I keep it to remind myself what a proper scene looks like.”

“And that wasn’t one.”

“Fourteen years in this county, and that’s the shortest report I’ve ever seen on an injury like hers.

Pruitt wrote it at eleven that night, after the family lawyer had already been on the phone with the sheriff.”

“The lawyer called before your deputy did.”

“That’s how it reads.” He turned the page back around.

“By the time I walked that staircase, the runner had been taken up and replaced.”

“Who replaces a rug at midnight?”