It was well after dark when Nash drove the patrol car past the municipal building to enter the morgue back entrance. The barrier lifted, and as the headlights raked the parking lot, Jenner saw a crowd in front of the garage. Word had spread through the building, through the sheriff’s department, the fire department, and emergency medical services: despite the hour, many people stood silhouetted in the municipal building windows, and at the mortuary the entire staff was waiting for the Roburns in the bucketing rain. They huddled under the eaves in their yellow county rain slickers, some brightly lit by the parking area floodlights, others blurred shapes in the shadows. Several held glowing white candles; the candles kept dying, snuffed out by the rain and the wind despite makeshift paper-cup shields.

Jenner got out and stood uncertainly, shivering in his wet T-shirt and shorts. A bulky figure in a dark poncho detached from the group and ran to him, an umbrella opening with a pop. Richard Flanagan, the morgue director, held the umbrella up, threw a bearlike arm around Jenner’s shoulder, and walked him toward the garage. As Jenner approached, he saw many people were crying.

There was a loud buzz to his right, and the security gates at the main entrance ground open slowly, revealing the hulking shadow of the tow truck in a fizzing halo of light and rain.

As the truck crept into the lot, people moved out to greet it, singly and in forlorn little clumps, letting the truck pass so they could gather around the towed car. Several reached out to press their fingers to the car; Jenner didn’t have the heart to stop them until Norris muttered, “Doc, should they be doing that?”

He shook his head, and moved forward, calling, “I’m sorry…We can’t…Please don’t touch the car…We have to treat it as a crime scene.”

Jenner felt a tap at his shoulder: Flanagan, back with his umbrella, now holding a dry scrub suit.

“Doc, c’mon, you better change. You’re soaked—go inside, dry off, put these on. We’ll look after Mrs. R.” He looked at his colleagues standing mutely around the car in the rain, and shook his head. “You know when they’re bringing in Doc Roburn?”

As if on cue, the garage walls flickered blue as the ambulance carrying Marty Roburn’s body rolled through the gate, hazard lights flashing, behind it a column of patrol cars, the blue and white turret lights revolving silently. Behind the police cars, Jenner saw a long string of civilian vehicles stretching out, a ragged cortège of cars and trucks, SUVs, even motorcycles, all with headlights blazing, a staggered line of brilliant white light puncturing the dark and the rain.

The back doors of the ambulance swung open, and two morgue techs climbed up, motioning aside the paramedics so they could take Marty Roburn down themselves. They rechecked the belts securing his body bag, then eased the gurney back, unfolded the rear strut and let the wheels take his weight before extending the other strut.

They wheeled the body past the line of employees to the morgue entrance, then stopped in front of Flanagan.

“Doc, if it’s okay, we’d like to offer up a few words in prayer for the Roburns.”

Jenner nodded. The morgue staff, now joined by a motley group of deputies and civilians, gathered around the gurney as Flanagan opened his arms wide, looked up through the rain, and said, “Father, we beseech you, look after our good friend, Dr. Martin Roburn, and his beloved wife, Roberta. Thank you for blessing us by sending him to us. I know I speak for everyone here when I say that he was the best of the best. He was a father to many, and a friend to all, and we’re going to miss him.”

Jenner was listening to the sound, the loud pack! pack! pack! of raindrops smacking into the stiff black plastic of Marty’s body bag.

Flanagan paused, then looked at Jenner. “And thank you for sending us Dr. Edward Jenner from New York City. We know he’s a good man, and a good pathologist. We ask you to guide his hand as he investigates the tragic killing of our friend and brother, Dr. Martin Roburn.”

There was head-nodding in the crowd, and some amens, and then Jenner realized that they were all looking at him.