Dust to Dust

was no friend of hers, and she had the scars to prove it. Instead, she just waved.
    Diane proceeded toward the house. At the edge of the front yard there was a picket fence that might have been white at one point in its life but was now weathered to a dusty gray. In the middle of the fence was a trellised archway with no gate. There were remnants of dead vine intertwined in the wood slats, signs of recent attempts by Marcella at clearing the growth.
    Behind the fence, the front yard contained more cement ornaments—birdbaths, more broken statuary. From the fresh dirt stains on most of it, Diane guessed that Marcella had dug the pieces up from the yard. Must be interesting for an archaeologist to have things to dig up in her own yard.
    Diane climbed the steps to the newly refurbished front porch. The light was now on and the porch and surrounding area were well lit. She looked up at the bottom of the second-floor balcony. The wood looked new there too. Unfortunately for Officer Daughtry, Marcella’s renovations hadn’t yet gotten to the dilapidated back porch.
    The house had four tall windows across the front. Through one of them Diane could see Neva inside using electrostatic lifting film to collect a footprint off the floor. Diane donned the plastic head and foot coverings she’d retrieved from the van earlier and slipped on a pair of gloves. She started to enter the front doorway, stopped, and stepped back.
    Her eye was caught by glints of light reflecting from something embedded in the wood frame around the door. Sparkling from underneath flakes of peeling white paint were what looked to be the broken sherds of ceramic inserts inlaid in the wood frame. Diane tried to think what the inserts might have been before they were apparently vandalized, but there was nothing identifiable left. They had all been shattered. How odd , she thought.
    She moved to just inside the threshold and looked around at the room. There was an aroma of Mexican food in the house.
    “We’ve found some good boot prints,” said Neva. “Several sizes larger than what Dr. Payden would wear.” She nodded toward the door. “I think she took her shoes off in the house.”
    Diane looked down at a pair of leather sandals sitting on a wooden stool near the door. “Could be right,” she said.
    The floor was dark, wide-plank hardwood with a satin sheen—another of Marcella’s renovations. A few rugs were scattered around. They were mostly decorated in geometric patterns that looked Southwestern.
    The walls were a cream color and the furniture was mostly leather with chenille throws and pillows decorated similarly to the rugs. There was no television in the room and no place for one. Against one wall was a large, dark wood hutch that was open and empty.
    Under the window just to the left of Diane was an old wooden desk that had seen better days. There was a lamp on it and the middle drawer was half open.
    “Have you looked in the desk?” she asked.
    Neva nodded. “All the drawers are empty. I haven’t yet dusted for prints there or on the hutch.”
    Just in front of the desk, surrounded by small flags that the forensics crew used to mark notable features at the crime scene, was a dark stain on the floor, almost invisible because of the dark wood. Blood, Diane realized. Marcella’s blood. There wasn’t a large pool of it. The stain was about the size of a large dinner plate. This was where Marcella was felled, thought Diane, about the time she and Frank were at the benefit at Bartrum listening to a speech about funding for the arts.
    Neva and Izzy had marked a clear path through the house with flags. This was the walk zone they examined first so they could move about the house without contaminating evidence. Diane walked into the dining room. The odor of food was stronger here. Marcella had been cooking a Mexican dinner. She was expecting company. The table was set for two. The candle in the center of the table had burned down and the pool of wax around the wick had hardened.
    Diane heard Izzy working in the nearby room, probably where the most recent intruders had entered. She didn’t like two crime scenes—the attack on Marcella, and the recent deadly trespass—intertwined with each other. It confused things trying to distinguish one crime scene from the other. Jonas Briggs, her good friend, chess partner, and archaeology curator, wouldn’t be quite so daunted. Archaeologists are accustomed to working sites that are one on top of