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Ever since Odelia had her baby, her uncle hasn’t been all that keen on her working as a police consultant anymore, on account of the fact that he feels that a young mother shouldn’t put herself in danger. But of course Odelia being Odelia, she went right back to work the moment she could.

“Jay and his fianc?e Laia are the victims of what looks like a harassment campaign by a stalker, and they’ve asked me to find out who’s behind it.”

“And? Who is behind it?”

“I’ve only just started to investigate, Uncle Alec.”

“Could be this guy right here,” he said, pointing to the dead burglar.

Just then, Laia came walking up to us, looking distinctly distressed.

“Oh, God,” she said. “One of the neighbors called us and told me that our loft had been broken into. We came home as soon as we could.”

“You were out?” asked the Chief a little gruffly, as if the girl was personally to blame for this burglary.

“Yeah, we were at the cinema,” said Laia, nodding. She glanced briefly at the man at her feet, then asked, in a tremulous sort of voice, “Is that… him?”

“I’m afraid it is,” said Odelia, her voice exuding a lot more warmth and sympathy than her uncle’s.

“Is he… dead?”

No one replied, since it was pretty obvious what the answer was. Instead, Uncle Alec said,“Would you say that anything was stolen, Miss…”

“Twine. Laia Twine.”

The Chief frowned.“Twine as in Algis Twine? The gambling king?”

Laia nodded with a touch of embarrassment.“He’s my dad.”

A window had opened upstairs, and Jay’s face appeared. “Sweetie—your necklace. It’s gone!”

“Oh, no!” said Laia, clutching a distraught hand to her neck. “Not my necklace!”

“What necklace is this?” asked Odelia.

“It’s a necklace I got from my mother. It’s worth a small fortune.”

“Are you sure it’s missing!” Uncle Alec shouted to the man upstairs.

“Yeah, I can’t find it anywhere!” Jay shouted back.

Uncle Alec grumbled something under his breath, then stomped in the direction of the door. “This is no way to conduct an investigation,” we could hear him mutter, and then he disappeared inside, ready to take Jay’s statement in connection with Laia’s priceless necklace.

I saw that Laia was staring down at the body of the burglar again, who lay face down on the gravel.“He must have taken it,” she said, her face white as a sheet.

Chase must have noticed the same phenomenon, for he quickly took her by the arm and led her away.“Let’s go inside, Miss Twine,” he said courteously.

“When… when can I have my necklace back?” she asked, as she staggered a little, leaning heavily on Chase’s arm now.

“As soon as the investigation is done,” Chase assured her.

“If Mommy finds out, she’ll kill me,” said Laia, and disappeared inside with Chase.

“Well, I guess that’s just about enough excitement for one evening,” said Abe as he stretched his weary form. He then told his people to wrap up the body and take it to the coroner’s office.

“When can Laia have her necklace back?” asked Odelia.

“Soon,” said Abe, looking a little distracted.

“You look tired, Abe,” said Odelia commiseratively.

“You wouldn’t believe my workload right now,” said the coroner. “My fridges are overflowing with stiffs. It’s as if they all made a pact to die in the same week.” Then he smiled at Odelia and poked a tender finger in Grace’s cheek. The kid took hold of the man’s frizzy hair and studied it, then giggled happily.

“She probably thinks it’s cotton candy,” said Odelia.

“Maybe it is!” said the coroner gamely.

Grace certainly enjoyed the moment, until she yanked at the man’s hair, hard, and he let out a yelp of pain. Looks like it wasn’t cotton candy after all.

“I’ll send my report to your uncle as soon as I can, all right?” he said, his mood slightly less exuberant. I guess nobody likes their hair being yanked, no matter how cute the perpetrator. And then he grabbed his coroner’s bag and was off, presumably working through the night to get on topof his workload.

“Better him than me,” said Odelia as she stared after the man.

“I don’t like that guy,” said Dooley. “He always smells funny.”

“That’s because he works with dead people all the time,” said Brutus with a slight grin. “He cuts them open and he removes their heart and liver and stomach and intestines and uses a buzz saw to drill a hole in their skull so he can scoop out their brains. And of course that kind of thing leaves a stench.” He brought his face close to Dooley’s. “The stench of death!” he added with a sort of ghoulish delight.

Dooley shivered.“Crikey!”

“Don’t worry, Dooley,” said Harriet with a reproachful look at her boyfriend. “I’m sure he washes his hands each time he cuts open a dead body.” She glanced up at Odelia. “So what are we still doing here? We know who stole the necklace. It was the dead guy who face-planted on the sidewalk. Mystery solved. Let’s go.”

“Not so fast,” said Odelia. “There’s a story here,” she explained. “A big story. I can smell it.” And then she, too, disappeared inside the apartment, presumably to get some more background information on the burglary.