I left Cindy and Conklin in the street and went over to show my badge to K. J. Grealish, the CSI in charge. She was young, dark-haired, and skinny, and had nearly chewed her lips off from stress.

“I’ve been on my feet for the last twenty-seven hours straight,” Grealish told me, “and this pointless dung heap of a crime scene could take another twenty- seven hours. Tell me again. Why are we here?”

As the trains rumbled into the yard, dust blew up, leaves fell from the trees, and newspapers flew into the air, further contaminating the crime scene.

A horn honked – the coroner’s van clearing cops out of the way. It parked in the middle of the street. The door slid open, and Dr. Claire Washburn stepped out. She put her hands on her size-16 hips, beamed her Madonna smile at me – and I beamed back. Then I walked over and gave her a hug.

Claire is not only San Francisco ’s chief medical examiner but my closest friend. We’d bonded together a decade and a half back when she was a plump, black assistant medical examiner and I was a tall blonde with a 34D bra size, trying to survive my first savage year of on-the-job training in Homicide.

Those had been tough, bloody years for both of us, just trying to do our jobs in a man’s world.

We still talked every day. I was her new baby’s godmother, and I felt closer to Claire than I did to my own sister. But I hadn’t seen her in more than a week.

When we turned each other loose from the hug, Claire asked the CSI, “K.J.? You got your photos of the victim?”

Grealish said she had, so Claire and I ducked under the tape and, no surprise, Cindy came along with us.

“It’s okay,” I said to Grealish. “She’s with me.”

“Actually,” Cindy said under her breath, “you’re with me.”

We stepped around the blood trail, skirted the cones and markers, then Claire put down her bag and stooped beside the body. She turned Bagman’s head from side to side with her gloved hand, gently palpated his scalp, probing for lacerations, fractures, or other injuries. After a long pause, she said, “Holy moly.”