Near Burlington, Vermont, January, 2078, Wednesday…

Asako knelt to look at the woman's body. Like the husband, she had put up a struggle. There were bruises all over her body. Also, like the husband, her throat was slit. She had tumbled down the stairs after that, the body stopping halfway down. Unlike the husband, she had a bloody cross painted on her forehead.

"I think we have made some sense of this," commented Caitlin.

"Tell me afterwards. I have a lot of work to do just to find evidence. This is a big crime scene. I brought some additional help." She crooked a finger at two colleagues. "Eileen, take the back of the house. Joe, take the front. I'll do the upstairs."

The three forensics experts went to work. Upstairs, Asako started in the master bedroom. There was nothing unusual there. Dr. Clark had been reading a book; it was placed down carefully on the bed so as to not lose his place. Either he had heard something and had gone below to investigate or he had simply taken a break to get a late night snack. In any case, he had been in the kitchen when the assailant or assailants had surprised him.

Mrs. Clark had probably been sleeping when she had been rudely awakened. Some blood on the rug on her side of the bed -- Asako knew it was her side by the contents on and in the night stand -- showed where the struggle had begun. While the blood was probably hers, Asako nevertheless sampled all the spatters, just in case some of it belonged to one of the assailants.

The throw rug itself was bunched and twisted.

Had Mrs. Clark and the assailant wrestled on the floor? There were more blood spatters all the way to the edge of the stairs where the attacker must have got in position enough to finish his or her grisly job. Just outside the room, Asako found a broken nail. She would have to look at the body again on the stairs on her way down to see if it belonged to the victim.

She spent a good deal more time in the master bedroom, dusting for prints, taking hair samples, and so forth, then moved on to the other three bedrooms. One was set up as a study, probably the doctor's; it had a sofa bed, a nice but modest desk, and one wall was lined with books and the latest copies of some medical journals. There was nothing awry there, but she repeated the whole routine again. Then on to the other two bedrooms.