was the hobgoblin of little minds! Someone said that. Probably Swift or Pope. It sounded eighteenth century-ish.
She thought of herself as "urban contemporary," perhaps because she grew up in a village. Morgan was raised, impoverished, in Cabbagetown, just south of where she lived now, back when it was in transition to becoming an upscale address. He was a gentleman by nature not birth, and endearingly unkempt, but not shabby.
Her intercom buzzed.
"Morgan?"
"Yeah?"
"You're here so soon."
"I took a taxi."
"You never."
"I did. Are you going to let me in?"
"Did you bring coffee?"
"Yes."
She buzzed him in, then unlocked her door.
She was in the bathroom, dabbing sleep wrinkles out of her face with icy water, when he called from the kitchen.
"Do you want milk in yours? I asked for double-double but they're both black with no sugar."
"Good," she mumbled, applying lipstick as a token gesture. "Help yourself. I'll stick with black."
She walked out into the kitchen.
"You look good when you're sleepy; very ethereal."
"Like the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw. Brunettes can't be ethereal; we're alluring."
"Seductive."
"In your dreams, Morgan."
She did look attractive, rumpled. Sometimes he was very aware she was a woman.
"Doesn't that make you think of erectile dysfunction?" she said.
"What?"
"Wuthering Heights."
He grimaced.
Once, in this same apartment, they had made love. He remembered, looking at her now, that it was good, but they never tried it again.
"Let's go," he said. "We can drink these on the way."
"No, just a sec, I need milk to cool it down. What's it like outside?"
"The usual."
"Cold, wet, and the sky is radiant?"
"Glowing putrescence, like a painting by Turner. Let's go."
In Miranda's car, they reviewed what they knew about the case. It wasn't their case but they were already committed. It wasn't anyone's case, really. It was a matter of historical interest, not criminal justice.
Miranda asked Morgan to dig her cellphone from the depths of her purse and call headquarters to let them know what they were doing. His own was, inevitably, battery-dead and in his sweater drawer along with anachronistic cuff links and a gold, hardly used wedding band.
"We happened to be in the area," Morgan explained to Alex Rufalo, their superintendent, and after a brief exchange dropped the phone back into her bag.
"We're not the only ones who work late," he said.
"We're not working, remember?" She paused. "Rufalo went home before I left. There must be something up to bring him back in. The office as sanctuary, no?"
"Yes. Maybe."
Miranda pulled the Jag up in front of a nondescript frame house, sliding roughly against the curb as she parked.
"Damn slush," she said. "This is the address. There's a patrol car down the street. A light in the upstairs window. What do you think? Doesn't look like much."
"This'll be it."
"Okay," she said, getting out of the car. Despite the telltale light in the upper window, a book-cover cliché foreshadowing dread and doom, the place looked deserted and remarkably ordinary.
As Morgan clambered awkwardly from the low-slung car, he expounded. "Ontario country vernacular. Storey and a half, steep gable, central hall, symmetrical design; Georgian with early Victorian pretensions. God forgive the aluminum siding. It's clapboard underneath."
"You figure so?"
"Yeah."
They dumped the dregs of their coffee out onto the icy snow but, without any place to leave them, held on to the cups. They knocked on the door and waited. Morgan scrutinized the blank wall overhead, trying to estimate where the arched transom would have been. As a practical concession to warmth, it was probably covered in about the same time as the surrounding farmland became housing tracts.
The door opened and a uniformed policewoman stood squarely in the middle, backlit by a dull glow from the kitchen.
"Yes?" she said. The woman did not seem intimidated by late-night callers at a murder scene.
There was a moment of awkwardness as she waited for an explanation, which Miranda found pleasing, knowing they were not automatically assumed to be police.
"Officer?" Miranda did not recognize her. "I'm Detective Sergeant Quin, this is Detective Morgan."
The woman nodded without introducing herself. "You're a sergeant too, I imagine," she said, glancing at Morgan, then back to Miranda. "I wasn't expecting anyone just yet. Are you coming in?"
"Please," said Miranda.
The policewoman led them through refuse and rubble into the kitchen. The kitchen itself was bright and hospitable.
"I've got some coffee," she said. "You might as well use your own cups. I've been letting it steep to counter the smell."
"It doesn't smell," Morgan observed. "It's just an old house. Smells like burnt coffee."
"I'm surprised you're alone," said Miranda. "I'm surprised the stove's working."
The woman shrugged. "Wrecking crew left the power on. Most of the wiring's been stripped, or at least the fixtures. Some rooms are dark, others not. Like a bad horror flick, without the music. They're all bad, I guess." She indicated the location of the desiccated lovers with an upward nod. Her features softened for a moment. "Those two aren't very good company; they're sort of into each other. If it wasn't for the missing parts, they'd be kind of sweet."
"Sweet?" Morgan said. "They're dead."
"The dead in one another's arms, Detective." He waited for her to finish her thought, but that seemed to be it. She gazed into his eyes without smiling.
The woman poured them coffee. Miranda liked her; she warmed to anyone who could serve coffee that smelled so rank without an apology. Morgan was wary; her confidence seemed almost a reprimand for assumptions about her uniformed status.
They sat at the grey Arborite table, sipping. The woman was young and, despite the androgynous
