"We'll do everything in our power," Nick assures him, his voice steady despite the turmoil he feels. "Go home to Mary now. You need each other. I'll call as soon as we have the autopsy report."

As he walks Jeffrey back to his car, Nick keeps his assumptions about the cause of death to himself. He wants solid evidence from the medical examiner before jumping to conclusions. Despite the brutality of the crime, a part of him still hopes they'll find some clue, some piece of evidence that will lead them to Rose's killer.

Once Jeffrey's truck disappears around the corner, Nick turns his attention back to the crime scene. Rose's body is carefully loaded into the coroner's van and taken away. The crowd of onlookers begins to disperse, an air of shocked disbelief hanging over them. Nick's thirty-four-year-old assistant, Christian Basher, approaches him with a grim expression.

Christian is a good man, having worked under Larsen's command for nearly three years now. Nick often jokes that Christian looks like he stepped out of an old detective movie with his tall, thin frame and slight stoop. His features are pleasant enough – a neat nose, thin but defined lips, and eyes the color of a calm sea, though they're usually hidden behind his glasses. His short, sparse blonde hair completes the picture of a classic gumshoe.

Despite his best efforts to maintain a professional demeanor, Christian can't quite hide his horror at the scene they've witnessed. Still, for someone as peace-loving and generally mild-mannered as Christian, he's holding up admirably.

"What do you make of all this?" Christian asks in a low voice, his eyes darting around as if the killer might still be lurking nearby. "The victim's clothes aren't torn, so it doesn't look like an attempted rape. No obvious signs of a beating either. And her jewelry – gold earrings, a bracelet – it's all still there. What was the killer after?"

Nick nods, having been pondering the same questions. Could someone have interrupted the killer? Or was the perpetrator simply afraid of being seen?

"I don't know, Christian," Nick admits with a sigh. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us to figure this out. Let's wait for the autopsy results. Hopefully, that will give us a clearer picture of what we're dealing with."

The Saltano residence stands at the heart of town, a sprawling two-story Victorian that seems to lord over its neighbors. The house had come to Jeffrey's wife, Mary, as an inheritance from her parents – a fact that had always been a point of contention. Mr. and Mrs. Grace had never approved of their son-in-law, viewing the match with barely concealed disdain from the start. Unlike his wife, Jeffrey came from humble beginnings – the son of an alcoholic father and a mother who worked herself to the bone, paying little attention to her child. Both had died relatively young, leaving Jeffrey to forge his own path.

Jeffrey had met Mary just after college, and their whirlwind romance had resulted in a hasty marriage when Mary found herself pregnant. The birth of Rose had forced Mary's parents to grudgingly accept their daughter's choice, but the tension had never truly dissipated. Physically, Mary and Rose had been near mirror images of each other – both petite and slender, with dark hair and light eyes that seemed to hold secrets.

Behind the imposing façade of their home, the Saltano marriage had long since cooled. Love and understanding had given way to a sort of uneasy coexistence – two people living side by side but worlds apart. Mary had never quite settled into the role of housewife. She disliked cooking and found cleaning tedious, often hiring help when the dust and clutter became too much to bear. The house itself was a testament to their discordant lives – expensive furniture arranged with more concern for appearance than comfort, the overall effect both tasteless and oddly vulgar.