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“I haven’t had him long, but...” She folds the sheet over and pinches the corner of his red-stained denim jacket with her gloved hand. “Smell it,” she says.

“What?”

“Seriously, give her a whiff.”

I ease closer and hover a few inches above it before inhaling. My nose twitches, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of spices and sweetness.

I recoil. “That’s not blood.”

She smiles. “It’s hot sauce!”

“What kind of hot sauce?”

“No, like… the hot sauce.”

I squint in confusion and her jaw drops.

“You’ve never been to Hot Sauce?”

I take an extra step away from the table to clear my nose. “Is that a restaurant, or…?”

“It’s a taco truck,” she explains. “I go there all the time. Their sauce is legendary. The guy who runs it got the recipe from some old Mayan text or something.”

I scoff. “Really?”

“Well, that’s what people say.”

“Any ideas for why this guy was covered in it?” I ask, turning my attention back to the very dead guy lying between us.

She shrugs. “Nope. That’s your job. I just do science. My rough guesstimate is that the mix on his shirt is about sixty percent blood and thirty percent sweet, spicy, delicious hot sauce.”

“And the other ten percent?”

“Rainwater, sweat, and other normal crap. Some trace amounts of chloroform in his nose and mouth, so he may have put up a fight. I’ll keep you updated on what else I find.”

I nod. “Thanks, Gloria.”

“Anytime, Detective.”

I walk back to the door to grab my umbrella.

“Lucky dude,” Gloria mutters behind me. “If I could die covered in that stuff, I would, too.”

She leans over and smells him again as I slink out of the room.

“Hot Sauce,” I say as I round my desk.

Trevor looks up from his paperwork. “I mean, I prefer Stud Muffin, but I guess I’ll answer to that, too.”

I roll my eyes and drop the crime scene photo in front of him. “Gloria says the blood on his clothes isn’t all blood. Some of it is hot sauce from some taco truck called⁠—”

“Hot Sauce?!”

“Yeah.”

I sit down and glance at the clock, feeling a jolt of guilt when I see it’s already after six.

“Mmm. That place is so good,” he says, rubbing his belly.