Down a short hallway and to the right, Michaels encountered a knot of uniformed men and women, all busily moving about, but few with any apparent purpose. Especially useless, it seemed, were the personnel bearing the uniform of the Juvenile Detention Center. Prison guards, like mall security personnel, liked to think of themselves as part of the law-enforcement community, and prized their association with real police officers. Warren thought of them as groupies. Though he could see no role for them in a criminal investigation, he recognized that they had to stick around to look after the remaining residents, who he assumed were locked behind the rows of closed wooden doors visible beyond the thick windows of the security station.

The focus of everyone's attention was in and around a small doorway bearing the label Crisis Unit. He couldn't see inside the room itself, but the flash of camera strobes gave it away as the crime scene.

"Excuse me," Michaels said, gently touching the shoulder of a uniformed officer from behind.

The initial annoyance in the young officer's eyes instantly disappeared as he recognized the man making the request. "Lieutenant Michaels coming through!" the officer announced to the others, causing the crowd to part.

Michaels smiled kindly to the officer, noting the name emblazoned on his silver name tag. "Thanks, Officer Borsuch."

"You're welcome, sir." Michaels was the only white-shirt in the department who treated patrolmen as real people.

The scene was gruesome. A white male, maybe thirty and dressed in the uniform of a JDC guard, lay sprawled on the floor of the tiny room, surrounded by a pool of coagulating blood that encircled his body like a crimson aura.