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glass too. I see five shards. Sometimes there’s a bounce-back when glass bends out and comes back before breaking.
    I went to the closet and took out a right dress shoe, then brought it over and put it by the mark. I looked inside. “Professor wore a size 8. This print is about size 10. It’s pointed toward the window. Why would a killer look out a broken window visible from the front of the house? It’s like he stood right here, peering into the darkness.”
    I stepped back and took a couple dozen pictures with my Olympus Stylus 500. First of the shoe impression, then the rest of the room.
    “Why so many pictures?” Clarence asked.
    “No downside. It has a one-gig memory card, so I can take over five hundred high-resolution photos. These are the only shots we’ll get of an undisturbed crime scene.”
    I pulled a yellow pad from my trench coat and started sketching the room, the window, everything.
    “Pictures aren’t enough?”
    “I make my own record. Photographs are no substitute for what you see in real time. Plus it impresses the scene on your memory. Later, when you view the pictures, they stimulate a three-dimensional image in your mind. If I don’t sketch, it’s not as clear.”
    I walked back into the living room, confirming that CSI would record the shoe print and collect the shards on the bedroom carpet. They assured me they would. I leaned over the body and manipulated the ankles. Pressed on the stomach. Tried to turn the head. Locked. Stomach was tying up, but extremities moved well.
    “Medical examiner’s going to say time of death was four hours ago.”
    “Oh, is he now?” a new voice asked. I turned to see the number two pencil in a suit, carrying his man-purse.
    “Carlton Hatch—the Johnny-on-the-spot medical examiner. Two cases in a row!”
    “Interesting,” he said, nodding at the body.
    I said to Clarence, “Dr. Hatch will be your only competition for best dressed at a murder scene.”
    I’ve never met a criminalist, medical examiner, or coroner like the ones on TV, who appear to have given up careers in modeling to pursue a love of dead bodies. Most of the real ones look like Hatch but dress like street people.
    “Interesting,” Hatch said. “I’m sure you noticed the skin. Something’s in the bloodstream.”
    “Poison?”
    Clarence’s phone rang. He stepped away.
    “We may have a couple different causes of death to choose from,” Hatch said. “What’s primary and what’s secondary? The rope has nothing to do with it.” He carefully pulled back the unbuttoned shirt and pointed to Palatine’s shoulder. “Needle marks.”
    “Drugs?”
    “Insulin, probably. He’s diabetic according to his chain.”
    I reached for the silver metallic tag and fingered it in my gloved hand. Framed by red medical symbols, including snakes, it said, “Medical Warning: Insulin Dependent Diabetic.”
    “Interesting,” Hatch said. “No needle marks in his stomach.”
    I went to the refrigerator and poked around, finding an insulin bottle next to the orange juice.
    “Clarence, you’re diabetic, aren’t you?”
    He nodded as he shut his phone.
    “Wear one of these medical IDs?”
    “For the first year. Now it’s sitting in a drawer.”
    “The professor was diabetic. Dr. Hatch thinks he injected something. Or somebody did. Maybe a poison. Help me lift him.”
    Clarence looked like he was ready to put in for a new assignment. We lifted the right side, Hatch supervising and warning caution. Nothing underneath. We lifted the left and found a needle underneath. I picked it up.
    “Like your insulin syringes?” I asked Clarence.
    “No. It looks like the older style I used ten or fifteen years ago.”
    Hatch studied it. “The residue’s blue, while insulin is either clear or milky. It’s 100 ccs.”
    Clarence reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a little black packet. He unzipped it and produced a small white plastic syringe with an orange cap.
    “That’s 50 ccs,” Hatch said,