I turned toward the sound of an engine’s roar and saw the coroner’s van heading toward us, tires screeching as it braked twenty feet away.

Dr. Claire Washburn got out of the van wearing blue scrubs and a Windbreaker-black with white letters spelling out MEDICAL EXAMINER front and back. Despite the odds of a black woman succeeding in her profession when she first got started, Claire had done it. In my opinion, she’s the finest forensic pathologist west of the Rockies. She’s also the friend of my heart, and although we work three flights and eighty feet away in adjoining buildings, I hadn’t seen her in more than a week.

“Jesus God, what is this?” she asked as she hugged me and took in the scene over my shoulder.

I walked Claire toward the RAV4 and stood next to her as she looked into the car and saw the dead woman in a crouch, half facing her baby.

Claire jerked back as she took in the sight of the dead child, her face reflecting the same horror the rest of us were feeling, maybe more. “That baby is the same age as my Ruby,” she said. “Who kills a baby too young to tell what happened?”

“Maybe it’s payback for something. Drug deal. Gambling debt. Or maybe the husband did it.”

I was thinking, Please let it be something like that.

Claire took her Minolta out of her kit and fired off two shots of Barbara Ann Benton from where we stood, then went around to the other side of the vehicle and took two more.

When she started shooting pictures of the baby, I saw the tears in her eyes. She wiped them with the back of her hand. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Claire cry.

“Mom let the killer get this close,” Claire said. “Gunpowder stippling is on her cheek and neck. She tried to shield her baby with her body, and still the bastard shot the child in the head. And here’s something new: I don’t recognize this stippling pattern.”

“What does that mean?”