Status Updates From A Fatal Delivery (Deadly Am...

She sent dumbbells to be washed & sterilized. She marked clothing items for landfill. She pulled another package from line for inspection. Next.

Sometimes, Jennifer felt warehouse was almost living thing, full of different organs & cells that did nothing but recycle & consume items for return, only to produce more items for sale, more returns -endless digestive churn in which she, Jennifer, played part of enzyme, breaking items down for rerouting

Jennifer was that kind of person: practical. Even tempered. Inclined to take what came to her - whether broken air conditioner or last-minute plea from her boss - w/out complaint or agitation.

they had found trilogy in unopened package @ scene. Not that that got them anywhere. It was just more ancillary detritus of life suddenly abbreviated.

careful, almost obsessive way she approached her chicken wrap - carefully rotating her bites so that not a single alfalfa sprout went astray, fussing to return errant tomato to proper location w/other fillings

Interesting, Lenora. 26 years old, but one of those people who seemed to oscillate in sort of timelessness, appearing @ once both far older & younger than her age.

Anne had been dead for @ least hour by time I found her.

Det. Rourke gave funny look, as if Lenora, who'd been sitting across for 45 minutes, had only just blinked into view. "How can you be sure of that?"

"Because of Topher. Anne always let him out @ 9 a.m. But she didn't that day. So she must have been dead already."

"You're very observant. You'd make excellent detective."