Stonechild and Rouleau Mysteries 5-Book Bundle. Brenda Chapman

from the ceiling socket, obviously not working. It would have given the attacker cover as they waited, if that’s what they’d done. She made out the squat shapes of a washer and dryer angled deeper into the gloom. Gundersund stopped and handed them white suits and covers for their shoes. Kala stepped into the suit and shivered as the cool dampness seeping from the basement’s concrete walls wrapped itself around her bare arms. She quickly pulled the suit up over her shirt.

      The apartment door stood open, the putrid smell of death getting stronger as they approached. Down the length of the hallway, the forensics team in white suits worked in the bedroom. She could see a trail of dark blood on the floor, pooled in spots, where the woman looked to have dragged herself toward the apartment door.

      Kala stepped closer and saw that the blood trail detoured left. She carefully negotiated the blood splatter as she followed behind Rouleau and Gundersund into the living room. They stepped aside to make some space for her. She looked from their grim faces to the floor near the coffee table where the coroner kneeled next to a woman lying face down, one of her arms stretched in front of her as if she’d been trying to swim away using the front crawl. A purse had spewed its contents onto the carpet; a blood-covered cellphone lay near the woman’s curled fingers.

      Kala swallowed back the urge to gag. Congealed blood covered the woman’s face and matted the long, dark hair on the back of her head. It had seeped from her body and surrounded her in sticky globs. It had spread from her midsection in a circular pool. The smell of rotting flesh and blood and feces was overpowering.

      Rouleau touched Kala’s shoulder and motioned her to take a few steps closer. A photographer who’d been taking pictures of the body signalled that she’d gotten enough. The coroner looked from her to Rouleau.

      “I’m ready to turn the body,” he said.