t even know. He went two, three times a week.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œHe said he liked to look at dead people in their caskets. Said it…relaxed him.” She cranked off the water faucet. “Bobby was sort of a geek. But…why would someone cut out his heart?”
    Michael shrugged. “Souvenir. Sexual gratification. Dinner.”
    Appalled, repelled, Nancy Whistler bolted for a toilet stall.
    To Michael, Carson said, “Oh, nice. Real nice.”

CHAPTER 17
    PEELING PAINT, crumbling stucco, rusting wrought iron, sagging trumpet vines yellowing in the heat, and a pustulant-looking fungus flourishing in the many cracks in the concrete walkway established a design motif carried out in every aspect of the apartment building.
    On the patchy lawn, which looked as if someone had salted it, a sign announced APARTMENT AVAILABLE / ONLY LOSERS NEED APPLY.
    Actually, only the first two words were on the sign. The other four didn’t have to be spelled out; Carson inferred them from the condition of the place as she parked at the curb.
    In addition to the sign, the front lawn actually contained a flock of seven pink flamingos.
    â€œBet my ass there’s a couple plastic gnomes somewhere around here,” Michael said.
    Someone had painted four of the flamingos other tropical hues—mango green, pineapple yellow—perhaps hoping that a color change would render these lawn ornaments less absurd if not less tacky. The new paint had worn off in places; the pink shone through.
    Not because of the implication of borderline poverty but because of the weirdness of the place, it