The rain fell in straight silver lines, soaking the cobblestones of Elm Street with quiet, relentless precision. Detective Mara Voss stepped through the yellow tape, her coat damp, her eyes scanning the silent, onlooker-crowded scene. A body lay sprawled near the oak tree, one arm outstretched, fingers curled as if grasping at fading life. Blood pooled beneath the victim’s head, dark as wine, mixing slowly with the rainwater circling the gutters. Neighbors whispered behind cupped hands, their breath visible in the cold dawn air, eyes glinting with fear and curiosity. Mara knelt, gloves snapping taut, noting the victim’s watch had stopped at precisely three seventeen in the morning. A single pearl button rested near the left hand, pristine, out of place on the muddy, trampled grass nearby. She glanced up, spotting a curtain twitch in the gray house directly across the narrow, rain-slicked street. No forced entry was visible on the victim’s front door, which stood slightly ajar, creaking with each breeze. The victim’s name, later confirmed as Arthur Bellweather, meant nothing to Mara, though something in his face felt familiar. She stood, motioning to the forensics team, her mind already tracing invisible threads between the button, the watch, the oak tree. This was no random act, she thought, the pattern too careful, too cold, too deliberately arranged beneath the weeping sky.