The dead woman lay on her side, the carpet stained red beneath her head. She held a gun in one hand and a tape recorder in the other, both tightly gripped even in death.

"We haven't touched anything," said one of the officers. "We know how you feel about disturbed crime scenes. Though I wouldn't call this a crime scene. Poor girl. At least whatever was causing her pain, it's all over now."

Detective Muñoz put on a pair of gloves and crouched next to the body. She carefully reached out and pushed the "play" button on the tape recorder. It whirred to life.

"I can't take this anymore," said a woman's voice, shaking with emotion. "Everybody's left me. I have nothing to live for. This is the end." A gunshot rang out on the recording. The other officers in the room flinched and shook their heads sadly.

Detective Muñoz shook her head, too, but for a different reason. "Get me the DA on the line," she said. "We have a murder on our hands."

"A murder? But the tape -"

"Who rewound it?" Detective Muñoz stood, looking slowly from face to face in the room. "If that gunshot was the sound of her killing herself, then who rewound the tape?"

All around her, expressions of sorrow morphed to confusion, and again to horror.