“Who will be doing them when they get there?” Hector asked.

“Gilda.”

Gilda Caropreso was an assistant medical examiner-and Hector’s fiancee.

“Did she do the in situ as well?”

“No.”

“Who then?”

“That new guy, Whatshisname.”

“Plinio Setubal. Did he estimate time of death?”

“He did. The same for both. Between four and five this morning.”

“Both. So there are two of them?”

“Brilliant deduction. You a detective?”

Hector ignored the sarcasm. “Shot?”

“Shot. Small bore pistol. A. 22 would be my guess. No exit wounds. Come on, I’ll show you.”

In the kitchen, a wooden door leading to the garden had been battered in. Some fragments still hung from the hinges; the remainder, in pieces, was scattered across the white tile floor.

Through a door to his left, open and intact, Hector could see two beds, a wardrobe cupboard and a poster of a rock star. The maids’ quarters, apparently.

Near the sink, the dead women lay side by side, their blood mingled in a common pool.

“One bullet for each,” Lefkowitz said. “Point blank.”

“Yes,” Hector said. “I noticed.”

Hot gases, escaping from the murder weapon’s muzzle, had singed the hair around their wounds. Singeing occurred only when bullets were discharged at very close range.

“Execution style,” Lefkowitz said. “No passion here, nothing spontaneous, very deliberate. Poor things must have been scared to death. Look at that.”

Lefkowitz pointed. The women had been holding hands when they were shot. Their dead fingers were still entwined.

Hector felt a twinge of sympathy. No matter how hard he tried to maintain his objectivity, retain his distance, there were often little details about murder that touched his heart.

“Sisters,” Lefkowitz said, “from Salvador. Their purses and identity cards were in their room. The one on the left was Clara. She’d just turned nineteen.”